Sunday, June 25, 2017

They Call Me Musawo



'If you’re living on one dollar per day, thriving is nearly impossible. We asked Joy, a health care promoter for Living Goods, about her experience here.

Years ago, Joy’s husband had been stationed in the army. He died fighting in Rwanda. He left her widowed with a toddler, a baby and pregnant. Thus began the period of her life she called “survival.”

She walked 10km to a charity offering scholarships, for the chance to enroll her three kids in school.Her walking paid off, but only for one child. To eat, a kind neighbor who was HIV+ forged his test results in her name, so she could register at a clinic for free food. She traveled around Kampala, and registered herself at five.

“I have always been skinny, so everyone believed that I had HIV,” she says, raising her forearm and gently circling her wrist with her index finger and thumb, so they touch in the middle. She was ashamed, but with three young children, she was desperate.

Recalling those memories wasn’t easy for Joy.'

To read more click, 'Now I have a name.  Now they call me Musawo.'