Here are two pictures. What do you see? The story which most North American and European people create mentally while looking at these two pictures would be seeing one picture with 4 happy children with new teddy bears in a summer time setting, and in the other, the same children playing around an old storage shed. One views photographs and compares their personal experiences in life to what they see in the pictures. Thus, most individuals cannot understand the horrific short life of the children below:

The Real Story Behind the Smiles in the Pictures

Pictures are from a “decent slum” area of Johannesburg, South Africa.
It is winter time. Only the youngest has a coat. Only 2 of the 4 children have shoes.
Their parents came from an outlying tribal area, looking for a better life for their children. Both parents died from AIDS before getting “papers”, thus their children are not allowed in school and have no-where to go in life.

The head of the household is the 11-year old boy, standing next to their home, the old tin shed, a one room home without water, electricity or a floor. The 11-year old is responsible for 4 children, 8, 6, 4 and 2 years old. At 11, he is past the life expectancy of most HIV/AIDS children and statistically may not have much time left to live. If he dies, the next oldest child will soon be the head of the household. These children are without papers and thus are not counted to be part of the 1,100,000.

The tribal areas are in worse shape. In remote tribal areas in KwaZulu-Natal, the infants, toddlers and children do the best they can to survive with little food, few shoes and fewer blankets.

The Valley of 1000 Hills because of the AIDS Pandemic is now called the Valley of Tears. AIDS orphans die so fast that no one has time to count their numbers in places like the Valley of Tears.