WE NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE

Life is suddenly moving faster here than I can write. The day I visited Agnes and her siblings, I learned that the Ugandan government would be providing free bed nets to all citizens starting this September, effectively ending my original project idea of providing nets through the SACCO. As one door closes, another opens; the children, the little family of abused, neglected orphans, have since become my project, in fact my life. And they need a lot of help. I hope that you will join me in completely changing their lives.

My ultimate goal is to build them a home and provide them with some land for farming and piggery (labor done by other paid workers of course). I want them to be sustainable, to have their food, shelter and education paid for without ongoing assistance. At present, the Balazas and I have taken over their care. Ester has committed to being their new mummy, but making less than 50 cents a day means she can only provide love and guidance, nothing material. Thus far I have paid for their medication, basic household items, clothing, and this term’s schooling and related supplies. The boy, however, needs surgery immediately on his leg.

We have consulted two orthopedic surgeons in Kampala who have each provided the same diagnosis and treatment plan; the boy suffers from a bone infection that is oozing out of his skin, most likely contracted from his dirty environment. Upon removing the dead bone surgically and completing his regimen of antibiotics, both doctors have assured us that he will be able to function normally within a matter of weeks. I was ecsatatic because I thought he might have to lose his leg.

His sisters have sprung back to life with proper food, shelter and lots of love. Richard is still suffering; lameness affecting his self-esteem and ability to make friends, pain taunting his mind and heart. Occasionally he will break into a smile, but mostly he sits uncomfortably as the girls happily acclimate to their new lives.

His treatment costs, including the surgery, hospital stay, and medication, will be approximately $800. I hope you will consider donating. The donation link is above to the right. I am using PayPal to collect funds, so donating will require an account, which only takes a couple of minutes to establish if you don't already have one.

We are planning to have the operation within the next two weeks, so the money is needed as soon as possible. For those of you who happen upon this blog post later, I will continue to fundraise after his surgery for the children’s other needs, the total price of this project running into the thousands.

If you have any questions, or concerns, please contact me. Of course, 100% of your donations are going directly to the children, there are no overhead costs and I can assure you that these children are truly needy, if you couldn’t already gather from my pictures and descriptions. I will continue to provide updates on the children’s progress and more information on the project goals, so please check out the blog (there is a new post below). Admittedly I am biased, but theirs is an incredible story and I hope you will become a part of it. Thank you in advance!

Facing the Sky

I woke up exhausted, unable to sleep with images of the five children's hopeless faces floating in my mind. There was no definitive plan beyond taking them; there was the unknown of how everyone would react, us, them, their father. I looked out the vehicle again nervous, but content and excited in doing right.

We weaved between the green walls of sugar cane beneath the grey clouds hanging near the land, tiny droplets pelting the car windows. Sitting in the front Aunt Jennifer, our impending silent force; the father’s children feared her; she berated him at his wife’s funeral for not buying the customary burial linen; he complained in front of the entire family of its cost. She said she was going to beat him and so it was bought.

“Are we going to tell him that we are taking the children?” I asked her.

“No. He’ll figure it out when they don’t come back.”

Crossing his plot, I asked her if she had been there before. Yes, she had, matter-of-factly, walking casually; purposeful, but at ease, as if every day she risked confrontation with abusive men neglecting their children.

Agnes ran up to her jah jah, hugging her fiercely then me. The children weren’t ready despite us telling them we would be there two hours earlier. I walked around; I didn’t see the little one. I went into the house.

I entered a dark room not ten by ten feet with a narrow wooden bench against the mud and thatch wall resting on their dirt floor. There were two doorways without doors to either side. I entered the even darker and smaller room to the left; Rachel lay on a torn woven mat with sheets of dirty clothes.

She slowly got up when she saw me and Agnes came in to get her ready. The children bathed each other and dressed, quickly, but not efficiently, like children imposed with self care. They moved with a hushed frenzy; they were told we were just going to hospital, but I think they sensed something different.

