HIV Positive? Not the End of the World

By Leah H. Mwainyekule

 

WHEN her husband passed away and left her four months pregnant, she had no idea that her life would become unbearable.  She had no idea that she would suffer and be rejected by her own relatives, and she had no idea that she was HIV positive.

Teresia Damian is HIV positive.  She doesn’t hide it and wants people to know about her status so that she could help her community change their behavior towards HIV positive people.  She also wants to help those who are positive like her, by encouraging them to know that it isn’t the end of the world for them.  Actually, she is a happy woman.

“I learned that I was HIV positive when I was sixth months pregnant with my last born and had to get tested at the antenatal clinic.  I later found out that my late husband’s relatives had known about what led to his death but did not tell me,” she recalls, adding: “Actually when I learned of my test results I felt devastated, but then I picked myself up and decided to be strong.”

But Teresia’s journey to happiness was not that easy.  Her husband’s relatives kicked her out of the house with nothing but a small bag of her clothes.  She had to move from Korogwe district to Tanga City in Tanga region, north of Tanzania and start a new life with her three year old daughter, living in her aunt’s home while she finds a job.  She gave birth to a healthy baby boy and vowed to protect him from contracting the virus.

“I decided to stop breastfeeding him when he was two months old.  I didn’t want him to contract the virus.  My husband’s relatives had promised to help me buy baby milk, but they didn’t live up to their word.  I suffered.  I would go and beg for money from other people, buy some little milk and mix it with lots of water so that the baby wouldn’t go hungry.  I knew it wasn’t nutritious, but I didn’t have a choice,” she explains.

“I asked a certain man to teach me how to be a tailor, and I would help him sew some clothes and get 300 shillings that I would buy half a kilo of sugar with, and ask good Samaritans for vegetables so that my children and I could get at least one meal per day.  Sometimes I didn’t eat and had to cook porridge and put salt in it because I couldn’t afford to buy sugar.  At least it helped my kids not to cry of hunger and wake up the angry neighbor,” she says.

In her pursuit for a better life, Teresia was lucky to be visited by someone she had never met before who introduced her to a savings and credit group.  Through that group called Shalom Women, she learnt many things including saving money, food production and tailoring.  She started by renting a sewing machine before she managed to have her own.

Teresia has already taken three loans of 50,000 shillings each, as well as a bonus of 160,000 shillings from the group’s first round of profits.  And you couldn’t imagine the first thing Teresia bought after receiving the loan.

“A mattress.  I bought myself and my two babies a mattress,” she says, laughing.  “The last time I slept on a mattress was in 2007 after I was kicked out of my house.  All of these years we have been sleeping on a mat – a borrowed one, actually – and our bodies had already grown used to that.  So I just had to buy a mattress,” she laughs.  The second thing that she did was have a carpenter make her a bed.  After that she opened herself a bank account and started saving even more money.

The ever-smiling Teresia is so thankful to the group for saving her and her children’s lives.  Right now she can afford to feed them, shelter them, buy them clothes and take them to school.  Her daughter is eight years old and in standard two, while her son is five years old and in nursery.  And what’s more, the child is HIV negative.

“Healthwise I am also doing fine, and I thank God that I have never really fallen sick.  I use medication as required and I am sure that I am absolutely not even close to death.  Everybody knows about my status, I do not hide it, and I teach them how to live positively.  Those who stigmatize others, I teach them that they shouldn’t do that,” she says.

From being a beggar to a brave young woman, Teresia is one hell of a lady who understands the importance of protecting your child at all cost.  She has suffered, has been ridiculed, has starved, and has been abandoned; but she never lost hope.  She knew that being a mother meant protecting your children, and thanks to the savings group, she is probably the happiest woman in Kange area.  Being HIV positive is definitely not the end of the world.

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