A Positive Look at AIDS

AIDS. Just the mere mention of the word brings a variety of images and thoughts to people. Sympathy. Apathy. Maybe disgust. How does that feeling change when it affects someone you know or someone you care about?

I had been in Uganda only 2 weeks when I arrived in Buremba, a small village near the western border with Congo. I was doing one week rotations for a month and a half to better understand the work Samaritan’s Purse is doing in Uganda, before settling down in one place.

The night was just starting its disappearing act on the surrounding mountains as our Nissan pick-up arrived at our office in the hilltop village. Melanie, an American, was there to greet me. But before she could even say hi, a dark small child in her arms screamed “HOW ARE YOU!”-- almost a statement rather than a question. Happy at my unexpected welcome, I quickly grabbed his tiny extended hand, I responded in usual Ugandan fashion, “I’m fine.”

That hand belongs to little Elijah* (name changed), our self-appointed ‘office child’. In his short life he has already experienced a lot of sadness. He was born to a mentally disturbed woman 3 years ago, although looking at his small frame would make you believe he joined this world more recently. One day, when Elijah was about 9 months, his mother was found lying on the side of the road near Buremba. Her little son was clinging to her breast.

She was taken to the small clinic in Buremba, but died shortly after of unknown causes. Even after her death she continued to give life, as Elijah drank the nourishment from her body, deceiving the doctors into thinking she was still alive.

Mentally ill people in Uganda, and generally all over sub-Saharan Africa, do not go to institutions like we are used to in the West. They tend to wander around, getting food from some compassionate person they happen to stumble upon. Elijah’s mom had stumbled upon the village of Buremba, and no one there knew who she was or where she was from. Now, here was this little boy, born to a “mad woman” as Ugandans say, now orphaned with no family.

Luckily, a notably large woman named Mariam happened to be at the clinic that day, and following Ugandan fashion to take in the needy with no questions, decided Elijah should become part of her family. Where else would he go?

Mariam took him into her home, and slowly fed his malnourished body back to good health.

AIDS, and the HIV virus that causes it, have frankly wreaked havoc around the world. It is something that is 100% preventable and treatable (not curable), but yet it affects millions around the world, and continues to infect many more.
It is believed the virus originated from Uganda, or somewhere in central Africa, somehow making its way from apes to humans, maybe through contaminated meat. Yet the first case was found in the US in 1981, believed to have come from Haiti.

Generally, when people think of AIDS, they think of the continent of Africa. A lot of media coverage has surrounded the epidemic of AIDS in Africa, especially with rock concerts and celebrity pictures. And there are many places in sub-Saharan Africa that have high AIDS rates, and are a huge burden on these countries’ economies—for healthcare, for the work not being done because so many infected are in their prime working ages. But AIDS isn’t a problem just in Africa. In fact, there are many countries (like Burkina Faso), where the national HIV rate is actually lower than certain areas of America. And many places in eastern Europe, like Ukraine, are reaching epidemic levels themselves that are at risk of, if not stopped, possibly killing an entire generation.

After finishing my month and a half rotation, I was assigned to come and work at the Household Water Project in Buremba for the remainder of my time here in Uganda. I was very excited at this, as I knew I would be able to spend a lot more time with Elijah. I had gotten close to him in the week that I was there.

Elijah is just one of those kids that seem to steal a little bit of the sunrise’s show every morning. When he sees you, he tries to keep his small mouth from opening wide to reveal the perfect white teeth inside—he knows that when he loses control of his smile, it takes several minutes to get it back. Some kids are just born with the joy of the Lord. Elijah is one of those children. He is honestly the first child that I have known that is sad when a tickle is over, and grabs my hand to his chest when I’ve stopped, so we can have another round of him laughing so hard he forgets to breathe.

When he’s with you, his mere presence makes the worst of days into the best. If a child with a history such as his can be so happy, what is my excuse? When he’s not practicing his English to me and mispronouncing my name as “Jophesy” (I go by Joseph in Uganda), he walks around the area of our office singing the tune to “This is the day that the Lord has made.” A humbling reminder .

You can imagine the dread that spread through me when we realized the possibility of him being infected with HIV. He had been having recurring thrush of the mouth, a common sign of HIV in children. And, with his conception quite possibly being the result of an unprotected rape, there was a good chance he could be infected.

He had never been tested, for obvious reasons. Results can be scary. But Elijah had continually been getting sick, with fevers, and we knew that if he was positive, the best option would be to get him started on treatment as quickly as possible to guarantee a longer, healthier life.

Uganda has been a great example of a country’s responsibility to combat the illness, especially in the developing world. The Ugandan government in recent years has made a big push to get everyone tested. Treatment for those infected is free for life, and a lot is being done to reduce the stigma associated with AIDS patients. In fact, many Ugandans brag about when they got tested, and have no problem revealing their status. Although statistics can often be hard to get, and even harder to understand, due to the work that has been done, the rate of new infections has dramatically dropped, and infected people getting treatment has increased. There is still more room to grow, but it is a start.

