Story and photographs by Fanie Jason
The trigger for this photo essay was a news story. In December 2000 I covered a story about a family of three in Khayelitsha a young mother, father and their three-year-old daughter who died of Aids-related illnesses within 24 hours.
At that stage, I was becoming aware of the growing number of people with whom I had grown up in the township who were dying of Aids. When I spoke to their families one thing struck me: their reluctance to speak about their dead relatives and the blanket denial that they had died of Aids-related illnesses.
This is now changing. People are more forthcoming. At funerals of those who have died of Aids-related illnesses, it is now common to see T-shirts questioning government policy on Aids.
Too often images of people living with Aids published in the media are alien and distant. I want to portray intimacy, however painful. Editors are often reluctant to use pictures of people in the terminal stage of their illness; they are afraid of offending their readers. But I have pleasant memories of the people I photographed.
Aids continues to fill township graveyards. I believe that only when people are confronted with images of the true devastation of Aids in South Africa, they will begin to realise the enormity of the problem.