For every thousand pregnant women in Jamaica, 16 are infected with HIV. An estimated 9000 or more children under the age of 18 years have been orphaned by the loss of one or both parents. Many wander the streets. Many are prostitutes. If you are twelve, and a prostitute in Jamaica, you will never make it to 13. Never. AIDS is now the leading cause of death in children aged 1 to 4 years. Jamaicans can access a triple combination of drugs for a month for $1,000.

Unemployment is usually 15%.

I walked around Kingston once (I take risks I should never, ever, ever take, but I’m stupid so I have an excuse) and took photographs which is what I usually do. I asked people if they could afford $12,000 a year for medicine.

I didn’t get kicked out of the country (like some other countries). In fact, I got invited to dinner. Fish and rum. I love fish and rum.

$12,000 dollars a year is what most EMPLOYED people make. With nothing left over.

For people with HIV, it’s a problem.

So is the leading cause of death in small children.

These figures are not at all unusual for the Caribbean.

The National Health System would collapse if people didn’t pay for the drugs. I’m not sure why they call it a National Health System. For children with HIV, it’s the National Death System.

There’s no excuse for requiring pregnant mothers (very few, if any, are employed) to pay anything for ARVs. They’re dead women walking. So are their kids. Most of whom do not make it to walking.

The cemeteries are places of enormous grief. The people I met believed in spirits. May Pen Cemetery on Spanish Town Road in the capital city’s west end, the Jewish Cemetery at Hunts Bay, the Chinese Cemetery, and the St Andrew Parish Church Cemetery in Half-Way-Tree.

I have seen cemeteries in Africa that are identical.

I would love to adopt a Jamaican kid with HIV, but it cannot be done.

I say: bulldoze the resorts. Enslave the sunburned tourists. Make them build clinics. Make them write checks to all the 3-year-olds with AIDS.

Or. We could throw bricks at Big Pharma.

But those offices are mainly in NYC.

And they don’t like people with bricks.

Trust me.