Monsters

I work in the healthcare sphere, my Real Work, that is. Monday to Thursday I deal, in a roundabout way with people’s lives, in a clinical sense. I try to distance myself from it because the stories I hear are often heartbreaking and they make me lose faith in humanity so, in a way, each day as I leave the office, I put on my blinkers and pretend all is right with the world, despite what I have heard during the day saying otherwise.

Perhaps this is a wrong approach, burying my head in the sand, pretending, but I fear that if I didn’t do this, I might not be able to drag myself back to Real Work each day. You see, it is fulfilling what I do, I get to help people, make a difference, do something in a field where so much is needed and, often, resources are slim. So I keep at it, blinkering, opening up, blinkering, opening up…

But then, every now and again, I deal with something that is too raw, too real. I just had a call from a woman who has, in effect, received a life sentence, and her voice told it all. Fear, sadness, chill. My heart broke. Not just for her, but all the others too, the one’s I try to push to the back of my mind, deep down, far below, where I can’t see them.

You see, while I faithfully put those blinkers on, hide my head in the sand, push those souls where I can’t see them, they are still there, watching silently, waiting to jump up and yell. Because this disease we’re trying to deal with in this beautiful country at the tip of Africa is a monster, creeping in, not-so-surreptitiously anymore. It wraps its cold hands around our people’s throats, tightening slowly and cruelly. HIV – monstrous megalomaniac.

Silly hat and ridiculous comments

Somebody needs to take the silly hat off that Pope guy. His brain needs to be given some breathing space because it's obviously not functioning properly. While I realise he's just the frontman for a whole bunch of other old guys, I'm just clutching at straws as to what, possibly, could be the cause of the thinking behind the condom comment. Other than the tight, silly, hat, of course. But I'm pretty sure they don't all sit around the big table in The Vatican boardroom, sipping tea, chewing the fat, all wearing those hats, making stupid decisions on what public statements to make en route to the continent that is suffering worst under that crippling disease.

Now I realise religion is a touchy subject, I guess especially on a Sunday, but this post isn't really about religion, more about humanity. I work in the field of HIV and ludicrous remarks such as these make my blood boil. And as far as I can remember (admittedly it's been a long time since I went to Sunday School) one of the points of Christianity/religion is tolerance and love. And, surely, reality?

While abstinence before marriage, monogamy etc are all brilliant anti-HIV tactics, the truth of the matter is that it doesn't really happen all that often. We all have sex. Shock, horror... who would've thought? Most of us before marriage. Some of us don't get married, or wait longer to get married. And, therefore, we generally all have more than one partner, as do our partners. (And this is beside different cultural beliefs, whch, surely, should be respected too). This does not make us bad people, it makes us humans. Humans who should be encouraged from any, and every, aspect to protect ourselves from AIDS.

So any comment regarding not using condoms, especially from a 'world leader' is blatantly irresponsible and completely unacceptable. When will that antiquated system wake up, look around, embrace humanity, as we are now, and protect the very people it supposedly 'looks after'?