When Love Comes To Town

Bono does not visit Nashville that often. In fact, he hasn’t been here professionally since 1987, so when the rumor started to circulate that he would be bringing his Heart of America tour to town for a “private event”, fans started scurrying to find out where the event was going to be held and to find a way in.

It turns out that Bono did come to town on Monday, December 9, with a scaled-down contingent from the Heart of America tour. This was not actually a DATA event – rather a previously scheduled AIDS conference designed to explore ways to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in this community and worldwide. He didn’t bring along Ashley or Wynona Judd, even though they live just down the road. He didn’t bring along the Gateway Ambassadors from Ghana or Chris Tucker. But he did bring along a powerhouse named Agnes Nyamayarwo.

The crowd was pretty evenly divided into thirds – medical people from Vanderbilt University, who were major sponsors of the conference, activists from the Nashville community, and U2 fans lucky enough to find a ticket to the event.

Bono was the first speaker presented, due to his “busy schedule.” Anyone who has followed Bono on this tour has heard the statistics, and they are staggering - 6,500 people will die from AIDS in Africa every day, and 9,500 will become infected by HIV. “Two and a half million Africans are going to die next year … that is not a cause, that’s an emergency”, Bono said. “It’s actually a crisis for us because of the questions it raises about our own system and our culture where we’re not even hearing things.”

Bono is a very compelling speaker – and did a wonderful job of highlighting the potential social impact this pandemic can have worldwide. “The war on terror is bound up in the war on poverty. Colin Powell says that,” Bono said. “The current terror was caused by wealthy Saudis whispering wicked ideas into the ears of the poorest and most wretched in Afghanistan. There are another ten Afghanistans in Africa.”

Bono related the current struggle in Africa to the equal rights movement of the sixties. “Equality is a real pain in the ass. The next step in the journey of equality is this.”

The singer wrapped up his speech by saying that our generation will be remembered by three things – “the Internet, the War on Terror, and how we watched an entire continent burst into flames, while we stood by with a watering can. Or not. … It is absolutely unimaginable that we are letting this many people die.”

Then, he said goodbye, jumped from the stage and was whisked off by helicopter to a movie premiere in New York. At this point, you could see the obvious letdown among the U2 fans in the room – there would be no autographs, no pictures, and no conversations with a legend. And, they were now left in a room with a politician and some activists for what promised to be another hour and a half of the conference.

Then, the real star of the day took the stage.

Agnes Nyamayarwo, an AIDS activist from Uganda, told the heartbreaking story of how her family was torn apart by HIV/AIDS. Agnes first lost her husband to the disease in 1991, after the family was unable to locate and pay for the drugs he was prescribed for treatment. She described watching him die and the fears she had about raising their ten children alone.

After the death of her husband, her oldest son, who was seventeen at the time, asked her if she was going to die. She didn’t know what to say, so she told him, “I believe in God, and hope he will not let me die soon.” Her son slipped into depression from the loss and the stigma associated with having AIDS in the family. Unable to cope, he slipped out of his school’s dormitory one night in 1993 and disappeared. She has no idea what happened to him, or if he is even alive.

The next blow came when her youngest child, then five, fell ill. Unable to afford the medications to treat him, she watched him grow weaker until he died at seven. She broke into tears at this point in her tale, saying as a parent it was her place to give him life, and instead she had given him a terrible illness that brought him death.

Rather than become incapacitated by her own grief and her own HIV status, she decided to fight back and joined TASO, an organization that provides education on HIV prevention in Africa. TASO also helps those infected with HIV / AIDS prepare for their deaths by educating them on legal issues associated with wills and guardianships, and to help them prepare “memory books” for their children. TASO has been effective in reducing the prevalence of infection in their country – providing hope that these efforts will reap benefits.

I am rarely moved to tears at events like this, but I was on this day. Agnes brought down the house. She provided a compelling way to change the numbers Bono was throwing around – the statistics – into real human events. The realization of the impact of the pandemic on families and on mothers was staggering.

Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) took the stage after Agnes. As the only practicing physician in the Senate, he has a keen understanding of the medical issues associated with this crisis. “The mother-to-child transmission challenge is a tragedy within the larger tragedy of global HIV/AIDS,” Frist said. “We face a challenge that is equal to the war on terrorism today.”

While the United States is the financial leader in fighting HIV/AIDS, everyone agreed that more needs to be done.

Earlier in the program, Bono said, “people are dying for the worst of all reasons… money.” The other speakers provided a number of examples of this being exactly the case.

According to Dr. Nils Daulaire, president and CEO of Washington-based Global Health Council, mothers transmit HIV either during the birth process, or during breastfeeding. However, one dose of the drug Nevirapine, given to the mother at delivery, and one dose given to the baby within the first 72 hours, can virtually eliminate the risk of passing HIV along to the infant. The cost of the two doses is $1. This is a very small price for a life, but beyond the reach of many in Africa.

Senator Frist agreed, comparing the crisis to the smallpox crisis that occurred decades ago. “We will defeat HIV/AIDS,” Frist said. “I’m absolutely certain of this. It’s going to take the linkage of treatment, of prevention, of care.” The question is, how many more people will have to die before the world comes together with a big enough watering can.