World AIDS Day

It's World AIDS Day. The story is familiar -- nearly 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide. In sub-saharan Africa, 1 in 16 adults has HIV or AIDS, with the stat in some southern African countries one in THREE. The pandemic in Africa has left children orphaned and raising other children, grandmothers desperate for food.

I was overwhelmed by the story of Africa before... and now that I'm involved in this orphanage project, what I always knew sort of intellectually is a constant source of humility.

I'm now talking several times a week in email and once a week or so on the phone with the director of our orphanage, a surreal hands-on connection to the most other-worldly life imaginable. When Danny and I called her last week, she was in the middle of being questioned by security police from the government who were investigating an adoption that took place from the orphanage. About a third of our children have HIV or AIDS, and their life stories are searing -- babies left in empty buildings in plastic bags. A little boy castrated and left for dead by rebels who killed his parents in front of him. Children living like wild dogs in the streets of villages. Malaria, TB, fear, worry.

And here they are, being fed, going to school, housed, their medical needs being taken care of. Loved by the staff as much as possible and so bizarrely, so uncomfortably but necessarily, by the mezengu -- foreigners -- us -- who show up to fix the showers and beds, buy mosquito nets, figure out how to buy food and pillows and shoes.

Making meaning of the post-colonial discomfort of this project, trying to make this grassroots development that creates a self-sustaining, locally based entity, provides the kids with a healthy, educated upbringing, sets them up as productive members of their communities. All good things, and constantly catching me behind the knees.

These are some of the kids.
This is the breathtaking landscape.

My friend B went to the AIDS conference in Toronto this summer with her now-husband, who's an HIV doctor. It shook her. When she was getting fitted for her wedding dress a week later, two of the Wedding Dress Store Ladies were rabbitting on about the Problem with her hem, the height of her shoes, etc. She suddenly blurted, "THIS is not a problem. You know what a problem is? A grandmother in Africa who has to decide which of her kids gets to eat tonight."

Check out the updates from the UNAIDS website. Donate to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Sponsor one of our kids for a week, month, year. Just pause for a moment and savour the perspective.