If I had known – now I know

If I had known – now I know


Date: June 30, 2010
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I am a young woman of 28 years. I live in Maseru near the border post in a village called Ha Hoohlo. My story is probably typical of a young woman in my circumstances. I did what I did because it was the only way I could do to survive or so I keep telling myself.

My mother died when I was nine years old. My sister and I then had to live with our mother’s boyfriend. My sister was only seven years old. We knew because of the whisperings of our neighbours- the women and men who came to see our mother during her illness- they whispered that she died of an AIDS related disease. Our mother’s boyfriend tried to be a step father though legally he was not. He tried hard to bring us food, but sometimes was not able to because he lost the food on the way home from being drunk. He used to be so inebriated from alcohol that he sometimes did not turn-up for bed at night. During those days which were many, we used to wait in the dark for him to arrive until the hunger just made us sleep without him. We lived in a corrugated iron shack which was very cold in winter and very hot in summer. Sometimes we went hungry for days on end until we even forgot to count. It could have been two, three or more days or a whole week. We were very weak as a result.

My younger sister used to go to the nearby restaurant at the station site in the Maseru west Industrial area and she would bring remnants of pizza or fish or bread dough, or some chips and meat from the rubbish bins at the dump area. That was our luxury if the food was fresh. Most often than not, it was not so fresh. I believe my younger sister became ill from a combination of these factors. Though our mother had died of an AIDS related illness, we were not taken for testing. Neither did we know that we should have been tested for HIV then. We were too young to really understand everything regarding the illness. Our step father, as we perceived my mother’s boyfriend because he lived with us and took on the role of a father, was either too involved in his lifestyle or too ignorant to really care. All the neighbours could do was whisper. I felt that somehow we were responsible for our mother’s death because of the way everyone looked at us and whispered something about us whenever we passed by. All we could hear was shame. Other neighbours just outright laughed at us.

So eventually my sister got very ill and although I took her to the health clinic, she could not get better and in a few months time she died. I am not sure that I did everything I could for her. Looking back I always have this nagging feeling that I could have given her lots of water to drink. She always seemed to be so thirsty; or perhaps held her in my arms at night when she said her ribs were painful from sleeping, or perhaps given her more medicine to take. I just loved her so much and did not want her to die and somehow I felt responsible and it was like I had disappointed her somehow. That time in my life soon passed and I went to live with my grandfather.

He worked a as a baggage carrier, carrying luggage for people arriving from the mines in the Republic of South Africa for a weekend or other holidays. These people came through the border post and gave him some money if he helped them carry some of their load to the taxis. During busy days, my grandfather brought home maize meal, bread flour and meat, the two of us would have a feast. By then I knew how to cook and how to knead bread with yeast and bake it on a paraffin flame stove. On less busy days he would bring nothing at all.

In no time I was a teenager and I met other friends my age with whom I used to play. I always remember the period with my grandfather is the happiest of my childhood after the calamity of my mother’s and my sister’s death. Some girls started to talk to me about going to the border to talk nicely to those miners and carry their luggage too. But our aim was not to take them to the taxi. It was to take them home and have sex with them so we could make money. At the time when I started to go to the border to lure men into bed for money, I used to have sex with grown men who were old enough to be my fathers. I started buying beautiful and fashionable clothes, jewellery and a cell phone for myself. I felt on top of the world. I was no longer hungry. I was clothed and in school because I had money. As a teenager, I attended school at Life Secondary School, met a boy and he impregnated me.

I was still attending school and doing Grade 9 when I discovered that I was pregnant. Although I was only fifteen, the boy was over eighteen. My grandfather asked me who had done this to me and I told him. He went to the boy’s home to tell his parents what we had happened. His parents then asked him and he did not deny the relationship. So we were asked to get married so that he could continue to go to school and finish school since he was in the senior final year of high school.

I later went to a clinic to be tested for HIV and my results were positive. My boyfriend was tested and he his results came out negative. I could not believe his luck and I was just so grateful that I had not brought him the disease because of my past. Then we got married and I had to disclose my status to my husband and my in-laws. We both went regularly for counselling to understand how to handle our married life without getting further infection. Our child was born HIV negative because I was given medication to prevent her from being infected. We are a happy healthy family for now and we are trying our level best to take care of ourselves and protect ourselves from transmitting the HIV further. My husband and child have to stay HIV negative.

I am now helping other sex workers and HIV positive persons to create projects for income generation, to earn a living. As a care worker, today, my roles involve with sex workers to inform on HIV and AIDS, something that I feel close to my heart having lost a mother and sister. I am working towards assisting these young women about protection and as well as empowering them to find other ways to economically gain grounds to take care of themselves rather than using sex as a means of sustaining their lives. I understand the care required and yet it is not enough to do it on my own without government support and realising the contributions care workers put into the health system with the work they do in their communities.

 


0 thoughts on “If I had known – now I know”

Esther Ngatia says:

My dear, I have read this story with a lot of sadness. I would like to work with you Iam an Office administrator from
Kenya. Please tell me about your organization and how i can be of any help may be not financially but my skills and experience and counseling.
reach me through nyachomba2006@yahoo.com

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