As together we face the COVID-19 pandemic, I am reminded that this is not the first pandemic many of our clients have faced. The AIDS pandemic that started in the 1980s impacted every family in East Africa. Our HIV+ clients have a lot to teach us about what it takes to get through challenging times. Below we share the stories of Laurencia and Mama Ester, two women who definitely qualify as “Masters of Resilience.”
One of our favorite clients at Uzima Centre is Laurencia. Even during the most trying of times, she remains positive. At 70 years old, she has been part of our program for People Living with HIV for the past 15 years. She has raised seven children and has had her share of ups and downs. Three of her grandchildren are in our program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Laurencia was determined to enrolled them in a Montessori primary school. They were offered a partial scholarship, but the remaining fees were still beyond her means. Through temp work helping to cook the school lunches, she paid the remaining fees. This is a woman who firmly believes that God can make a way, where there is no way. Where does her resilience come from? I think it’s rooted in her very strong sense of gratitude. She starts from a place of gratitude for what is. Because Laurencia is clinically underweight, we provide food assistance in the form of 3 kilos of beans and 2 kilos of high protein flour each month, and although this is hardly enough, she never fails to thank us profusely. Gratitude enables a positive mindset from which resilience can take hold.
Some of you may remember the story of Ester, one of our HIV+ children. In 2016, while helping her mother cook, her skirt caught on fire. She suffered severe burns on both legs. Her mother, who goes by the name “Mama Ester,” is also HIV+. She spent six weeks with her daughter in the hospital, hardly leaving her side. Just when it seemed that Ester had turned a corner and would recover, an infection set in and it was more than she could fight. Her mother returned to the village to bury her daughter, and to find that her former employer had replaced her and she no longer had a job. I was so worried for her. Several months later I attended a support group meeting in her village and there was Mama Ester. She had found a small plot of land to farm and was growing corn. Living with HIV requires a tremendous amount of resilience. Mama Ester knew that she needed to pick up the pieces of her life and start anew, and that’s exactly what she did.
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