The Importance of Life
Wednesday 5:31 pm
Yes, I made it to Entebbe safe and sound. Sorry, there was no power last night if anyone was worried.
Anyway, I wanted to comment. I wrote this to bigrob about 2 months ago:
Oh, and people who DO know continue to have unprotected sex. See,
the real distinguisher here is the concept of death. For us, death
is something we try very hard to avoid, and if it happens
unexpectedly, it's a huge blow, because everyone is supposed to live
until they're four hundred and seven. But here, people die ALL the
time, just randomly. Old people, young people, thin people, fat
people. They die in car accidents, drownings, shootings. So, for
them, having AIDS, being sure they're going to die, is not a reason
to start behaving differently. Giving someone else AIDS isn't a huge
deal either.
Anyway, I really got a taste of it today. On the way back from Kampala and the beauty parlor, there was this traffic congestion on the road and a bunch of people milling around on the lefthand side.
Debby suddenly gasps, and we look over, and there's a tiny girl -- probably 8-10 years old. She's being carried by this man, and she's sprawled across his arms.
She's wearing this dark blue pinafore dress, and her head is drooped down the side. There's blood all over the big round white collar of her dress, and I'm relatively sure that if she wasn't dead already, that she probably would be soon.
I gasped audibly. No one said anything in the car for 20 minutes.
Eventually we had a conversation about how people drive too fast and there aren't enough road humps.
Watching this man, holding this tiny girl... it brought it all into focus for me.
To quote booksymagnifico:
beauty parlor and death
what a surreal combination
Yes, I made it to Entebbe safe and sound. Sorry, there was no power last night if anyone was worried.
Anyway, I wanted to comment. I wrote this to bigrob about 2 months ago:
Oh, and people who DO know continue to have unprotected sex. See,
the real distinguisher here is the concept of death. For us, death
is something we try very hard to avoid, and if it happens
unexpectedly, it's a huge blow, because everyone is supposed to live
until they're four hundred and seven. But here, people die ALL the
time, just randomly. Old people, young people, thin people, fat
people. They die in car accidents, drownings, shootings. So, for
them, having AIDS, being sure they're going to die, is not a reason
to start behaving differently. Giving someone else AIDS isn't a huge
deal either.
Anyway, I really got a taste of it today. On the way back from Kampala and the beauty parlor, there was this traffic congestion on the road and a bunch of people milling around on the lefthand side.
Debby suddenly gasps, and we look over, and there's a tiny girl -- probably 8-10 years old. She's being carried by this man, and she's sprawled across his arms.
She's wearing this dark blue pinafore dress, and her head is drooped down the side. There's blood all over the big round white collar of her dress, and I'm relatively sure that if she wasn't dead already, that she probably would be soon.
I gasped audibly. No one said anything in the car for 20 minutes.
Eventually we had a conversation about how people drive too fast and there aren't enough road humps.
Watching this man, holding this tiny girl... it brought it all into focus for me.
To quote booksymagnifico:
beauty parlor and death
what a surreal combination