After lunch, we took them to the local government hospital. We entered a large open room filled with rows of benches, partially divided with a walled operating room in the middle. There were a series of doors leading to separate treatment rooms flanking the side walls. The doctor that Stephen told us to see was not available, so we stuck our head into the office of the only doctor on the premise. He gave Ester a hard time.

“You have come too late. People come in the morning. You come back tomorrow.”

Ester tried to stand her ground, but she appeared stuck. I was just outside the doorway peering in then took a few steps towards him and asked, “What are your hours?”

“Eight to four.” I looked at my watch then gave him a dirty look.

“It’s three.”

Flustered he threw his hands in the air. “Okay, you go wait.”

There wasn’t even anyone else there waiting. I made a face at Ester.

“These doctors here. They go to school, but they don’t have the heart,” she said moving her hand towards her chest. “He probably wants to go to his own clinic.” (Government doctors usually have their own clinics and pharmacies where they make most of their money by referring clinic patients to their private practice and stealing clinic drugs to resell in their pharmacies.)

After waiting briefly the doctor that we had come to see arrived. He wrote prescriptions for the worms, coughs and rashes, an x-ray referral for Richard and two HIV tests for the youngest, Sylvia and Rachel. Richard waited in the back for the x-ray and we took the others for the HIV tests. Ester and I masked nervousness.

I had prepared myself for Rachel to be positive. She was the youngest, only four, and her mother had just died of the disease. And she was so sick, the rash, the cough, tired; it seemed inevitable.

Rachel’s finger was pricked first. She cried briefly. Her older sister Sylvia, however, was petrified. She had been ever since she learned we were going to the hospital. She feared the needle, and began tearing as she watched the thin sharp plastic enter Rachel’s flesh. Sylvia squirmed away as Ester tried to hold her and the nurse attempted to steady her hand. Finally, blood splattered onto the slide.

We were ushered back into the main waiting room and sat in silence. Ester and I looking at the kids who were slowly experiencing joy after hours parted from their father and misery; little Rachel bouncing from bench to bench, Beatrice breaking into gentle smiles; Sylvia was still tense, and I think Agnes knew why we were waiting; she sat with butterflies like me and Ester.

After about fifteen minutes, the staff motioned us towards them from behind the counter; the results were ready. The man spoke to Ester in Lugandan for several moments. I didn’t know what they were saying, but suddenly Ester flashed this face.

“They were negative?!” I asked excitedly.

“Yes, both of them!” Ester exclaimed with tears in her eyes.

“I can’t believe it,” I said also almost crying.

“Yeah, I am really, really happy. I thought Rachel was positive.”

“Me too,” I confessed.

We waited on the benches for another hour and a half; the x-ray technician was in a meeting. Little Rachel kept asking for her mama.

“I want to see her. I know she’s here,” she whined to Agnes in Lugandan, fidgeting on her lap; too young to understand that mama was never coming back from the hospital the girl saw her in just a few weeks before.

We watched the sick carted in by relatives off the back of boda bodas, African versions of EMTs and ambulances. A girl of about twelve was carried in unconscious with blood gushing from her head already staining her pale chiffon dress. Her body disappeared behind the door of the operating room; the kids freely entered to look, curious. The staff slowly emerged from some of the side doors surrounding us entering the operating room and leaving again, no urgency. I motioned the children back towards me. The nurses didn’t seem to mind their presence, or that of their patient’s. After going into the room for a few moments, one of the nurses reappeared speaking in Lugandan. Ester glared the back of her head as she walked past.

“What did she say?” I asked, not understanding why the woman wasn’t assisting.

“She said there waz too much blood.”

Tired of waiting for the elusive technician, we finally left. With the children at home, I went to town for the medication and to buy mattresses and blankets for the kids; their new home was now a tiny room, maybe a dozen feet square, but with a real roof and a concrete floor, about a half a mile from Stephen and Margaret’s house.

The children bathed in our bathroom, soothed habo jelly on their bodies, reemerging clean and shiny, almost recognizable except for their same dirty, torn clothes. I fumbled through my drawer and closet for shirts and pants that might fit. Agnes put on a pair of pink pants and magenta t-shirt, I told her she looked better in it than me, I don’t know if she understood exactly, but she smiled shyly.

