To her, the decision to test for HIV was a forced one. Forced by the fact her husband left her because she was growing thin, always feeling tired and occasionally falling sick.
Her husband wanted someone who is healthy, upright and always by his side at the farm. Someone who could give him many children.
The woman’s name is Mary Yotamu. She lives in Group Village Mandila in Ntcheu district, central region of Malawi. In 2001, after her husband left her and their two children, and married another healthier woman, Mary took the plunge and went for voluntary counseling and testing (VCT).
Facing an HIV diagnosis
At Ntcheu District Hospital, around 20 kilometers from where she lives, Mary received the result of her HIV test - it was positive.
“To me, I received the news positively, I now know the reasons that troubled my family, why I regularly felt sick, dizzy and tired most of the time,” said Yotamu who started taking antiretroviral medication in the year 2005.
Living with HIV in a rural area can be challenging and Mary faces people within her community that still lag behind in their thinking. Some people ridiculed her for her physical appearance, saying having HIV is like seeing a dead person. To them she was just few yards away from the grave.
Stigma and discrimination
Mary says: “I was scraped off from all development projects in the area, even from the beneficiary list of the Farm Input Subsidy Program. People and some traditional chiefs felt that I had nothing to contribute to the community.
“Every time I walked down the street, people discussed dirty things about my status. It reached a point that I would sometimes live indoors just to find some peace of mind other than going out knowing that there is someone out there who looks at me as a dead person walking.”
But Mary was determined to fight the negativity about her status, and still went out doing things as any normal person while disclosing her status to any ready ear. She took it upon herself to educate people about the fact living with HIV does not mean you are automatically going to die, but by taking medication you can still have your whole life ahead of you.
Changing attitudes to HIV
“Slowly, people are now starting to understand me although there are still some who are ignorant and refuse to change but that does not stop me spreading the message and breaking the silence because a lot of people are dying in silence for fear of being ridiculed,” she says.
Mary’s openness is helping to change attitudes in her village and a lot of people are now freely going for VCT services, although many are still reluctant to come out in the open with their results.
Mary is a member of Champiti Support Group, which has a membership of over 1,200 people living with HIV, has been a source of pride and hope for other people.
Founder and co-ordinator of the group John Kathewera, who has been living with the virus for over 14 years, says one major problem is the high rate of illiteracy in the area.
“We first learnt about Mary’s situation when she started coming to our resource center for various trainings. Since then, we have been involved in conducting sensitisation meetings in the communities against the problem of stigma. Sometimes we involve chiefs by summoning those involved in the acts of stigma and discrimination and slowly the tendency is going down,” he says.
“A lot of people are still living without enough knowledge about the virus, once they know that someone is HIV positive, then to them that person is nobody in the community but with civic education, things are slowly changing for the better.”
A brighter future
In 2013, Mary married again – this time to a man who had no problems with her status.
Hours have turned to days, which have turned to years. Today, Mary has lived for more than a decade with HIV. She continues to take a leading role to encourage her community to go for voluntary counseling and testing for HIV.
Read about the impact of stigma on healthcare workers living with HIV
