Gopi - From an email Carol Faison sent out in 2003. “Two days ago I visited ‘Toti’s Home.’ It is located near the city center, not far from the office, and it is therefore a convenient holding facility for the children we rescue. When they arrive, dirty and disheveled, the runaway children look like little adults. It’s only when a wash and a good meal make them look like children again that you realize how vulnerable they are. The children remain in Toti’s Home as we look for their families and decide where they should go next.

When I last visited Toti’s Home, I found three new arrivals, their heads shaven, dressed in rags: an 8 year old girl, a 7 year old boy, and a little 3 year old - Gopi. So adorable! The three are siblings and have no one to care for them. Both of their parents died of AIDS. In the past months, we have welcomed 40 children to Daddy’s Home - some as young as 2 or 3 years old. Looking at Gopi and his siblings, I thought it was time to give all of them an HIV test. Today, as the testing was going on in Daddy’s Home, I was working in the office. My thoughts were with the children and often wondered what future lay ahead of them.

When the doctor visited Toti’s Home, I went with him because I wanted to be with the children. They lined up quietly. No one cried. The first to be tested was little Gopi. I held him in my arms while the others waited for their turn. I held him tight, praying that he’d be alright - in fact, I knew he had been conceived when his parents were already infected. Gopi remained calm. He smiled. In the meantime, the other children played. It was a dramatic moment, which would have revealed their destiny, but the children looked happy and unaware. The drops of blood that were being drawn were placed in a small dish filled with a chemical solution. The adults in the room stood silently.

Gopi was positive. I cannot describe the pain I felt holding this boy, who is destined to be sick his entire life. I felt pity for his brother and sister, who had already lost their parents and would also one day lose their little brother. I wondered how it would feel to have AIDS in the midst of healthy people who look at you with fear, not with love. All these thoughts and emotions are still with me. I am stunned.”

 

Durga - In February of 2005, a young girl named Durga was brought to the Care+Share office in Vijayawada by a man who had bought her at a bus stop from the little girl’s dying parents years ago. Durga’s parents had since died of an AIDS related illness. She has been HIV positive since birth. When Durga was found to be HIV positive, her adoptive mother ran away with her biological children. Durga’s adoptive father, however, loved her and refused to abandon her. He finally brought the girl to us.

Durga is nine years old. When she arrived at our office she was severely malnourished. Her hair was full of lice and falling out, her teeth were rotting. At first, we didn’t think she could be saved, yet we could tell there was still a good fight left in her. We wanted to help this young girl, but we didn’t know how.

Prior to Durga’s arrival, Care+Share had tested 500 out of over 8,000 children in our program, and had found that 15 children were HIV positive. These children were on a special diet and under constant observation, but none of them had ever been in as bad a condition as Durga. Upon Durga’s arrival, the Care+Share staff knew that this case was different.

Our knowledge of HIV/AIDS was limited - and we had no system in place to handle cases such as hers. Far from being just an isolated case, however, Durga is only the first of a series of similarly desperate cases to end up on our doorstep. According to UNAIDS, Andhra Pradesh, contains 8 out of the 41 AIDS “Hot Spots” - areas where AIDS is on the rise- in India. The facilities to treat and care for AIDS victims are few and inadequate.

Durga has never heard of AIDS. She also doesn’t know that she has taught us more about AIDS than any book, news article, or TV special could ever teach us. She has added a human face to the pandemic we have heard so much about.