We Are All the Same

WE ARE ALL THE SAME: A STORY OF A BOY’S COURAGE AND A MOTHER’S LOVE: Jim Wooten: Penguin: Biography: 240 pages

Jim Wooten, a senior foreign correspondent for ABC, has written a powerful and shocking tale of truth about the AIDS epidemic in Africa and one young boy affected by the disease. In 1989, Xolani Nkosi was born in a squatter’s camp in what used to be Zululand, South Africa. His 19-year-old, unmarried Zulu mother, Daphne, was unknowingly infected with the HIV virus by his father, and passed it on to him at birth. Knowing she was dying, Daphne took Nkosi to an AIDS hospice for white patients in Johannesburg when he was two. When the hospice was forced to close because of funding issues, Gail Johnson, one of the white founders, took Nkosi into her home and became his second mother.

With the demise of apartheid in the 1990’s, the plight of those affected with HIV became more obvious, but Nelson Mandela and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, refused to address the issue of AIDS. Nkosi and Gail were pushed to the forefront of the fight when they tried to get Nkosi admitted to school. Because of Gail’s care and resources, he had already lived much longer than any other HIV baby - the average life expectancy for an infant born with the virus was three years. He (and Gail) became a symbol and spokesman for all those in Africa with the disease until his death in 2001. Nkosi ‘s frail body, but abundant spirit told the truth even when his country’s leaders denied it. This gentle exposé of the entwined history of AIDS, South Africa, and its’ politicians with one brave young boy is one we should all read and learn from.

DB