Say a little prayer for you

Somehow I thought it was the best idea in the world to mention to my supervisor that I wanted to be doing more, so he trained me in ongoing HIV counselling and yesterday I worked nonstop, counselling hordes of clients with only a small break, from 7:30-3:00. So naturally I thought I was hallucinating when I was running around and heard a strongly southern American accent.

No hallucinations- the clinic had a visiting group of American missionaries from some bible college in California. I guess someone in HR is fairly religious and invited them to come pray with clients for the day. I ran into a group of them and asked them for their life stories (so American of me), and they said there were here to "heal" people, and that they'd already prayed for a lot of people and seen them being healed of their aches and pains right before their eyes. I didn't really know how to eloquently respond to this, and I was a bit taken aback when they asked if I needed any prayers and I said I was all set on that front. I did ask them how they were speaking with the people with HIV, and they said that they weren't entirely sure if they'd cured someone of HIV 100% but they were trying, relying on supernatural forces to cure them.This struck a nerve with me, and I said, a bit too sarcastically, "ooh that'll be a tough one, curing HIV". Stop it, Shannon!

I don't know why exactly, but I felt a huge wave of anger at this group of people. I figure this comes from dealing daily with those finding out their HIV status, and meeting with those who have been living with HIV for years and years, and wishing that HIV wasn't such a huge problem in the first place and that it COULD be cured just like that. I couldn't stand if if any of those people taking ARVs felt like they were cured after being prayed for, and then stopped their meds and their health declined. I also felt embarassed at the fact that this huge, loud group of Americans were tromping around the clinic and they seemed crazy Christian and very conservative. So many emotions, some I'm not proud of.  I know their intentions were good and they wanted to help, but my reaction was almost to tell them that this clinic needs actual resources, like condoms and staff members and more ARV regiments. I'm still thinking about the whole experience, as its complicated.


In other less ranting news, this past weekend was outstanding. I went to my first rugby match between Cape Town and Joburg! and by "went" I mean I watched the other fans, commented on the pretty colours of the uniforms, and basically just had an awesome time not understanding the game but hanging with a great group of people. I'll do a better blog posting tomorrow and actually post some pictures so this isn't so super boring to read.


Back to the endless queues of people waiting for counselling.. so happy tomorrow is Friday!