I heard this story when I was living in South Africa with my family. It was first told by a well-meaning, overworked teacher, and it involves a bright-eyed 10-year old boy.
It takes place in a township outside Durban, South Africa's third largest city. The teacher's class had 80 students. Actual teaching ranks very low on the list of priorities as teachers deal with the hardships of the poor on a daily basis.
"How are you today?" the teacher asked the boy, who slouched at his desk all morning. Usually engaged, he couldn't mask his troubled look.
"My father didn't drink the tea I prepared for him before I left to come to school. I placed it beside his bed but I am worried that he is too sick to drink it." He explained that his father was now very, very sick with AIDS but was comforted by the hot tea he drank every morning.
The boy had already experienced this kind of illness in his house because his mother had died from a poverty-related disease like tuberculosis, malaria or AIDS.
Preparing, serving and drinking tea became a morning ritual for both father and son. By standards in developed countries, it seems their roles had reversed far too soon in their lives.
Some say the tea served medicinal purposes. Some say that drinking tea was proof that the father had the strength to live another day. Some say the boy found solace in this simple ritual.
On this particular morning, the boy left his father at home alone and made the hour-or-so journey to school aware that his father hadn't touched the tea at his bedside. Perhaps saving it for later. Perhaps not.
As he sat at his desk, the boy was distracted -- as children sometimes are -- paralyzed, and preparing himself for the long walk home.
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For more on HIV/AIDS click here.
For more on the AIDS crisis in Africa you can read and watch video clips about Stephen Lewis and journalist Stephanie Nolen.
