Living with HIV: The Class of 2013

Meet Grace and Charles: two attractive Nairobians in the prime of their life. Charles is tall, and looks like the boy-next-door, complete with good manners and carefully measured utterances. Grace is petite with beautiful, even toned brown skin and a bubbly personality—a girl that turn heads. The thing they have in common is that they are both born with HIV. Despite more people living longer with HIV today, and younger people assumed to be more open minded, it is still difficult to be open about an HIV positive status. Charles and Grace, however, refuse to let the disease stop them from living their lives.

Charles has been in a relationship with his HIV negative girlfriend for four years now. “First she was like I’m just lying, I’m well, I’m not sick. Then during midterm we went to the Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center (VCT) and she witnessed that it’s true. She is giving me a lot of support,” he says. Charles has never dated an HIV positive woman and when asked about how the disease has affected his sex life he bluntly states: “I am sexually active.” He does believe that abstinence is a path that can work for some, but he is not a big fan of practicing it himself. “Safe sex is better. You cannot tell somebody to chill, he may accept [now], but after that [he] will do it,” he says adding “I can’t have sex without protection.”

Grace is also dating a HIV negative partner and they’ve been together for one and a half years. “He should know about me and I should know about him,” she says. She disclosed her status on the fourth month, and when asked if she is having sex with her boyfriend, she responds: “Yes I am. When you protect yourself it’s normal.” Only one of her past boyfriends was HIV positive, they met at a support group and she has dated three HIV negative men. On the topic of her sexual habits she clarifies: “I’m not that active. I only have one partner. I trust him.”

Disclosing her status to her boyfriend was not an easy step. She was born with HIV and has been working with the overarching dilemma all her life; do I tell or do I keep the secret? One of the factors that helped her disclose her HIV status to others has been attending support groups with other HIV positive people. These groups are an important element that has helped both Grace and Charles to where they are today. “We share a lot, through [it] we get that confidence and it raises our self esteem,” says Charles. Grace agrees. “They are special in that we undergo the same thing. They get to understand you better,” she says.

Disclosure is not easy for everyone and the sexual life of any HIV positive person is often dominated with the anxiety of being rejected, if the respective partner is HIV negative. Twenty-four-year-old, Tony, who is also HIV positive, is present when speaking with Grace and Charles. He is soft spoken and has a history of being stigmatized by some family members, so his skepticism about being with a HIV negative person is somewhat expected. “Ni vile, these people kuwa in time of marriage, wanakuambia urudi mahali ulipata hiyo ugonjwa uko nayo (In time of marriage, an HIV negative person will tell you to go back where you got the disease from).” Tony says he prefers to date an HIV positive woman.

He admits there was a time he did not disclose his status to a sexual partner, “I didn’t tell my partner. Unajua ni huko ushago, niliangalia nikaona huyo ataenda hivyo akisambaza. Nikasema ni heri ni nyamazie. (It was up-country, and when I looked at the situation I thought she’d tell others that I’m HIV positive. I told myself it’s better that I just keep quiet.)

Grace and Charles are confident, social individuals who have grown up dealing with their conditions because they had adequate support systems. Meanwhile, the other twenty-somethings, HIV positive class of 2013 are wrestling with self-esteem, social acceptance and sexual issues. The challenge for us as a community, in 2013, still seems to be supporting HIV positive people so that they can feel empowered to live their best lives, through support groups, healthy living and disclosure.

By Josephine Opar.