Editor’s Note: Our friend, Ashley Judd, joined YouthAIDS as Global Ambassador in 2002, after seeing the effects of HIV/AIDS on communities and children in the United States and around the globe. With no cure in sight, and the realization that education is the only way to prevent the spread of this disease, Ashley uses voice and platform — on behalf of those without a voice — to promote YouthAIDS’s programs and to provide young adults with immediate solutions for fighting the global epidemic. Most recently, Ashley went to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she kept a daily personal journal detailing the heart-wrenching experience. Each week this summer, wOw shares one diary excerpt and corresponding photos from her trip. The following journal entry was written on Friday, May 2, 2008.

The alarm went off and I groaned. Ten hours of sleep, maybe a little more, and good sleep at that — and tired yet. Why? I suppose the physical impact of witnessing such gruesome poverty is incalculable. While making my bed, I admired the worn cotton sheet with which I am sleeping, so lusciously softened by years of use, and the nice weight of the duvet. I thought of the beds at my grandparents’ homes, how safe and perfect they were. How does one reconcile that with the squalor with which the Congolese endeavor to sleep? It’s unfathomable, even as it is real, as I see it with my own eyes.

Click here to see photographs from Ashley Judd’s Rwanda Diaries Part Ten.

I had my usual adventures with room service, which thankfully I have been able to frame in an attitude of amusement. I placed my order (omelet, yogurt, which is good for building a healthy gut accustomed to the locality, fruit, cereal, bread, butter, jam … I am a very big eater and I have learned to make jam sandwiches for the car), and although I thought we had a perfectly clear conversation, fulfilling my order involved two further calls and interrogations by different people in the kitchen. When the order came, even though it was a very quick delivery, the omelet was cold. I was nearly done with my meal when someone knocked on the door. They were delivering an empty bowl and two spoons. Ah, I thought, quel plaisir, I have a bowl and spoons, if perchance I should require them later for … something!

My first appointment of the day was a courtesy call to the provincial minister of health, as I am visiting in his province, after all. Theresa said she’s been able to release me from much of the typical protocol, which I appreciate. This one, however, was essential, and I arrived at the government building. I was surprised at how derelict it was. There were armed guards and, up several flights of stairs, I was escorted past more guards into a small room without air, one closed window, and a small color television. Behind the minister’s desk was the Congolese flag, and other than some paper files stacked on the desk and a set of shelves, the room was bare. He was dressed in a nice Western suit with French cuffs.

During a recent Typhoid outbreak, he called PSI to help respond. Working in partnership with the Minister of Health is critical to implementing our work.

During my visit, he described the problems facing Kinshasa: Malaria. Water. Diarrhea. HIV. "What else?" he asked me. "Family planning and maternal heath," I noted. "Ah, yes," he agreed. We took some pictures and said farewell until the embassy event tonight. Upon leaving we were met with a member of the press and asked, and I described the above chat, describing the minister as very interested in the problems that face the people and solutions that PSI helps provide.

I made a few phone calls to home, and miss having the privacy to talk in the car. Self-care is a balancing act. It is Papa Jacks’s birthday, though, so I got into the group vibe and we sang to him. He reminisced about all the places we’ve been on the 2nd of May over the years, the movie sets ("Ya Ya," "Come Early Morning") and the PSI trips, Nicaragua, etc. What a man!

Mapela is slum community of about 400,000 on a small, shallow, rushing river. The houses are on higher ground, but even so, when the floods come, there is loss of property and life. Natural disasters disproportionately affect the poor because their shelter is insecure, the preparedness low, conditions overcrowded, the government’s ability to respond poor, etc.