Amidst current debates over resources for AIDS, we examine the policy preferences of the people who are navigating AIDS in their daily lives. Survey and ethnographic data on the prioritization of HIV/AIDS interventions were collected in a longitudinal cohort study in rural Malawi. Study participants gave higher priority to problems other than AIDS. Confining analysis to HIV-positive survey respondents only weakly raises the prioritization of HIV/AIDS services. The ethnographic data are consistent with these findings: although rural Malawians are fully aware of the risk of dying from AIDS, other problems are perceived as more pressing for their community.