The Mask.

I had been wearing The Mask for many years.
I would smile and look happy
while no one knew what was behind that smile.
The Mask was heavy, I could not take the weight anymore.
Then I decided to take The Mask off . . .
what many called coming out of the closet.
I wanted to feel free, no more shame, no more lies.
Why does it have to be so hard? Why did it take me so many years?
I needed time; maybe you still need time ...
But don’t wait too long, you are missing out on nice things.
I know I am not alone to have gone through this
so here is my call to everyone who is still wearing The Mask.
Take it off - if you want to fight HIV stigma;
Show your face - I know you are not a coward.
Aren’t you tired of hiding?
Aren’t you thirsty for freedom?
Take off The Mask, I’m begging you!
Be the hero and voice for the voiceless.
Be unstoppable like a cyclone in the islands.
May your voice be heard like thunder on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Shout loud - and say: “No more HIV stigma!”  
. . . Isn’t it lovely to be yourself again?
Peace,
Eliane

The next Generation

I keep on feeling beter and beter since I am open about my HIV to my children. Saturday I was invited to HIV positive women activities in Sittard. Mothers who have children were allowed to bring them along. I thought that it would be more for very young kids from 0 to 8. I asked if it was ok to bring my youngest son of 10. Of course he is welcome. That was the answer from the organisation for then activities. So it was my turn to check with my son Akira if he is interested to join me. He had 3 choices. First to join his big brother Rio and his father to go train spotting at Lage Zwaluwe where Rio was going to film all trains. This is his hobby since he was 2 years old. The second choice was to go play with his friend, and the third was to join mama to the women HIV activities.

Guess what he chose? He wanted to join me. I asked him if he is sure about going to Sittard, sitting 2 hours in a train and join the belly dance. His answer was: “Mama I want to support you in many things you do regarding fighting stigma, connecting with other people with the same condition as you. I am not ashamed being around you in public, you are my mom and my most beautiful and courageous mom I have ever seen in my entire life”. Well not that he is very old... only 10years. But this brought tears to my cheeks. Then he asked “Mom are you crying? Did I say something sad or did I offend you?” I said “no my dear, these are tears of joy”. I know that all the energy I put in this fight will not be for nothing, because  even if I will not be able to continue you will pick up what was left.

So we went with our train to Sittard. We met great people, I had a nice chat. Some women knew me only via my facebook positive posts. Some had read my stories on Hello gorgeous and were so happy to meet in person. So we hugged, and laughed together. What happened to my son AKIRA?

Well, he already met 3 kids he knew from Positive kids family weekend. So they were playing together, and sometimes he would come around and give me that ‘I love you mom kiss’ and I would hear him and other kids playing piano.
I was excited to do the belly dance. It is something totally different from African dance that I am used to do as a professional dancer. I was looking forward to learn it together with positive women and connect as I always do when I dance. What a great day, I enjoyed every single minute of it. The kids were dressed in a belly dance outfit just like their mothers. I thought maybe Akira would not join or put on the outfit. It turned out he had a lot of fun with it. He likes to dance too I guess, something he picked from me. Hahahaha.

We had a nice time together. After the dance we had nice oriental snacks and then went home.
Till now I don’t regret having told my children about my HIV status or let Akira join me in women’s group because I believe when we empower the young generation, we stand a chance of reducing HIV stigma and zero infection.
Peace,
Eliane

This magic moment

It was Sunday afternoon and I was walking with my daughter, Loris, to the Emiclear shopping mall. I stopped to greet my neighbour, Janneke, who asked about how Rio was doing at secondary school. My daughter herself then chatted about how exciting it was for her to start her practical training next week.

While we were talking a beautiful young woman walked past us barefoot. I watched every single move she made, thinking about myself back in Africa as a child, when I walked barefoot most of the time.I could not let her go without giving her a  compliment.

People like her are very rare these days. We always wear shoes because the streets are not safe - you find dog mess, litter and broken bottles and other glass. I like to go barefoot in the countryside sometimes, where there is far less chance of sharp objects to harm my feet. I said to her: “Wow, it’s great to see you walking without shoes. I like it. I did it a lot in Africa where it’s normal to walk barefoot. It’s healthy to be in direct contact with the earth.”

