2 posts tagged “rhodes”

The Journalism & Media Studies Department at Rhodes University is a building that has beautiful colors and art on the walls. An entire wall has "South African style" radios hanging from it.

We were there to present to a class of journalists, many who wanted to do documentaries and know about my experience recording the diary and working with Joe (the producer of my diary).

Mostly the talk was about what it was like to record in English and not Xhosa, my native language. The students were all South African, but all had different backgrounds. Many of them even seemed a little angry at me for agreeing to English.I told them that at the beginning of this project I did not even want to show my identity. I did not want pictures or my name to be part of the diary. I was doing the diary for people in the US, to be broadcast only on US radio.

To do the diary in Xhosa is something I would have never agreed to. Disclosure in a Xhosa community is the same as a death sentence. English gave me freedom, you see. Freedom to interview my family, to talk about my status to the recorder and to make the recorder my best friend. It was like I was telling somebody else´s´story, not my own.

I only decided to be open to my family and community about this project when got very sick. So sick that I did not even want to go to the hospital because I felt like I was going to die and everyone would know I died of AIDS. At the hospital I was surrounded by people from my community dying from this disease like flies. There I saw that they were dying from AIDS, but they were also dying from not disclosing.  It was then that I thought, how can I be doing this for the US and not for South Africa? It is in South Africa that people need to hear this.

At that moment I knew I had to tell my father, the only person in my family that did not know. The students wanted to know why I had done it with a recorder and in English. Some of them even felt that it was not right to record it. To be honest, English and the recorder made me feel free to say, "I have AIDS." Even if later I had to tell him in Xhosa, at the moment, I had said it. What some of them did not see is that I would not have been able to find the words because Xhosa women do not talk with their fathers about sex, and AIDS is all about sex -- AIDS is seen as the dirtiest part of sex.

There was a lot of talk about culture in this presentation. One thing I have learned is that AIDS has no language or culture. It does not care about race or money or  my culture. It is in a disease of the blood and all of us are at risk.

We hit the road to Grahamstown and this time I was to present to an audience of university students, many who were journalists and activists. The last time I spoke to a university audience was in the US. They asked me many questions about politics and the government in my country. I was afraid that this audience would do the same and I would not know how to answer. Sometimes audiences forget that I am just presenting my story. I am not an expert on AIDS and politics.

The event was organized by the School of Journalism and Media Studies and  SHARC (Students HIV AIDS Resistance Campaign), one of the biggest university organizations working around AIDS awareness in the country.

We presented in an auditorium and were expecting about 50 people and I thought only white people would come. When the presentation began people were crowding the stairways because it was so full. I would say that this was the perfect presentation with the perfect audience. The audience had people from everywhere --  Xhosa people, Zulu people, white people, colored people, people from Capetown, Jo'burg and Durban.

Most of them either studied something in media or did AIDS work in communities and townships. So I felt that they listened different. They paid more attention. When the clips would play, you could hear a pin drop. And they would laugh when it was funny, thye would say "aaahh...," when it was time to go "aaaah." It was like they were really listening closely and because they were young South Africans, they felt like my story was also their story. 

When the presentation was over and they came to congratulate me and then I felt like their story was also my story. I felt that South Africa was changing through them, their questions, their work. One young woman said to me:

"One of the greatest challenges of HIV / AIDS work is reaching young people through young people. No matter how hip or creative our methods reaching the 15 to 25 age group is a challenge. You are exactly what South Africa needs. A willing and eloquent woman sharing her story and eradicating stigma by normalizing her status. Your willingness to discuss is admirable. But what is more important is that teenagers see that you are just a young, beautiful and funny chic -- and everything they would aspire to be."