Z

Z chose to remain anonymous; she didn’t really want me to tell her story.

Z was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She faced challenges her entire life. She had her first child at sixteen. She was a grandmother by 34. Z is one of the sweetest persons I have ever met. A while back her husband was sick all the time and couldn’t seem to recuperate. When he went to see a doctor he was told that he had AIDS, but he managed to convince Z that she was okay. Z’s husband practiced polygamy. She got herself tested anyway and found out she had it too, but also found out that one of her husband’s other wives had it before and never told anyone about it. Her younger child was always sick too, so she got him tested and the test came back positive. Z lives in a country were a stigma is attached to AIDS, no one admits having it. It’s called “the sickness” there. If one has AIDS it is because something one did, one lived a dissolute life. When Z told me she had AIDS it was such a shock, because for me this is a life sentence you are sentenced to death row without knowing your crime and no possibility of a pardon. It is one of the deadliest diseases we have today, but even here there is a stigma attached to it. No one talks about it. It’s still a shame.