Ja ja home day

Today (Saturday 26th) was Ja Ja home day. Jaja means grandparents in the local language and it's a day when all the HIV positive children from a few local villages are invited to the community hall next to the hospital. The name comes because lots of them are cared for by their grandparents because their parents have died. The two medical students, Becky and Jess, and Emma and I helped Rita organise it. We made name badges for the children by plaiting ribbon and sticking the ribbon to pieces of card. They then wrote their names and stuck stickers on the cards.

The children arrive in the morning and have porridge for breakfast. They then play games and run around for a few hours and then have lunch before they go home. I spoke to a couple of local volunteers and they said how much the children like being around other children with the same health condition. Because all these children are on the register they all get ART (anti-HIV medication) and they mostly looked quite well nourished and healthy.  I imagine there are loads of other children in remote villages that haven't been diagnosed though.

It was a very tiring but really fun morning. As usual we were one of the main attractions, and they spent hours following us around and poking our skin, but they also played with toys, stickers and balloons. Like with everything here though, funding is a problem. Rita and her team do a brilliant job organising everything and I hope we can help out in the next couple of months when she's gone.