After dinner, Ester walked them to their home. The house was suddenly quiet without the kids. There was still lots to do: Richard’s x-ray, enrolling the kids in school, buying them uniforms, school shoes and school supplies, and flip flops, clothes, underwear, basins, plates, utensils, cups, utensils, thermos, and food. I was exhausted from the rolling emotions and constant stress, but eagerly anticipating the coming days, hopeful about their growing happiness, education, health and future.

The Saddest Story I've Got

I had seen Agnes twice since her mother’s passing; once as I was leaving the video store in town about a month ago, maybe a week after the death; the girl greeted me shyly and mumbled something about dying and I knew she meant her mother and I hugged her while she stood stiffly, looking away for a minute fighting tears in a stoic Ugandan way; then again I saw her at Ester’s shop about two weeks ago with her youngest sister, Rachel, who had a rash covering her body and fluid running from her nose and ears.

“They are coming back tomorrow,” Ester said as they walked away in the late afternoon. “It waz too late to see the doctor todae. They come here tomorrow and I take them.”

Tomorrow came and Agnes and the kids didn’t appear. And so passed the next day and the next…

“We should go check on them,” I said to Ester one night over dinner.

“Yeah,” she said strongly.

Then I was recovering from malaria, then I had meetings in the village, then the car was broken, then Mummy had meetings in Kampala.

“Can we go for them tomorrow?” I asked Margaret as her, Ester and I stood in the kitchen finishing dishes Wednesday night.

“Yes.”

The next day I waited in the house until the afternoon, not sure when the car would arrive; African time, communication and planning at work. The bell rang. I opened the door to a smiling Aunt Vinnie, Margaret’s sister, paying us a surprise visit. Very much like her sister, Vinnie is sincere, loving, smart and generous. She is also smart as Ugandan’s mean; donning African dresses and skirts of her own design and making, having studied fashion in London. We lounged on the couches, so hot outside, chatting about the children I was to visit, the plight of African children in general, and what we had been doing since last seeing each other over a month before.

The white car finally pulled up below our house. Vinnie, concerned about the children, decided to join us before returning to Kampala that evening. We drove around the block to pick up Ester who closed the shop for the call. I was getting nervous. I didn’t know what we would see.

Agnes’ mother had died of AIDS over a month before. I learned through my family that the father was cruel and it seemed, possibly psychopathic; abusing his children physically and emotionally, as well as the wife when she was alive; stealing his wife’s ARV treatment, despite it being free, and killing her. Ester told me that the wife, her cousin, said the man would sell all their crops at market, go to a hotel with his son to take a nice meal, and leave his four daughters and wife without food. He also enjoyed local drugs and drink.

Then there was the boy’s leg. The son had an accident over a year prior and Stephen and Margaret sent the car to take the boy to the hospital. They told the man they would pay for treatment and return the boy in the evening. The father refused. He thought witchcraft had caused the boy’s ailment and claimed he was helping him with local herbs. The boy’s leg had since become septic.

“I want to buy eggs for the kids,” I said as Ester got in the car. “But I’m afraid they won’t even get them.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “He’ll just make them prepare them for him.”

We stopped off in town and purchased food stuffs for the family. A very fat little girl with falling out black and red platting ran up to me a tattered dress, her huge checks creasing in a massive smile. She grabbed my hand and squealed, “Mzungu! Mzungu!” She skipped and jumped manically then ran back to me throwing her arms around my legs.

We climbed back into the car with bags of beans, rice, sugar and maize flower. We turned off the paved main street that bisects town onto a dirt road marked with a sign painted God’s Way. We wound through the edge of Lugazi and into the sugar cane fields. The massive network of stalks creating an impenetrable wall on either side; up a hill, down again, round bends, passing some small homes.

“I can’t believe Agnes and Rachel had to come all this way when they were sick,” I said after a few miles.

“Yeah. And the boy too.”

“What?”

“The boy, Richard. He waz with them that dae. It took many hours for them to get home with hiz leg.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. If I had known I would have gotten them a boda boda,” I said wishing that Ester had told me that evening two weeks ago.

