Rock music is blaring on loud speakers throughout the AIDS orphanage compound ten miles outside Kenyaís bustling major city of Nairobi.  Soon hundreds of teens will be arriving on rusting buses for a Sunday of mass, entertainment, and a talk on sex and AIDS by Dr. John from America.  Here in the guarded property with its flowering bourgainvaillias, are eight small cottages for 70 children and a few young teens, living with HIV/AIDS.  Young children are helping to get younger ones ready and the house mothers make sure all are fed the daily nutritious porridge.  Behind the dusty playground, just beyond the duck house and near the goat pen, is a secluded area where a mound of red dirt covers a new grave.  Simple, bleached crosses tell of young souls with names and dates like "Benjamin, 1/1/99 ­ 5/3/2000."  A little voice says to Dr. John, "This is my friend," as she holds his hand tightly and tugs to go.

Only a very few children here grow into adolescence -- most never survive their first five years.  In some special cases, babies who are born HIV-positive and later revert to negative status are put up for adoption. Why this phenomenon occurs is not well understood but it is a rare scientific fact.  Despite billions of dollars spent, scientists are still years away from finding a cure or producing a vaccine.

On this Sunday, A Dutch couple arrive to finalize the papers for taking a girl baby back to Amsterdam.  There are tearful goodbyes from the staff and volunteer helpers, many who come from foreign countries. Agnes, a Kenyan with a masters in economics, helps prepare a communal lunch in the small kitchen.  Jumping off their bus, the young men of Don Bosco Home for Street Boys are ready to sing ­ as they do each Sunday.  Some of the boys volunteer their free time to help Dr. John in his AIDS missionary work. Jack, a young and dedicated house father, and Denis, an eighteen year-old boy living with HIV, set up chairs under a colorful panoply for the assembling crowd.  Denisí twin brother died four years earlier and his younger sister died soon thereafter.  His mother had unknowingly given them HIV/AIDS at birth.  Denis eagerly joins Dr. John in his street outreach in and around Nairobi, talking with strangers about AIDS prevention.  His white smile is HUGE.  

Unfortunately, most of these young children die of AIDS, some over protracted lengths of time, others quickly after sudden illnesses.  Then other HIV-positive babies, many abandoned by frightened mothers at local hospitals, are brought to the orphanage.  Some reports suggest one out of four Kenyans are HIV positive -- and donít know it -- because few are ever tested and you canít see "HIV."  But at the orphanage, where every child is loved and cared for, AIDS is in your face and every young life is valued.

South Africa: A Short Report

Durban will be forever be imbedded in my mind with wonderful memories of its youth who walked with me to warn their peers about HIV/AIDS.  Lloyd (18) and Gugu (22) are friends who volunteered their time as part of the red-shirted conference crew.  I spoke at their church youth meeting in the black township of Umlazi and they have become active PeerCorps workers.  Nolan, an 18 year-old who assisted the Conference photographers, as did Aurelia, 15, invited me to speak in their respective schools and share the delights of Indian curry at Nolanís parentís house.  Michael (23) and Christopher (16) took me through their mixed-race township of Wentworth to meet youth after first speaking to their churchís youth group the night before.  Siblings Lee (17) and Stacey (13) invited me to meet their schoolmates after a poolside discussion with David, Damien and Steve in the upscale, white neighborhood of Westville.  Faith, a 31 year-old single mother of one and newspaper reporter, escorted me to Banbanyi, a squatter camp north of Durban after doing a story about my global walk coming to South Africa.

"Mohammed, a 15 year-old from Johannesburg in town to help his granny at her small restaurant, spoke of the need to inform his soccer buddies about HIV.  There were the young Afrikaner sailors, Marc and Sakel, interested in learning the facts about the sexual transmission of HIV to tell their fellow seamen before their training cruise to Capetown.  And Pamela and Princess  (both 17) who gave up their window-shopping at the Umlazi Center to hear about AIDS to tell their girlfriends.  Ayanda (19) and Tambeso (19), security guards at the conference, took me to their Zulu township of Kwa-Mashu; while surfers Collin and Glendell brought me to their working class, white neighborhood of Austerville.  Msizi, 21 and underemployed, was my guide to the Zulu homelands in the countryside hundreds of kilometers north of Maritzburg and Greytown.  I wanted to bring all of these great young people together as a team in their neighborhoods but it wasnít to be this year in South Africa.  But we all gathered together for a pizza and coke party at North Beach before I left.  Eighteen year olds Barry and Pierre, the youth mayor of Durban, are keeping the group together and speaking at area schools." 

