File Photo of Patrick 4 Life founder Christine Fortin and Jerri Clout. Blog by Jerri Clout/ Special to Baytoday.ca Day Two The hotel lobby was alive with colour, languages and a buzz that is much like what we felt at the Toronto AIDS Conference.
File Photo of Patrick 4 Life founder Christine Fortin and Jerri Clout. Blog by Jerri Clout/ Special to Baytoday.caDay Two The hotel lobby was alive with colour, languages and a buzz that is much like what we felt at the Toronto AIDS Conference. It makes the world feel like a small place when all different cultures come together like this. Up until today we have not seen too many people gathering in the lobby. Much like us, they have taken a day or two to get familiar with the city including the altitude and air quality. We certainly have felt it in daily activities.
It was fun to walk up to people and introduce ourselves not knowing what language they spoke or where they were from. What we all have in common is we are here to learn more about HIV and AIDS.
Getting around has proved to be challenging however we have found some people who have hired a driver with a bus and we hope to link up with them. Today was the first day of registration and we wanted to be in line before it opened, with 25,000 people expected we knew it would be a long line. It was a long line but I had a captive audience so I told anyone who would listen about Patrick4life and Partici-Patrick and Youth4youth. I made so many connections already that if I don’t meet another person this week would have been worth it.
Let me tell you about some of them..... Greg – works for the federal Ministry of Health and his portfolio is the native community living on reserves. He was quite interested in what we have done with youth in our area.
Michael-well what can I say about Michael. He is HIV positive, has had two cancers and had a hip replaced and never runs out of energy. He wants us to take him to see the pyramids. We cannot say no to him, he is so much, but also teaching us a lot about living with the disease.
Kyle-This is a take charge kind of guy who got us all in a random group and we have decided we are buddies for the week. He works with leadership and HIV positive kids. He and I will be in touch to network in the future. We have a lot to offer each other.
Virginia - a beautiful woman from Zimbabwe. She is a volunteer and we have connected right away. She is a very down to earth person who has been touched very deeply by this disease.
Olanrewaju - This wonderful man from Nigeria is like someone you have known all your life. We spent time together today and shared some very rich conversation. It wasn’t until late in the conversation we found out he is a medical doctor who works very closely with AIDS patients and is also a university professor. He was very interested in what I have been doing and wondered if I would be interested to do a fellowship in Africa. He said he could set it up if we could find funding. His country is too poor to do funding but very willing to host. He does quite a bit of work in research.
These are just a few of the people we spent time with today. They all have a lot to offer but most importantly they have just become friends. It is going to be a wonderful week.
Jerri will be sending BayToday a daily blog update, however, if you would like more information, please check out her websites : www.patrick4life.org or www.youth4youth.net. Also, feel free to email Jerri at [email protected]
