25 November 2009
My mum passed HIV onto me when I was four years old. She had my baby brother and because we were poor and she didn't have enough food she breastfed me as well and that’s how I got it. I don't blame her though because she didn't know that she was HIV Positive and that’s just how life goes. My baby brother got ill really quickly and didn't live for very long and then my mum got sick and died quite soon afterwards. I don't really remember her at all.
My dad is a gangster and a mean man. He got HIV from sleeping with other women and then gave it to my mum. I don't see him anymore but I don't care because I think he's a dangerous person and I don't want my life to be like his.
After my mum died, my grandmother looked after me and then when she passed away, my aunt brought me up.
I have always had to go to the hospital but I didn’t go on ARV drugs until recently because I was always healthy. Then my CD4 count dropped so now I’m on the medication, but it isn’t too bad. I just have to take pills every day and sometimes I feel tired but otherwise it’s fine.
The real problem is people’s attitudes because there is such ignorance around HIV and AIDS, which makes life difficult. I used to always be afraid that my friends would discover that I was HIV Positive because where I live bad things have happened to people who are have it. It's tough because it can make you feel like you’re totally alone and sometimes you just think ‘I don’t want to live like this’. A few years ago I did think about killing myself. I don’t have a mum or a brother because of this disease and I felt I was just waiting to die as well.
Now I feel like that is in the past. There's a group of kids I've grown up with at the hospital and at the Pela Vidda project and we're all HIV Positive so it's like having a family, we’re all like brother and sister to each other.
We talk about how having HIV doesn’t make you abnormal, It's just like having any other sickness that you treat with drugs. Recently I've started to tell people, my best friends and some of my teachers. A few months ago I told my girlfriend. We've been together one year and I just sat her down and explained and she was completely cool about it. We love each other and she said the important thing was to be honest.
It’s not like I’m ready to go around shouting about it, but I feel like I'm changing every year and one day I want to tell more people about my HIV status. Maybe in the future it will be my job to tell other people who are HIV Positive not to be scared and to just be themselves and that they don't have to pretend anymore.
One day I hope I can have kids and have a family and I'll know what to do to make sure they have a different attitude than what is out there at the moment, because it's not good to have to hide the truth all the time. It drives you crazy in the end.