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November 15, 2004
Two weeks ago I asked a good friend of mine here in Underberg
if she would journal everyday for two weeks about HIV/AIDS in anticipation
of World AIDS day on December 1st. I agreed to do the same and
then we would compare our different perspectives. Mine a foreign,
white volunteer, hers a black South African woman. I thought I
could journal but I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t
have thoughts and feelings about HIV/AIDS – after all our
organization is Edzimkulu, A Society for Children of AIDS.
November 14th
The only way I can even start to read this is to take a step
back to transcribe from a writer’s viewpoint. I can’t
think that this is my dear, wise friend. If I do I will not be
able to read this.
November 3rd
Today I am feeling sick but at the same time the flu-sinus is getting better.
When I think of HIV/AIDS today I have the feeling of acceptance that it is
there and it is very difficult to be not infected/affected. There are many
people that are close to me at this time who are infected. I feel very sad
about this but I am accepting that they are now sick and some are ready to
die. I need to let it go because when I hold it my stomach feel sad and unsettled.
I am trying to think who is out of this disease, but I just find everyone
in there. I feel bad because this for me is a sing of helplessness and hopelessness.
People cannot let themselves be infected when there is so much awareness.
This awareness is not helping people to take decisions. Most people are now
dying, but we are still letting ourselves into those situations. Most of
these people have got children. These children don’t understand what
is happening with their mothers. They stand confused looking at their sick
mothers that they can’t help at all. Some children are facing problems
of performing well at school and they are warned about few thing that will
infect their lives. My nephew has explained his worries that his mother is
sick, so he’s not going to be able to get food, electricity and other
needs. He understands that for the moment. I feel very bad when I look at
him. Amahle, Sthembile’s daughter looks innocent but tired. She doesn’t
understand . She might be HIV positive. What will happen to her. What a beautiful
darling she is. These children will not get hope to see the beauty of the
universe, they are going to face life differently and that is going to contribute
to who they are in the future. It is hard work to have a sick person at home.
It take energy and raises emotions.
I cannot look at her without feeling sad and scared. Is she
positive? If she is, is it my fault? Why did we wait a week to
tell her that her husband had been unfaithful while she was away
in Capetown at a conference on Sustainable Development. They
were only married in July. She was a virgin. At thirty she had
chosen to wait for marriage to begin sexual relations. She did
everything right. So why must she now wait and wonder.
Today she is at Sthembile’s funeral. Tim, Colleen and
Tammie dropped them in Centocow on their way to take Tim to the
plane in Durban. Amahle is an orphan. She is four years old.
Her mother was a teacher. She only became “sick” in
August. And now she is gone. Another one gone to AIDS.
November 4th
HIV/AIDS makes us to care for each other after, but how can we care for each
other so that we don’t become infected? Caring for each other starts
with self. If each person could get into a campaign of being responsible
for self. That care could be extended to the way of caring today. Most people
are HIV/AIDS today because of needs not met. What are those needs? From personal
need, today about 47% of people in SA are living under the poverty line.
When needs are not met people show that in many ways. The African culture
too is dying and that used to unite people so that they supported each other.
I feel that the reason HIV/AIDS is growing lies in the unmet needs and then
people satisfy the needs using false satisfiers. Because sex is so powerful
and it has made the human species to develop and unfold it is where almost
all people are trapped. The big question at this time is what is it that
makes people act so irresponsibly? I am sure there are many reasons, and
I don’t really understand those reasons.
November 14th
What is it that makes people act so irresponsibly? What made you act so irresponsibly?
You are forty years old. You are educated and well employed. You are one
of the winners in the new South Africa. So why only two months after marrying
her would you risk your life and hers? What can be the possible gain? Help
me to understand, help us to understand so that we can start to do something
that will bring this nightmare to an end.
November 5th
Most frightening day. But I do have hope. Hope to say one day there will be
and end of this pain. Scientists and ordinary people are going to get the
forgotten plant, which were made to cure this disease. If the plants are
extinct, I hope someday they will be seen again like many species that were
announced extinct, but suddenly rediscovered in small numbers in other parts
of the world. May be the anti-retrovirals are the sign that the cure is about
to come. It might not reach most of the people who arte sick today but it
may come and the nations then will be revived especially the people in Africa.