I first heard about AIDS in 1991 when Magic Johnson revealed his status and retired from basketball. I remember asking my mom what AIDS was and how one got it. Wondering how to answer this question to a 7-year old, she simply said, “He inappropriately touched some girls.”

As I grew older, I learned more about AIDS, and its effects on poor countries. I learned how it was transmitted, how to prevent it, and that in 2000, there were already 70 HIV-positive people in my home area alone.

I also heard the rhetoric in the church, that AIDS is simply a result of someone’s sin. In America, it was because of all the gays. In African countries, it was because of infidelity. There was a lot of talk about not supporting AIDS, because it was a punishment from God. Why should we support something that is prevented if people control themselves? Most charitable donations for medicine went to diseases that are completely ‘preventable’, like obesity and heart disease. Funny how we turn a blind eye on some of our own problems, huh? In fact, there was very little funding for HIV research until the 21st century, almost 20 years after the first documented case.

As I got older and started to do more research, I learned more about AIDS. I studied it, took classes on it, taught about it in middle schools, but I had never really been around someone with it.

Before moving to Burkina Faso in 2006, the Peace Corps asked me to take an AIDS course run by the American Red Cross. So I signed up and went on a cool spring morning to a classroom of about 13 people.

The teacher walked in shortly thereafter, and we began the class. It was a short class, just a couple hours, but I was shocked and angered by what she said. We had watched a few videos, and then she explained that in order to avoid getting infected, we should avoid all homosexuals and not eat with anyone infected! Seriously!

Well, you can imagine the reaction from the class. We all tried to calmly correct her, and she accepted our corrections, apologetically saying she was just a fill-in teacher. But what shocked me the most was how ignorant she, and so many others can be about the disease. In addition, why does it matter to so many people who others have sex with? We spend so much time hating others for things that are not really our business in the first place, that we continue to spread ignorance about problems like HIV. When we should all have a good understanding of the disease and try to move forward, like Ugandans.


Sex is a topic not discussed in the places it should be, like churches and homes. We avoid talks about sex, as if it doesn’t happen, despite the fact that there are almost 7 billion people in the world. They had to get here somehow, didn’t they? Frankly I think we should take more initiative and learn to talk about the spread of HIV. For example, instead of saying it is spread by bodily fluids (misleading people into thinking this includes spit and sweat), we should not be too immature to say things like semen, vaginal fluid, and blood. Education really is the key to understanding and stopping this problem.

I talked with Elijah’s guardian mother, and we set a date to go get him tested. After failing a couple times, as the local government run clinic is rife with corrupt health staff that often don’t show up for work, we decided to take him to the private clinic. The price for the test -- $2.50.

The walk to the nearby clinic was somber. In fact, I was surprised how easy it was to take him. He showed many of the signs of HIV, and a test would merely let us know what already was. We arrived at the clinic, talked a couple things over with the nurse, and then he took an alcohol swab, cleaned Elijah’s dusty arm, and pricked him with the needle.

Now I know many adults that have a very hard time getting blood drawn. So it must be traumatic for a 3 year old. Elijah immediately started crying and trying with his free hand to pry the nurse’s hand away. We calmed him, and after a few long seconds, they had the blood they needed..

I made Elijah give me our trademark fist bump, and a smile came to his face as the passing dusty wind dried his big tears. They said it would take about an hour to get the results

We walked back to our office with his guardian, and she returned to her nearby restaurant. It was 10:50. I realized the next hour would be the longest hour of my life. We put a band-aid on Elijah’s arm, and then I hopped on my computer and started working. I tried to keep myself distracted, but every time I looked at the clock it just seemed to be going by slower and slower.

11:05…

11:15…

11:20…

Finally, at 11:45, it was time to go. This time, the walk seemed much longer than when we first took him an hour ago. Every step was a step towards the inevitable bad news. A thousand reasons why I should turn around and go back with the easy current of ignorance of his status, but one good reason why I should continue.

Few words were spoken, and we arrived at the clinic. The nurse, Adam, gave us the paper and said the other nurse would be with us shortly. I looked at it. Gibberish, at best, was all I saw. Next to his status was “CHR”. None of us had a clue what that meant.
The other nurse, Innocent (seriously his name), grabbed the paper, looked at us, and said, “Negative.”
“What?” we asked, wanting to make sure that we had heard correctly.
“He’s negative. Elijah is negative, he doesn’t have HIV. Congratulations.”

