Possible Dreams International

Friends,

Today is World AIDS day.

There are currently at least 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS in our world. Of these over 22 million live in Subsaharan Africa.

In the African context HIV/AIDS is inextricably linked to extreme poverty. We cannot address one, without the other.

Possible Dreams International works at the community level, with people in their homes, bringing compassionate care in the form of emergency aid (food/clothing/shelter/medical aid) and sustainable solutions such as the building of schools and the provision of water for entire communities.

By doing this we hope to intervene in the cycle of HIV/AIDS and poverty, bringing tangible hope to those for whom hope is still a dream.

On this World AIDS day 2009 we are excited to launch our newest project…. 3100 dinners for Swaziland.

http://possibledreamsinternational.org/3100-dinners-for-swaziland/

Whomever you are, we humbly invite you to be part of our possible dream for this world,

In peace,

Maithri

Below is a letter I wrote from Swaziland this year….

Siteki, Swaziland
4:30 pm 7/04/09

The world is full of tears.

Tears that would overflow the banks of any sea.

And yet I still believe in us. In humanity. In the power of love.

It has only been two days since I’ve been back on Swazi soil… The red dust is burning my eyes as I write these words at the ‘veterinary clinic’ which doubles as an internet cafe.

Each morning i spend an hour in clinic, before heading out into the communities to meet the people….

In every hut there is a story of sorrow.

Yesterday we drove up the most inhospitable hill…. Where there was a single hut perched upon rock after jagged rock.

In the hut we found a man with end stage HIV. He was lying naked in his bed, next to a pool of his own wastes.

Every bone in his body, literally every bone was palpable, visible. He had suffered a stroke secondary to complications of HIV/Toxoplasmosis and was unable to move his left side.

One of the wonderful Swazi nurses in the team explained that he had a caring daughter who washed him and fed him each day, but was only able to visit him once a day.

I cant remember a time ive seen someone so hungry.

We gave him an orange. He took it in his skeletal hands and devoured it.

We took out a bag of corn meal and the nurses mixed it with some milk into a paste.

He ate it faster than anything i’ve ever seen.

He held his hands in prayer and through wide brown eyes filled with tears said “Siyabonga” – Thank you.


There is a story of a sparrow, which my Dad told me once.

He was lying on a gravel road, with his little scrawny legs facing the open sky.

A horseman was walking past and seeing the sparrow, alighted from his horse.

He said “Little Sparrow, are you hurt? Why are lying there so awkwardly? Face up to the sky?”

The sparrow said “I have heard, that sometime today the sky will fall.”

The horseman laughed and said “And you think you can keep it from falling with those little legs?”

The sparrow shrugged his shoulders and said “My friend, I will do what I can.”

And that is all I am doing. What we are all doing here in this beautiful, little hamlet so filled with pain.

What we can.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri