During a six-month fellowship in Uganda, I learned that Anna Maria's situation is not unique. I was prepared to see the victims' suffering. But I hadn't considered how devastating AIDS is for the survivors. This small East African country has no formal structure to address such a crisis, so thousands of orphans are in need of support. I saw orphan girls working as house servants and orphan boys working the fields while the family's biological children went to school.
Some orphans opt to support themselves and their siblings, eking out a living on their own.
Anna Maria has chosen this path. But when her mother became too ill to run the canteen where she sold food for a living, Anna Maria got scared. Mommy was counting on me, and I didn't know what to do. Many young people like Anna Maria wind up on the street begging for money and digging through garbage bins for food. Not every Ugandan orphan's story has to end this way.