A multitude of social customs and cultural conditions contribute
to the pandemic. Generally people do not openly discuss sex, condom use is low
and multiple sexual partners common. Knowledge of the virus amongst individuals
is limited and for most people proper medical care is out of reach so that HIV
may go undetected for many years until symptoms are severe and others already
infected. Sadly, for many years, HIV has just seemed like someone else’s
problem.
The fear and discrimination that seem to go hand in hand with HIV further conceal
the crisis and mean that many will die behind closed doors. Until communities
understand and accept HIV, opportunistic infections brought on by AIDS allow
the true impact of the epidemic to be camouflaged and largely invisible. As
an NGO volunteer observed, ‘people don’t die of AIDS, they are just
sick.’ People fear the stigma associated with HIV / AIDS and live with
the constant threat of discovery and discrimination. Sickness and death are
surrounded with secrecy and lies as incomes are lost and they sink deeper into
poverty.
Some of the Wola Nani clients shared their experiences of discrimination.
‘I never want to see you again’
‘He left and married someone else’
‘I can take a gun and I can kill you’
‘They don’t want to talk to me, sit near me’
‘A clinic health worker insulted me in public. That’s how my daughter found out I was positive. Now they taunt her at school.’
‘They were scared of this thing, so I can’t stay there’
‘At the funeral my brother would not touch her coffin. I think he thought he might catch it’
‘I am scared to tell the teachers about my son. They will tell. The other children will discriminate against the HIV ones.’
‘If I knew that someone was HIV positive, I would not even share the same toilet as them’
‘I’m scared they won’t love me’
The realities and challenges of HIV /AIDS can seem almost too great to bear. Yet the best response to the pandemic comes from people living with the virus. Their involvement and example bring a human face and voice to HIV, breaking through the silence, stigma and denial that shroud the disease.
Nomawethu’s story stands as a representative testimony for many of the untold stories in South Africa. It is a human and courageous account of what people affected by the AIDS pandemic are facing. It also demonstrates how working through fear and denial can achieve acceptance, dignity and hope.