“When I get back the results and I tell me mother, right away she give me a bowl, a cup and a spoon and tell me to keep it and I must use that all de time and nobody else must use it. I didn’t know really how to feel because you hear about HIV and people would say all kinda bad things, but I felt sad because she was my mother,” she told me.
She is 30 years old and a mother of four. She found out she was HIV positive while pregnant with her first child, at the age of 17. Since then, she has had three other children; two of the fathers of her children have died and it has been a rough journey. She volunteered to speak to me because, according to her, she wanted people to know there were people like her, who were “just trying to make it,” but for whom life has been difficult.
“My mother give me away when I was a baby. I is the big one and I don’t know if is because I get a disability [her left hand is partly paralysed and according to what she has been told she was given the wrong injection as a child and it affected her left side] but she give me to my grandmother,” she shared.
“My grandmother try with me but I finish school at third form and them been want put me in a school for the disable because really I was not learning, but I didn’t go to school, and I just stay home.
“I use to just be at home and I meet this man. My grandmother been out the country and she lef me with a uncle. I use to go to the bar and drink with he and is just like duh we had sex. It is not that I love he or anything… and we didn’t really had a relationship. The next time I see he is when I was pregnant.
“I went and I tell he and he family tell he is not he child and that was it. He never look back.
“When me mother hear I pregnant, she send for me because me grandmother was not there and I went and I stay with she, but I use to go to clinic by me self. And de day when I hear I get HIV, I was alone and I start to cry. Is like right away I been want dead, but them nurse start talking to me, asking if I get anybody close I could talk to and I didn’t say me mother I say me aunt.”
I asked her why she felt she could not tell her mother.
“Because I know me mother and just how I thought she woulda react, she react. I went home. We been sitting eating and she ask me what was the result and I tell she positive. And right away she get up and go and call me grandmother and tell she and she [her grandmother] tell me father.
“When I finish eat and put me wares in deh sink, she tek it out back and give me and tell me keep it and use it and don’t leh nobody else use it. And it really make me feel sad. I wondering why me mother have to treat me like this. I tell me aunty and my grandmother say to keep me away from me mother and so I use to be in the same yard with her, but I was in a room by me self,” she further said.
As she spoke, I imagined her at 17, pregnant and just found out she was HIV positive and how confused and unloved she must have felt. She is the eldest of her mother’s seven child and one of the two girls but has never had a good relationship with her mother, according to what she related.
She gave birth to her baby and started treatment and shortly after, met the man she would have two more children with.
“When I tell he that I had HIV, he tell me how you does have to dead only one time. But then I find out he was living with it for 19 years,” she related. ‘We use to live together because like I just want a life of me own. But living with he was not good, he use to beat me bad. I still have the marks on me skin. It was not easy but is like I been feel nothing else was there for me.
“But then it get too much for me and I went away back by me grandmother but then I had three children. And he never use to mind them and then I hear he dead. I know the date he die and I went to his funeral. Me first child father die too, but I never see he back, so I never went to he funeral.
“But then I meet me third child father. Is like I still looking for something and I meet he at the clinic so we know each other had it [HIV] and he was a big man so I been think things would be different. He is now a pensioner but he never treat me good. He was not loving at all. He would beat me even after I just get the baby.”
I asked her if he ever reported him.
“Yes. I report he one time to the police and he get charge but the day when he was to go to court the police call and tell me the same day and I didn’t have no money to go. I been at a friend and when he come from court, he come and collect me. I went with he because is like I didn’t know what else to do. But he never change, is deh same thing. About two months ago, I wait until he go out and I just pack up and leave and right now I staying at a friend,” she answered.
I asked her about the children.
“My grandmother get all four a dem and she looking them after. I can’t get more children because I tek tie off. Me father tell me to do it. Right now [her abusive partner] calling and telling me to come back but I don’t want to go back,” she said.
“I want to find a work, like a guard work or so because I want to get a place by me self for me and me children.”
Asked why she is not with her grandmother, she replied, “Sometimes I does just be shame because she do so much fuh me and is like I is a failure. I want to get a job and so and try to make she proud because she really been good to me and she still helping me because she gat all me children.
“I trying with me life. I in the support group and it does really help me because sometimes you does feel like you whole world falling apart but I trying and the people in the group does really talk to me and encourage me.
“And me father even though he don’t live here he does try to help me. Is he mother I grow with. I can’t remember the last time I see or hear from me mother. I does talk to me brothers and sister, but I don’t talk to her. Is not that I hate she, but it does just hurt me that she could treat me like this.
“I just hope with God help I could do better with me life fuh me children.”
We ended the conversation shortly after and I wondered what would become of her. I spoke to the leader of her support group, who informed me that her father has indicated he would assist financially to send her back to school.
“I will try to help her as much as I can,” the support group leader said, “it is many of them because Guyanese are still not helpful to people living with HIV and it hurts me to see how people are treated so I try as much as I can to help.
“I have a lot of adult children [the members of the group] and I have to do what I can, maybe God designed it this way. I have HIV too, but life has been good to me and I have to make life easier for others where I can.”
If you are a woman who is HIV positive and looking for answers or in need of support, contact the Guyana Community of Positive Women and Girls (GCWAG). You can call 691-7297 or email cmarlyn9@gmail.com.
