International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 21 January 2004
Pekka Reinikainen in Mombasa

Ruth recently bought two dozen AIDS ribbon badges made of tiny coloured plastic beans, the same badges that can be found on sale everywhere in Kenya. She tries to sell them for a small profit. This, to, is not an easy task.

Ruth does not make much money. I could well have been her first paying customer.

When I see her again three weeks later, she has not sold any more badges. Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of light in the gloom. She, like other members of a Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) HIV/AIDS support group, is hopeful. They are finalising plans to manufacture and sell soap.

At this point, the only ones certain of making money are those that sell them the raw material. But people need soap, and if the group's particular "brand" is of good quality, there is no reason why people will not buy it. Especially since there will not be middlemen taking their cut.

Ruth had a nasty rash on her arms and legs when I see her for the first time. Three weeks later, it is worse. And her spirits, upbeat during the first visit, are low.

One of the mantras of HIV-positive people is to live positively. They talk about it all the time, and it is drummed into them by counsellors and publications for people living with the virus. But it is not always easy.

Ruth's husband was big and strong. With hindsight, he may already have been HIV-positive when they met. But a year or so after they tied the knot, he grew frailer and started being sick a lot.

"He was drinking a lot, so I thought that was what was eating into him," Ruth says. "He never told me about dying or having HIV. One day, four years ago, he just passed away. We were left with absolutely nothing to lean on to."

"I started having these questions, since I had heard about AIDS, but I never believed it was the reason for me being sick, too. I had rashes, I had blisters. People around me started telling me that I have AIDS. And acting accordingly," Ruth says.

Ruth explains that she was shy and never left her house. Her friends abandoned her. "Finally, in 2002, I went to a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) clinic and got tested. I was shocked: it was positive. I felt like dying then and there. I was thinking about killing myself."

"It was my children who dragged me out of this black hole. Who would care for them if I took my life? I decide to fight back. I went to counselling and asked the counsellor about half-a-million questions," she says.

Ruth was directed to a man called Hassan Musa, who is not only an HIV/AIDS counsellor, but also responsible for a groundbreaking Kenya Red Cross community home-based care project in the Mombasa district of Majengo.

"He got me to accept my status. He told me it is senseless to waste my life on thoughts that will change nothing. If it had not been for him, I might still be in some stage of denial. Or dead, who knows!"

"I will die anyway one day. There is no reason for me to act dead before my time actually comes. That was the start of my new life," she says.

Ruth believes she has been HIV-positive for at least five years. "I had already passed through stigma, passed through discrimination. My family, my friends, employers... You name it. I reckoned I was qualified to come out in the open."

When she met Hassan Musa for the first time, she had only told two other people of her status. Her mother was one û and she continued to love her daughter despite what others chose to do.

Ruth Musiego was the first client of the Majengo project to publicly admit being HIV positive. As part of the 2003 Red Cross Red Crescent Day she stood up in front of a sizeable crowd attending the festivities and told her story.

Hassan told Ruth about the Majengo project, and she enthusiastically volunteered to join it, becoming one of the first to be trained as home-based care givers by the KRCS Mombasa branch. The three-week training gave her new skills and a new meaning to life. Since then, she has been trained as peer educator by another organisation. She visits schools telling children her story and disseminating information about HIV/AIDS.

In a way, her work for the Kenya Red Cross redefines the word voluntarism. Despite her evident poverty she gives what she can in the form of time and skills, so that those in need may benefit.

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