Jesuit Alumni working for aids

Last summer the World Union of Jesuit Alumni/ae held her six-year
congress. This time it took place in the Burundese capital, Bujumbura.
Alexandra Boogers, second year bachelor of medical sciences and alumna
from the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwecollege Antwerp, was among them. The week
before the congress she worked in a centre for children with HIV/AIDS. She
testifies her touching experience.

Alexandra Boogers – For the first time the congress of the World Union of
Jesuit Alumni, took place in Africa. The week before the congress the
participating youngsters got the opportunity to participate in a project. I
worked, together with five other colleagues, for five days as a volunteer
for Famille pour Vainqueur du SIDA (FVS). Children between the age of six
and eighteen stayed in that transit centre. They are medically treated and
socially supported. During the period that the children live in the centre,
the search for their family goes on. If no relatives are found, an
appropriate guest family is picked.

We spent the day with the children, this was at the same time easy and
extremely difficult. We sorted out beans and rice, played dames, did the
dishes. Communication with the children wasn’t always easy. In Burundi
they speak Kirundi, a language from which you don’t understand a word as
a foreigner. A small minority spoke or understood French. But with body
language and some creativity we were able to communicate. Despite the
language gap and the short period we spent with the children, we had a
intense contact. The children questioned us about our family, our studies
and asked us how streets and schools look like in Belgium. It wasn’t the
first time they saw a white, but Europeans aren’t frequent visitors at the
centre.

The love I receive from them is overwhelming. In the morning, you get an
enormous heart-warming hug from Jimmy. Or Sebastian who insisted to
get up to get you a glass of water. I had brought paper and pencils with
me and returned home with a bunch of drawings I got from the children.
They used their colour pencils extensively and dictated Natasja, the only
girl who could write French in a decent handwriting, their personal
message accompanying the drawing.

The children insisted that we would eat with them. Lunch consisted every
day of a pastry made of mais and a sauce of brown beans and white
cabbage. It didn’t taste bad, but was not vary variated. Some plates were
put in the middle of the table and all the hands longed for the food. There
were no forks, nor spoons. They were all going crazy when they could
have a picture with us. They were very studious and wanted to learn how
to take pictures. They asked us to teach them English. We taught them the
numbers, the months of the year and parts of the body.

Every evening the goodbye was heartbreaking for us, the volunteers, but
also for the children. They refrained us to leave by taking our bags and
running off with them. Already on the first day, three children came to me
and begged “gumaha!”, Kirundi for “stay here!”. Also “ndagukunda” was
often said when we left, “I love you”.

During this five day period, my eyes got wide open. The poverty in Burundi
is in total contrast to the wealth we have in Western-Europe. Life is Buja is
an everyday struggle. The positive attitude of the children is admirable.
On the second day of the experiment, Nina –one of the children- came to
sit next to me. She told me she and her sister were seropositive, but she
didn’t make a drama out of it. Just like every child she had her dreams,
lots of courage and drive.

The last day of my stay in Burundi, I paid a visit to a hospital, one of the
better ones of the capital. At the maternity, I saw how a baby was
resuscitated for half an hour. There had been complications at giving birth
to the child and as a consequence the baby’s heart didn’t beat
autonomously, nor functioned his breathing. After half an hour of heart
massage, the heart was ok. I got an email from the doctors to tell me that
had saved the baby, but unfortunately he died 5 days later.

Aids medication is free in Burundi thanks to the money from abroad that
ngo’s can contribute. This financial aid is very important for the Burundese
people, because working 12 hours gets you poorly 1,2 euros. Aids is a
disaster for Africa. The worst part is that the disease is the most frequent
is countries were there are the least socio-economical development. The
solution lies not only in financial support. Support isn’t what Africa needs.
Support leads to dependency. Cooperation is the solution. There has to be
interaction so that Africa can be independent after some time. One
investment is from crucial importance : education. Without education, no
knowledge. Without education, no future.

Side piece : For a better Africa

The congress of Jesuit Alumni/ae convened for five days about the theme :
“Pour une meilleure Afrique : Qu’avons-nous fait? Que faisons-nous? Que
devrons-nous faire?” One afternoon presentation caught me at most,
especially as a second year medical student. A few people with medical
background testified about the mess that HIV and AIDS had brought to this
continent and is still bringing.

Father Michael Czerny, coordinator of the African Jesuit Aids Network

(AJAN), testified from his experiences with projects that receive and treat
seropositive people. Communication about aids is life important for AJAN.
“Communication is the vital capillary and nervous system that makes us to
be one body,” says Czerny, s.j. He showed us much impressing numbers
about aids : “The report from UNAIDS of 2008 totals 22 million
seropositives in 2007 in Black Africa. That is 67 percent of all hiv-positive
people in the world. From all the aids-deaths worldwide, three-quarters are
located in Africa.” But why is the fight against aids that difficult? The
answer is the HIV never comes alone. The entire cultural, familial and
spiritual reality plays an important role. Moreover, the statistics are
discouraging and superficial. Very often means fail, both in prevention as
in treatment and medication. Aids is most frequent in Central-Africa. This
region has been struck by wars too often. This makes it difficult to make
people aware of the danger of this disease. In addition, because of the
many rapes that happen during war, the virus is spread even faster.

Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe studied medicine at the University of

Kinshasa. He cooperated with AIDS-expert Peter Piot, who was head of
UNAIDS for a long time, at the search of the Ebola-virus. His message is
clear : “It is time to act, to think about what is really going on in Africa.”