Ahh the things we take for granted...toilet paper, clean water, electricity, and of course, Internet access. I've been lucky enough to have all four of these things throughout most of my travels. [Interesting fact: toilet paper was a convenience item that was rarely found in public restrooms in the Philippines several years ago. It is now available in single square dispensers everywhere, thank goodness.] But I have now come to a road block. Internet access.
I'm typing up this blog in TextEdit at the Cape Town domestic airport where my flight is delayed by 4 hours, in anticipation of posting this sometime over the next week. I'm headed to Durban and Kwazulu-Natal, where I'll get a much richer experience of the Africa that is painted in stateside pictures as more provincial and struggling. Kwazulu Natal has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS than any other area of South Africa - I believe it is around 70%.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is really different up close. Here in Africa, it is banded with poverty, low levels of formal education, stigma, burden, despair, racism, sexism, desensitization, fear, struggle, strength, hope, the audacity of optimism, and strands of support. It is embodied in the faces and names of fathers, mothers, sisters, uncles, first borns, newborns, neighbors, friends, and communities. You see it everywhere, yet it is nowhere.
Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) is still under resourced, and there are many people who do not care to know their status, or even their child's status. ARV's are becoming more widely available, but there still isn't enough - especially in the rural areas. And in some of the most impoverished communities, ARV's are sold on the streets and then converted into drugs for substance abusers to find a quick high.
It is such a dynamic epidemic, a terrible ravaging disease that seems to prey on some of the least likely of victims - passionate, caring, creative, beautiful people.
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