Today I joined Dawna and her friend Leighann with Roses of Charity to feed the orphan kids and blind. There aren't many options when you don't have a family for support in this country so three times a week these women volunteer their time and funds to buy food for those in need.
After the feeding we went to the township in Victoria Falls where the less fortunate live and visited of the families of the 8 children with HIV/AIDS to let them know there would be a party for them on Monday to celebrate International AIDS awareness day. The experience of a close encounter with the homes and lives of those in deep deep poverty is still working its way through me. In one home we were invited in and spent some time talking with a young boy, Washington's grandmother. Both of his parents had died from AIDS, his grandmother works as a teacher and her salary is not enough to even buy the cheapest grain to feed her and her few family members each month. The sanitary conditions in the home were nauseating, stench of rotting food, sweat and many years of never being cleaned. The simple life skills we take for granted are not even in the skillset of parents to pass down to their children.
Now is a time for celebrating Thanksgiving in America. And I find that only my tears can express how grateful I am for the abundance available to me.
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