28 Stories of AIDS in Africa

Author: Stephanie Nolen
Subject: Africa, AIDS
My rating: 5*

Book's website: click here
Author's website: click here

About the book:
This is a magnificent book. There are 28 stories about how AIDS affected the lives of the people the author interviewed in Africa: from a teenage girl raising her brother all by herself, to Nelson Mandela; a doctor, an artist, a grandmother...The stories are evoked beautifully, capturing all the suffering but also the joy and hope in face of adversity. Inspiring tales of survival and growth, all leading to our impotence to change the ugliness of our materialistic world, where pharmaceutical companies and governments try to ignore the facts and the lives harmed by AIDS. This book is courageously written, with a sense of urgency, asking us all in the face what we have done lately. Absolutely powerful.

From the book:
"In spite of all that', he said about the black-consciousness rhetoric then emerging, 'you had in the back of your head that literature, wherever it comes from, is the great liberator. It offered a different way of thinking- someone like Oscar Wilde would say things that were applicable even though he was talking about another environment."

"The most valuable thing that you can do to fight the AIDS pandemic in Africa is talk about it. There has, in the past year or two, been a swell of interest at a grassroots level, and international stars and philanthropists have taken up the cause. But the crisis continues to fail to draw the political and financial response it merits because too few people outside Africa yet understand or care about the issue. Volunteering in Africa can be a fantastic experience for volunteers, but often a less than terrific one for the project or community they join.However well intentioned, volunteers from abroad can be a drain on the communities they go to help: if they don't speak the language, they cannot assist with education or AIDS awareness, and usually they don't have the particular skills that are needed (for the perfectly good reason that they rarely need such skills in their home countries: when was the last time you dug a borehole?) If you are a physician, nurse, midwife or pharmacist with expertise in AIDS care, then many African governments may be glad to have you. But otherwise, likely the most useful thing you can do is education and advocacy work at home. "