After emerging from a valley, driving along the far mountain, the sugar cane gave way to villager’s plots and mud homes. The men, women and children watched from their land, waiving at our car going by, its presence and certainly its mzungu passenger unusual. Then we pulled in front of one of the homes.

“Is this it?” I asked.

“No, we must walk,” Ester directed me.

We followed a narrow path for maybe 100 yards. To the right, the low green shrubs of sweet potatoes; to the left, a farm overflowing with bountiful maize, plantains, coffee, tomatoes, cassava, beans, sweet potatoes and papaya.

“This is his plot,” Ester said pointing to the left. I was surprised. I wasn’t expecting him to have so much land, so many fertile crops.

“This one?”

“Yes,” Ester said nodding at it.

We rounded the vegetation and emerged onto the dirt clearing where their mud home and open kitchen rested. Agnes ran to us from the other side, hugging Ester tightly around the neck. The other children emerged from the house, staring at us vacantly in the doorway.

We called Rachel to us. The four year old reluctantly obeyed. The girl’s rash was worse, starting to scab over, covering her left ear and check; looking as if a bird had defecated on her face. There were still spots on her forehead, neck, abdomen, arm and hand. And her stomach was bloated; worms.



The boy watched several yards to our side, his forehead permanently rutted in grief, leaning on his good leg. He had to wear long pants over it at all times. We asked him to expose his wound. He looked away and pulled it up warily and we gasped. It was swollen all the way down to his ankle, still oozing all along the front of the shin; the pain he tried to conceal, but obvious in his eyes.





Vinnie, Ester, Sumete and I just stared at the miserable children in disbelief and concern. We agreed that the little one and the boy had to go to the hospital the next morning. I walked the boy to the side and took a picture of his leg. He glanced across the dirt before pulling up the seep stained cloth; he doesn’t want his dad to see, I thought. The father paced towards and away from us slightly nervous over and again, knowing all of the adults despised him, lying about the children’s condition, offering excuses in his insincere, high-pitched voice.



We visited with the children for about an hour grasping at lightness, wanting to give them relief. Their faces void of feeling then contorting into sculptures of anxiety and hurt. Agnes walked to a short ledge on the edge of the dirt clearing and climbed onto a rope that hung from a tree then launched herself into the air swinging. Despite recently losing her mother, caring for her younger sisters and brother, abused by her uncaring father, a soft smile spread across her face; but the other children never showing happiness.



“That girl was forced to marry?” Vinnie asked Ester. Ester nodded and Vinnie drew her head back in amazement.

“The husband ran her off though,” I explained.

“I told her that she can’t get married again. That the children need her,” Ester told us. I imagine they shared my thoughts; the children would surely die without her.



We said goodbye and promised to return the next day.

We drove back moved and incredulous; the three Africans clucking wildly in Lugandan to each other, sometimes translating to me.

The two little ones are probably positive, especially the youngest; so mulwadde. The boy’s leg is terrible. The children are so unhappy. The father is so careless. He killed the mother.

“You can see the pain on the boy’s face,” I said aloud to the whole car.

“Yes. And Sumete asked him if hiz leg pained, and the man said, ‘No, it doesn’t bother him,’ answering for him,” Ester told me.

“Maybe I can take one,” Vinnie said; so thoughtful, not even children from her side of the family, and still raising her many, as well as a nephew depressed because he is positive.

“Those children are so upset,” I said. “When children see a mzungu they get excited and happy. These children weren’t. They couldn’t even smile.”

“Yes! “ Aunt Vinnie exclaimed. “Compare them to the fat girl at the stage,” she said throwing her arm into the air.

“I know. That little girl was like all the other African children. Even the poorest ones, ones you know don’t always eat and are dirty in torn clothes, playing with trash, at least they are happy. At least someone is trying their best to care for them and love them.”

Yes, a child at least needs love.

“They just looked through us. Their father isn’t even that poor!”

“No, he haz some money,” Ester said. “He just doesn’t care. Did you go inside the house?”

“No.”

She shook her head. “It’s terrible.”

