There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey To Rescue Africa's Children
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend My book about Mrs. Haregewoin Teferra, the story of a remarkable woman who opened her doors to Addis Ababa's orphaned children, is finished, but the vast landscape of the orphaned children flows on. On a recent return visit to Addis Ababa, I found I could not lay aside the impetus to see and to understand, the impetus to try to act, to try to bear witness. Product details and pricing info |
|---|
40 Customer Reviews Posted
- inspiring book
- I loved this book! If you want to learn about Ethiopia, the AIDS crisis there, or if you want to be inspired by a true hero, read this book.
- 2007-05-27, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A must-read for the globally minded!
- Sometimes it is difficult to break out our own local environment to learn more about important events are taking place around the world. Melissa Fay Greene's book, "There Is No Me Without You," allows even the most superficial of us to learn about the AIDS crisis in Africa and begin taking steps to help support a solution to the social problems plaguing that continent. I was familiar with the AIDS crisis in Africa but was horrified to learn about the lack of available pharmaceuticals for treatment of HIV-positive adults and children. It was truly an eye-opener to hear about the gross (for lack of a better word) profits made by drug companies producing these medicines and then the reluctance of those same companies to allow these treatments to be shared with the sick and dying.I was appalled.
I would highly recommend this book. After finishing "There Is No Me Without You," I researched the websites in the back of the book and found it was possible to directly donate to AHOPE. Interested individuals can even sponsor an orphan for as little as $30 a month. I easily spend more than that on books every month.
I was inspired, enlightened, motivated and educated by this book. Thank you Melissa for writing about these wonderful people and sharing their stories with us.
Kathy Morones, Long Beach, CA - 2007-05-25, 3 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- "By February 2006...more than five million children had died in the HIV/AIDS epidemic...and 2.3 million were living with [it]."
- This mind-boggling fact, along with many others equally illuminating, has been compiled and packaged readably within the primary story, that of Haregewoin Teferra, who, in the midst of despair as an Ethiopian widow mourning the death of a daughter from AIDS, agreed to take in children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and other diseases that are statistically over-represented among the poor. The tales of the mothers and fathers who perished and those of the children they left behind are heartbreaking. But through the selflessness of Ms. Teferra, and others, the children are given sustenance, shelter, love, and hope. Her care-giving operation has not been without controversy, yet she presses on. Foreign families have adopted two hundred and fifty of "her" children. Inside the story of "One woman's odyssey to rescue Africa's children," the author seamlessly incorporates information on the theories behind HIV/AIDS's progression from a rare ailment to a pandemic (including the possible role of unsterile injecting campaigns in Africa in increasing its virulence). In a section explaining the treatment of the illness, she places the blame for the excruciatingly slow rate at which effective, reasonably priced drugs have been made available to the poor squarely on the shoulders of certain governments, government leaders, and pharmaceutical companies. Through Greene's book about a small woman with a big heart, readers will learn much about the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome and its effect on Ethiopian families. Similarly good: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.
- 2007-05-23, 1 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The Power of One
- Melissa Fay Greene (THE TEMPLE BOMBING) in THERE IS NO ME WITHOUT YOU adroitly attempts to put a face on AIDS in Africa, or more specifically, AIDS in Ethiopia. Her latest book is the story of Haregewoin Teffera, a widow who in her grief unselfishly opens her home in Addis Ababa to one (the fifteen-year-old, orphaned Genet), two (the hashish smoking Abel who might be 15 but could be 18)-- the numbers grow geometrically to forty-five, to eighty and still counting-- children orphaned by AIDS as well as those children living with AIDS. Sadly, through no fault of Ms. Greene (her book is most accessible and inviting to the reader) the problem is so vast that there are a few children we remember but so many that ultimately we cannot keep them separated. Haregewoin had a similar problem: "You can't love forty-five children; you can only take care of them in a maternal style. . . she did not know the names of those she snuggled."
Ms. Greene fleshes out Haregewoin's story with some history of Ethiopia, statistics on AIDS in both the United States as well as Africa and an especially damning account of pharmaceutical companies. There are few heroes among governmental leaders. The Clinton administration-- even though the ex-president has made AIDS his post-presidential project, was not without fault. And of course there is the abysmal record of Ronald Reagan whose second mention of AIDS, although it had been first mentioned by the media in 1981, was in 1987 when "59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 people had died." His first utterance of the word was in 1986 when he told a cruel AIDS joke at a centennial rededication of the Statute of Liberty before a crowd that included President Francois Mitterrand and his wife. Much of Greene's information will break your heart: For example, in 1999 the doctor to patient ratio in Ethiopia was one to forty-eight thousand. The ratio in the U. S. is one to 142. Without life-saving medicine, eighty percent of children infected with AIDS in infancy will die before they are two years old. Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, recalls that when he visited a fifth-grade class in Harare, Zimbabe, that eight out of ten students wrote essays about the deaths of their parents. School-age children, who should be going to school and playing with their friends, become heads of households.
Greene obviously puts her money where her mouth is. She and her husband have adopted two children from Ethiopia. While I understand that this is Haregewoin's story, I wanted to read more about Ms. Green's own experiences. Perhaps she is hesitant to discuss her children because of modesty or she did not want to intrude more than necessary into her narrative.
This book should be required reading for heads of government the world over. - 2007-05-19, 8 of 8 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Shocking World Problems
- Get a glimpse into Ethiopia's AIDS problem with this life-changing short book. You'll be stunned by the eye-opening details.
- 2007-05-10, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
