Transcripts

CATHERINE WINTER: Camp Knutson is perched on a peninsula between two lakes ringed with summer cabins. On a hot afternoon, kids play tetherball or climb on the jungle gym. A few women sit on benches in the shade and talk.

Lydia Rodriguez has just come back from fishing and she's grinning. She caught three fish and her boyfriend didn't catch any. Rodriguez has AIDS. She's from East Grand Forks. And she came here because she wanted to talk with other people who have AIDS.

LYDIA RODRIGUEZ: In East Grand Forks, I haven't even met one person that's HIV or AIDS. They don't even have support groups in East Grand Forks. And that's one of the reasons that I felt for a long time very isolated because I wanted to meet people with the same problem I have.

In East Grand Forks, especially, it's a very small town. And people are very ignorant, I will say. They don't understand that just because you're close to an HIV positive, that doesn't mean they just by touching a person, or by eating from the same plate, or kissing somebody, you will get the disease.

CATHERINE WINTER: Rodriguez says she was pleased to meet so many other women with AIDS. The camp was open to any family affected by AIDS. Some of the children with HIV who came are boys. But as it turned out, all the HIV-infected adults who came to camp are women. Rodriguez says she's been able to talk to other mothers about her fears for her children.

LYDIA RODRIGUEZ: They know their mommy is sick. They know their mommy is one day going to get really sick and is going to heaven. They know that. I try to explain to them the best I could. And it's just it's more difficult because they're so young.

They did cry when they found out that they said, I don't want you to go mommy. You know what? I said, but I'm still here.

I'm still shaking. I'm still hanging around trying to make them laugh and whatever. But it's going to be hard because they're really close to me.

CATHERINE WINTER: Organizers of the camp say they don't know of any other like it. Renee Steffen, AIDS coordinator for St Joseph's Hospital in Brainerd, says the idea was to get people from small towns together to give them moral support and information that can be hard to find in rural areas.

RENEE STEFFEN: They're very isolated, especially those in the rural areas. Because for many of these women, they have never met, or especially the children as well, have never met anyone else who is also dealing with this. And so this is the first time where these people can come and be free about this and to speak openly, ask questions, and make new friends that truly understand what they're going through.

CATHERINE WINTER: Steffen says in her work with people with AIDS, clients told her again and again that they wanted a program that would involve their families. So she worked to get a grant that would send whole families to camp. At camp, the adults go to workshops on legal and medical issues and how to handle stress. The kids make tie dye T-shirts and play volleyball. Eight-year-old DJ says he played a game to learn more about AIDS and he's been playing capture the flag and swimming.

DJ: I went tubing, water tubing. Well, today I'm going to go-- I'm going to go to Dairy Queen in a boat. And I might go water skiing.

CATHERINE WINTER: While he waits for the pontoon boat to take him to Dairy Queen, DJ tosses the ball into the basket in front of the mess hall. His mother Cindy Pettit watches.

CINDY PETTIT: Good job.

CATHERINE WINTER: Pettit lives in Fargo, but she drives all the way to Brainerd, 140 miles, to get to a support group.

CINDY PETTIT: You're so busy taking care of your kids and everything else and that you don't, a lot of times, have any time to even have friends, much less if you're in the middle of this disease dying. Actually living with it, but dying with it too. You need to have other people to talk to.

CATHERINE WINTER: Pettit says the women at Camp Knutson have quickly become friends.

CINDY PETTIT: Yesterday, me-- and there was a Jeep over there. She has a tracker, one of the girls. So four of us women hopped in the tracker and we were singing songs, going down the roads, and up and down. And it was just so-- we just had a blast.

We were laughing and joking and went into the grocery store. Came back out, our kids were taking care of it. I mean, it was just-- that was a blast. We had fun. Yeah.

CATHERINE WINTER: The women say they plan to exchange phone numbers and addresses so they can keep in touch. Some discovered that they live within a few hour's drive of each other and they plan to visit. But all the same, they say they're dreading the end of the week when they'll have to say goodbye. I'm Catherine Winter, Main Street Radio.