Blog

Reunion

By Willemien Brümmer

During those nine months I’d experienced the heaven and the hell of journalism: In our jobs we are afforded the rare opportunity to become intimately acquainted with our “subjects”, even if only for the duration of the story. We become parasites to their most personal longings and fears, and then we remove them surgically from our hearts. We try to block them from our dreams and we forget their faces when they cry, as we move on to other stories and other people…

Fellow Willemien Brümmer discovers that there are some relationships that cannot be picked up where they were left off.

“You have brought the sickness:” HIV and a woman’s plight

By Lungi Langa

I was recently paging through a back-copy of the Big Issue magazine when an article titled Teen love gets more complicated, caught my attention. It told the story of a teenager who was born HIV positive. She found out about her status when she was thirteen years old.

Because she had been a sickly child, her mother knew every witch doctor around and took her to all of them.

Her father was also sick, convincing her mother that they were both bewitched, probably by one person. After her father died, the girl’s health continued to deteriorate until she was referred to a health facility where both she and her mother were tested and diagnosed with HIV.

Fear of rejection is still hampering disclosure

By Dr. Sindi van Zyl

Some of our most treasured memories are from childhood. Those memories mostly revolve around the love between us and our parents. Fast-forward to adulthood. You’re gravely ill, bedridden and your parents have rejected you and banished you to a shack in their backyard. Nobody checks if you’re fine, leaving you there for weeks without any care. Eventually, you die - alone.