On June fifth, 1981 the first case of AIDS was reported. Twenty five years later, South Africa presently has the largest number of people with HIV/AIDS in the world. More than five million South Africans are HIV positive. The following radio diaries brings us the story of Thembi.
Thembi is a South African young 19 year old woman. For the past year, she has been carrying a tape recorder and keeping an audio diary of her struggle to live with AIDS. Thembi captured the small moments of her life that help tell a larger story: her first conversation with her mother about AIDS; a visit to the township clinic to apply for life-saving drugs; facing neighbors and friends as they slowly learn her status; a moment of quiet, late-night dancing at home with her boyfriend.