I have been writing about Miriam every day for two weeks, but not a word has made it to this blog. Nor has Miriam’s name been mentioned once in my writings. Nonetheless, it is Miriam that I think about as I pour out my words and plans into the big grant application I am working on (yet another one). And it is Miriam who keeps me going through the hours and hours spent trying to get all the pieces of this application pulled together and polished before the end of January.

Miriam is 15-years-old, and she lives at a children’s home for orphans just outside of Eldoret. A few years ago, when I visited the home, her guardians at the home asked me to take a look at her because she had been coughing for some time. It turns out that Miriam had been sick off and on with pneumonias over the past few years, and her foster mother told me that she worried that Miriam was not growing any more, was in fact losing weight. As I listened to her lungs and felt the swollen lymph nodes all over her body and saw just how small and frail Miriam was, I immediately worried that Miriam had HIV. I brought her to the AMPATH clinic for testing the next day, and my fears were confirmed. The same virus that had left Miriam an orphan and taken the life of her older sister also lived in her blood. Thus began Miriam’s treatment for HIV.

I once told Miriam how sorry I was that I had to tell her she had HIV. “You should not be sorry,” she responded. “I knew that my body was dying. You were the answer to my prayers that there would be a way for me to become strong again.”

Miriam has, indeed, become strong again. She has gained weight and a few more inches in height. If you looked at her among the 20 girls in her dormitory, you would not be able to pick out which girl has HIV. Miriam does not miss so many days of school, except for the times when she has to come to the clinic.

She takes her medicines for HIV faithfully. Except, sometimes she misses a dose when she is playing soccer. And sometimes, she misses a dose because she does not want anyone else in her dormitory to see her taking the medicines. And sometimes, she misses a dose because her medicine runs out before her guardians are able to get her to the clinic for her refill of medicines. Miriam does great overall. She tries hard and she is taking more and more responsibility for her medicines. But those missed doses could eventually hurt her health and allow the virus to resist the medicines.

I’m writing a grant to try to get funding to figure out what would work to help adolescents like Miriam take their HIV medicines better. For Miriam and the hundreds of thousands of children her age with HIV who are growing up and trying to figure out how to get through adolescence and into adulthood, we need to find ways to help them with this challenge. We want them to live and thrive. We don’t want the virus to keep spreading to other people. We need to find ways to help them with the medicines over the long haul. Back to writing about Miriam…  

We had some special birthday celebrations going on in my circle this weekend. A "true blue" birthday party for an artist friend/neighbor for which we all wore only blue. The birthday of my recently married former roommate who was celebrating newly married life and a new year of life in Florence (one of my dream destinations). And then there was the first birthday party of this adorable nephew of mine who turned one on Saturday.

You can see that he enjoyed his cake!

These days, the thing that I like most about staying in a hotel is being able to wash my face with warm water. A simple luxury, really, but one that eludes me in both the house that I own in Indianapolis and the home that I rent in Kenya. Oh, the bliss of washing with warm water…

In Indianapolis, the ecologically friendly features that make my little red house secretly a green house collide in an unfortunate manner to take away my ability to get hot water from the faucet. The combination of the tankless hot water heater and the low-flow faucets and their respective locations in the house mean that the water coming from the sink faucets does not get warm.  In Kenya, my shower is heated by an electric “instant” hot water heater, but there is no water heater for the faucets. And so, the two places where I primarily live do not allow me wash my face with warm water (something I try to do before bed, when I am often cold and shivering already.)  In my hotel room, the luxury of a wet washcloth that almost scalds me seems magnificent compared to the gasp-inducing washing I normally experience.

If I stay at your house and you have hot water coming out of your faucets, you may notice that I spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom before bedtime. It’s not a fancy regimen of cleansing and creams that delays me; I’m just enamored with your warm water.

My pleasure in the soothing embrace of a warm washing reminds me, though, what a precious gift it is to have the easy access to the clean, safe water that I enjoy. Hot or cold. I am so gifted in my access to clean water. Diseases from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence. Children are especially vulnerable, as they are the ones who get the most severely sick from diarrhea, dysentery and other illnesses that hide in unclean water.

It’s startling to think that 30,000 people die every week from the diseases caused by unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions. And 90% of those deaths are in children under the age of five. Children the ages of my precious nephews with whom I romped and danced and ate birthday cake this weekend.

We could prevent most of these deaths just by improving the world’s water supply and sanitation. This is my new resolution for the occasions when I get to wash my face my with warm water. Every time I enjoy that bit of pleasure from a temporarily improved water situation, I’m going to make a small donation to an organization that provides clean water options for families in sub-Saharan Africa. (Some of my favorites: Ugandan Water Project, blood:water mission, charity: water)