USA:
Romeo and Juliet of AIDS

Karen was a beautiful high school senior when she got this horrible news: "Karen, you have tested positive for HIV.  You have AIDS."  Within hours, she had broken off her engagement and dropped out of school.  When she confided in her three best friends, two of them immediately walked out of her life.  Betrayed by her fiancé and close friends, Karen sank into a deep depression.  She couldn't tell her parents.  One night she attempted suicide but her father rushed her to the hospital in the nick of time.  For many months she languished, convinced that she was going to die... until she discovered that schools wanted young people living with HIV to talk to their students.  So began her first and last job, educating teens about AIDS.  After discussing the facts, she concluded her remarks by announcing, "I have AIDS.  Do you have any questions."  Young audiences were startled -- here was a peer with AIDS! 

Many admired her courage in talking so honestly with strangers, including one young man who began faithfully attending her talks.  He drove her to events and a great friendship developed... until one night, he pulled the car off the road and turned to talk to Karen.  He stammered and said, "I'm in love with you.  I want to marry you."  She was dumbstruck and said rudely, "Are you crazy?  You can't be in love with me because I've got AIDS and I'm going to die.  Why are you saying this?"  Her friend softly said, "I'd rather have you in my life for five years, than not at all."  They were married that year.  Their house was filled with cats -- she didn't want to risk giving AIDS to a baby.  He continued driving Karen to her speaking engagements until she became too sick to leave the house.  He had Karen in his life for almost four years.  Telling her story in schools, she saved many teens from infection and an early death.

Cambodia:

Children sold to Neighbors in Attempt to Buy AIDS Cure

Dr. Chittick has stated that Cambodia was on of the most emotionally draining experiences of his life.  During March, while walking in this poverty-strickened country, he lived and worked in remote areas until recently held by the remnants of Pol Potís Khmer Rouge forces.  "The infamous killing fields are still visible where mounds of bodies lay barely buried," he said sadly, "But tragically, the countryside is also the home of the fastest growing youth AIDS epidemic in the world."

Having lost a fifth of it total population over the last 25 years to war, famine, and intra-genocide, the Khmer people now appear "shell-shocked" by the realization that their young sons and daughters are dying from a mysterious enemy that no one can see.  Accompanied by local PeerCorps trainees who act as interpreters and outreach volunteers, Dr. John met with young people dying of AIDS in every village and urban neighborhood he visited.  "I have never before witnessed an epidemic of this magnitude in all my travels," he remarked.

In Phnom Penh, Cambodiaís capital city, Chittick took youth volunteers on the rounds of hospitals treating AIDS patients close to death.  "Amazingly, in one hospital we visited, doctors and nurses refused to assist the dying patients.  They said there was no medicine so it was better to let them die...I met many wonderful young people who were all alone and afraid.  Most were without any family support.  It was sad but I would tell them, "You are a good person - you must believe that.  A mistake has been made and you have AIDS.  But there are people who love you."

The PeerCorps teens accompanying Dr. John "saw" the reality of AIDS that has impacted on their young, impressionable lives.  The volunteers sat with the patients, held their hands, and eve changed their soiled sheets.  PeerCorps members are told that a person canít get HIV/AIDS from touching as HIV is transmitted by blood-to-blood contact only.  Two youth volunteers, Chavelith and Thi, took Dr. John to the homes of young people with full-blown AIDS.  At one home, a young mother of 26, covered with sores and coughing deeply, held her listless daughter in her arms.  The motherís only wish was that the child would die before her so she would not have to worry about her babyís bleak future as an unwanted AIDS orphan.  

Youth prostitution is thriving in Cambodiaís corrupt and violent society.  Police and military personnel run many or the brothels.  Young sex workers told Dr. John that girls could be killed if they refused clients who didnít want to use condoms.  "Only then did I understand why the older girls inside the brothels didnít want the younger ones to hear me talk about condoms," said a stunned Chittick.

In the southern port city of Sihanoukville, in a small shanty brothel with a sign in Khmer and English that read, "no condoms, no sex," Dr. John videotaped a pretty, twelve-year old prostitute who sand a hauntingly lovely melody.  Her friends, also in their young teens, waited for their customers, often teens and young men, under the watchful eye of the madam.  

"I told the girls about AIDS and how itís growing fast in their country.  They knew nothing about it.  I told them they should go home to their parents before they got infected, but they couldnít as it was their parents who had sold them into prostitution like indentured servants," Chittick related.  When the girls developed full-blown AIDS (and it is a certainty in the sex business), they are no longer desirable to clients and their income-potential is essentially finished.  Many families in remote villages do not want their sick children back as the community ostracizes the entire family.  

In an abandoned building in Phnom Penh, Chittick met two young PWAs (people living with HIV/AIDS).  Vannak had been an army sergeant fighting the Khmer Rouge; the other, Son Soth, had been a royal dancer in King Sihanoukís court.  After talking, Dr. John asked them to help in his outreach and they did willingly.  Both had been growing sicker while living alone with little food, no work or money, and ashamed to tell their parents about having AIDS.  "I felt very sad for them -- knowing how important my parents are to me.  So I arranged transportation and we traveled to their family homes in Takeo province.  I explained to their parents that there was nothing to fear -- that their sons wanted to come home to die.  Vannakís mother cried and said she wanted her son back."

