This week I went to the HIV clinic with the positive babies from the orphanage.  Each nanny was assigned a baby and I was in charge of one of my favorites, a happy little baby who is normally all one toothed smiles and absurdly loud giggles.  I want to think that the nannies assigned her to me because they know that I like her so much, but I’m pretty sure that it’s because she’s ginormous for her age and carrying her is like lugging a sack of lead…a smiley sack of lead, but still.  The clinic is a decent commute away and the head nanny kept looking back at me and cracking up as I shifted her from one hip to the other and then putting her down to see if she’d miraculously learned to walk since we’d left the orphanage.

The clinic is run by an Italian NGO that offers free HIV care and testing to all of children at the orphanage.  While the clinic tries to be a happy place with balloons and toys and lots of bright colors, it’s still undeniably gloomy.  And my baby definitely felt that, downshifting from her normally smiley self to a solemn little thing that didn’t want to play at all. 

I went into the examining room with her and almost lost it when the blood drawing started.  She flailed against the nurses who were restraining her as she was poked and let out awful screams.  After they were finished collecting the samples, the nurses passed her to me.  I hugged her soft body to mine and whispered soothing things.  And then I heard what I was saying.  I was telling this little HIV positive orphan that everything was going to be ok.  But probably everything isn’t going to be ok for her.  Realizing that, I felt paralyzed with my own helplessness.  Am I really doing anything to help here? 

Then she peed on me.  She looked up and smiled her first grin since entering the clinic, seemingly proud of the piss seeping through the thighs of my khakis.  And while that didn’t answer my question at all, somehow it made me feel a little better…wetter, but better.