"You are looking for the one who was sick? He is not here anymore. He is gone". My heart sank, I looked at my colleague. He looked down. The old woman was confused, wondering why we were crest-fallen. "No, no! I don't mean gone, gone. I mean he has gone where others go!" Even more confusing. We only knew of one place where "others" had gone in the last fifteen and more years. Somewhere up in the sky. Or the other wing. The woman kept up her bright smile. "I mean he went Egoli! To Johannesburg! Where everyone goes these days. He needed to find a job. What could he do here in the village? So we found some cash, and sent him on his way. He was now very healthy. Very, very fit. Agh, sorry, you thought I meant he was dead? Oh no. He is very much alive!"
This story was related to me by one of my colleagues in an anti- HIV & AIDS program that my organization supports. The same story has been repeated over and over and these last two weeks as I went around visiting our program partners, and the communities they work with. There are no more Home based care (HBC) patients. Most of them are up and about. Thanks to the availability of Anti Retroviral Treatment in Zimbabwe. This is one big change that has occured since I have been gone. Let me say, since I lost the third of my siblings in 2000. Everywhere we go, the partners have largely abandoned the HBC programs. Gone are the days of distributing bars of soap, detergents, gloves, and bed sheets. Now it's medication, nutrition, and livelihoods.
One of the things I so looked forward to when I left Zimbabwe was the luxury of spending each weekend in my own house not going to funerals, or to pass condolences for the ones I had missed. I relished the idea of weeks and weeks without having to bury anyone. I so yearned to listen to, dance and enjoy my favourite Reggae music. I had to clear the space clogged by funeral dirges which had become the songs in my head. Yet I dreaded the expense of flying out every month to come bury a relative or two. I opened a separate funeral/illness fund. I abandoned it after three years. I had hardly saved anything.
This whole year I have only buried three people whose HIV status I knew. What bliss! Ok that sounds wrong. But you get the picture. Both Granville cemetery and Westpark did not look like giant "festivals" when we had the two funerals. Back in the late 1990s, if you were given a burial time of 1100hr you just had to be there at 1100hr, and finish by 1200hr. If you spent too long you would be drowned out by the funeral next to you, and the other one on the other side. Women decked in their church uniforms, the Lutherans in purple, the Methodists in red, the Anglicans in blue, and the ubiquitous Mapostori in white looked festive and sang in their loudest voices while the drums competed. Anyone passing by the cemetries who didn't know any better would think we were all on colourful picnics. Ice cream, juice, milk and fruit vendors soon found captive markets and they would descend on the "picnic" sites in droves. They made a good killing - pardon the bad taste pun. In 1998, my brothers and I ended up on first name terms with one of the undertakers. "Ah welcome back the Mawarires! Nice to see you!" The poor fellow forgot where he was. Nice to see us? We quickly forgave him, he had seen us thrice, in three months.
I have only visited two elderly relatives in hospital this whole year, both of them with diabetes. More bliss! By 2001, I could find my way round Parirenyatwa hospital or the Avenues Clinic with my eyes closed. Of course there was always one ward in each, whose very mention you knew what it signaled. I damaged my left hip going up and down those stairs at Pari by walking too soon after a major operation. We just had to do what had to be done.
Anti retrovirals are now easily available and affordable. Just last week, I got a frantic call from a friend whose brother did not know how and where to access ARVs. By the end of that very day, we had three people calling back to say let him come and get them. The very next day, a community based organization dispatched a counsellor on a bicycle to his rural home. ARVs by room service!
In Binga, one of the remotest, and poorest districts in Zimbabwe where I just came back from, dozens of women and men told me their stories of living with HIV. This in very public forums and in mixed groups. They showed me their vegetable gardens where they grow all varities of veg for themselves and for sale. Some have started income generating projects which - yeah yeah before all you NGO naysayers ask- they actually do generate tangible income! Women and men sang (what is an NGO visit without a song and dance for the 'donor'?) about the goodness of Anti Retroviral Treatment, and encouraged men to accompany their wives to go and get PMTCT drugs.
HIV is still around. Thousands of people have it. There are even new infections. There are still some people dying. I met two 'peer educators' who between them have six wives. That is not the story for today though. I have been to six weddings in the last year. In my church the wedding banns take at least 20 minutes each Sunday. At weddings and parties if the food service is late, you are sure to hear several people shouting, "hurry up, those of us on medication need to take our pills on time!" And you know they are not talking cancer medication. I am fascinated by women I have seen exchanging stories about their pills, comparing the colours, wondering why they are different. They laugh at one another, "ah my HIV is probably bigger than yours".
Zimbabweans might be poor, suffering under the economic crisis and the political yoke is still around our necks. But AIDS related deaths no longer stalk the land. I am happy that thousands of women no longer have to carry clinics on their heads, as my friend Edna at Women's Action Group once put it. They can get on with their own lives and have a little snooze if they wish.
