In Search Of H.I.V

By

Aderemi Yemi

adeyemiremi@yahoo.com

 

I will like to start by introducing myself. I am a married man with three children and I have been married for over 11 years and I courted my wife for 5 years before we got married. Lately I got a job with a company  with a branch in a city in Northern Nigeria, where I was posted to serve the company.

         

Due to some circumstances beyond my control, I found myself squatting with a colleague who is single and full of life and of course, he’s really living his life to the fullest, which is the reason for this piece.

         

I may sound naive, or out rightly dull to some of the readers of this piece, do pardon me. I know, now, that I had been living a highly shielded life, and I cannot but express my shock over what I have seen lately.

         

The reason for this article is my room mate, whom I have introduced earlier, I can’t be too graphic because I don’t want to sound like an ingrate complaining when he should be grateful to the man who was kind enough to give him shelter when he needed one urgently.

         

It all started one night, after a hard day’s work, there was no light and I was sound asleep when my ‘landlord’, you know who I’m referring to, came in and told me, politely, that I would have to move to the sitting room, because he has a ‘police’ (his code for his girls) coming over. He hasn’t finished when the ‘police’ came in, truly.

         

I moved to the sitting room, unfortunately for me I couldn’t sleep because of the heat and the mosquitoes. I leave you to guess the sound that was coming out of the bedroom. This was what got me thinking.

         

You see this is the first time I was seeing this girl, and I couldn’t help but wonder why a ‘lady’ would consent to casual sex. As for my room mate I wondered. Where is this guy getting his energy from? Is there something in his blood that has made him so randy? I wished I could get into his mind to know how his brain works. All his girls are as varied in shapes and sizes as they are many. There is no particular pattern, no consistency, except that they are all female. I Guess that’s the only qualification to his bed!

         

You see this man has a girl-friend who, according to him, he intends to marry. He doesn’t look ready to me. And I do pity the poor girl. The heart-ache she goes through and the fights she’s been involved in trying to keep her man. She has invested (and I am not referring to finances, that could be recovered, I mean emotion, time and energies) so heavily in this man and he just can’t seem to determine a particular course for his life.

         

You see, my landlord is a very nice person, really nice. But my fear is, “has this guy ever heard the word H.I.V.?” Does he know the implications? Our organization has one or two people who are infected with the dreaded disease and I know how much the organization incurs on medical bills trying to preserve the lives of these people.

         

You’d have expected somebody to borrow a leaf from that and be careful. He thinks the only form of care he needs to exercise is wearing condoms. I know condoms are not guaranteed 100% and I can’t help but wonder, supposing the condoms fail, sorry, I normally refer to it (condoms) as ‘staff of office’. Had I known will now follow, some innocent old women in their families will get blamed, some imaginary enemies will share in the blame as well.

         

That night I said to myself, if this is how H.I.V. carriers had lived their lives, do they really deserve the compassion and rights they are fighting for. Do they deserve the attention they want us to give them? My apologies go to faithful spouses of philandering partners, victims of unscreened blood transfusion and other carriers who became infected through no fault of theirs.  I may sound holier than the Pope, but that’s not my intentions, I am just a man in shock. 16 years of being faithful and now I am exposed. It seem like a curse on this city because sex is like the air they breathe, everybody must have it. I am just using my ‘landlord’ as a case study.

         

Why are we promoting the use of condoms, when we should promote fidelity? When guys like my ‘landlord’ get infected, which in my opinion is a matter of time before the bubble bursts,  he passes it to his loving girl-friend. This is the highest crime one can commit. What would the offense of the lady had been? She fell in love with a man who has no control over his own urges.

         

I think we need to reason with men and women reading this article who are like my ‘landlord’ to stop for a moment and think. After all, the good book says, “if a man wants to build a house, he sits down and counts the cost, whether he will be able to finish it or not…” it is a matter of cost and benefit. Is the pleasure worth the pain. How many women are suffering today because of the unfaithfulness of their husbands. My Aunt, my mother’s immediate younger sister, is a victim, she’s an H.I.V. carrier today because she married a man like my landlord.

