Revisiting Mbabane and Baylor

Sylvia and me outside her newly-finished counseling office

Sylvia, me and Nana at Mbabane ART center

Emailed by Tamsin Smith in Swaziland

Spent the morning at the Mbabane ART center with Dr. Patrick and Sylvia, who we met back in May (click here to read blogs from May). Sylvia's finished construction on the structure in her backyard that she was building to serve as a mini-counseling room and sewing space for the neighbors and friends that visit her at the Hope Heals group that she formed to give others with HIV a comfortable space to talk and share. After reporting on this good news, I asked after her health. Sylvia is glowing. She's wearing glasses and sporting dreadlocks these days. She looks beautiful – ten years younger and full of sparkle. But, she tells me, she's been quite ill with a concern completely unrelated to her HIV-positive status. She needs tests and possibly an operation and ongoing treatment. The doctors at the public hospital where she counsels clients have offered her care. She is grateful yet worried that if any of her clients see her getting treatment, they will worry that AIDS is the cause and could give up hope. Such is her influence as a source of strength for this community, that sadly, she's probably right. No easy answer here. If St. Francis walks among us, he's wearing Sylvia's shoes...

At the Baylor pediatric AIDS clinic, we see more familiar faces – Sibonelo, Lulu, Thembe, and several of the American doctors, two of whom are married and expecting their first child any day. The dad to be, David from Texas, tells us he's just returned from a weekly site visit to a rural clinic, where he and local doctors are counseling HIV-positive women on how to prevent transmission of the disease to their children both during childbirth and through nursing. In a short time, transmission rates have dropped from over 50 percent to roughly 10 percent. A big success and a testament to what the availability of medicine and information can yield.

Lulu's doing wonderfully well. We've been showing off a box of cards from the newest (RED) partner Hallmark, and I can report that (RED)'s shareholders in Swaziland – Lulu, Sylvia and the tens of thousands of families impacted by HIV in this small country – approve.

We see progress all around us, but this remains the nation with the highest HIV infection rate in the world. Thirty-nine percent infected. It's a staggering number for a population of 1.1 million. Being back here, I think how powerful a notion it is that someone sending a Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED card from Cleveland to Boston connects an individual in Swaziland with the medicine he or she needs to stay alive. How powerful, how urgent, and how important.

Tamsin