The Chaos Within - See what it can do...

On Tuesday last Milind died at Sahara.

Milind was a DISHA client. He came to us on the Friday. He lasted just five days. When I visited Sahara on the Monday he lay there and tried to smile his greeting. He hadn't met me before, and he was trying to thank us for taking care of him. Lata asked me to take a look at his chest x-ray... I'm no doctor but you pick things up after a while. The man's chest was a series of patches held tenuously together with strands that the TB hadn't got to.

I looked at Errol and he confirmed my feelings with a shake of his head. The next day I got the call.

"Baba he is gone."

Now, I hardly knew the man, and I didn't have a relationship with him like I have done with others... yet, for all of us on the team, Milind was not just another faceless one to die of HIV/AIDS related tuberculosis. He died because of stigma. Over and over again we tell of how stigma and discrimination doesn't allow for people to come forward early and declare their status, how people wait until they are so sick, that getting help, or any form of comfort for the pain overcomes their fear of stigma... the stage where you don't give a fuck what people think but you just want the pain to go away somehow. Milind was a 'classic' example of this. He had lived most of his adult life in Tadiwala Road. He had known about us since last year, but he had dared not come forward.

Milind was also more than a 'classic' example, his death once again underlined to us that 'every man's death' affects us, and that we should never 'send to ask for whom the bell tolls' because it does toll for us.

I met with the family and we discussed what was the best approach to the situation. His mother was distraught and could not take a decision, so her nephew stepped in, and after much procrastination decided that Milind's body would come home, the pujas would be conducted and then, it was off to the crematorium. I know that Lata had a major part to play in this decision and I am proud of her. She helped the family not only accept Milind's body, but also helped demystify HIV/AIDS - You can't get it from a dead body. The virus does not fly off in search for another host.

Paul was amazed at what he called 'turn-around' time. One minute we have a client at Sahara, and within a few hours he or she is ash.

Today I visited Sahara with Cyrus and Danny from Duke University, Paul, Natasha (my sister, not Smiler), Stevie, Esther (Link) and Shazma my brilliant little AISEC volunteer from Nairobi working with DISHA. Cyrus interviewed Errol, and although I had heard his story a few times before, he filled in a lot of the gaps, and it was great for all us to get an insight into how Errol works. How he ticks. And it isn’t the moon.

Walking upstairs I noticed that Errol had moved the woman's ward downstairs. Errol's team is depleted and this makes it easier to handle the clients.

Saraswathi was sitting up! Only just, but she was sitting up. Her oral thrush is getting better and she is trying to speak. She is communicating with sounds now, not just her tired eyes, and shakes of her head. She is fighting.

Errol said, "Don't get too excited baba, long way to go."

Yes... whatever the outcome though, she has improved and Errol and his team had done an amazing job with little or no resources - "we have love na baba, see what it can do..."

Yeah, see what it can do.