by Herman Trevail

Created on: March 02, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

I wonder how many of you know how it feels to really go hungry. I'm not talking about skipping a meal or two here and there, how many know the pain of a stomach that has started to turn on itself from not having the first morsel of food in three, four, five days or longer?

How many of you have experienced prolonged homelessness; not merely living in your car for a few days, but years with no place you can call your own, always a guest of someone else, not being able to give a permanent address, questioning where you can go next?

Do any of you know the feeling that comes from stepping outside on a cold winter morning and feeling the snow on the soles of your feet, the sting of wind on your back, because your shoes both have holes and what passes as a coat is nothing more than a light sweater?

Have you ever needed someone in the middle of the night and not had anyone to call; no friends who would even pick up the phone, much less come to your assistance or listen as you talk through your pain? Can you comprehend how it feels to truly have no one who cares?

Can any of you relate with a sudden and dramatic decline in your health; suddenly waking up one morning and finding that your body is broken, the warranty expired, and that pain is now your constant companion?

I'm willing to guess that most of you have experienced at least one of those conditions. Many have experienced two of them. Those closer to my age are quite likely to suffered through three or four of those difficulties. Experiencing all five simultaneously, however, puts one in a unique category.

I was in a conversation with someone earlier this week regarding the ravages of AIDS in Africa, where the disease spreads with such ferocity that the entire continental population is threatened. Here are people who are truly impecunious; it's not that the means to ease their condition is not available, but rather they are incapable on their own of effecting any significant change in their situation. Health care and education, two factors that would dramatically ease the burden, are not only not available but routinely hampered by African governments. Wars and rebellion raging across several African regions thwart the delivery of even the most simple foods and medicines.

What hurt me to my soul, though, was the implication by the person with whom I was speaking that the millions of deaths were just because, "AIDS would not exist if those people didn't have all that perverted sex stuff."

I'm sure my double-take was obvious.

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