JEAN-CLAUDE
Jean-Claude Delinua, an immigrant from Haiti, came to the Dominican Republic 11 years ago to cut sugar cane. In March, after he had been sick for 8 months, his HIV-infected neighbor, Yasaira Calpio, told the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) about him. When BRA workers first visited his tiny shed, he was confined to this hammock made from a pig feed sack and couldn’t speak. A medical exam at a nearby mobile clinic run by BRA determined that he had chronic diarrhea, pneumonia, bronchitis, and a cryptococcal infection. BRA rehydrated him and his voice returned, but his condition remained parlous: They couldn’t afford to transport him to Santo Domingo, where free anti-HIV drugs were then available. But then help from the Clinton Foundation and the Dominican Ministry of Health’ s Digecitts suddenly allowed BRA to purchase antiretroviral medicine for its new clinic in nearby Cinco Casas. In July, Delinua was being treated and still alive. With the support of the BRA, he now has a comfortable mattress to sleep in, adequate nutrition, clothing and free psychosocial and medical services.

YASAIRA
Yasaira Calpio, 28, lives in this one-room shack in Gonzalo Municipality in the Dominican Republic, an area near Monte Plata that has endless hectares of old sugar cane fields that have gone to weed. A mother of three, Calpio last year learned that she had become infected with HIV; fortunately, she had a doctor who referred her to the Batey Relief Alliance. Although the organization had no medication at that time, it transported her each month to Santo Domingo to receive the anti-HIV drugs. “I didn’t even know there was medication,” she says. Now, Yasaira is registered with BRA’s HIV/AIDS program where she receives free medical care, ART, nutrition and clothing.

JEAN MICHEL
Jean Michel came to BRA’s clinic at Batey Cojobal for the first time in February 2006 with Yahaira, one of BRA’s community-based health promoters, and tested positive for HIV. He was losing weight rapidly and was sick with parasites. To get to Jean Michel’s house, Chitra Akileswaran, another BRA volunteer, and I climbed up a steep hill. He rents a small tin shack with a dirt floor and was sleeping in a hammock made from rice sacks. On top of a cardboard box, the only piece of furniture in his home, there was a picture of him from about 8 months ago with a big smile across his round face. It was hard for us to imagine at time that the skeletal man crumpled up in the hammock could be the same person. As we emptied our backpack full of food, medicines, clothes, sheets, and hygiene materials, he barely acknowledged that we were there. Instead, Yahaira talked to a young neighbor who was helping to take care of him. Unfortunately, not all of his neighbors were as generous. The owner of his shack threatened to kick him out for not paying rent. Luckily, with the AIDS Patient Fund, we were able to pay the rent he owed for the past 6 months (about US $15) and provide him with food. BRA has also given him a mattress and a Biosand Water filter. Now that Jean Michel has been receiving ART and food aid, he has turned back into the handsome man in the photograph. When I go to visit Jean Michel, I rarely find him at home because he is always walking around his neighborhood, socializing, or digging root vegetables to sell. His recovery is nothing short of miraculous.