When an African tells you living conditions are terrible, you trust it an understatement.

I stared out the window; we were back in the outskirts of town. I imagined what the children did every day: wake up; Agnes bathes them, if they are lucky she maybe cooks some cassava for them; at least two go to school occasionally, but mostly they work on the farm, their father emerging from the foliage to beat them and chastise them, then disappearing again. Maybe more cassava at night. Working until the evening, no friends, nothing to do, just fearing; fearing life, fearing death, fearing their provider. Not living near anyone, very much alone. The father with them at night and he had just lost his wife. And Agnes. Slowly becoming a woman sleeping near him. Shit.

“I wonder if he is molesting them. Maybe taking advantage of Agnes,” I said suddenly.

“Yeah. We were just saying that. He can do anything on thoze drugs,” Ester said frowning deeply.

“Great. He’ll infect her if she’s not positive already.”

“Yeah,” Ester said softly.

Margaret and Stephen asked about the children that evening. I shook my head and said they were horrible. I showed them my pictures and they could not believe the swollen stomachs, oozing legs, scabbing skin, and hopeless faces.



“They are so unhappy,” Ester said shaking her head. “When you are that unhappy you hate everybody. You even hate yourself.”

“We’re going back tomorrow to take them to the hospital,” I said.

“Yes, I will tell Sumete to bring you,” Margaret said not taking her eyes from the images on my screen; these were the children of the young girl she helped raise, the sick woman she use to care for.

I waited; then said, “Ester and I were talking about keeping them.”

Margaret raised her eyes. “Yes. I think so. They can’t stay there with that man.”

“He’s slowly killing them,” I said very seriously.

“Yes. Just like their mother,” Margaret mused. “We’ll go get them tomorrow.”

The People and the Pastor

One of the SACCO board members I work with is also a local pastor. I have a growing respect for this man who is slowly revealing to me his humility, honesty, reliability and deep sense of integrity and service to his community. He invited me to his home recently and introduced me to some of the neighbors he is trying to assist, who are not necessarily a part of his church or even his religion; helping them with his heart and the little resources he has. We talk and he tells me of fleeing to Kenya during the infamous Amin years, shows me the scar on his head suffered under Obote’s regime and reveals his struggles to develop roots during Museveni’s relatively peaceful rule to finally end up Wakisi. He feels it is his destiny to help the widows, elderly and orphans in the land that is finally his home.

Ed with his wife, Robyna

I would like for you to meet some of the people in the houses surrounding the pastor’s, they represent a typical Ugandan village. As I previously mentioned, the rural areas are almost entirely devoid of persons between about 20 and 50, mostly lost to HIV/AIDS and the promise of urban work.

This is Jumula and Nasubuga. They live two doors down from the pastor. He is blind; that is his stick resting to the left that helps him to slowly get around some. His wife is almost deaf and is unable to stand up right. She is resting elegantly here on her floor, but when she moves she does so at a perfect right angle, her head and upper body hovering facing the ground. Several of their grandchildren were at school, while others were standing outside when I visited; there wasn’t space for them in the tiny room filled with four adults.

These are the disabled couple’s children, one concrete and a few dirt graves behind their home; the dead parents of the children the elderly now look after.

Topispita lives directly across from the pastor. Her husband died from AIDS and infected her. The illness is significantly affecting her health, including her mental abilities. Fortunately, not all of her children are gone; she lives with her son, his wife and their six children. The family has extreme difficulty attending to her health needs, however, which require clinic visits, medicine, and alleviating her daily symptoms of pain and delusions during which she injures herself.

This is Nasabu, who was apologetic to me for not feeling well; she was suffering from malaria. She is seated here proudly in front of her home, which is directly behind Elizabeth’s. Like virtually every other elderly person, she is looking after several grandchildren. They are not orphaned though; not yet. Their HIV positive mother has left Uganda in search of work. The family knows that the mother has passed the virus onto at least one of the children.

This man lives two houses away from Nasabu. When I visited he had recently returned from a few weeks hospital stay to treat complications relating to AIDS. Some of his children have died from the virus, so he and his wife, whom we can probably presume is also positive, look after 10 orphaned grandchildren.

