World AIDS Day!
According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 39.5 million people living with HIV, including 2.3 million children. During 2006 some 4.3 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.
Around 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world.
Started on 1st December 1988, World AIDS Day is not just about raising money, but also about increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.
The theme for World AIDS Day 2007
World AIDS Day was originally organised by UNAIDS, who chose the theme after consultation with other organisations. In 2005 UNAIDS handed over responsibility for World AIDS Day to an independent organisation known as The World AIDS Campaign (WAC).
The WAC’s slogan for their work is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise". This is an appeal to governments, policy makers and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the many targets that have been set in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and especially the promise of universal access to HIV treatment, care, support and prevention services by 2010.
This campaign will run until 2010, with a related theme chosen for World AIDS Day each year.
The 2007 theme, “leadership”, highlights the need for innovation, vision and perseverance in the face of the AIDS challenge. The campaign calls on all sectors of society such as families, communities and civil society organisations - rather than just governments - to take the initiative and provide leadership on AIDS.
Wherever we are, we can ‘take the lead’ and do our part in the fight against HIV/AIDS
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
REAPING FROM GOOD..............
Most times we often wonder why we should be good to people. I know because i get lectures about what a fool i am whenever i try to help and i end up being played- happens most of the time.
My friend Doris once told me i don't know how to look for the bad in people. Maybe she was right. Well situations make us change though.
So a few years later and living with this virus has made me a little weary of people and what they can do. Still old habits die hard. I am still easily reduced to tears at sad stories i hear from the women we serve. I feel so bad whenever i can't be able to help.
Mondays are my days in the office, i get to meet all the women in need of seed money as capital for business. I have to listen to their stories and decide which cases are needy. At the end of the day; whatever issue i have looks 'small'. -this should explain why i love my Monday drinks.
I have always been the 'mother Teresa' of the crowd. I still I'm to some extent only this time non of the people around me; friends and family will let me overindulge in the virtue/vice. You see most of the time when you give yourself to something or someone without question,you end up hurt.
A bout a year after my HIV positive verdict i took on the role of ' Aunt Tabby.' Everyone comes to me with all these problems they cant tell anyone. 'My boyfriend is cheating on me, what do i do?" or ' i have this condition is it normal?' or ' i want to go for a VCT test please take me.' I try to be there. Most of the time i give my all. My friends- the true ones have been with me through 'lots of stuff'.
I learnt something last week. That doing good isn't always in Vain. There will always be those bad cases but the good ones bring so much joy.
Last week, i was stressed because of something and i just couldn't be able to make a decision about what to do. I confided in one of my friends and afterwards i knew what i had to do. You see all she did was remind me something i said to her once. " People treat you the way you let them." I say this to my friends all the time. I also tell them to give their best to people so they can demand the best from them.
I never knew all this would rub off on me someday. Well whatever you do, it doesn't hurt to be Kidogo kind to someone, you just might never know what you reap from it.
My friend Doris once told me i don't know how to look for the bad in people. Maybe she was right. Well situations make us change though.
So a few years later and living with this virus has made me a little weary of people and what they can do. Still old habits die hard. I am still easily reduced to tears at sad stories i hear from the women we serve. I feel so bad whenever i can't be able to help.
Mondays are my days in the office, i get to meet all the women in need of seed money as capital for business. I have to listen to their stories and decide which cases are needy. At the end of the day; whatever issue i have looks 'small'. -this should explain why i love my Monday drinks.
I have always been the 'mother Teresa' of the crowd. I still I'm to some extent only this time non of the people around me; friends and family will let me overindulge in the virtue/vice. You see most of the time when you give yourself to something or someone without question,you end up hurt.
A bout a year after my HIV positive verdict i took on the role of ' Aunt Tabby.' Everyone comes to me with all these problems they cant tell anyone. 'My boyfriend is cheating on me, what do i do?" or ' i have this condition is it normal?' or ' i want to go for a VCT test please take me.' I try to be there. Most of the time i give my all. My friends- the true ones have been with me through 'lots of stuff'.
I learnt something last week. That doing good isn't always in Vain. There will always be those bad cases but the good ones bring so much joy.
Last week, i was stressed because of something and i just couldn't be able to make a decision about what to do. I confided in one of my friends and afterwards i knew what i had to do. You see all she did was remind me something i said to her once. " People treat you the way you let them." I say this to my friends all the time. I also tell them to give their best to people so they can demand the best from them.
I never knew all this would rub off on me someday. Well whatever you do, it doesn't hurt to be Kidogo kind to someone, you just might never know what you reap from it.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
JUST ASKING........
This past week has been full of fun. I had friends I haven’t seen in years visiting. It was like being in Coast (where I grew up) and Kisumu (where my family is at the moment) again; the catching up and the gossip...... refreshing.
My mum was around for a whole week; I spent everyday after work taking her round and going shopping. I haven’t ever gone shopping with my mum, the few times she took my sister and I to a shop to buy dresses when we were young, were always disastrous.
