Chapter 5
A New Start
The HIV of today is very different from that of the years 1987 to about 1999 according to me. These were the most terrible years in as far as HIV/AIDs was concerned. These were the years that saw many people dying of AIDs in Zimbabwe.
These too were the years when stigma and discrimination were at its worst. Once one was diagonised as being HIV+ one would endure the worst form of discrimination ever experienced.
During this period nobody knew what to do with an HIV+ person and those who were HIV+ did not know what to do with themselves and like wounded animals they would just wait for the slow and painful death with very little or no care from medical personnel, relatives and friends .Information on HIV/AIDs was still scant and the little information available concentrated more on inducing fear than assurance to the victim.
Most people who tested HIV+ during these years in most cases had no hope of surviving once they fell ill. Once it was known that one was HIV+ and ill nobody would want to have anything to do with them.
These were the years when new and frightening Shona names such as “Shuramatongo ,Chazezesa just to name but a few were coined for effect.
I remember very clearly a very sad occasion when I met someone from our rural area and had been a sex worker at Gokwe bus terminus being sent home by her relatives.
She was there huddled at the bus rank her gaunt and skeletal body covered in blankets and those accompanying her seemed oblivous to her plight as they said she deserved to suffer because she had brought the disease deliberately to herself as she had been a prostitute so this was pay back time for her. This former beauty edured all the taunts silently.
When the bus finally arrived her relatives put on surgical gloves and lifted her into the bus and sat her on the back seat of the bus. They paid her fare and told the bus conductor where she would disembark and that there would be people waiting with a scotch cart to take her home.
The sick lady had to endure the bumpy journey alone on the back seat until we reached her destination and those waiting for had to first wear gloves in order to lift her from the bus and put her into the cart for the trip home. Being HIV+ and being ill during this era was a very frightening experience.
Meanwhile, I had made up my mind to leave my rural home to go to Mutare to start my life all over again. Before I left my rural home for Mutare I still had that feeling that I was really HIV+ and it was just a matter of time before I had full blown AIDS.
I also sat down with myself to introspect about my life .I decided that I had worsted and was still in the process of wasting my life unnecessarily by always thinking that I was HIV+.
I decided there and then to change my attitude and take a new outlook towards life. I also made a decision that it was now high time I should find a permanent job and get married. Armed with these thoughts I left home for Mutare in August 1988 to start my life all over again.
Piason Maringwa is a teacher at Batanai High School near Manoti in Gokwe South District.
He has been living with HIV for more than 30 years and has been talking about his HIV+ status since 2004.