This building is just to the right of the couple above. The three doors lead to three small rooms rented by three families. The pastor believes the woman to the right is HIV positive, but she won’t get checked. She has seven children. The pastor also thinks the woman living in the middle room has AIDS. She has eight children, but will also not get tested. He does not know well the family that lives to the left.

They call her Elizabeth. She lives behind the renters. She is pictured here to the left in her yard with some of the grandchildren she looks after, standing next to her son’s, their father’s grave. Those are their clothes in the foreground lying to dry in the dirt. Concrete memorials are actually unusual in the area due their cost; this one was paid with money given to her so that the children could look to it with dignity and think of their lost father.

These are some of the children and grandchildren of a widow that lives across from the Elizabeth. The widow’s husband died of AIDS and her eldest son who was helping to provide for the family drowned two weeks ago.

Lawrence, sitting in red, is HIV positive and lives on the other side of the pastor. The husband has presumably passed the virus to his wife, seated next to the girl in the yellow dress. Again, pictured here are some of the grandchildren they struggle to care for.

All of the people pictured above live within approximately 50 yards of each other. The official national HIV rate is around 6%. Laughable, isn’t it? If it’s anywhere close to that it’s only because so many of the sick are dying. The intense ruin, misery and death you hear about on the radio, watch on the news and read in magazines about AIDS in Africa is absolute fact and not hyperbole. It really is like a war or genocide.

Yes, It’s Here

Maybe the cutest kid in the world. Ester’s niece paid us a visit earlier this week. At first Jennifer was very apprehensive around me, preferring to take dinner on the ground of a small, dimly lit back room to having me look at her at the table, but she eventually got use to my paleness and then wouldn’t leave me alone. She is extremely clever, a bit mischievous, very energetic and cute as a button, what’s not to love?

I had to start with something light before moving onto today’s real topic, HIV/AIDS.

The disease exists in America, but it is not a part of the fabric of general life. Here it is more than just a series of enigmatic letters; it is everywhere, but somewhat obscured. You hear of your neighbor dying leaving her orphans with the crippled grandmother. There are whispers of unfaithful spouses passing it to each other, and witchdoctors infecting unsuspecting female victims practicing their phony craft. And you do see it in everyday life, but mostly in absence; the almost total lack of people in the villages between the ages of 20 and 50.

It’s so common that it’s sort of just another thing. In the West we hear AIDS, and it has an aura of mystery and horror. Not here. Here it’s like, yeah, he has AIDS, or she is sick, and it’s understood to mean she is sick from AIDS. It’s so common, that if you ask an African if they would rather have AIDS or cancer, I would be very surprised if you could find one that would prefer the latter. At least there is good therapy for HIV/AIDS, not so for cancer. African cancer treatment almost exclusively involves lobbing off affected body parts; for the masses there are no oncologists, radiation treatments, chemotherapy, quality methods of testing, experimental trials, etc., just a saw and a rosary; but there are AIDS specialists, ARV drugs and HIV test kits.

Fortunately for Ugandans, they are more upfront about revealing their status compared with many other Africans. A testament to their government’s decision to combat the epidemic head on about a decade ago, while other countries, such as Kenya tried to sweep it under the rug so as not scare their population, and especially rich foreign investors and tourists. Despite the continental pandemic theoretically starting here in the 1980s, Uganda has a relatively low rate of infection, publicly around 6%, but realistically closer to 15%; some southern African countries have as much as 33% of the population infected.

Free drug therapy and counseling is available at government clinics, another reason for the relative success of controlling the disease. The international development community has really pushed treating sub-Saharan African HIV/AIDS patients in recent years, which is a wonderful, but extending someone’s life with expensive medication is really not the solution to the devastation. Here in Uganda, there is a far greater focus on treatment than prevention, which I believe is how HIV/AIDS is addressed across Africa. Prevention is of course significantly less expensive than therapy, and actually saves lives, doesn’t just prolong them; which, makes the heavy focus on treatment rather frustrating to me.

