• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1468 0

mention of AIDS will at once inspire denouncements of the CIA who deliberately created the AIDS virus to weaken the Third World. The suggestion that the disease may have evolved from monkeys in Central Africa is a malignant invention of Western scientists who allowed the virus to escape from their test tubes by mistake, and who are now covering up their carelessness by lies, putting the blame on Africa…‘as usual!’ These people are at the same stage as the Soviet Union was until very recently, saying that AIDS was impossible in a communist country, only possible in capitalist societies: evil is the attribute of The Other; demons and dangers and threats can only come as the result of ill-will. Or of the Evil Eye.

Meanwhile blood transfusions inspire terror–and many stories. Zimbabwe soldiers guarding installations in Mozambique were given blood transfusions. All became infected and brought the disease home to their wives and children. Mozambique is full of AIDS. (This is true.) ‘Not only do we, Zimbabweans, have to spend our wealth guarding Mozambique and defending it, and feeding hundreds of thousands of refugees, but then they poison our boys with their AIDS. We have an efficient medical infrastructure, our blood transfusions are safe. But the Mozambicans are hopeless. We have to look after them all the time.’

Meanwhile some of the ngangas have not been helpful, saying that if men sleep with a virgin this will cure or prevent AIDS. Most have understood that AIDS is something outside their competence and are allying themselves with science.

HEALERS, SPIRITS AND CONDOMS

from the Observer

It comes as a surprise to see the elongated white cardboard boxes amid the rest of the paraphernalia–the spears, the dried animal skins and the tin trunk packed with potions inside the musty hut. Each box contains 100 condoms, and in the past three weeks, Stephen Njekeya has distributed about 25 to his clients. ‘I am a doctor,’ he says, dreadlocks flapping as he nods his head.

To hundreds of people around the small southern Zimbabwean town of Gutu, he has been just that since the late Fifties when, while working as a waiter, he was seized by a fit that was interpreted as ‘spiritual possession’. This deemed him suitable for apprenticeship as a traditional healer.

His herbs were used by ‘my fore, fore, forefathers and they are still useful’, he says. Njekeya, and the 35,000 other members of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha), a group of spirit mediums, herbalists, traditional midwives and faith healers, have assumed a new importance as Zimbabwe struggles with an AIDS epidemic.

As attention yesterday was focused on World Aids Day, much of the concern centres on Africa. And Zimbabwe’s 5,086 cases reported to the World Health Organisation in September represents the fastest growing rate on the continent. A survey of random blood donations indicate that 4.2 per cent of adult Zimbabweans are infected with the HIV virus, but several experts believe the figure to be much higher.

Some 75 per cent of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, many of them illiterate and too poor to afford a radio. This constitutes a major hurdle for health workers trying to spread an awareness programme. Since February, however, Zinatha has been running a pilot project in the Gutu district, bringing the healers known as nganga together in workshops to teach them about the disease and enlist their help.

About 80 per cent of Zimbabwe’s 10 million people would prefer to consult a traditional healer before a Western doctor. Nganga have their roots deep in popular culture and are widely respected in the community. ‘Given the sheer numbers of traditional healers, they have an enormous value for involvement in Aids awareness,’ said Celine Gilbert, projects officer for the Zimbabwe Trust, an independent aid organisation backing Zinatha’s project.

Njekeya claims that he first detected Aids symptoms in people during 1985 and was troubled because unlike other forms of sexually transmitted diseases, it wouldn’t go away. He says he diagnosed it as