A wave of emotion swept over me. I had convinced myself so much that he was positive, that it was a huge surprise, albeit pleasant. It was such a huge relief I could barely hold back the inundation of emotions going through my mind. All we could manage to say, was, “Well, that’s good. Praise God!”

You know, I have studied a lot about AIDS, worked on AIDS outreach activities, and known people that are HIV positive. But this is the first time it affected someone I care deeply about. Elijah doesn’t have any real parents, so there are many of us that fill in that void for him. If he had been positive, we would have dealt with it. I don’t know what it’s like to have a loved one infected with the death sentence. And hopefully, I will never have to know. But regardless, millions of people around the world are suffering. Science is working on a cure and a vaccine, but have not yet found either. So in the meantime, we should be educated about this disease, which is not just in Africa.

We need to be smart. And regardless of what people do in the bedroom, AIDS is not a punishment. We all sin. And many people, like children, have nothing to do with their status. There are other ways of getting HIV than sex. And even if it was, all of us struggle in life (hence the aforementioned obesity and heart disease problems in America). Plus, AIDS is everywhere, in every community around the world. Let’s join together to stop this epidemic from continuing to spread.

What the Heck Am I Doing? (Part 2)

(continued after having ‘gone fishing’…)

Later on that evening, another livestock professional, Isaac, joins us, and we travel about an hour and a half to visit a bee farm which is used to harvest honey. In this particular case, Samaritan’s Purse provides 3 Kenyan beehives to a farmer who has met the qualifications, who will use those hives to attract bees, sell honey, and reimburse the price of the hives. Samaritan’s Purse can then take the money and buy 3 new hives to give to someone else, who will then do the same thing. But in order to work with the bees, we have to wait till the sun goes down because the bees are out pollinating in the daytime, and at dusk they are returning, and are too ‘hostile’ if we try to mess with them, so I’m told.

So Isaac, the SP bee expert, explains to me the many fascinating facts about bees. Like, for instance, the queen bee is simply an average female worker bee who has been fed on ‘royal jelly’ since birth, a diet different than given to other female bees, which stay small and live shorter lives. Or like the sad fact that male bees only live to the age of a few months when they can mate with the queen bee. However, the ‘act’ of impregnating the queen bee is, how should I say, quite ‘exhausting’, because they automatically die after the fact. Poor guys.

So after learning all about bees and beehives and the sad life of a male bee, we sit down to eat some jack fruit, something Ugandans say is unique to Uganda (although a quick search on Google says otherwise). The tree itself resembles a cashew tree, but the fruit is huge, about the size of an elongated basketball, and is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s pea green and covered in lumps. But oh the joy of what’s inside! The fruit tastes like a mixture of mango, papaya, and banana. So we peal open the jack fruit and pick through the tofu-like texture and enjoy the heavenly treat. Then, after eating more than we probably should have, we scrub our hands and mouths because of the glue-like residue that is left after eating the fruit.

Then we have to put on our safety suits. You all have seen them, the body-suit with a screen on the face that makes you look like you just stepped off of a space ship. The process starts by putting on the body part of the suit, which has elastics around the ankles and wrists, which will tightly cover the protective gloves and rubber boots I then put on after. I then put on a straw hat, whose purpose is to keep the screen away from my face, and is much too small for my head, and then the hood is zipped up to the screen. The white hood that is now pointing up on all three of us strangely reminds me of a time best forgotten in America’s history. Ironically, I’m in the place where the victims of men in those suits were originally taken from.

“Don’t let the screen touch your face, or the bees will sting right through it!” I’m beginning to, once again, ask myself what the heck I’m doing here. They get the ‘smoker’ ready, which they tell me is used to calm the bees. However, they use dried cow manure as fuel for the smoke. While I have full trust in Isaac and the beekeeper, the last thing in the world that would ever calm me down is the smell of burning cow manure. So we enter the mud, chicken wire and tin roof structure where the noisy bees are all getting tucked in for the night. Isaac starts to ‘smoke’ the first hive, and the surprisingly non-manure smelling smoke instantly surrounds us, stinging my throat but not making me cough, reminding me of the time much earlier in my life when I tried a cigarette for the first time.

My job is to hold the cell phone, which has a small flashlight on the end (one of the greatest ideas ever, Nokia, we should have that in America!) so that the two others can do their work. The beekeeper opens up the tin lid of the first wooden hive, and instantly the bees get really angry, slightly ‘calm’ from the smoke, or so I’m told. But they immediately start flying around us, and landing on my face screen. Now, I have been stung many times in my life, the product of growing up in the country and my parents (rightfully so) not letting us play much Nintendo or watch much TV. I’m not too afraid of bees, or so I thought. Until they start landing on the screen on my face and surrounding all three of us with their noisy wings. All of a sudden I don’t have as much confidence in my suit, and all I can think about is trying to keep my big nose from touching the screen. Getting stung on your ankle or arm is one thing, getting stung on your nose is another.

