Emily

Anyone who knows me well knows I am not a religious person.  However, today I got a glimpse of what faith in god can do for people.

I met a woman who had more faith in god and belief in her own power to help others than anyone I have ever met.  This woman, Emily, found out she is HIV + around 2002 and immediately decided that she was going to live positively and she begged god to give her 15 years in order for her to be able to raise the children she already had and to help others with the disease.

It has been about 10 years since then and she has helped enumerable people.  She firmly believes that she has more than the original five years left in her life and from what I saw I can only imagine just how many more people Emily is going to help in her lifetime. She has certainly impacted me in a fundamental way – I felt as though I had met a person who truly lived her life for others.  She started a support group for HIV/AIDS survivors in her community in her own home because in 2003, not so long ago, she was chased away from the churches and the community centre in Nanyuki when she tried to rent space for her support groups. 

HIV/AIDS victims have started to band together to form support groups and help one another.  Since Emily first tried to get space for her group, the stigma has decreased significantly although it is clearly still present. The public still believes in some HIV/AIDS related myths that perpetuate the stigma such as the fact that lubricant on condoms can spread HIV/AIDS (not true) and that having sex with a virgin can cure a man of HIV (although obviously not true).

Now, Emily runs a place which acts as a nursery school for orphaned children, an HIV/AIDS support group and meeting area and a health clinic all on her small property in Nanyuki.  The clinic was also very interesting and surprising to our group because they were trying to place an emphasis on birth control so that these women can take some sort of control of their reproductive functions even though they still generally must obey their husbands in every other capacity.

As a feminist woman I have learned and seen many things here that have been painful to me as I think about these young girls, and women who live as second class citizens here.  They are forced to accept the fact that the African culture tends to allow the men to be unfaithful to their wives.  Most women are not even allowed to ask or insinuate that their men have been unfaithful and most women would not have the free choice to use a condom with their husbands. Female condoms are available as well but are no where near as readily available and are very expensive for the most part.

But I see hope – I have talked to some women who are speaking out.  They are taking charge of their lives and working, making money to raise their children on their own as, unfortunately, many of the men abandon their families.  I see how important education is for this process to develop and for all these women to have the choice of controlling when they have sex, how they are protected and when they have children.  The equality of the students at the local primary school and the immense intelligence of these young girls gives me hope in their future although it still pains me as I know many of them have experienced such pain and responsibility at such a young age.  

I still have hope that this younger generation can be better off than their parents and that HIV/AIDS can be eliminated as a complicating factor within the poverty.