On June 21, 2008, we participated in the official opening of the Hope Center Clinic. This long awaited event represents the culmination of much effort by the GAIA Mali team (Karamoko Tounkara in particular) and the ASACO (led by Mr. Guidé Diarra), who deserve our congratulations for the work accomplished. The clinic also represents action made tangible: since we believe that putting HIV medication at the reach of a patient's hand, in their own village, and that the only way to put an end to AIDS is to do that everywhere that AIDS exists, world wide, we can say that we have put our thoughts and beliefs into action and we have accomplished our goal.

It was a glorious occasion. There were speeches, there were certificates provided to the women and men who helped found the clinic, and Sophie and I received Chiwaras (antelope sculptures), a sign of the highest recognition in Mali.

When it came time in the program for GAIA to speak, I asked the MC to translate my words directly into Bambara. I talked about coming to the clinic for the first time in 2004, and our decision to install a mother to child transmission prevention program in Sikoro. I pointed to the tree we planted at the time, a small mango tree that was just barely visible in the crowd of participants – and told the crowd that it symbolized the work that we were trying to do. For why should a person from Sikoro have to travel to the center of Bamako if they were hungry for a mango, when the mango tree could be planted right in Sikoro itself, putting the mango at the reach of a child's hand? I talked about how the act of planting the tree represented the roots that we had put down in Sikoro, by putting the MTCP program here, and by bringing students to work at the clinic, and by helping the staff get trained, and by providing the reagents for HIV testing. I talked about how our donors had provided the fertilizer so that the mango tree could grow. I talked about how the ASACO  (clinic administration committee) had protected our tree, and allowed it to go tall and strong. And I talked about how Allou Sylla and other members of the national health organizations had, from afar, provided the important sunlight that was needed for our mango tree to grow. I said that the mango tree was small but it had already borne its first fruit – the "bloc Espoir" (the Hope Center Clinic) and that there were more mangos to come, it would only be a matter of time. I closed by thanking all of the members of the community who made it possible to build the bloc Espoir and said that we believed that hope was within the reach of a child's hand in Sikoro, like the fruit of the mango tree.

The local officials were smiling broadly by the time I finished the mango tree tale, and then some certificates were given out  (to 80 year old Ba Raba who was one of the original founders of the clinic) and we went to the other side of the CSCOM to cut the ribbon. Once the ribbon was cut, the crowd poured into the "Bloc Espoir", and the rooms were inspected one by one. We showed off the two new doctors' offices, placed 'cote a cote' (side by side) to improve the dialog between the HIV specialists and the head doctor. We showed off the "day hospital" with its eight beds. We walked upstairs to the big open meeting space (a terrace under a sheet metal roof) and the new conference room. We showed of the private pharmacy for HIV patients (required by Malian health officials) and talked about our plans to institute computer training so that the staff could start using electronic medical records (already donated by Labtracker and available on site).

It was a wonderful occasion. We have much to be proud of. We have more to do, but for this day, at this time, we can say that we have done what we promised, and done it well.

We feel fortunate to have been here in Mali to witness this event. We thank you for your contributions, we thank you for believing that we could do this together, and we thank you for asking not ‘Why’ but ‘Why not?’