         

The man eventually, died of AIDS, but not before passing it to her. I knew how many times family meetings were called to help settle their quarrels and how many times she moved out of the house because of her husbands infidelity and she went back to his house one time too many. She’s left alone, now, to raise his children and to manage her ailment, she was always there whenever he needed her, but who would nurse her now? Her children and other family members who have their own problems? That’s not fair! That’s not the way to treat the person one claims to love!

         

I am of the opinion that the HIV rights activist should educate the philandering populace about the feelings of the people they claim to love. In my opinion it bothers on selfishness, you lived your lives the way you thought was best, you contacted an ailment and now you are screaming for attention from the people you treated with disrespect. Correct me if I am wrong. I am a compassionate person, in my own opinion, and I believe nobody should be made to suffer, if I can help. But why should somebody make a choice to live riotously and when he gets the result of his choices, he now wants to turn around and make other people feel guilty for the choices they made. Please, care for me, don’t discriminate against me and bla bla bla !! I think my ‘landlord and the likes of him have always been selfish without knowing it.

         

How do we care for the people whose heart they have broken? How do we pacify a woman who stays at home faithfully cooking and caring for a man and his children, lovingly giving her body to satisfy him, or the man who works hard to provide for his family, deprives himself in other to meet his obligations to his spouse, only to be infected with H.I.V as a reward? Such people don’t come out boldly to fight for rights, they are too angry and sad. They feel used, violated and raped.  Should this be their reward for loving a man or is it a woman?

         

This is where my landlord is heading and I do feel very sorry for the woman who loves him with all her heart and I can only imagine and try to pray against the heartache that lies ahead, if her man does not change his ways. For those who are reading this piece. If you ever caught your partner cheating, my only advise is. RUN, RUN and RUN!! Don’t look back. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

EPILOGUE:

         

I WROTE THIS ARTICLE SOMETIME IN March 2006 and  I couldn’t bring myself to publish it for fear of sounding too critical. Lots of things have happened to the characters mentioned in the piece since then.

         

My Aunty whom I mentioned earlier had died, not of Aids, but of stroke, sudden and very devastating. She left 5 children to find their paths through life by themselves, I can only pray for God to guide the children to make the right choices!

         

Just yesterday, I was called by my ‘landlord’, he has been ill, on and off,  for over 2 months now. Want to know what he told me? “I’ve been diagnosed as HIV positive!” The illness that led to the diagnosis had really eaten him up, he is emaciated and he is really suffering. His girlfriend, is in denial now, “That will not be your portion!” She screamed. “You must reject this lie of the devil” She continued. Who can blame her, some truth are just too hard to swallow. She’s blaming everybody in their village, she’s blaming the “enemy” for not wanting them to get married. Of course, she’s blamed a town’s guy who works in the same organization with my ‘landlord’.

         

The truth is that God uses or weakness to elevate us, while the devil uses our ‘strength’ to destroy us. The yorubas say “Monkey is eating banana, she’s dancing, she does not know that sweet things kill!”  

         

I just want people to learn from this. Of course, by the time I wrote the first part of this article, he had already contacted the disease and only God knows how long he had been living with HIV and how many women he had infected. I don’t know if he has AIDS and if anti-retroviral drugs can help now, I pray he would not die, he has been suffering for almost two months now, he cannot eat because of the swollen gland in his neck, really sad. I tell you. My piece turned out to be prophetic.

         

I will only offer you one advise now, incase you had been living like he did, you have hope if only you will be bold enough to go and determine your status NOW. With the right choices you will prolong your life. The edge you have now is to KNOW your status before the virus overwhelms your system. That way you stand a chance!

         

You don’t have to suffer, if only you will make the right choices now. I pray God will give all of us the boldness to make the right decisions!