It all started with a rumour
making rounds. It was said that in Nthole Village in Nsanje district, there is
a woman. Edna Gerald was the name of the woman, and something was happening to
her. She is blind too. Another challenge too…
The
rumour had it that a husband to Edna Gerald didn’t like her due to her status
for being HIV positive. The fact that she had been put on a life prolonging
drugs treatment didn’t go well with her husband.
When
Gerald was put on life prolonging drugs, the husband went to the extent of
throwing drugs into the toilet. He didn’t want her to be taking drugs.
What
made the situation heart tingling was the fact that the woman was and is still
blind.
“It
really pained us when we got wind of the rumour says,” Eunice Ngolombe,
chairperson of COWLHA in Nsanje district says.
As Edna
Gerald staggers with her walking stick and being assisted by Eunice Ngolombe,
she looks so quite…silent. But out of that silence she has a tale to tell.
At a
time that Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS is striving to reach out
to as many women as possible, the most vulnerable and easily forgotten groups
like the blind are not being left behind.
Edna
Gerald is one such woman.
Gerald
says after getting ill, her parents took her home to Fatima. And when she got
tested it was found that she was HIV positive.
But
things became worse when she came back to Nsanje. Her husband didn’t want to
see her wife to be taking life prolonging drugs.
“When
people see you taking life prolonging drugs, what will I say?” she remembers
his quizzical expression at the time.
“He was
throwing them [drugs] in toilets. I mean drugs,” says Gerald. “Yet it’s him who
brought me the virus.”
She
never had the much needed care.
Stepping
Stones members heard about the rumour. They had to intervene. And they stepped
in.
“Together
with Mai Mtima Bii, District Coordinator for COWLHA, we visited her home. And
asked what happened,” says Ngolombe, adding that after being told the whole
ordeal we urged her husband to go and have HIV test.
But how
did they convince the husband to go for HIV test?
“We
told him about the benefits of having an HIV test to himself, the wife as well
as the dependents,” she says.
Whenever
members of Stepping Stones are meeting, Edna Gerald is always involved.
“With
Tiwoloke, I have a family,” Gerald finishes.