As Isaac continues to spread cow manure particles in the air, I take a look inside the hive, expecting something very intricate, with colors and mazes. It’s quite simple, though. It’s just a row of about 15 honeycombs exactly the same width apart. Lifting out one of the combs, the beekeeper takes a paintbrush and brushes the bees off the comb to take a closer look at it. He shows me how to see if the honey is ready or not, by the color of the wax coating on the comb. He then pulls out a few more, and I look inside.

Isaac tells me that no matter how hard you try, you can never find the queen. The other bees hide her really well. They don’t want to lose the life source of the hive. Although, if she is attacked by a ‘spy’ bee from another hive, it only takes 3 days to make a new queen apparently. Talk about quick turnover.

Now, I have to be honest, I’m really trying to figure out how I got myself into this mess by this point. I’m told my suit will protect me, but I have thousands of bees angrily flying around me trying to figure out how to sneak into my suit and ambush me. Despite the nylon material of the suit, the bees can somehow stick to it, mainly accumulating around my butt. The beekeeper says they are attracted to human pheromones, naturally coming out of the butt. I try to find the humor in this, but there are literally a hundred bees clinging on to dear life in a region of my body where, let’s just say, a sting would really hurt. So I tell myself I will laugh about it later.

With his cow dung apparatus in hand, Isaac says, “Can I smoke you?”

“I don’t know, can you?” I ask him.

If he sprays the cow dung smoke at my butt, the bees will dissipate, he says. So he sprays the cow manure smoke at my rear. Talk about what goes around, comes around!

We move to another hive, and look at three more, as the beekeeper observes the bees and harvests honey, with nothing more than a tiny flashlight on the end of a Nokia phone. After we are done with that, we move outside and inspect the combs that we have taken off. We still keep our suits on. I have seen pictures of people working with hives, and after watching “The Secret Life of Bees” with my mom a few months ago, I have been even more interested in trying this out. And now that I have, all I can think about is how I’m ready to take this racist deathtrap spacesuit off of me and run away. But I can’t, just yet, as the beekeeper asks me to hold the little light as he inspects the honeycombs before we can leave. After that is done, Isaac smokes us all again. And then we take turns using avocado branches and a paintbrush to wipe off the bees still clinging to our hindquarters, among other places.

As we start to walk away, it sounds to me like a bee is inside my suit. I think to myself I must be going crazy. Surely this spaceman outfit is bee-proof. Then I see it, the brave little soul, on the inside of my face mask right above my right eye. Talk about panic. I take my hands and squish him, praying I kill him with my over sized gloves without letting him sting me in the face.

Then I hear the same sound again! And then I see it, the dead bee’s best friend, that little follower! So he suffers the same fate. By this time, I am hollering at Isaac that I have bees on the inside of my suit. Who knows how many?!? My heart is beating like a racehorse as I know that the bees will all sting me at once in some organized conspiracy.

“Hang on, let me come unzip you!” The way these suits are made, they are zipped and unzipped from the outside. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t about to rip it off in some Hulk Hogan-like charade. But Isaac comes and unzips me and I am out of that suit in no time!

WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING HERE?!?!

I counted at least 10 little buggers flying around the inside of my suit. I have no idea how I didn’t get stung. But I can say that working with bees is not something I feel God has called me to do as a lifelong career.

We take off all our gloves and things. Somehow I seem to be the only one lucky enough to have gotten intimate with the bees. After a few minutes, Isaac calls me over.

Through Isaac’s translating, the beekeeper hands me a honeycomb and tells me to enjoy! I know this is a sacrifice for him, as honey is expensive and he will be able to sell it for a hefty profit. But he is thankful for my coming and helping him, and wants me to share in the spoils. I take the sticky, drippy honeycomb and put it in my mouth. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was one of the most amazing tastes I have ever had. Fresh from the hive! And all made possible because of a small loan. Because it is so sweet, I cannot finish my portion. So the beekeeper tears off a large banana leaf and wraps up the rest for me to take with me.

This is why I’ve come here, this is why I risk being attacked by angry bees. This man is happy, and able to supplement his income, and is so grateful that he is sharing his profit with me.

As we get in the truck and drive away, the cool air bringing with it drowsiness, Isaac speaks up and tells me to be careful. The bees can cling to the inside of my clothes, unknowingly to me, and sleep for a while. Even after an hour and a half drive, they can wake up and sting me!

The joy starts to fade away as I again ask myself the question that has been plaguing me all day. Until the honeycomb starts to leak out of the banana leaf onto my hand and I get to taste again the sweetness of my work.

Cory Fish

Samaritan's Purse

P.O. Box 21810

Kampala, UGANDA

P.S. Happy Birthday to my Mom on June 29!