Summary Of We Are All The Same: A Story Of A Mother's Love

We Are All The Same: A Story of a Boy’s Courage and a Mother’s Love By Jim Wooten

We Are All The Same: A Story of a Boy’s Courage and a Mother’s Love, is a 243-page, nonfiction, book written by Jim Wooten. It was published by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group Publishing company in 2005. Jim Wooten is an ABC news correspondent and many ABC news broadcasts. He is a journalist who has written for The New York Times and was a correspondent for the White House. He wrote this story because he was emotionally enveloped in the culture, beauty, and history of Africa and for the people he has met upon his many trips back there.

There were many characters introduced in this book. First, we meet Ruth and her daughters, Cynthia and Daphne.
Xolani Nkosi faced hardships and discrimination but not because of his race, it was because of a disease with a horrible stigma. Nkosi was born in 1989 infected with the HIV virus which was unknown at the time by the family. His mother Daphne would notice that her child was sick. He had mouth sores, loud rales, sore throats, sunken chest and other things (page 52). Daphne would visit a doctor in Johannesburg, South Africa and there she would find out about her condition and that she possibly transmitted it to her baby (page 59). We learn about a woman named Gail, she has a husband named Alan and together they have 2 children, Nikki and Brett. Daphne and family learned about a place where Nkosi could receive help called the Guest House which is also where Gail happened to work/volunteer (page 97). Warrick Allen, the coordinator of hospice would allow Nkosi to stay there (page 99). Funds would begin to run low and people living there would begin to die so the Guest House would have to close but Gail said that she would take Nkosi with her (page
Nkosi’s biological mother would still play a huge role in Nkosi’s life doing tasks such as giving him his medication, feeding him when he is hungry, and cuddling him like any mother would (page 116). Daphne would fall ill and succumb to a respiratory infection complicated by AIDS in 1997 (page 123). Gail loves Nkosi, she fought for him to get into a Primary School which made Gail and Nkosi famous in South Africa. They fought protestors and the media and against adversity Nkosi was admitted to a primary school (page 137 – 139). Nkosi was thriving in school and in the background, Gail was doing interviews on the news and in newspapers which made Gail and Nkosi national AIDS icons (page 152). Nkosi’s health began to decline and Gail attempted to do antiretroviral therapy too late, the doctor said that initiating therapy now would prove to be of little benefit for Nkosi (page 178). Jim Wooten, a senior correspondent for ABC News would interview the brave Nkosi about his life, his family, and death which shocked the reporter (pages 198 – 200). After, Nkosi would do a speech in front of thousands of people at a South African AIDS convention (page 203). Nkosi left a positive impression and paved the way for changing the way people viewed children and mothers with HIV/AIDS. On June 1st, 2001, 20 years after AIDS was recognized for what it