Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - October 29, 2006
Mpho

ONE Sunday afternoon I went to visit my long-time friend from the other side of Soweto. I woke up missing her and I decided to catch a taxi to Tladi to see her.

My friend was staying with her boyfriend in a shack.

Weekends are laundry days for working people. As I got inside the yard, the tap was running and there was a big bathtub underneath the tap.

I thought, "Gee, I'm lucky to find her at home, as I didn't warn her of my visit."

Before I reached the door, her boyfriend came out of the shack with a fancy bag of pegs. He was the one doing the laundry, including my friend Busi's clothes.

I watched him heading to the tap.

I asked if water was not too expensive to use the way he was doing. He assured me that R50 was enough for the whole month.

As we were chatting, he hung Busi's skirt on the line. My heart went out to him. I thought he was a loving man.

I stood there, looking at him, and he told me to get inside the shack, Busi was not feeling well.

I didn't expect to see my friend in the situation she was in. Her eyes had fallen in, she had lost so much weight.

She dragged herself out of bed and grabbed a cup of water that was next to her bed, and she swallowed a few tablets.

I was heartsore. The last time I had seen her, she told me she had cancer in her womb, and the doctors had told her she was also HIV-positive. Then she was looking fine, she looked so strong. I told her not to worry about the HIV, it's just like any sickness. I told her that there were a lot of people who lived with the virus and they were healthy and stress-free.

She was taking her treatment from [Chris Hani] Baragwanath [Hospital]. Busi's worry then was the secret she kept from her boyfriend - she didn't want him to know. She only told him about the cancer.

I told her about people reinfecting themselves, and she told she was using a condom, and that her boyfriend understood.

When I saw her so weak, I wondered what had happened. As if she read my mind, she told me that she was tired of living with pain, she just wanted to die. I asked about her two small kids and she told me that they would survive.

The whole time the boyfriend was outside.

I tried to bring back her will to live. I told her that being HIV-positive was not the end, and that cancer could be beaten.

I tried to tell her that she was not the illnesses she was carrying, that she could overcome them - especially when she had such a supporting boyfriend.

But Busi had written herself off; nothing I tried to say to her made sense. She was ready to go, nothing mattered any more, not her kids, not her loving, caring boyfriend.

I think that she couldn't live with the secret anymore, and she was angry. The first time she told me about her condition, she said her boyfriend had infected her. So I think, no matter what the boyfriend did, Busi blamed him every day.

Before she died, she had a blockage in her throat, she couldn't breathe easily - a clear sign of a secret kept, nibbling at her every day. Busi died one morning in her sleep.

If Busi had been open with her boyfriend, both of them could have found strength in each other and she would still be around today.

People don't normally die of being HIV-positive. But they die because of the weight of the secret they keep to themselves. If we can learn to open up, it will make it easy to seek emotional and physical help, and we can defeat the virus.

Lately, I find myself surrounded by people who just let go because of their health status. This is really affecting me.

As I write this, I have a brother who's also keeping it to himself, but all the symptoms are there. I try to encourage him to go to the clinic but he refuses. He is so angry, and yells at everyone who comes to the house.

We try to give him love, but it doesn't make any difference.

I look at him every day and I think to myself, "If he can learn to accept his situation, his health will improve and he will be less stressed.

"He could continue with his daily life."

061029
ST061011