Uganda | Preview #3 for hands holding the line...
In a room painted yellow, Robert peels off his sweater mid-sentence. His hand, caught in sharp focus, moves swiftly across the frame, an accent to the pain etched on his face. He shifts from chills to sweats, the head nurse later explaining this was likely the onset of malaria or a cold.
Uganda’s response to HIV has always carried multiple weights. Services arrive and recede with political tides. For some, stigma loosens its grip. For others, it cuts deeper. Yet solidarity keeps surfacing where least expected. Dependence on systems, on foreign capital, on one another is never far from view.
During the months when funds froze, people died. Some never returned to care. Others carried the burden forward, unpaid and unacknowledged, because they could not bear to abandon those who depended on them. These fractures are not confined to one site, one town, or one organization. They echo across the region, reverberating between policy and daily life.
Robert’s gesture, shrugging out of a sweater and grimacing, becomes a metaphor. Layers stripped back expose the fragility of bodies, of programs, of promises. Resilience here feels like an inadequate slogan, bold letters pressed onto thin paper. Yes, people are resilient. Those who met with me testified to it, though others equally resilient are gone, unable to speak. And those who remain carry the weight of endurance, caught on a treadmill that demands resilience without end.
About this article:
- Learn more about the work of local organizations mentioned in this article.
- Part of the hands series: Previews of the people and themes at the center of the response to HIV.
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