All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [156]
Eventually, Nasreen and I arrived at a crude wooden ladder, which we climbed up into the two tiny rooms she shared with her HIV-positive mother and her brother. Incredibly, this was a duplex affair, one hovel stacked on top of the other once the horizontal space ran out. I was speechless at the desolation of their living space, which Nasreen had spiffed up by plastering recent newspapers soaked in flour and water over the corrugated tin walls.
When Kausar found out she was HIV-positive in 1999, the doctor told her, “There are drugs, but you cannot afford them, and you’ll be dead in five years anyway.” Indignant, she ripped her test result paper in half and slapped him across the face. He pressed charges. In court, she spoke out on her own behalf. “Have I raped someone? Killed? Stolen? Kidnapped? What have I done?” The judge saw things her way and demanded the doctor pay her a small fee in damages. Hence, a spitfire of an HIV activist was born. Kausar now worked for PSI, escorting other HIV-positive patients when they went to doctors, mentoring and coaching them through their care.
Kausar has a very charismatic faith and credits God for her strength. When troubled, she prays for thirty minutes, then “goes out and gets the job done.” She prayed for me, a long, intent, sincere petition that culminated in a joyous series of alleluias. Like Luz in Guatemala and so many others I had met, she had transformed her life through service to others. It was deeply moving to me.
I was told how, during their hard times when Kausar was so sick from AIDS, Nasreen scrounged for her family to stay alive. She begged. She worked. Eventually, she herself went hungry; a teacher finally reached out to her, learned the story, and personally gave her money for food. A lovely girl, Nasreen wants to be a doctor. I braided her hair, undid it, and braided it again, just to be able to nurture her more. The sweetness of the moment was almost unbearable. Before I left, we had a little talk about our bodies, because Kausar admitted that she hadn’t ever discussed sex with her nearly adult daughter. Nasreen leaned into me, holding my hand (she grabbed it back whenever I released hers), listening. I said to her, my own voice surprising me, as it was now thick with emotion and I was flailing inside, trying not to break down. I had suddenly been sucked into a squall of emotion that it took great control to modulate. “Your body is beautiful and sacred. Do you believe me when I say that?” (Yes.) “You are beautiful and sacred. Do you believe that about yourself?” (Yes.)
I came to India for Nasreen.
My next meeting was with a very different group of peer educators, ones whom I found especially touching. They were four empowered, recovering, formerly hard-core, hope-to-die, stealing-robbing-thieving-abusing-pimping-homeless street drug addicts who shared with me the miraculous stories of their individual salvation through a Twelve Step program. It was their unyielding devotion to carrying the message to the addict who still suffers that led them to work with their peers. Nearly one in four injecting drug users (IDUs) is HIV-positive; they spread the virus by sharing dirty needles. PSI in Mumbai reaches about four thousand of them through the Green Dot program, which provides clean needles and syringes to keep the addicts from spreading HIV. It also has a drop-in center for them to rest and get cleaned up and where a visiting doctor treats their injection-related wounds.
IDUs constitute one of the most underserved populations in the world. Many aid organizations simply will not work with them, and donors shun them, too. I am proud that PSI is not one such agency, even as we have our own troubles raising “unrestricted” money for their programs, because some governments and foundations stipulate that their funding stream may not help injecting drug users.
My new friends had scars on their faces; one was missing half an arm. They had hellish stories to share; one used to beat his mother for money. Addicts