natural sounds

Joe Richman from Radio Diaries sent an email out to his list today.

Friends of Radio Diaries,

Some of you may have already heard the sad news that our friend and diarist Thembi Ngubane died a few days ago.

I’ve had a hard time finding the right words for this moment.

Thembi thought about death almost every day. Yet she was the most alive person I’ve ever met. She sometimes asked me why I chose her to do an audio diary about her life. But I feel like she chose me.

Thembi had been struggling off and on with TB. A week ago she learned that she had multi-drug resistant TB. She died Thursday night in the hospital. She was 24.

Thembi gave me, and many of us, a lesson in courage and in embracing the craziness of life – good and bad. She was brave and open about living with AIDS at a time when most South Africans were quiet about the epidemic. She thought the virus should be scared of her, rather than the other way around. She drew pictures of her virus. She talked to it in the mirror. She gave it orders.

Thembi had a short life. But it was a full one by any measure. She had a child. She found a soul mate in her longtime boyfriend, Melikhaya. Her story was heard by millions of people in a dozen countries and five languages. On her tour of the United States, she met Bill Clinton and then-Senator Barak Obama. She traveled to Germany and India as a Unicef ambassador. She was a contestant in an African reality TV show. In South Africa, she became a role model for young people living with HIV. She experienced the hard edges of life in ways that I still find hard to fathom.

But there are a few poignant moments that will never make it into her obituary.

I remember a high school outside of Durban where Thembi was speaking. It was radical for someone – a young person especially – to stand up in front of a crowd and say, “I have AIDS”. When she finished speaking, the students crowded around her, wanting an autograph. With no paper in sight, arms and legs were thrust forward and Thembi signed each one with her pen.

I remember when Thembi was invited to address the South African Parliament. “Accept that AIDS is here,” she told the country’s leaders. But life is a mix of cosmic and mundane. The next day, Thembi was back to her normal life: standing in line at the clinic for antiretroviral drugs, caring for her baby, and hoping for a job.

By now, we are all so familiar with the statistics. More than 5000 people die every day from AIDS. Somehow, it never seemed Thembi would be one of them. Thembi embodied great ambition to be heard and seen. She thought it was important to speak out against stigma and discrimination. But she was also motivated by fear: she didn’t want to be anonymous… or forgotten.

Thembi we heard you.

And we miss you.

Joe Richman
Radio Diaries

We put together a remembrance that aired on NPR. You can listen on our website: http://www.radiodiaries.org

“Seeing people who were losing hope, who were on the death road, made me realize that there is no time to waste. People needed to be aware. I felt like maybe some of the way AIDS has been portrayed hasn’t helped them. Maybe people don’t feel the messages, maybe they don’t hear them. Maybe people
need someone they can relate to, someone who is just like them, to spell it out to them. I felt like I owed it to everyone to just be heard.”

- Thembi Ngubane

We will be remembering and honoring Thembi’s life at her funeral in South Africa this Saturday.

If you would like to make a contribution in her honor, please consider a donation to:

The Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. They have been tireless advocates for treatment for all and Thembi was a member.

Doctors Without Borders/MSF. They launched a pilot program in 2004 to distribute Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) in Thembi’s township, Khayelitshia. The program directly impacted Thembi’s life. Through MSF, Thembi was able to get the right treatment at a time when the South African government was doing very little.

Thembi leaves behind her four-year old daughter, Onwabo. Many of you contributed in the past to Thembi’s family, helping them to purchase their own house in the township. Radio Diaries is setting up a fund to help with the continuing care of Onwabo. To contribute, please follow this link:
Thembi’s AIDS Diary Fund.

Photographs by Thembi’s boyfriend, Melikhaya Mpumela.