Stick & Stones Will . . .

I thought I’d talk about something other than myself today. Yeah, I know, there’s a first.

I do keep up my blogroll even though I get behind at times. Some more than others but I usually make it to all about once a week. Lately though, I’ve been reading Steve from Bent Collective a lot. If you aren’t a heavy reader of Bent, you should be. Here you have a man in the prime of his life giving of himself to help others. He traveled half way around the world to the bodunk country of Uzbekistan, easily a third world country, to setup a clinic and care for the ravaged HIV population there. Uzbekistan is only 2 small countries away from Afghanistan. They don’t particularly like us. Of course, being so far away does present some technological issues. Enter his friend Al who often keeps us apprised of Steve’s lastest efforts via the blog.

Of course being as nosey as I am, I’m often never content enough for just minor details. And being that Steve and Al are both in the same field I’m getting into, we talk shop a lot. I mention it as I discovered Steve is providing care in a particularly dangerous area of the country this week. Care that you and I take for granted here w/o a second thought. The powers that be are very homophobic of course and outright deny that HIV is even a problem. It is spreading like wildfire and not just thru the hidden gay population either. Pretty soon it will be so bad they won’t be able to ignore it. Sadly, by then it will be too late for many.

I admire Steve as he another example of the type of person I hope to be ‘when I grow up’. And he ain’t bad on the eyes either. Sure he is getting paid for his efforts but somehow I doubt the pay is really top of his mind at the moment. If you care to see a glimpse in the life of someone who is truly making a difference, check’em out. I think you’ll like.