I have to go back and look after her, but I cannot without the medication. Please help me to go back and spent my last years, not days, with my son and family. It hurts too much thinking about what my child's future would be like without me, it is every mother's nightmare. Please allow us to have access to the treatment drug so we can raise our children a little longer and not leave them as orphans. This is the cry of every poor mother infected with the disease.
Orphanages can only do so much.
Traditionally, when a mother dies, her children are raised by her relatives, but the intensity of which the AIDS epidemic has increased deaths of mothers combined with the frail economies, makes this practice difficult to maintain. We cannot explain exactly what it is means. But it speaks of about humanness, gentleness, and hospitality, putting yourself out on the behalf of others, being vulnerable. It recognizes that my humanity is bound in yours, for we can only be humans together. The effects of the AIDS epidemic in Malawi, like all other poor nations is worse than you can even begin to imagine.