By Nyang’au Araka
The first time I heard my peers sing, “Ukimwi ni hatari…kwa maisha yako”, I thought that whatever Ukimwi was had the shape of a fierce, ugly looking wild and deadly animal.
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Apparently, they had heard the song from the national broadcaster, KBC radio, from whence the government conducted a sensitization programme against the scourge.
It did not take long before I learnt that Ukimwi was the Kiswahili name of HIV-AIDS, which my community eventually called enyamoreo (that which makes one very thin), before he dies.
It was emphasized that “Ukimwi haina tiba (AIDS has no cure)”, and that message was extremely frightening.
It was whispered that the disease was so potent; it could kill a person in a matter of months and therefore once the virus attacked an individual, he started the countdown to death.
This really scared me and it appeared that everyone in my village was afraid of the mysterious illness which left a trail of deaths in most parts of the country.
The scaremongers made children to believe that the disease had a high concentration in towns and encouraged us to run in case we saw any stranger in the village.
For reasons that I never got to understand, I formed an impression that brown/ white and scrawny people were more likely to be carrying the virus.
It was against this backdrop that we ran away when a villager came home with his European friend.
It became almost a sin to be thin, and anyone who lost weight even as a result of malaria was suspected to be carrying the virus.
We never greeted such people, let alone got close to them, for we thought that such action increased chances of contracting the virus.
There was also fear that some traders, including fruit sellers- particularly those who sold tomatoes were likely to inject them with the virus so that they do not die alone.
Many ended up making losses, or even quit the business.
A smile has lit my face upon remembering that those days, very few people in the village afforded soda.
In fact, I only saw people consuming soda during Xmas and when they had visitors.
That time, children watched from a distance and when the bottles were assembled, they went to grab them so as to clear whatever amount of soda remained.
To compensate the desire to consume soda, children bought sachets coloured powder that was popularly known as dextrosal, but I later learnt that it was dextrose.
The sachets were very popular because one was enough to turn a litre of water into a soda-like beverage.
A sachet went for Ksh.5, an amount that was not easy to get but children somehow managed; maybe some got the money from adults or stole it.
Someone must have decided to kill the dextrose business when he cooked a rumour that traders had started to mix it with the virus of the scary disease.
I don’t know if such powder is still in the market and what the sales look like but I never consumed it again after the scare that was definitely false.
It was also rumoured that one could contract the disease due to a curse/ witchcraft and there was no concoction that reversed it.
People became careful with their utterances; lest they got accused of bewitching others since most deaths were associated to the disease.
I recall that the first time malaria attacked me and I was taken to the dispensary, the medic had pulled a used syringe from the drawer under his table, dipped it in water on a pressure stove and waited until it boiled.
I learnt that this was the only form of sterilization but it had to be stopped as a measure of fighting ailments such as AIDS, and, from that time, I have never seen a medic touching a patient before he wears gloves.
Then came the time I joined high school and during a spiritual rally, a pastor told us that whenever he saw a girl and a boy walking “body to body” and they were not siblings, he saw two yet to be occupied graves.
This message and videos that we saw of people ravaged by the disease were so disturbing that it has never left my memory.
One time, I went to see a relative at the district hospital, where I learnt that HIV-AIDS patients were in an isolated ward that was at the far end of the building.
Being seen there alone had some form of stigma attached to it.
One time, I heard in the news that a Kenyan professor, Arthur Obel had developed two medications, Kemron and Pearl Omega, which he believed could cure HIV-AIDS.
It did not take long before he was dismissed as a man on a publicity stunt.
Similar claims have been made as late as recently.
One time, a Tanzanian named Babu claimed to have discovered a miraculous cup that could treat all sicknesses, no matter how severe.
People drove and others flew to Babu’s home from various parts of Africa to get the cup, with some believing it cured AIDS too.
As we mark World AIDS Day, I appreciate the efforts made by the government, researchers, health workers, communities, religious groups and individuals/ ambassadors, and other stakeholders to reduce the ravages of the disease.
The discovery of Anti-retrovirals (ARVs) and other forms of medication, behavior change, among other interventions have indeed slowed down the virus that appeared determined to wipe humanity out of this world in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2,000.
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