Living with AIDS in Africa.Every morning when I wake up, go to my drawer A person who orders a bank to withdraw money from an account to pay a designated person a specific sum according to the term of a bill, a check, or a draft. An individual who writes and signs a Commercial Paper, thereby becoming obligated under its terms. , take out the mirror, and look at myself. Then I say my prayer. I say, "Hello, H.I.V., you trespasser TRESPASSER. One who commits a trespass. 2. A man is a trespasser by his own direct action he acts without any excuse; or he may be a trespasser in the execution of a legal process in an illegal manner; 1 Chit. Pl. 183: 2 John. Cas. . You are in my body. You have to obey Obey can refer to:
I never thought I would worry about H.I.V. and AIDS. It was the last thing on my mind. I've known that I'm H.I.V.-positive for four years. I'm considered stage 4. When you are stage 4, you are no longer just H.I.V.positive; they say you've got AIDS. I live in the township township: see town. of Kayelitshia outside of Cape Town Cape Town or Capetown, city (1991 pop. 854,616), legislative capital of South Africa and capital of Western Cape, a port on the Atlantic Ocean. It was the capital of Cape Province before that province's subdivision in 1994. . My neighborhood is very crowded, full of shacks where people five. There are a lot of us here who are sick with AIDS, but most people don't talk about it because they're afraid of discrimination. In the past, our parents were suffering from apartheid apartheid (əpärt`hīt) [Afrik.,=apartness], system of racial segregation peculiar to the Republic of South Africa, the legal basis of which was largely repealed in 1991–92. . They wanted to be free, and now it is the same with H.I.V. and AIDS. This is the new struggle. 'VERY LUCKY' OK, I'm going to tell you how I was infected in·fect tr.v. in·fect·ed, in·fect·ing, in·fects 1. To contaminate with a pathogenic microorganism or agent. 2. To communicate a pathogen or disease to. 3. To invade and produce infection in. . I had this boyfriend, and then we broke up. A year later, I heard that he died. I went to his house and I asked what happened. His sister told me he was sick. I asked her if he had AIDS, but she said she didn't know. That's when I started to get worried. So I decided to go to the clinic for a test, which is how I found out that I was H.I.V.-positive. Every day at 9 a.m. and at 9 p.m., my cell-phone alarm goes off. When it rings, it means I have to take my ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs, which help to fight the virus). I am very lucky to be in a community that has ARVs because in some areas they are not available. I will have to take them for the rest of my life. My boyfriend and I have been living together for two years, and now we have a baby. She is a year old. At first I didn't want people to know that I was pregnant. I thought I didn't have the right to have a baby. I thought if I had a baby, maybe in the hospital they would arrest me because I have AIDS. Luckily, my daughter is H.I.V.-negative. We gave her a drug called AZT AZT or zidovudine (zīdō`vy  dēn'), drug used to treat patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS; also called when I was in labor, so the virus wouldn't pass to her. And
she's fine.
'I WILL BE THE BOSS' Sometimes after everyone else is asleep, I imagine what this world would be like without me. I'm not scared of dying, but I'm scared of not being here, leaving my baby behind. I just want enough time to see her grow a little bigger. AIDS is not going to bring me down. It will try to rule inside, but outside I will be the boss. I want to study further. I want to have a great job. There are lots of things I want to get done. I'm just going on with my life. This essay is adapted from Thembi Ngubane's "AIDS Dairy," which was broadcast on National Public Radio last April. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion