Another honourary month against HIV and AIDS

Another honourary month against HIV and AIDS

“Go a lwalwa.” A popular phrase amongst Batswana. A popular phrase amongst the youth. A phrase that loosely means, “Many people are sick.” Sick in this instance referring to the HIvirus. A phrase that many use to separate themselves from the virus. A phrase that many may be using with intention to warn others to be careful in their sexual endeavours out there. But at the end of the day, a phrase that somewhat distances the person saying it from the pandemic.   

In a time where HIV is like the common flu, it is still treated like it is an unwelcome vicious visitor, who only came to cause terror, and who will eventually go away if one ignored him/her long enough. An unwelcome visitor that one can liken to a monstrous mother-in-law. A mother-in-law will visit once in a while and when she does, the best thing that those who are in marriages can do is spend the night away from home drinking their sorrows away. Or engage in a behavior that they usually would not engage in. A behavior that can range from going home in the wee hours of the morning after a night out drinking with the boys, or even engaging in a sexual activity with that one guy who has always admired you, but you wouldn’t say yes to his advances because you were married. You spend the night with this guy to take your mind off “things.” Things, in this instance, your mother-in-law.

But at the end of the day or night or at the end of the climax, you still have to go back home. And you will find your mother-in-law there. With the monster-in-law, the situation is not entirely permanent. One day she wakes up tired of the city, packs her bags and returns to her safe haven. A small comfortable hut near the family kraal.

With HIV/AIDS it is a bit more complicated. HIV is still something we cannot begin to fathom, comprehend or accept. We still push it to the back of our minds. We still treat it like it is a visitor. We are still shocked by it. We are still wondering how it ever happened. We are still hoping it is not true. We are still hoping to awake from the dream or the nightmare. We want to live like our fore-fathers who had the loveliest time in the 60s. We want to go back to a time when one could have multiple sexual partners and the only thing they had to worry about was gonorrhea. Which did not “embarrass” them.  

But at the end of the day all the wondering will not help. And the finger pointing the “white men” will not help, because we will never know if “the secret society” injected one African with HIV and sent him out into the wild to spread it. Because, “They want us all to die so that they can take possession of our minerals.” We will never know if, “one white person had sexual intercourse with a monkey and caught the virus.”

What we know is that at the moment there is an addition to the “month of this,” or “a day of this.” So every now and then we hear on the radio a woman telling the masses that a particular month is a month against HIV/AIDS or a particular day is a day of AIDS. And this particular month is a Month of Youth Against HIV/AIDS.

We also know that a lot of people have made a lot of money from taking the message to the masses and “educating” them. We still know that prisoners do not get medications because they are foreigners. We still know that the virus, “only affects the poor.” And that it, “only affects the other person.” 

And last but not least we still judge ourselves through rose-tinted glasses. That is why it is still very easy for a youth with a promising future to end his life because he has discovered that he is HIV positive. He wonders how he will ever face his friend, whom he has always been discussing their high school friend with. The one who recently died after a long illness. A conversation that usually ends with, “Go a lwalwa.” He will never know that his closest friend is also just a healthy HIV positive person who decided to keep that detail of his life to himself because he fears discrimination. He takes his medication diligently while at the same time pursuing his dreams.

We are so “distant” from the virus that when we hear that someone died, we immediately ask, “Was he/she sick?” When the reply is, yes. We shrug and go on about our business after concluding he/she probably died because of AIDS and somewhat reason, that he or she deserved it. We forget death still existed before HIV and AIDS. We forget HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence and that being HIV negative does not necessarily mean immortality.

But who can blame anyone for the fear of HIV and AIDS? See. It’s a mixed message. “You are not supposed to fear HIV and AIDS because it is not a death sentence and you can live a long life if you choose to live healthy.” But at the same time, “Condomise because AIDS kills.”