Ashley Judd, Day Seven — reflections
We drove down the mountain with the valley below, traced by a wide meandering river. In the east was a wide rainbow, the magenta and violet were glowing. In the west, the sun was setting behind mountain after mountain after mountain. Everything was blue, even the air. It was so...
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Ashley Judd, Day Seven — Dushishoze
Dushishoze….say that 3 times fast! Meaning “Think about it” in Kinyarwandan, Dushishoze comprises 4 youth centres nationwide where kids may access free medically accurate reproductive health information, services and products such as voluntary HIV/Aids testing (with rapid results) and counseling (and appropriate referrals if they are +…I saw a positive...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Seven — Sonrise
Sonrise is a special place. Built by an Anglican Priest to address the orphan crisis after the genocide, Sonrise pulls in the neediest orphans from all over the country. Parish priests are well established in their individual communities and recognize vulnerable children. They bring the most desperate cases to the...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Six – Heal Africa
There is a new looking compound set incongruously in Goma’s ruins. In Cambodia, such villas are built by pimps. I wondered what kind of people could afford such a palace in one of the poorest countries on Earth. I was grateful to learn it was, in fact, my next destination...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Six — Democratic Republic of Congo
King Leopold of Belgium, an insane man who never should have been free in a society much less allowed to “rule” one, kept this unimaginably fertile area (equal in size to everything east of the Mississippi) for his personal exploitation and whim. During his lust for its minerals, gems, trees,...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Six — Women for Women International
The people here are not just reserved in a cultural way, they are cautious in the way of the stunned, of those who have lived with trauma, brutality, and suffering. Of the hundred or so people I visited today, a few became soft and warm after a greeting, but most...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Five — World Malaria Day
I packed up all my stuff and ate a weird breakfast before going to the airport. After a confusing wait, we boarded a heifer of a helicopter, a giant military thing with bench seating lining the length of it. Some old Russian shitter, Dario had explained, rather in awe I...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Four — water purification
Today I also saw an overview of our point of use water purification outreach. 60% of rural and 40% of urban Rwandais do not have access to safe water. Even the 2.5% with piped water cannot know if that water is safe. Unsafe water makes millions sick, which additionally adds...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Four — you go, global girl
After the genocide memorials, lunch on a patio set in a tropical garden (I kept dropping out of conversations to use my field glasses to watch birds), the full immersion into PSI Rwanda, and the church visit, I crawled into bed. I have an event tonight, the United Nations Development...
(continue)Ashley Judd, Day Three — malaria nets
From the description of the population problem, next I was immersed in the world of Five and Alive, what we call our programs that help children live their 5th birthday, no easy task in poor countries. This year, 10 million children world will die before their 5th birthday from pneumonia,...
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