My friend Diana from Kisumu was here to meet an Internet ‘hook up’ but thought it wise to say hie before she goes for her ‘romp in the sack'.
My friend Kombo from Voi who I haven’t seen in almost two years was here to do his political stuff and passed by for a half an hour.
Then my cousin came to stay over for three days. She was here for an interview. I haven’t seen her since graduation; she decided to get married at our 4th year of cole'.
She chose the ‘bad boy of our class to get married to. Everyone was shocked. Every man who was pursuing her (she was the perfect pretty and soft woman.) either cried or got absolutely drunk once the news was out.
I had to tell her about my being HIV positive and she opened up a lot about her marriage and her fears. She hasn't gone for the test and is so scared. I added two and two when she confessed she told the interview panel she would love to work anywhere KCB posts her. I saw her off on Saturday night and promised to keep in touch.
She gets home on Sunday morning to a rude shock. her husband isn’t in the house at seven in the morning and on top of their rumpled bed is a condom. Yes a condom. The best excuse her husband has when he walks in after 20 minutes is he took the condoms from the office. I spend 30 minutes listening to her and trying to say the right words to sort of ease the pain. Pain I know she will carry with her most of today.
At the end of that call i had this feeling...like my past was catching up with me, de' javu.
Can somebody tell me what drives a man to bring another woman other than his wife to his marital bed? Why does a man cheat on his girlfriend or wife or whatever?
I mean what makes a man who knows his wife is in a night bus get a woman to their house, their bed (this is disgusting) and fuck her? Okay, thank God he used a rubber. Honestly at least he has some sense.
What makes a man leave his office, go back to his house when his wife is at work, to do his house help?
What makes a man who proclaims he loves a woman to pieces and has a baby with her cheat?This guy cant even afford to pay for the baby's upkeep and the woman has to deal with this.She after some thought decides to take his sorry broke ass back just for the sake of the baby or whatever. What makes such a guy cheat on a woman? i am already raising our child without your help and fucking you because you begged me to.
What makes a man look at a woman across the room in a pub, lie to his girlfriend that he is going to the gents only to go screw her at the parking lot in his car or on the bonnet of someones car? (That was my boyfriend.)
What makes a guy screw a hooker when his girlfriend is just three meters away stupidly in love and waiting for him to come back from wherever he excused himself to go to? (My boyfriend again) I wonder do they use a condom all of these times they cheat?
I mean I don’t want to believe this but lets just say that hypothetically I may be the most boring woman you ever took to bed, sessions with me could be so boring you cry when you ejaculate but why not just dump me? Why not save me the torture of seeing you treating me like trash?
Why? At these moments do you suffer selective amnesia? Like, do you forget you have a wife or girlfriend? Or what happens? I’d love to know.
When you are done and come back to me in the pub, sit down and go on drinking don’t you feel a tad guilty? Well don’t you? What do you tell yourself at these moments? do you tell yourself you're ‘the man?’ are you proud? do you feel strong or do you feel powerful or what? Seriously do you tell yourself that you had a right? Because I am a boring woman in bed? Or what do you tell yourself?
Why embarrass me this much? Bringing a woman to my marital bed? That’s low.
Fucking my girlfriends for the thrill of it, that’s low too. Fucking a hooker when in the parking lot of some pub is lame. For whatever reasons. Why did you bring me to the place with you anyway?
I understand that men a hunters by nature. Believe me i understand. i know that once in a while they need the thrill of hunting for fresh prey but honestly can't you hunt somewhere far from me? why don't you go to the next country and find yourself a woman there.Why my neighbour or friend or house help or cousin why?
Seriously are relationships worth having? Is marriage a dangerous place to be in? I went out with a guy for only six months, six and I had the ‘grand heartbreak’ and HIV. Six months of pain and tears and embarrassments I don’t want to mention. Now I have to deal with having HIV for the rest of my life. Does he ever think of this when he is sticking it up all the random women in the darkness of parking lots?
I can’t believe i am crying as I write this. Do you know what happens when you are in such relationships? You beg for him to change, and cry like crazy just so he feels you. Then you do stupid stuff to try and make him change. You do the lowest stuff like call the women on his phone and yell at those you suspect could be the one s he is sleeping with. Then you yell at him because you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. You get embarrassed when your friends ask you what’s going on. Because they saw him with another woman at a function you and him were invited to. Then slowly you get indifferent. You just don’t care anymore, or so you think. And this thing eats up your heart and your feelings and by the time you decide to leave you are so dead inside you don’t even cry.Because you feel nothing but empty.
That was me end of 2003. This is my cousin today. And hearing her voice on the phone 20 minutes ago, I couldn't help wondering why I let someone hurt me this bad.
Everything happens for a reason i guess for i know better now.
