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January 30, 2005, Our Good Friend, Sibusiso, by Jim

Our Good Friend, Sibusiso.

We first met Sibusiso on about January 10th, 2004 at the Reichenau Mission. Four young men from Ndawana were there for a WLTP course, and Zanele introduced us to them. The next week we met Chief Zala for the first time, in the company of Zanele, and he and Zanele created a six person team from Ndawana for us to work with. One of the team was Sibusiso.

Sibusiso, at 34, was the oldest member of the team from Ndawana, until Matukiso, 40, later joined. Sibu has a lovely bass voice, which we have heard many times in Ndawana and at our house at Douglas Drift. If you have seen our video, Sibu is the man who says that in his vision he can see tourists climbing the mountain named for his ancestor. That video was made in May of last year.

We rely on Sibusiso for insights about people and things. He has a lot of experience at life, and he shares that willingly. He is married, and his wife had a baby in October, their first, though two earlier babies were stillborn. It is the custom here for the mother to give birth away from her home, and many of us visited her and their baby at the farm where she was staying.

Several weeks ago we first noticed that Sibu was looking very thin and tired, and seemed unable to concentrate. We wondered about AIDS, but he said over and over that he knew he was negative. Very soon he became weak, his voice slurred, his face puffy. We had to help him to stand, and Chris and I took him home to get some things so we could take him to the doctor in Underberg. The doctor sent him to St. Appolinaris hospital in Centocow (two hours from Ndawana), and told us that she felt sure he had RVD (the local name for HIV). That hospital sent him home without treatment, but some of his family found transportation to send him to the hospital in Kokstad (two hours in the other direction). There, reports said he wasn’t being treated, wasn’t eating and couldn’t talk. Mthunzie took the family to Kokstad and brought Sibu home.

Sibusiso doesn’t know his family, is essentially unconscious, has edema all over his body, his brain seems to be swollen, he screams out if he is touched, and he doesn’t talk. He is down to 90 pounds.

Sibusiso is a man we love, a man who must have been HIV positive for years. He has a young wife who probably is positive. He has a young baby who probably is positive. It would seem he can’t live much longer. AIDS doesn’t get much closer to you than that.

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