November 14th
When I first met her she spoke of education and prevention not of a cure. The
only way to really beat AIDS was to change behaviours. Now her hope is
for a cure. How can she not hope for a cure. She may be infected and she
did everything right. She was one of the ones who truly practiced what
she preached. And it did not matter. It may not have made any difference.
And now we all hope more than ever for a cure.
November 8th
I feel very depressed today. I am having many things in my head. Who is going
to survive this disease? Who is going to care for the sick? I see the time
when the ill will be caring for the most ill. I have seen children raising
their siblings and caring for their dying parents. It is sad to see that.
When I look at all young people, I can see the signs of HIV/AIDS. I become
worried. I could see our grandmother and few mothers confused about what
is happening to their children. Even animals get psychological disturbances
when their children don’t grow to mature age because they can see their
children which they hope to be future generations dying. This is what I see
in my community. People are so depressed, confused and hopeless. How does
one give hope when that person is also hopeless? Life is to confusing in
a way that at this stage I don’t know which is which. But I see many
psychologically dysfuncioning people as individuals, families and communities…..
November 15th
This morning as we hugged good morning we both cried. I cry for you, for the
overwhelming sadness that is here, and for how powerless I feel to help.
To make the world I come from start to understand this thing called HIV/AIDS.
To understand the devastation, the complexity, the enormity of the problem.
I bargain with any god that will listen that you mustn’t be positive.
November 10th
I feel bad for the married honest and faithful women. I feel bad for all faithful
women as well. I feel bad for them because they find themselves confronted
with HIV/AIDS in a life of marriage. A life that they believe is supposed
to be a life of fidelity and loyalty. What is in their hearts is not in their
spouses’ mind. The values seem to be different and their backgrounds
seem to be difficult to overcome. I am counting myself here for the reasons
I don’t know partly and for the reasons I do know partly.
These women are to live their marriage vows even if they are betrayed
by their spouse. I thought people were crazy if they live and tolerate
unhealthy marriages. But I have learned that in my married life
why people stay in unhealthy relationships.
November 15th
I hear his story and partly I too understand. I hear the story of the struggle,
not only that of the South African black people, but his struggle too.
The torture, the lies to survive. The massacres, the dead bodies. I see
his woundedness, the hole is his soul. He is of those who lead this country
out of the darkness of apartheid. The sadness is that it is now those same
wounded heroes that lead this country, their women and children to death.
Should you stay my friend? I honestly don’t know. Will you die if
you stay with him? Is it already too late?
November 11th
I feel very bad for my friend who died of HIV/AIDS but who has not disclosed
her status. It has shocked me a lot to have a person so close to me dying
of AIDS. I have a sister who is HIV positive and now I really know she is
going to die sometime. I am even more worried when I think that we didn’t
discuss my friend’s sickness because we were still dealing with the
issues of the past of which I believe they have made her so vulnerable to
AIDS. We were still discussing the pain that many children carry in our society.
I understand this pain from what happened to my sister when her boyfriend
stabbed her and she got pregnant and later found herself HIV positive. For
my friend too her past has been sad but she was trying very hard to overcome
it and she managed to rise beyond and become a good person. But that didn’t
make her safe from HIV. Really what is it that is needed for one to be strong
so that you don’t get infected. Something has not yet been realized
that can stop new infections. Sthembile was a brilliant clever women, articulate
and intelligent. But all that didn’t save her. Does it mean that all
the clever people will disappear without really understanding what is needed
to overcome the mystery of AIDS and its transmission.
November 15th
My dear, dear friend is it really such a mystery? We know how it is transmitted,
what we need to understand now is why won’t the men make the choice
to stop the transmission. What is needed to change this culture of infidelity
and disregard for the lives of those they supposedly love? And how do we
teach and change the young men before it is too late? It is not good enough
to figure it out when you are twenty or thirty or forty. And sadly maybe
not even when you are fifteen. How long did Sthembile carry the virus?
She was 27 when she died.
November 12th
Watching my wedding video raises many questions. One of these questions is
what will be the meaning of that wedding if I might be HIV positive? I don’t
have a straight answer yet, but I think as I live my married life, I will
learn to understand what it means. I still have one question that asks what
is happening to people who are positive and not getting the food, medication
and support they need from families and friends.
November 15th
That is why we are here.
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