I have a song in my heart and it's Bunny Wailer's Rock and Groove. It's not Jerusalem My Home. Now where to find a big shocking green hat then a purple fascinator for those two Christmas weddings?
This story was related to me by one of my colleagues in an anti- HIV & AIDS program that my organization supports. The same story has been repeated over and over and these last two weeks as I went around visiting our program partners, and the communities they work with. There are no more Home based care (HBC) patients. Most of them are up and about. Thanks to the availability of Anti Retroviral Treatment in Zimbabwe. This is one big change that has occured since I have been gone. Let me say, since I lost the third of my siblings in 2000. Everywhere we go, the partners have largely abandoned the HBC programs. Gone are the days of distributing bars of soap, detergents, gloves, and bed sheets. Now it's medication, nutrition, and livelihoods.
One of the things I so looked forward to when I left Zimbabwe was the luxury of spending each weekend in my own house not going to funerals, or to pass condolences for the ones I had missed. I relished the idea of weeks and weeks without having to bury anyone. I so yearned to listen to, dance and enjoy my favourite Reggae music. I had to clear the space clogged by funeral dirges which had become the songs in my head. Yet I dreaded the expense of flying out every month to come bury a relative or two. I opened a separate funeral/illness fund. I abandoned it after three years. I had hardly saved anything.
This whole year I have only buried three people whose HIV status I knew. What bliss! Ok that sounds wrong. But you get the picture. Both Granville cemetery and Westpark did not look like giant "festivals" when we had the two funerals. Back in the late 1990s, if you were given a burial time of 1100hr you just had to be there at 1100hr, and finish by 1200hr. If you spent too long you would be drowned out by the funeral next to you, and the other one on the other side. Women decked in their church uniforms, the Lutherans in purple, the Methodists in red, the Anglicans in blue, and the ubiquitous Mapostori in white looked festive and sang in their loudest voices while the drums competed. Anyone passing by the cemetries who didn't know any better would think we were all on colourful picnics. Ice cream, juice, milk and fruit vendors soon found captive markets and they would descend on the "picnic" sites in droves. They made a good killing - pardon the bad taste pun. In 1998, my brothers and I ended up on first name terms with one of the undertakers. "Ah welcome back the Mawarires! Nice to see you!" The poor fellow forgot where he was. Nice to see us? We quickly forgave him, he had seen us thrice, in three months.
I have only visited two elderly relatives in hospital this whole year, both of them with diabetes. More bliss! By 2001, I could find my way round Parirenyatwa hospital or the Avenues Clinic with my eyes closed. Of course there was always one ward in each, whose very mention you knew what it signaled. I damaged my left hip going up and down those stairs at Pari by walking too soon after a major operation. We just had to do what had to be done.
Anti retrovirals are now easily available and affordable. Just last week, I got a frantic call from a friend whose brother did not know how and where to access ARVs. By the end of that very day, we had three people calling back to say let him come and get them. The very next day, a community based organization dispatched a counsellor on a bicycle to his rural home. ARVs by room service!
In Binga, one of the remotest, and poorest districts in Zimbabwe where I just came back from, dozens of women and men told me their stories of living with HIV. This in very public forums and in mixed groups. They showed me their vegetable gardens where they grow all varities of veg for themselves and for sale. Some have started income generating projects which - yeah yeah before all you NGO naysayers ask- they actually do generate tangible income! Women and men sang (what is an NGO visit without a song and dance for the 'donor'?) about the goodness of Anti Retroviral Treatment, and encouraged men to accompany their wives to go and get PMTCT drugs.
HIV is still around. Thousands of people have it. There are even new infections. There are still some people dying. I met two 'peer educators' who between them have six wives. That is not the story for today though. I have been to six weddings in the last year. In my church the wedding banns take at least 20 minutes each Sunday. At weddings and parties if the food service is late, you are sure to hear several people shouting, "hurry up, those of us on medication need to take our pills on time!" And you know they are not talking cancer medication. I am fascinated by women I have seen exchanging stories about their pills, comparing the colours, wondering why they are different. They laugh at one another, "ah my HIV is probably bigger than yours".
Zimbabweans might be poor, suffering under the economic crisis and the political yoke is still around our necks. But AIDS related deaths no longer stalk the land. I am happy that thousands of women no longer have to carry clinics on their heads, as my friend Edna at Women's Action Group once put it. They can get on with their own lives and have a little snooze if they wish.
I have a song in my heart and it's Bunny Wailer's Rock and Groove. It's not Jerusalem My Home. Now where to find a big shocking green hat then a purple fascinator for those two Christmas weddings?
Thanks E.J for reminding us to celebrate the positives....to acknowledge the efforts and strides made thus far...Let's continue to do this, to celebrate our victories...and to make it fashionable to always profile Africa's...Zimbabwe's Happy face.
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