AIDS, we've all heard about it, but what do we really know?  In school we're forced to study the symptoms, the virus, the way it's spread, the facts and myths...we know everything theoretically.  But what about the human element?  I have only one experience, but it changed my outlook completely.

So litlle cheerful, 14-year old Carlien decided to go on an outreach with her friend and her church - no biggie right?  WRONG!!  We did a lot of things in that month, but there is only one thing I can remember as if it happened yesterday.

We decided to go to Helen Joseph Hospital, and pray for the patients over there.  When we got there, I was shocked at the condition this hospital was forced to maintain.  We spoke to the nurses and well, they seemed a bit hopeless.  We spoke to the patients, and they were even less convinced of a solution.  But, we decided to bring whatever cheer we could to the place, which was hard, as even the men were emotional about the suffering.  We pulled ourselves together and split up.  The boys all got dressed up in clown suites and went off in search of some kids to entertain, the priest and youth leaders all worked with the staff, and the rest of us split up to go talk to the patients.  Looking back, I think it would've been easier to have a friend with me, but I chose to go alone into the rooms.  Sometimes I got a warm welcome, sometimes I was thrown out, sometimes...I had to leave the rooms, because I couldn't cope with what these people were going through.  After one particularly excrutiating ordeal of a woman, I decided to take a walk around the hospital and blow off some steam.  After a while, I began to sing (yes, sing) because, the corridors were empty and dreary and, well, scary!  I soon found myself in the middle of nowhere and close to the time I had to meet up with the rest.  I decided to go into one last room, and get some directions while I'm at it. 

I entered the room, it must have been after lunchtime, because the tray was still there, a little girl happily munching away on chocolate pudding.  But the rest of the family was crowded around the bed.  There stood a woman, barely thirty, with her daughter, roughly my age at the time, crying softly.  They were holding the hands of a man.  The thought still gives me goosebumps.  I decided not to turn away and went closer to them.  I think it must have been strange for them, this young white girl approaching them, things like that rarely happens in a place like that.  Anyway, I introduced myself and told them I was here to pray for them.  The woman started smiling through her tears and invited me to stand at the opposite end of the bed.  She told me she didn't speak English very well, but we understood each other well enough.  I asked her if she wouldn't mind telling me the man's name - don't even try and ask me to repeat it - I looked at him and asked what was wrong with him.  He was faced away, trying voicelessly to speak.  His wife took hold of what was left of what must've been a strong arm once.  She looked at me and said:  "He's got the Sickness"  It took me a while to realize that these people are so afraid of AIDS, that they can't even call it by it's name. 

So I tried to pull myself together, and took the man's hand to pray for him.  His hand were big and rough, looked like a miner's hands...but they were wraithlike, the long fingers stripped of all flesh, the bones covered with his rough, blistered skin.  His fingernails were long and yellowed, rock hard and bulging.  The feel of this man's hand frightened me more than anything I've seen up to that point.  I started praying, as we prayed, the woman cried, I was so scared and the man was shaking, as if he was summoning the last bit of his strength to hold my hand. 

When we said Amen and the woman thanked me, the man struggled to mumble something, he was out of breath, and he was trying urgently to talk.  Not being able to, he turned his head and faced me for the first time.  His desolate eyes bore right into me, a mixture of blame and thanks.  Thank you, for doing something, but at the same time, why didn't you do it sooner?  That sight has been etched into my memory.  His big, once-muscular and maybe handsome face,  wore no resemblence to his old self - the girl eating the pudding didn't recognise him.  With the flesh eaten away, his skin tightly pulled over the contours of his skull, his big yellowing eyes, popping out of the once plump sockets.  This man was dying.

I excused myself and walked out of the room, needing to be alone for a moment.  I bumped into one of the nurses, who was making her rounds.  I asked her about the man.  She told me that he had AIDS and so did his entire family.  Each one of them, having to meet the same fate he did, only hours after I met him.  She told me that he was one of the lucky ones, he didn't have too suffer much.  I didn't know how to react to that, I saw more suffering in that room than I could have ever imagined to must endure...but he was one of the lucky ones.

AIDS is a very very dark reality we face.  Most believe it has nothing to do with them, that those who has it, got it by being stupid.  This is not true, at least not in my country, and the rest of Africa I'm sure.  47% of all AIDS victims are women.  In Africa it's 62%, most women don't have a say in the matter.  Everyday over 6 000 people get infected with HIV and in Africa, more than 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.  They didn't choose this, but the recieved it.  They can't help themselves, but can't ask us for help either.  We need to step it up, do something to get those ARV's to those who need them most, save those we can, and comfort those we can't.

AIDS doesn't live in the textbooks we read, AIDS is all around you, or haven't you realized?