Coming to Africa, I've finally started gaining some pride in America. Seeing so many injustices happen to obtain a "democracy" that can only be labeled as farcical has made me start to appreciate what I've had at my disposal in America. I've defended American ness to South Africans, explained American ness to Mozambicans and pleaded American ness to visiting Europeans. Most of it is done with my tongue firmly in my cheek.
However, I stumbled across some news today that has made me very upset. The USA had a travel ban for HIV positive foreigners in the country. That means anyone with HIV who wasn't a citizen couldn't enter or leave the US without a waiver from the government. The other countries in the world that have a ban are Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Lybia, Brunei, China, South Korea and Iraq. This is crazy. I think it's even crazier that I didn't know about this. But the good news is that as of July 16th 2008, the ban is no more. China repealed it earlier this year as well.
Maybe things really can change?
Showing posts with label AIDS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIDS. Show all posts
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Its a little hard!
People are rough to each other. Mozambicans are some of the most friendly people I've ever come into contact with. But between themselves, they are brutal and won't trust you as far as they can through you. I guess this comes from the BRUTAL civil war that raged here for so long. But this morning was a test of my nerves. My housekeeper has been telling me about her sick brother. He was down in Maputo and she brought him back up here. She and I were talking about what was going on with him. Weight loss, loss of appetite, tiredness. They had gotten the malaria test. Negative. But the brother just kept getting worse. I mentioned an HIV test just to be sure. It's better to know than not! So I agreed to go with my housekeeper and her brother. With a white man in the hospital queue, you will not have to wait there all day. I agreed to have an AIDS test too. I'm at no risk so I figured why not.
As soon as I saw the brother I knew it was AIDS. He was skeletal. But we went. Of course it came back positive. I never thought I would have to experience, but it happens to a lot of us PCVs. It's not that experience that I hated, its the reaction when I got into work. But I quickly started talking to my housekeeper about how HIV is not a death sentence like it used to be. You can live 10-15 years with it if you REALLY take care of yourself. The brother is immediately offered counseling and they have taken him off to the provincial capital to get a CD4 count done. I went to work in a daze this morning. Mainly because I've seen this woman every day for the past 7 months and she was clearly upset and crying today. Luckily, she and I both turned out to be negative.
So I get into work and start asking around for material about living with HIV in Portuguese. All that I had at home in Portuguese was a nutritional book. I gave it to my housekeeper. But one of the guys here at work said to me after I mentioned that I had a horrible morning. "Oh that's nothing, you deal with it." He's insensitive, most likely has the virus himself but is some how right. Someone else here even laughed at my frantic reactions. That pissed me off, but I understood it too. Sympathy is not something shown very often here. That makes sense too when you look at life through an African perspective (something I'm not very good at.) Everyone suffered during the war, everyone suffers now. We all get through. The strength these people have is inspirational... but I guess when you don't really have a choice....
As soon as I saw the brother I knew it was AIDS. He was skeletal. But we went. Of course it came back positive. I never thought I would have to experience, but it happens to a lot of us PCVs. It's not that experience that I hated, its the reaction when I got into work. But I quickly started talking to my housekeeper about how HIV is not a death sentence like it used to be. You can live 10-15 years with it if you REALLY take care of yourself. The brother is immediately offered counseling and they have taken him off to the provincial capital to get a CD4 count done. I went to work in a daze this morning. Mainly because I've seen this woman every day for the past 7 months and she was clearly upset and crying today. Luckily, she and I both turned out to be negative.
So I get into work and start asking around for material about living with HIV in Portuguese. All that I had at home in Portuguese was a nutritional book. I gave it to my housekeeper. But one of the guys here at work said to me after I mentioned that I had a horrible morning. "Oh that's nothing, you deal with it." He's insensitive, most likely has the virus himself but is some how right. Someone else here even laughed at my frantic reactions. That pissed me off, but I understood it too. Sympathy is not something shown very often here. That makes sense too when you look at life through an African perspective (something I'm not very good at.) Everyone suffered during the war, everyone suffers now. We all get through. The strength these people have is inspirational... but I guess when you don't really have a choice....
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Death's a Bitch
She isn’t pretty, she’s comes too fast and here in this country she’s so damn unpredictable. There is this old guy that has been working in my place probably as long as it’s been running. I think he’s a founding member of the organization. Anyway before the move, he was fine. Now all of a sudden, he’s skinny skinny skinny, beady eyes, doesn’t eat or recognize anybody. This is all being told to me by a colleague. Now he’s on death’s door. Someone else that gave me a ride from Xai-Xai to Maxixe last year died. (AIDS) This man who’s been working with us… dare I say it? Almost made it 2 years and then 4 people close to me are close to dying in one year. Damn the fear of this disease.
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