In northwestern Battambong province, in areas only recently freed from Khmer Rouge rule, Chittick met young parents with AIDS.  Incredibly, some had sold their children to neighbors (as household/farm workers) to finance their trip to Phnom Penh where they believed they could buy the medicine to cure them.   Chittick related, "One young couple pleaded with me to help them.  It was heartbreaking .  I could only tell them that there was no cure and they should go back to their children."  In a country where the average annual income in rural areas is less than $100, "affordable medicine" is an oxymoron.  In Cambodia, dying AIDS patients are given aspirin.

At Phnom Penhís modern Center of Hope Hospital (funded by American and Japanese foundations) a small ward has been set aide for ten AIDS patients.  Dr. John met a young Vietnamese woman who had been sent years before to Cambodia as a sex worker.  "I asked her if her family could come and get her now that she was so sick.  She said they didnít know she had AIDS as she had never corresponded with them since leaving home.  I suggested we could help by writing a letter to her parents.  I was surprised to hear that she didnít know the name of her village or even the province because she was very young and without education when she was sent away.  She will die alone and her family wonít know."

"In a near-barren room at a different hospital, I met an emaciated young woman near death.  She was wrapped in blankets even though it was hot and muggy.  Her eyes were sunken in their sockets and her arm was bony -- about the size of three fingers.  Over four weeks I got to know her well," said Chittick, who would sing to her as she kept time to the musicís beat while holding his hand. 

Dr. John remarked, "She insisted she had never had sex nor had done any drugs.  She couldnít comprehend why this was happening to her.  One evening I gave her a ring I had received from a PeerCorps volunteer in the Philippines.  She clutched it in her hands before she slept.  I had assumed she had no family as the hospital cleaning lady told me there were never any visitors.  Two months later I received an email from Chavelith that she had said good-bye before she died.  As sister came to collect her meager possessions and found the ring under her pillow.  It had been too big for her to wear on her thin fingers."

Vietnam:

"One of the best surprises at the Conference was to run into a young man, Son (22) from Saigon.  Five years ago, on my first outreach work in Vietnam, he joined a series of my teen gatherings in a city park.  Since then, I have worked with him on four separate visits to his country.  Now he was in Durban as one of three official delegates from Saigon, and presenting original research findings.  Son is one of the longest-running PeerCorps."

Bosnia:

"When I was in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, I experimented with bringing Serb and Muslim youth together.  My Austrian volunteer and Balkan guide, Markus, is a Catholic by birth.  We took the message to the streets and schools in the recently war-torn city to ask Serb Orthodox and Bosnian Muslim teens to be a part of a joint outreach.  Remarkably, the integration worked very well as they had friends and classmates on both sides of the divided city and missed them.  

" 'We can never forgive who killed our families.'  And so the cycle in the Balkans continues.  But in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS, a new breed of socially-conscious warriors has emerged."

Kan, a Khmer Rouge soldier 

When I was in the western part of Cambodia I walked in the area around Battambong which until recently was still held by the remnants of Pol Potís Khmer Rouge. For a number of decades under Khmer Rouge rule, schools did not exist except to teach radical communist thought.  Young teens were recruited as soldiers because they could be easily indoctrinated to follow orders ­ including killing parents suspected of ideological deviance.

While walking along the road passing out my Cambodian AIDS information cards with my volunteer translator, Sopha (19), I noticed a young man following at a distance and glancing at us.  I went over and shook his hand.  Sopha explained our mission to Kan who was intrigued.  He had never heard of AIDS!

But as we talked he said he always used condoms whenever he had sex with prostitutes (six times).  I was a bit surprised ­ but he told us he used condoms because his army buddy told him to.  He never questioned his friend why it was necessary after the guy had adamantly advised him sex was only to be done with a condom.  (The Khmer Rouge made a good income off of illegal activities such as drug smuggling and providing teen girls to the brothels of Thailand and to their soldiers.)  Dr. John explained that postponing sex until you find the right woman to marry, and then be faithful, is the safest option to guard against HIV/AIDS.  Sopha shared that he was proud to still be a virgin.

Kan had been forced to join the Khmer Rouge army at 15 -- or else be killed.  Now 22, he had recently deserted as Kanís buddy had warned one night he was marked for the shooting squad because of suspected of cowardice in battle. Kan worked with us for a few hours of evening outreach and shared our dinner.  Now he finally understood why his buddy had insisted he use a condom.  Today Kan has no address as he is still living in the forest but soon he says he'll be heading back to rejoin his surviving family when itís safe.  With one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates per capita in the world today, one Cambodian youth is playing safe upon the personal advice of a close friend.  Thatís what the PeerCorps is all about -- talking about AIDS and save young lives from making a horrible mistake."