Aids orphans....
Yesterday my housekeeper lost her sister-in-law, age 37, to Aids. A mother of a 17 and 12 year old... DEAD because of AIDS!
And this is not an uncommon story here... SADLY this happens way too often.
Almost everybody who has a housekeeper knows or lost a family member to Aids.
And this sister-in-law was not only supporting her own children, but also the children of another family member who died of Aids, so now 5 children are without a support system.... without a mother, or auntie to take care of them!!
TRAGIC!!
The numbers are staggering, but you know what... NOBODY talks about it. It is a secret that her sister-in-law died of Aids... they tell everybody she had fluid in her liver and that's how she died.
There is no proper care of medication for a LOT of people in South Africa or the other African countries.
But what I don't understand is that everybody keeps it a secret... so the guy who infected her, goes around sleeping with his wife and other women and infecting everybody around him by doing that. But nobody will say anything!!
CRAZY!!
And yes, I understand the privacy, and that it is not allowed to make public the HIV status of somebody. But how can we help this nation with its oblivious knowledge about this disease! Where using a condom is still not MACHO and most women don't have even the courage to ask their husbands or boyfriends to use one... how in the world will this ever change??
KNOWLEDGE, first of all they have to start educating the population, because there is still a lot of confusion around here in this continent about Aids, how you get infected, how to treat it... they don't know!!
SAD!!
Mireille xx
1 comment:
That really is tragic. Hard to imagine they would keep it a secret, but then, it's a different world with different customs than we are used to. I guess the women are afraid to speak up. Such a horrible shame. :-(
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