The tears came suddenly - and unexpectedly, for Margaret Papela’s is a happy house. Four generations live here. Margaret, who is in her late 40s, lives with her 75-year-old mother Maria, her 16-year-old son Timothy, and three young grandchildren, left behind by Margaret’s two daughters who both died from AIDS in the last two years.

Also part of the household are three grown-up nephews and nieces left by Margaret’s dead sister and the baby of one of the nieces. “I am looking after my grandmother and all these children,” says Margaret.

Pension is the main household income

Margaret and her mother Maria are frugal and resourceful. The main income comes from Maria. The state gives her a pension of 640 Rands (US$103) a month. Maria owns the house they live in and four tenants at the back of the house. Payments from four tenants almost double her income.

The fathers of the grandchildren provide little or no support, even though they live nearby and are known to Margaret. “The father of my two older grandchildren is unemployed,” she says. “The father of the youngest does sometimes help, but he is very erratic.”

He is most probably HIV-positive and dying, too. None of Margaret’s nephews and nieces, all aged between 19 and 28 and living in this extended family, has a job.

Escaping the cycle of poverty

Thanks to Maria’s pension the family have a chance of escaping the cycle of poverty that many other families affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic are trapped in.

Now they have invested in Margaret’s son Timothy. A bright, shy and sensitive boy, he is a talented violinist. “Timothy is training with an orchestra at the state theatre,” says Margaret with pride in her eyes, confident that his future will be bright.