Amy.Gress

It is fairly easy to slip into the belief that because the virus that causes AIDS is transmitted through sexual relations, acquiring AIDS is primarily the result of choice. AIDS victims chose to engage in unnecessarily risky behavior. Sometimes, that’s true. Oftentimes, however, the factors contributing to that risky decision are much more complex than a disinterested observer might at first assume. For millions of HIV victims around the world, and for HIV+ women in particular, putting oneself at risk is anything but voluntary. Even if HIV were harmless, women’s lack of cultural power throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV+ population density is far higher than anywhere else in [...]

For more than 30 million adults around the world, carrying HIV is an onerous burden. Maybe they know that inside them there is something lethal lying dormant, waiting—and maybe they don’t. But when HIV manifests as AIDS, half of these victims won’t have access to the proper treatment for it, and they will probably die. The economic, physical, and emotional strain of living with AIDS is incredibly wearing, and adults around the world suffer under that burden. But for a lot of unfair reasons, the plight of children with AIDS is worse. First of all, many of them are born straight into treatment. If the pregnant mother has not been [...]

July 13, 2012 –Coronation, Zimbabwe They gave me this mat Eight hours of driving. Two hours of workshops. Two large cabbages. Eight kilos of chicken. Two kilos of tomatoes. Two kilos of onions. Six kilos of rice. One mat. Twenty grandmothers and grandfathers. Eleven songs. A million smiles. If I had to state my day in numbers, the above would be the sum of it. Ncube, Q and I head out of Bulawayo at 6:00am and stop in Masvingo to purchase food for our workshop before driving the last 20k to Coronation. This is where we delivered sixty goats a few weeks ago and I am excited to be back. [...]

July 11, 2012 Juju has been pretty good at doing summer school work while we are here in Zimbabwe that I told her that I'd treat her to something special if she continued using her best handwriting, not complaining and worked hard at her numbers. She complied and has been a great student during her homework times (ie when her mother needs a break from the million questions that come out of her mouth). When she wakes up today, I tell her that we are going to get her hair braided. You'd have thought she'd been promised a trip to the moon! Her smile is huge and all morning long, [...]

July 8, 2012 Today we visit Piet and Anike, a couple from Holland who’ve been living in Zimbabwe for 32 years. They graciously invite us to their house for lunch after church and we arrive excited to make new friends. Anike is a gracious host, presenting us with a delicious stew and rice meal, salad and a dessert of yogurt and stewed fruit. It is so nice! Homemade wine and guava juice completes a delicious meal where conversation flows easily and where the kids don’t feel like they have to sit still the entire time. After lunch, we talk and the little ones scamper off to play in the sand [...]

Ever wondered just how big the global AIDS problem is? Let’s see if we can give a little quantitative scope to this planet-wide pandemic. Right now, 34 million people are living with HIV. Most of them—22.9 million—are in Africa, the continent from which the disease originated. 9 African countries suffer from a prevalence rate greater than 10 percent. One in ten carries HIV. Of those 9 countries, 3 are especially devastated. Though South Africa has the greatest total number of victims in the world, with 5.6 million South Africans (17.8%) infected with HIV, 24.8% of Botswana’s population has the virus. Regionally, Southern Africa is the hottest hot spot, Eastern Africa [...]

July 4, 2012 The car horn gets me moving quickly and I grab my water bottle on my way out the door. Q and I are going a couple of hours away to conduct a chicken training to a group of grandma's who are caring for orphans. Along the way, we talk about many things: the role of women in Zimbabwean society, life during the colonial days, what sort of foods are eaten here which I haven't had yet (worms, field mice, etc), Hwange National Park, Victoria Falls, the price of food and how it is changing the face of poverty, Lassie, scary-looking dogs, etc, etc. We sit under an [...]

June 29, 2012 - Mahwanke, Zimbabwe     While Juju convinces Aiden that she can carry him like African women carry their babies, I prepare for a day in the field:       Water bottle. Snack. Sunglasses. Paper and pen. Camera. Toilet paper I am on the road again. This time, I am on my way to Mahwanke with Shungu (monitoring and evaluation guy) and Q to distribute 32 goats to some elderly Go-gos (grandmothers) in the middle of nowhere. We talk easily as now-familiar scenery flashes by the side windows of the car. I don't lift up my camera when a troop of baboons cross my path or [...]

One of the worst things about AIDS is that it’s not just a disease. It’s not just a biological phenomenon. It’s a degrading status symbol. Around the world, AIDS is associated with degenerate morality and shame. Once you have it, it becomes an unwanted social marker if you tell and a death sentence if you don’t—and all too often, it is both. The phrase ‘insult to injury’ could never has been more apt. HIV comes with a terrible weight on the victim’s shoulders—not just because knowing that something lethal lives inside you puts an ominous feeling in the pit of your stomach, but because you now have a humiliating social [...]

June 28, 2012 - Bulawayo, Zimbabwe     Cows in Riverbed     Water is such an immense issue, isn't it? Where I am right this instant, in Bulawayo, water is scarse. Not as scarse as outside of the city, though, where we drive by countless dry riverbeds, all full of sand and the hoofprints of horses and the footprints of other animals. I don't know where animals and people go to find water, but am told it can be 20 kilometers for a person to get water. When they arrive at the water hole, the creek bed, the borehole, the well, they take time to get their water and [...]