There is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Her Country’s Children

Despite the overwhelming fear and prejudice of her neighbors toward those suffering from AIDS, Haregewoin Teferra, grieving from the deaths of her husband and daughter, gave up a comfortable, middle class lifestyle to take in dozens of children left orphaned by the virus. In There is No Me Without You, author Melissa Fay Greene humanizes the story of the millions of African AIDS orphans by introducing readers to some of these children whom no one else wanted.

The following scene, in which the author is riding with Teferra to pick up yet another small child, illustrates the attitudes of many of Teferra’s neighbors. A villager, Gerrida, has told Teferra that the child needs her help.

“‘The child is so smiling face,’ Gerrida turned to assure me in English. ‘He is wonderful.’

I wondered briefly why Gerrida didn’t take in the little boy. But if he was indeed an orphan of the unspeakable disease, then she could not. The stigma of the plague crawled across its orphans, widows, and widowers, as if they, too, seethed with germs.”

Although Teferra’s story is highly compelling and would be well worth the read in itself, the book is more than simply about her courage and unselfishness. Greene deftly weaves in a history of Ethiopia, AIDS, and the terrible lack of medications to combat the killer that leaves so many children parenting each other. As the natural mother of four and adoptive mother of two foreign-born children herself, Greene also sheds light on important issues surrounding adoption of these vulnerable orphans.

If you are interested in Ethiopia, foreign adoption, the plight of AIDs orphans, or touched by Karen Ande‘s photographs in our recent post (Children Raising Children: Documenting Africa’s AIDS Crisis), you will want to read this book.

Julia Wasson

Blue Planet Green Living (Home Page)

Related Post:

Children Raising Children: Documenting Africa’s AIDS Crisis