One night in 2003, Agnes Dlamini woke to the sound of her infant
grandson crying. His mother — Dlamini’s daughter-in-law — had
died after a long illness. The baby was left on top of her
emaciated body, sucking helplessly at his mother’s lifeless
breast. That tragedy, Dlamini now knows, is the result of South
Africa’s failure to address the spread of HIV. But back then,
she had no idea. At the time, the country’s President Thabo
Mbeki was sympathetic to AIDS denialists. His Minister of Health
was nicknamed Dr. Beetroot for championing the plant as a
treatment for HIV/AIDS. Antiretroviral drugs weren’t available
until 2004 and were difficult to obtain for many years after
that. The legacy of that denial is 3.37 million South African
children under 17 without one or both parents, according to a
2011 census. Most are orphans, and some 64% are in the care of
grandmothers, who bear the responsibility of a second
motherhood. The age gap makes it challenging for grandmothers to
connect with these kids and warn them a