My mum was around for a whole week; I spent everyday after work taking her round and going shopping. I haven’t ever gone shopping with my mum, the few times she took my sister and I to a shop to buy dresses when we were young, were always disastrous.
My friend Diana from Kisumu was here to meet an Internet ‘hook up’ but thought it wise to say hie before she goes for her ‘romp in the sack'.
My friend Kombo from Voi who I haven’t seen in almost two years was here to do his political stuff and passed by for a half an hour.
Then my cousin came to stay over for three days. She was here for an interview. I haven’t seen her since graduation; she decided to get married at our 4th year of cole'.
She chose the ‘bad boy of our class to get married to. Everyone was shocked. Every man who was pursuing her (she was the perfect pretty and soft woman.) either cried or got absolutely drunk once the news was out.
I had to tell her about my being HIV positive and she opened up a lot about her marriage and her fears. She hasn't gone for the test and is so scared. I added two and two when she confessed she told the interview panel she would love to work anywhere KCB posts her. I saw her off on Saturday night and promised to keep in touch.
She gets home on Sunday morning to a rude shock. her husband isn’t in the house at seven in the morning and on top of their rumpled bed is a condom. Yes a condom. The best excuse her husband has when he walks in after 20 minutes is he took the condoms from the office. I spend 30 minutes listening to her and trying to say the right words to sort of ease the pain. Pain I know she will carry with her most of today.
At the end of that call i had this feeling...like my past was catching up with me, de' javu.
Can somebody tell me what drives a man to bring another woman other than his wife to his marital bed? Why does a man cheat on his girlfriend or wife or whatever?
I mean what makes a man who knows his wife is in a night bus get a woman to their house, their bed (this is disgusting) and fuck her? Okay, thank God he used a rubber. Honestly at least he has some sense.
What makes a man leave his office, go back to his house when his wife is at work, to do his house help?
What makes a man who proclaims he loves a woman to pieces and has a baby with her cheat?This guy cant even afford to pay for the baby's upkeep and the woman has to deal with this.She after some thought decides to take his sorry broke ass back just for the sake of the baby or whatever. What makes such a guy cheat on a woman? i am already raising our child without your help and fucking you because you begged me to.
What makes a man look at a woman across the room in a pub, lie to his girlfriend that he is going to the gents only to go screw her at the parking lot in his car or on the bonnet of someones car? (That was my boyfriend.)
What makes a guy screw a hooker when his girlfriend is just three meters away stupidly in love and waiting for him to come back from wherever he excused himself to go to? (My boyfriend again) I wonder do they use a condom all of these times they cheat?
I mean I don’t want to believe this but lets just say that hypothetically I may be the most boring woman you ever took to bed, sessions with me could be so boring you cry when you ejaculate but why not just dump me? Why not save me the torture of seeing you treating me like trash?
Why? At these moments do you suffer selective amnesia? Like, do you forget you have a wife or girlfriend? Or what happens? I’d love to know.
When you are done and come back to me in the pub, sit down and go on drinking don’t you feel a tad guilty? Well don’t you? What do you tell yourself at these moments? do you tell yourself you're ‘the man?’ are you proud? do you feel strong or do you feel powerful or what? Seriously do you tell yourself that you had a right? Because I am a boring woman in bed? Or what do you tell yourself?
Why embarrass me this much? Bringing a woman to my marital bed? That’s low.
Fucking my girlfriends for the thrill of it, that’s low too. Fucking a hooker when in the parking lot of some pub is lame. For whatever reasons. Why did you bring me to the place with you anyway?
I understand that men a hunters by nature. Believe me i understand. i know that once in a while they need the thrill of hunting for fresh prey but honestly can't you hunt somewhere far from me? why don't you go to the next country and find yourself a woman there.Why my neighbour or friend or house help or cousin why?
Seriously are relationships worth having? Is marriage a dangerous place to be in? I went out with a guy for only six months, six and I had the ‘grand heartbreak’ and HIV. Six months of pain and tears and embarrassments I don’t want to mention. Now I have to deal with having HIV for the rest of my life. Does he ever think of this when he is sticking it up all the random women in the darkness of parking lots?
I can’t believe i am crying as I write this. Do you know what happens when you are in such relationships? You beg for him to change, and cry like crazy just so he feels you. Then you do stupid stuff to try and make him change. You do the lowest stuff like call the women on his phone and yell at those you suspect could be the one s he is sleeping with. Then you yell at him because you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. You get embarrassed when your friends ask you what’s going on. Because they saw him with another woman at a function you and him were invited to. Then slowly you get indifferent. You just don’t care anymore, or so you think. And this thing eats up your heart and your feelings and by the time you decide to leave you are so dead inside you don’t even cry.Because you feel nothing but empty.
That was me end of 2003. This is my cousin today. And hearing her voice on the phone 20 minutes ago, I couldn't help wondering why I let someone hurt me this bad.
Everything happens for a reason i guess for i know better now.
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