Addo, in his fifties, had been in Havana for the last four months, awaiting a donor heart.

Surgeons performed the transplant on Saturday.

His son Sasha flew out yesterday for Cuba.

Addo, a Ghanaian who married a Trinidadian nurse in England and moved to San Fernando about 20 years ago, was called a hero among HIV-positive people.

"He cared about us," said a spokeswoman for Community Action Resource, a support group in Port of Spain. "A hero has died. I don't know what we will do now."

Catholic priest Fr. Clyde Harvey and Addo became close friends through their HIV work.

Yesterday, Harvey at first searched for words to describe just what Addo meant to people.

"He never embarrassed you. He never preached to you. He just cared."

Addo, whose heart began failing about eight years ago, spent those last months in Cuba with his wife, Indra, in a small seaside hotel near the hospital, where the waves crashed against the walls of the hotel.

He liked that.

"If I were home, I'd be working, you know," he used to say. "I feel good."

Instead, he was learning Spanish, reading and receiving visits from Ghanaians in Cuba.

But he wasn't used to so much free time and in the last weeks, he sounded a little restless.

"I have to make a decision soon," he said last month.

Asked if he might be home for Christmas, he snapped, "Look, you don't start that with me." Then, with a smile in his voice; "Everybody saying they sending my piece of cake for me."

He missed home. The waiting was getting to him.

But doctors told him he needed to be ready for surgery within two hours of a donor heart becoming available.

And there are no direct flights from Port of Spain to Cuba. He had to go through Venezuela to get there and that took about six hours.

His arteries were hopelessly clogged. Short walks left him breathless.

"I'm not prepared to live as an invalid,' he told friends.

The heart transplant had major risks, he knew. His body could reject the tissue. But on the other hand, people with new hearts can live as long as 10,15, or 20 years.

On Independence Day, he was talking about the need for legislation to allow donor organ transplants. "If you can help someone else to live a little longer, why not?"

Addo, who belonged to one of the royal houses of Ghana, left home at age 17 with a scholarship to study medicine n Moscow. He had ten months to learn Russian.

He met his wife in England and they had son Sasha and a daughter, Natalia. The family later moved to Ghana where he served part-time as a university lecturer.

About 20 years ago, Addo came to Trinidad for the first time to join his wife and children on vacation.

Having lived in big cities all his life, he was struck by the warmth and openness of Trinidadians. He began to call here home.

He began working at the San Fernando General hospital where he developed his treatment for gramoxone poisoning and ran a ward for HIV patients.

"God sent me here,' he used to say. "I could have gone anywhere in the world. But God had a hand in this."