While the world plays politics with HIV AIDS drugs.....

My uncle is dead. He just died this morning. Though I am not completely certain, I suspect that he died of AIDS from the symptoms my family have been describing about his condition. I had three uncles from my mother's side, all of them are gone. The three that have since passed were raised by their sister, my mother. She is a very very strong woman who has stood the challenges of her time, from her parent s's death, the loss of her two children- before we, her children, knew this earth-to the countless times my father was imprisoned and exiled in pursuit of my people's freedom before and after the so called independence- of my beloved country. And now, the death of her siblings.

My mother had been the sanctuary of hope in all of my uncle's lives. They all died in a similar fashion. They got ill from miles away across the country and returned to my family's house for their final days. Last night was my uncle's last night at the "half way house." My family jokes that our house is like a half way house because the relatives and family members we never hear from for years bring their sick to the hospital in my town and find sanctuary in my house.

As I sit here powerless, trying to distract myself with these keyboards, and in part trying to contemplate the days I spent with my uncle and the cause of his death, it is hard to imagine what the future will be for his wife and children-my family- and indeed my country and Africa. I wonder how many half-way houses are out there on the continent and how many grandmothers, brothers, and sisters like my mother are at the forefront of HIV/AIDS without the limelight shed on the likes of Clinton and Bono.

My uncle died at home because the hospital was full and without part of the medication he needed. So, while I cry for my uncle, I also mourn for my continent and country for we have been reduced- sometimes in our complicity- to a people that cannot feed themselves, a people that cannot medicate our sick, a people who know no peace and continue to fight themselves over the symptoms of our lack of sovereignty and inability to sustain ourselves using our abundant resources.

I am disheartened by the fact that world leaders are playing politics with access to food and life saving drugs while the innocent people like my uncle die. In the last few years since Zimbabwe implemented the land reform programs, the many innocent people have died a " collateral damage" because of the West shutting out access to everything required to sustain lives. They play politics with our access to essential drugs under the umbrella of protecting so called human rights while denying people the basic right to life.

Zimbabwe is being bypassed by the surge of international funding that is beginning to prolong the lives of Africans with AIDS because of political reasons. They kill innocent children with sanctions on medication and basics because President Robert G. Mugabe is "one of the most undemocratic." It is fact, not fiction, that Zimbabwe's children are being punished for Mugabe being the most anti-Western African leader. According to UNICEF-, the average amount of international funding each year in Southern Africa is $74 per person infected with HIV.

In Zimbabwe, that figure is $4 while a few miles from my house, Zambia is receiving $187 per infected person. An estimated 1.8 million Zimbabweans have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of that group, 295,000 need antiretroviral treatment immediately, but only 8,000 -- less than 3 percent -- are getting it, according to a December report from WHO. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria rejected Zimbabwe's request for more than $250 million, citing technical flaws in the proposal in December.

So, I write in part to celebrate my uncle's life and memory, but in part because there is not much I can do from this foreign land where I sit trying to earn a living for both my family, our half way house guests, and me. So I will just write. I will write for my uncle who can no longer write because he lost his right to life to politicians playing politics with so called human rights while denying people the right to life. I will write in memory of my uncle who used to tell us tall tales about his hunting in the country side.

I remember one day I had the opportunity to go hunting with him. And as is the case with all hunters in the villages, we carried spears and a pack of hungry and angry fierce dogs. After walking for almost 10 miles we came to the mountains where we expected to catch wathorgs- wild pigs. We dug a small hole through the side of an anthill to trap the animal through and set out to look for our catch. When the dogs smelled the warthog and started barking, we formed a semi-circle and all pursued the wild dog into this anthill hole trap. Wathogs will run for dear life into any hole. We had to trap it because they have sharp task like teeth that will wipe out a man's future generations if they got the opportunity to come in contact with you from the front. From the back, they can cut all your nerves, still rendering your future generations extinct.

After about 15 minutes, we finally drove the animal into the hole trap and put a pile of logs to disable it. Then we dug at the front of the whole from where we use our spears to kill the animal and our ropes made of tree bark to hang and skin the animal. The memorable part is always the stories that my uncle managed to pull out that simple hunt after a few drinks of local brew. He tell how the animal had run towards him, how the dogs had deserted him, and how, he, alone, had struck the killer blow to the animal after we, town boys, had been outrun by the animal. Had it not been for him, the family would have been eating okra. And at that, his wife would praise him for his warrior qualities, while we-"town boys" got nothing for our efforts. This was my uncle, the story teller, the family man, the man who taught us about the different medicinal qualities of trees in our village. Now he is gone, and I will miss him dearly. Malume.RIP