Caroline had dark spots all over her arms and her lips were peeling with sores. We called her to us and held her hands in ours. How long had she had this condition? The family handed us her health record, full of three years of chronic diarhea, weight loss, fatigue, vomiting, malaria, and lesions. For us, the world was no longer full of nameless faces suffering behind the
silence of photographs. The world was full of Carolines. Carolines with HIV.

We were angry to learn that after three years of suffering, no doctor had ordered an HIV test so Caroline could start receiving anti-retroviral drugs (treatment). We couldn't believe that Caroline's own mother denied the seriousness of her daughter's condition, saying, "She'll be getting fine very soon." And when we discussed the great likelihood (in our experience, certainty) of Caroline being HIV+, her grandmother quickly dismissed the notion, saying, "No, not our Caroline." In Africa, people do not deny theexistence of HIV, but they often deny the personal connection. The result? People suffer in silence.

In Caroline's family, three generations are infected with HIV- Caroline, her parents (her father already passed away from "skin cancer" -lesions from the virus), and her grandfather and likely her grandmother as well. Though we do not know how Caroline's parents acquired the disease, we do know that her grandfather became positive from being unfaithful to his spouse.

It is rare to find a nine-year-old living with HIV. Generally children born with this virus only live a few years. There are currently 2 million Carolines who inherited HIV from their parents. Two million Carolines that are too weak to walk to school. Two million Carolines that cannot play ball with their friends. Two million Carolines that have to watch their bodies wither to nothing. That's two million too many.