Teach Me to Dance

Dr Claire Smithson, Medical Mission Partner, Maua Methodist Hospital, Kenya, November 2006

Teach me to dance

Drought, floods, poverty, HIV and AIDS. That is often our picture of Sub-Saharan Africa. I have lived and worked at Maua Methodist Hospital in rural Kenya for the last 17 years and I could add many more similar stories for you. Instead, I will tell you the story of Machungulu, of Margaret and Zipporah.

We started our first community outreach clinic for patients with HIV and AIDS at Machungulu Methodist Church five years ago. This was a first in our community, a first for the church to be reaching out to people infected with HIV and offer help and support rather than judgment and condemnation. Margaret was a third wife; her husband and two co-wives were dead from HIV, leaving her with sixteen children to care for. Zipporah was also a widow with five children. Margaret and Zipporah are both HIV positive; both were sick, wasted and dying. Their children were out of school and roaming the streets looking for food. Both were in a state of despair, outcasts from the community, helpless and hopeless with nowhere to turn. Just the kind of story we are used to hearing.

Margaret was our first patient. Machungulu community raised money to help her pay for anti-retroviral drugs. They helped her to get transport to the hospital when she needed blood tests and they even raised money to help her buy food. Margaret was given drugs but she was also given love, hope and above all dignity. When she stood in church and told others about HIV and how they too could get help, instead of being ostracised she received a standing ovation. This was an honour she had never had in her life as a third wife! Today Margaret is well, caring for the children and has become a volunteer at Machungulu to bring others with HIV to also receive love, hope and dignity.

My first memory of Zipporah was just before Christmas 2002. On that occasion she cried and cried in despair about her children and what would happen to them when she died. We talked and together we decided instead of crying we would work together with her and with the Machungulu community to save her life so she could continue to support her children. We achieved this and in September 2006 Machungulu had a fund-raising effort to raise fees for Zipporah’s eldest daughter to go to Teacher Training College (which she started in October) and I think the smile on Zipporah’s face that day told us she was the proudest mother on earth. Zipporah is also now a volunteer at Machungulu encouraging and bringing other patients.

From small beginnings Machungulu has grown, with the help of Trade Fare, and the United Methodist Church of Germany. On 11th October 2006 we dedicated a new Day Care Centre in honour of Dietmar and Birgit Ziegler (our two mission partners who died in a road accident on 11th October 2003) to serve our HIV patients. The community looks at the patients and feels their own satisfaction in the part they have played in keeping them alive. What a reversal, from being outcast the patients are now honoured and viewed with pride.

On 24th October 2006 we opened four new Ziegler Palliative Consulting Rooms in Maua Methodist Hospital. Our Methodist Presiding Bishop, Dr Stephen Kanyaru, chairman of the Maua Methodist Hospital Board, and the other hospital board members were there to open the building and celebrate with us. The patients from Machungulu came to sing and celebrate with us. What an honour for us and them to have the Head of the Church come and be with us, to tell the patients that the God cares for them, that Jesus loves them, and that Maua Methodist Hospital is there to serve them. The patients sang and danced and gave thanks to God for saving their lives, and their smiles were infectious. Once the opening was done the patients and staff made a ‘train’ (not dissimilar to the conga) to dance round the square celebrating. The board members were moved and the Presiding Bishop joined the train. Now we had the Head of the Church and the village ladies with HIV dancing and celebrating together, and the presence of God was never in doubt.

I have never been one for dancing, having no rhythm or timing, but there was no choice that day, I found my feet moving whether I liked it or not! The patients taught me to dance that day. As we celebrate World AIDS Day this year, with the theme of Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise, will you set prejudice and judgement to one side? Will you see Margaret and Zipporah for the beautiful people they are? Will you join the Methodist Church in Kenya, and our Presiding Bishop, in telling them, and all people who feel unloved and outcast, that God loves them and we love them too? Margaret, Zipporah, Machungulu community, and our many other patients have taught us how to dance and celebrate the life God has given us. Will you dance with us?