"The Invisible Cure"

After returning from my first trip to Kenya in December 2008, I began to read a number of books concerning issues in Africa that I had witnessed first hand. Wandering in the library one day, I picked up "The Invisible Cure" by Helen Epstein and read it cover to cover. Twice. The emotions I was not able to articulate were beautifully expressed in this amazing book. I learned an incredible amount of useful information and was never bored. 

I have included some memorable quotes [emphasis mine].

“He told us, perhaps only partly in jest, that they talk about two kinds of AIDS in Uganda: slim AIDS and fat AIDS. People with slim AIDS get slimmer and slimmer and slimmer until they finally disappear. Fat AIDS afflicts doctors, bureaucrats, and foreign-aid consultants with enormous grants and salaries; they fly around the world to exotic places and get fatter and fatter and fatter. Fat AIDS had become so common in Uganda, he said, that if you said you were working on HIV, people thought you were a thief” (Epstein, 27).

“Everyone seems to know what Africa needs, but sometimes I think our minds are not really on it. Most of us see only Africa’s contours, and we use them to map out problems of our own. Africa is a career move, and adventure, and experiment. It fades into an idea” (Epstein, 37).

“It was heartening that Western donors were now spending so much money on AIDS programs in Africa. But the problem with some large foreign-aid programs was that distributing the funds often involved negotiating with governments with a poor record of dealing with AIDS. In addition, the huge sums of money involved were often very difficult to manage, so that small community-based groups that needed thousands of dollars, rather than millions – like Inkanyezi in Orange Farm – were often overlooked in favor of overly ambitious megaprojects, whose effectiveness had not been demonstrated and whose premises were open to question” (Epstein, 140).

“…if you fire-hose poor countries with development dollars, you risk generating a mad scrum for money, and it’s no use blaming Africans (again) when the money is misused. Truly well-designed aid programs… involve hard, unglamorous work and have very pragmatic goals. They involve close monitoring of simple projects...” (Epstein, 208).

“As Elizabeth said, referring to NOAH’s takeover bid, “When the Americans come, we sing, we dance, they take our picture, and they go back and show everyone how they are helping poor black people. But then all they do is hijack our projects and count our children” (Epstein, 227).

If you would like to read a portion of the book online, check out an excerpt at the New York Times.

"One morning in November 2001, two officials from a Kenyan AIDS organization picked me up from my hotel in Nairobi and took me on a drive. We drove and drove all day, over muddy tracks, through endless pineapple and coffee plantations, rural villages and slums, through all of Africa, it seemed, to arrive at a small field, perhaps half an acre, with some weeds growing in it and an old woman standing there with a hoe.

"I had not expected this. I was reporting on AIDS programs for an American foundation, and most of the other projects I had visited were either medical programs, AIDS awareness campaigns using billboards, radio or television spots, or traveling roadshows designed to promote AIDS awareness or condoms or HIV testing. I was about to say something when one of my guides spoke first.

'We are very proud of this project.'

So I said nothing. About twenty women had saved up for two years to buy this land. All of them were supporting orphans whose parents had died of AIDS, and they hoped the land would produce enough food for about fifty people in all. On a nearby hill, one of Kenya's vast corporate-owned coffee plantations loomed like the edge of the sea. The old woman kept glancing at it as though it might sweep her away. I was moved by what I saw, although I didn't understand at the time how this project was supposed to fight AIDS. This book explains how I came to do so."