Tuesday midday
The runway, Johannesburg International Airport
Bono looks a little disappointed when he gets on the private charter jet for the flight to Maseru, capital of Lesotho. He is wearing dark glasses with pale lavender lenses. On the corner of the glasses is a little word — Red. This is the new ”virtuous brand” created in partnership with some of the world’s biggest companies. For each pair of Red Armani glasses sold a donation is made to the Global Fund, set up by the G8 and the United Nations to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. ”Where’s the bar?” Bono says. ”Where are the bedrooms?” Ali, his wife, laughs. There is no bar, no bedrooms — Bono may be a rock star but he is travelling without frills.
1.30pm
The road to Maseru
Dr Richard Feachem, tall, quietly spoken, closely cropped beard, is looking over the dusty roads of Maseru. He is the executive director of the Global Fund. ”Mobile men with money,” he says, explaining Africa’s HIV/Aids epidemic. Truckers, miners, migrant workers, travelling in large numbers across the continent. Leaving their families behind. ”And gender inequality.” Treating women badly, lots of sexual partners, rape. ”A toxic mix.” The sun glimpses out from behind the clouds. The population of Lesotho is 1,8-million. More than 30% of adults are HIV-positive.
3.30pm
Precious Garments Factory, Maseru
Bono arrives at the factory still wearing his glasses. Women sit in neat rows making clothes for Gap. They wear masks. In front of them are hundreds of T-shirts. Some of them will be sold as Gap Red T-shirts, with an amount of money pledged to the Global Fund. It’s consumerism with an ethical edge. Motorola, Converse and American Express have also joined, with a cellphone, a pair of boots and a credit card.
Outside, later, Bono sits with five of the factory workers. Wages are above the national average. Unions are recognised. There is an HIV and Aids counselling service. Bobby Shriver, founder along with Bono of the Red brand, has a straight answer. ”If it wasn’t for Gap, some of these people would be dead.”
Bono speaks to a group of five women sitting at a table outside, asking questions about their drug treatment. They each have HIV, but courses of anti-retrovirals have meant that they can carry on with their lives. Three years ago the drugs were only available to those who could afford $20 000 a year. Now they cost $140 a year, with many of the treatments in Lesotho financed by the Global Fund.
”I find it hard to get my head around some stuff,” Bono says. ”These women found the courage to come forward, to speak up.” In a country where HIV and Aids was a subject surrounded by suspicion and violence, it is now talked about more openly. Well, a little more openly. The government has agreed a universal testing and counselling service, the first on the continent. The treatments have also helped break down stigmas — having Aids no longer means the end of life. Anti-retrovirals can work for 20, 30 years.
Bono walks away from the women. ”When it comes to the time to write the history of this, it will be their names that will be important. Not mine,” he says. ”This is the face of transformation.” He does a little jig, right there in the factory.
8pm
Dinner, Lesotho Sun Hotel, with Lesotho’s prime minister
When the fashion show starts, no one is quite sure what to expect. Already, beautifully upbeat and optimistic, one of the choirs from the clothing factories has sung about a new future. Suddenly this is a different Africa, not of flies around the mouth and babies with thousand-yard stares, but a country that is doing something, getting somewhere. As each model comes down the catwalk the crowd cheer and clap. The models, all factory workers, strut. They are sassy. Bono claps his hands. He sways. He gets up to speak. Sure, there is poverty. But there is also … this.
”I’m an artist not a politician. But I prophesy that what was once impossible is possible. I prophesy that I will probably drink one too many red wines this evening. I’m sure, maybe, some people might dance on the tables.
”I prophesy that a day is coming when there will be no HIV.
”I prophesy that this jewel of a kingdom is soon to become a giant.
”Colin Powell once said that the greatest weapon of mass destruction is a virus called HIV. But no WMD could break the spirit I feel in this room. God is in the house, I feel.”
A spotlight plays on his face, silhouetted, surrounded by the smoke from the fashion show. The crowd cheer, clap, ululate. Bono is a preacher. That’s the difference. People shout: ”Bono, sing, Bono, sing.” He could do Forty now and have them eating out of his hands. But he doesn’t.
Later, outside over a glass of wine I ask him what was going on in there. ”The future,” he says. ”Didn’t you feel it?”
Wednesday 11.30am
Butha Buthe Hospital, Lesotho
In a small room, Daniel Letuka Fatle sits with his wife, Matumelo and their son, Tumelo. Daniel has HIV/Aids and a year ago did not have enough energy to lift his hand. Bono sits with him, allowing the cameras to get shots of him asking questions of the clinic staff and the patients. He knows this is show business, that a rock star’s unique selling point is his celebrity. Daniel is on anti-retrovirals, financed by the Global Fund, and is back working. Bono asks what he does.
”I’m a traditional healer,” Daniel says, by way of an interpreter. ”I use secret herbs to heal.”
”What kind of herbs?”
”It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, would it?”
Outside an old woman lies under a blanket. She looks like she is dying.
10pm
The plane to Kigali, Rwanda
We sit down in the front row. Bono asks for a bottle of wine and some cheese. He tells funny stories about the first time he met Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch. He wants to talk about why he does what he does. ”It is a great skill that Africa has, the skill of commerce. There is something about the dignity of labour, in coming off the nipple of aid, and Africa has it, whether it’s hustling on street corners or running a big business. We want to give them the dignity of doing business with them. To treat them as supplicant is offensive. They cringe at the way they are portrayed.”
But companies are motivated, the critics say, by wanting to look good. ”It’s irrelevant what their motives are. It is not about what my motives are, either. It could be the halo effect, it could be something else. What we have to measure is whether people’s lives are being drastically improved or not by these interventions.”
He says people should grow up, leave the agitprop behind. If getting anti-retrovirals means working with business, then work with business. He describes the new movement of glamour-giving as ”hip hop”, not afraid of commerce, not afraid of making money. ”We used to be into indie music, all long coats and worrying and wagging our fingers at everyone. But hip hop is now.”
He could just be a rock star, of course. Why isn’t he? He pauses. ”I could see a way through some of these issues and I would have felt culpable if I hadn’t done what I could see needed doing. Love thy neighbour is a command, not a piece of advice.”
Thursday 11.30am
The Global Fund clinic, Kigali, Rwanda
Ten days ago Bono went to Washington DC to try to persuade members of the House of Representatives not to cut President Bush’s plans for a $3-billion increase in foreign aid. ”They patted me on the back, their eyes misted up in the right place,” he said. They slashed the budget by $2,5-billlion.
Now he is standing amid the overflowing beds and he wants to say something, something angry. ”I want [them] to see these pictures, three patients to a bed is absurd, but three families to a bed is obscene.” The NBC cameras record the preacher’s words.
Later that afternoon we stand in the Nyamata genocide memorial, high in the hills outside Kigali. Eugenie Nyirajyimuzanye, a survivor, tells of the day she was attacked by machete-wielding militia. In the head. In the leg. In the back. She was left for dead among the rotting bodies of her friends and family from her village. She limps and the scars are still visible. The country says it is getting on, dealing with the past. The rain pitter-patters on the tin roof and Bono stands and listens in silence. – Guardian Unlimited Â