Notes

Family portraits: Sithembe had moved to Johannesburg for work some years before but had grown increasingly and inexorably ill. Her mother Esther, who could not reconcile herself to her daughter just dying in a distant city, got together the money to send a taxi from her hometown of Tugela Ferry in KwaZulu-Natal to fetch her daughter. The Church of Scotland hospital which served the Msinga area was starting an experimental program using anti-retroviral drugs and Esther thought there might be a chance for her daughter to survive. Against all the odds, Sithembe was saved by her mother's love and the courage and dedication of the hospital staff. The child being held by Esther is the child of Sithembe's daughter, part of a family lineage of survival. The teenager is Sithembe’s daughter.

It was not easy – the early drugs had ghastly side-effects from night sweats to vivid nightmares. Sithembe also had to look after her children and ensure she ate properly.

In places like Tugela Ferry, the vast majority of people are migrant workers. Poverty and the long-term absence of so many adults make the area vulnerable to sexual exploitation and sexual violence. This family is an exemplar of tenacity and love in the middle of a pandemic that attacked though the most intimate of acts. It had been a long time since I had shot a story that showed hope in the face of HIV/Aids pandemic.

Greg Marinovich