Home sweet, toxic home

I recently visited a new home care HIV/AIDS care initiative in an urban slum in Kampala, Uganda. While parts of Kampala can be green and pleasant, this area looked, felt, and smelt like shacks on a toxic waste site which is what in fact they were. These are truly the frontlines of providing care in the rapidly urbanizing developing world. And who leads this care? It certainly doesn’t appear to be the government, but rather the NGOs with their bursting, financially-strapped hearts. While platitudes are appropriately rained down on the game-changing activities of PEPFAR and the Global Fund, a few steps on the mountains of trash, a quick hop over a filthy, putrid stream and one can see the harsh reality of a situation not captured in yearly reports.

Photo: The streets of Mbuya, one of the nicer urban slums of Kampala.