Lotti Latrous was living with her family in the Ivory Coast when the AIDS virus was claiming millions of lives around the world, above all in sub-Saharan Africa. Aziz, her husband, was working at the time for a large Swiss company, the three children were at school, and Lotti did what she had to do: help those who were suffering most from the disease. The poorest of the poor. Together with her husband, she opened a clinic in Adjouffou, a slum in the economic hub of Abidjan, and personally fetched the sick from their wretched huts. She arrived too late countless times. But together with her colleagues – most of whom were themselves HIV-positive – she was also able to save many lives. It wasn't long before a hospice was added, and a little later an orphanage too. At regular intervals, Lotti visited her family, who by then were living in Cairo. Her guilty conscience about staying in Abidjan and caring for "other people's" children rather than her own tormented her day and night. That her family remains intact to this day is, she feels, the greatest gift of all. Another gift is that – after a personal crisis – she found her way back to her aid organisation, which then developed in ways she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams. She is utterly convinced: "Even when we often don't understand much, in the end everything makes sense."
Author: Lotti Latrous
Publisher: Wörterseh-Verlag, 2019
Info: Only available in German, 304 pages, with colour illustrations
