Peter's story

Last week was spent in Kampala writing training manuals for the NGO, Link Community Devlopment, that we are working with. Geoff was planning and writing a Maths training manual and Sabrina was expanding her School Health handbook into a longer Child Friendly School training manual. These training manuals will be used in many districts of Uganda and will be used (hopefully!) long after we have left.

We always love going to Kampala - we enjoy the restaurants, the wine, and the hot showers and, of course, catching up with the many volunteer friends we have in the Capital. We had our hair cut and had several very good cappuccinos!! In the midst of all this luxury, which as ‘rich’ people we can enjoy, we met a child called Peter. He is 13 years old and is HIV positive. Both his parents and all his siblings have died of AIDS. He was living with his grandmother but she has now died.

He now lives alone, with the support of an aunt and an HIV/AIDS project, which provides him with a small amount of eggs and vegetables each week. He also has a small garden and grows the rest of the food that he needs. Peter is fortunate in that he has access to anti retroviral drugs (ARV’s) through the project, run by Link Community Development in his home of Nakaseke. This project supplies him with some food and ensures that he travels to Kampala each month to collect his ARV’s, which will prolong his life.

However, although only 13, he has to make sure he has enough food each day, as ARV’s can only be taken with food, and he has to manage a complex cocktail of drugs to ensure his health. We were amazed at Peter - not only was he delightful to talk to, but he was so determined to do well at school and fulfil his ambition to be a Maths teacher. He is now in his last year at primary school, as last year he was too sick to take the Primary Leaving Exam, which he needs to pass to enable him to continue to secondary school. He is now feeling stronger and is confident of successfully taking the exam next November.