In my 10 weeks here I have yet to witness a single TV ad, radio spot, billboard, poster, anything urging practicing safe sex. I haven’t even seen any such material in the hospitals and clinics. This is just abysmal. There is not a total lack of prevention effort; for example, I believe HIV/AIDS education is a part of the every school curriculum, but in my limited experience and humble option, the prevention message is not nearly strong enough. Why wait until someone is ill to help them? Why not put more resources into preventing them from dying in the first place?

As other examples of prevention in action here, you will very rarely see condom dispensers in bathrooms, and all government clinics in theory supply them, but I have yet to see a dispenser with an actual condom in it, and Ugandans tell me that the clinics are usually out of stock as well. As additional anecdotal evidence, I recently read an article in a Ugandan newspaper written by a woman documenting her quest to find a condom one afternoon. Of course, there were none in the bathrooms, pharmacies or clinics; she had to request one from a bar and could hear the barkeep and customers snickering as she left.

And the problem extends beyond simply getting protection. Even if you have a condom, it is not always easy to persuade your partner to use it. The younger generation, particularly the educated, practice safe sex, but even among them it is not necessarily the rule. The aversion to condoms means that people continue to pass the virus freely, and given the lax attitudes about extramarital affairs, often to their spouses. How is a married woman supposed to ask her husband to use a condom? Unbelievably some, I believe few, but some even pass it knowingly, not caring if they infect others.

Another serious obstacle to prevention is religion. Some religious leaders condemn condom use, including the Pope. Africans are very spiritual and follow their religious guides in a manner unlike most Americans, where comparatively speaking modern life has greatly reduced religious power and persuasion. AIDS here is a war. No exaggeration. It kills, orphans, impoverishes, maims and scars on an incomprehensible, massive scale just like warfare, and the only way to end it at this point is through safe sex. Telling people to not use protection ensures more death and destruction, fueling the war and should honestly be a war crime. It is beyond irresponsible and insensitive to tell Africans not to use condoms. It is inhuman and criminal.

Seeing what this disease does to humanity, I feel the problem is as much ours and as theirs, and while the West offers assistance, it seems somewhat misguided. The fact of the matter is that it is difficult and uncomfortable, especially for Western countries, to address prevention issues because it means confronting sexual habits and convincing people to change; in other words, trying to alter widespread cultural practices, which sort of reeks of we’re different than you, and oh yeah, we’re also better than you, so be more like us – an attitude the Western aid workers rightfully abhor.

Foreign aid groups advertise their AIDS drugs as being inexpensive, but they usually do not provide the full details on treatment costs and challenges: the testing, counseling, other drugs required to combat infections and reduce treatment side effects, monitoring viral load and adjusting medications as necessary, etc. A few years ago the WHO estimated that it costs $1,500 to prolong the life of an AIDS patient by one year. Again, it is fantastic that the West is providing this treatment, without it there would undoubtedly be more orphans and more misery. But sadly we’ve decided for Africans that it’s easier to give them drugs when they are already sick, than talk to them about sex and condoms while they are healthy. This is dreadful, and not an excuse for not doing more in the name of prevention. If cigarette companies can still convince new smokers to buy their well-known lethal products, surely we can develop PR and community outreach campaigns that alters sexual habits to some degree. Instead foreign aid often ignores this route and privately throws their hand up in the air admonishing African culture as backwards and incorrigible.

In utter honesty, if not political correctness, African sexual practices and attitudes about protection must change to curb the pandemic that is devastating entire families, communities, the continent. Western media has rightfully highlighted the disease’s wreckage and reveals to us cold statistics and facts, but it is difficult to put it into context. Being here and seeing orphan after orphan, hearing of death after death weaves a human story into the abstract threads. I hope in the coming weeks and months to recreate what I witness here, so that you may also have some faces to coincide with the numbers.

As an introduction of what to expect, above is a picture of a woman in Wakisi with some of the grandchildren she looks after. They are standing next to their home and her son’s, their father’s grave. You surely have heard of the plight of AIDS orphans, but the other silent victims are the elderly; ill and frail and forced to look after their grandchildren after watching their own children die.