World AIDS Day

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day. It is no day of celebration for me. I remember my best friend dying of it 7 years ago, and my heart still aches. I see the children with eyes yellowed by the disease, a headmaster shriveling away under my gaze and I pray that some people will remember that AIDS is not over. So many here in the U.S don't think about it, don't see it. People are living longer, getting better medications, but folks still don't want to talk about it too much.
The headmaster at the rural school in Kenya reeked of AIDS 5 years ago:I knew just by
looking at him. No one wanted to talk about it, no one would let me talk to him. I would have supported his medication...but no, no one not even the headmaster himself would allow the help. That to me is the greatest part of the heartbreak with AIDS. Just like here in the 80's and 90's we couldn't talk about it. In Africa to go get a test means infidelity, which of course is real and happens "in the best of families". But it seems that folks would rather die than talk about the consequences.

So this World AIDS Day, talk about it. To my African friends, speak out, speak up. I'm looking forward to the day we don't have to have World AIDS Day!