Hard to Shake

by Shana Ogren Lourey

     Everyone was worried when I moved to Malawi, Africa for my two-year Peace Corps service.  "It's AFRICA!" said a friend of mine.  "You better watch out."  Let me be more specific than she was – to her, Africa meant AIDS.  And this article will in no way try to disprove that impression.  That impression is correct.  There is a reason that the average life expectancy in Malawi, Africa is 37.  One in seven Malawians is HIV positive.

So AIDS is life in Malawi; a part of life.  A very large part.  HIV is not a rare story, but an everyday struggle.  But other than the fear of getting the disease yourself, there is a whole other fear that is harder to imagine when you come from a much medically safer environment, such as the United States.  Because of the numbers, if you form relationships with Malawians, you are bound to know and love people that are dealing with HIV themselves.  These people are men, women, four year olds, neighbors, friends, family, lovers, priests, and post office workers.

The Peace Corps tries to prepare you in many ways to protect yourself from becoming HIV positive.  But I don't think I was prepared for knowing how to accept or live with loving others that have the disease.

I had a wonderful Malawian boyfriend, a smart man that worked for the Malawi Electoral Commission.  As an educated American Peace Corps volunteer, I encouraged him to go with me to get tested together for HIV.  He went, on his own. The test was positive for HIV.  He told me by text message.  And then he turned off his phone.

I don't know how to describe the reality of this disease.  Let me list three images.

1. When I received the text message it was nighttime in Malawi.  I left my village home and walked a short distance in the dark before sitting on the grass and crying, and looking up at that incredibly huge, African sky.  Your sky is too huge and too hard, I told god in Africa.  I cannot get it.  I still don't get it.
2. Because it is rural Malawi, Africa, the only way I can get to my boyfriend is on the back of a truck that will travel through the mountains for three hours the next morning at 4am.  So that's the ride I took.  I sat next to a three-year old Malawian baby.  I looked at him and began the sad research and both HIV and self-investigation that enveloped the continuation of my service.  The questions and the hard conclusions now started; would I ever be able to have a child with the man I love?
3. Knocking on his door.  He opened the door and we hugged.  He then sat, crouched on the floor, against the wall in his living room.  His head was in his hands and his eyes were resigned and gone.  We talked and these were the days that I most feared suicide for him.

HIV changed everything.  Although I stayed with him, we grew apart as the disease grew in between us. 

Because of respect for his privacy, I did not share his news with many people in my life.  I only share it now because, in the end, he got lucky - his first HIV test was wrong. 

He found out this information about a year after living with the thought that he was HIV positive. The first test was misread or perhaps mistaken with someone else's.  He is HIV negative.

This is unfortunately (or, in the end, fortunately) what happens sometimes in Malawi.

Let me list two images.

1. He told me the news over pizza in the city.  It was the best news I have ever gotten, and almost unbelievable.  How could my prayers have come true?  God confounds me, more and more.
2. Together, walking to a local hospital, and getting tested.  Ah, he loved getting tested now!  He would do it again and again.  The results were read easy – we were both HIV negative.  This news sat like a gem that had soured.  We had gotten a taste of the HIV.  It was sickening.  Even when the disease was gone, what it had brought into our lives and relationship never left.  It was just a little too hard to shake.