Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 27 October 2003
Pekka Reinikainen in Munyonyo, Uganda
More than 30 years earlier in December 1976, Zuleikha was swept off her feet by Shaban Muhammed Rashid. A charming Tanzanian who took her back home with him.
"I was happily married to this man for 23 years. He was my trusted partner. I loved him and he gave me three wonderful children. I had a good life with him," Zuleikha says.
He also gave her HIV.
In July 1999, Shaban started to feel sick and became increasingly ill. And then he died. Zuleikha clearly remembers the day û October 5 1999 at 5.58 pm.
"Doctors wrote on his death certificate that he died of pulmonary tuberculosis. I wept for him and buried him," she recalls.
In October 2001 she took her children with her to attend a family wedding in her native Mombasa. There, she took ill. There had been a number of minor illnesses before, but this one was more severe. Supported by her relatives, she went to hospital where they tested her for tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia.
"That's when the bomb exploded. I was HIV positive. At first I was not able to understand at all how this could have happened. My husband was my only partner and I trusted him completely," she says. Later her children told her that they had, in fact, heard rumours about their father having AIDS. Many people around Zuleikha had assumed as much, but nobody had told her anything.
"There was a girlfriend, I was told later. At least one. This one woman had preceded my husband to the grave. Ever since that awful day, I have tried my level best to forgive him for so blatantly misappropriating my trust. It has been very, very hard but I hope I have managed to do that by now," she sighs.
Her children safely established in Tanzania, Zuleikha went to live with her half-brothers in Mombasa. But soon after, they wanted to get rid of this "thing" that they had taken under their roof. The stigma of being associated with HIV/AIDS was too much for them and they no longer wanted their sister with them.
"My mother came to my rescue. She is a simple woman and she, too, was afraid of HIV and AIDS, but at least she had the courage to open her door and let me in," Zuleikha recounts. Ever since then, Zuleikha, along with an aunt, has occupied one of the four rooms of her mother's small house surrounded with open sewers running in the middle of the footpaths.
It was in this room that Hassan Musa of the Kenya Red Cross Mombasa branch met Zuleikha Abdallah for the first time.
"She was going down very fast. That was obvious. She said to us that she was dying of AIDS, but it was crystal clear that there was no medical reason for her to die. She was in that rather sorry state basically because of stigma," Musa explains.
When the Kenyan Red Cross offered her their assistance, she seized the moment. She began to attend the home-based care training that it had started. After just two weeks, Zuleikha could walk the four kilometre distance between her mother's house and the training venue. Accompanied, but not assisted.
"I can honestly say that when Kenya Red Cross came through that door, they saved me from a miserable death. That was the beginning of my second life," Zuleikha states.
That second life is as a Red Cross volunteer helping other people in need of support and encouragement. She forms a working home-based care-taker and counsellor pair with another HIV positive woman, Amina Omar.
She attends support group meetings and visits schools - passing on the truth about HIV and AIDS.
"I usually say what I have to say to children about the issue and end my presentation by telling them that I, too, am HIV-positive. They sometimes seem to have difficulties believing this because their stigmatized image of an HIV positive person is so different from reality," she explains.
It is these experiences and the belief that being open about one's HIV-status and so fighting HIV-related stigma, that has led Zuleikha Abdallah to Kampala for the 11th International Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS. Here, she with more than 750 other people, will continue their work to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Zuleikha Abdallah is now helping other people with HIV/AIDS to fight the stigma and discrimination surrounding them
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