She said her name was Krista, and told me about how she dreamt of going to Africa, just to feel the vibe. I was happy to meet her even if just for a short time. My neighbour continued on her way home and my daughter and I went on walking to Emiclear.

Then, a few minutes later I saw Krista again. She was drinking coffee at an American coffee shop, getting a note book out of her bag.  I asked: “Are you a blogger?”  She said she was, so I replied “Me too!”  She asked: “What do you write about?” I answered: “My personal stories about HIV. I have been HIV positive for 15 years”. She was very surprised. I was wearing my U=U T-shirt, and head scarf. I knew this was the right time to use the U=U message to inform her about HIV. I explained my mission, my dream of a world without stigma and shame about being HIV positive, and how important it is for people to know their status by testing. She was impressed and said: ”You are truly amazing Eliane, you turn your pain into your greatest gift”.

I will continue to use this gift to save more lives. By being such a good listener she made me very happy and I am very impressed with what she does herself on her blog. She made me realise that everybody on this World has a unique gift and, if we all use this gift, we can make our World a better place. Krista, you are the inspiration to many, please keep up your remarkable work!  I thank God to meet such a magical sister!

See you soon!
Peace ,
Eliane

Educating the Educated

What would you do if you are being called an assassin, simply because you are sharing information? Here is what happened to me when I shared important information on PrEP to a seemingly well educated person...

I am sure many of my fellow Burundians are not well updated about HIV. So this week I decided to share the latest on PrEP as a pill you can take to protect you from being infected from HIV. When you are HIV negative of course. I wanted to communicate in Kirundi so that people who don’t speak English or not so good French could understand what PrEP is all about. So I posted the PrEP information in Kirundi and asked the leaders, if they learned something new, to share the post so that their friends can learn as well.

Somebody shared it on her timeline with a Belgian man with a medical background, working in Bujumbura. He demanded to explain or give a short summary what I am talking about in French. I saw we had one friend in common that is why he could see. I did not want to mix languages in this post and I wanted to keep conversations in Kirundi with Burundians. So I went through the inbox via messenger and explained that I am sharing the information about PrEP, a pill that can prevent from being infected from HIV virus. He went to look at my Facebook profile and he sent me this message” VU,VOTRE DIPLOME.JE VOIS QUE VOUS N’AVEZ AUCUNE COMPETENCE MEDICALE, SACHEZ QU’EN FAISANT CROIRE QU’IL YA DES PILULES QUI PREVIENNENT L’APPARITION DU VIH. VOUS SEREZ RESPONSABLE DE L’INFECTION ET LA MORT DES PERSONNES QUI FONT CONFIANCE. EN PARTAGEANT VOTRE IGNORANCE CRASSE, ET GAGNER DE L’ARGENT SUR CETTE ESCROQUERIE INTELLECTUELLE, EST LAMANTABLE! BON WEEKEND.”

I immediately shared with him some website that have information on PrEP, for example readily available info on CDC, SOAIDS. He did not recognize those, and instead he went further by insulting me, “ Cette escroquerie est indigne. Aucun medicament ne protege le VIH ...Vas-y. Fais ton petit business mortel. En bonne conscience. Se faire traiter d’ignorant par une petite idiote, est plutot un compliment... merci .Assassin!”

When he called me an idiot as a compliment, and an assassin, he was expecting me to just give up and look away?! I promised myself when I came out of the closet about my HIV status to never be afraid to speak out. To be a forgiving person when I meet this kind of people who think they know more and think they are highly educated and want to put me down because they believe they are better than me?

I went straight to the point and showed him that I knew what I was talking about. I gave many reasons why it is important to educate people on PrEP, not only Burundians in Burundi, but everywhere in the World. To double check if he is aware of all information, since he claimed to know about HIV. So when I asked him if he knew about U=U, he simply ignored the question and was not able to answer this correctly. So here is a man that does not know the facts about PrEP or U=U and calling me an assassin and idiot.

I decided to forgive him as I saw an arrogant man with low self-esteem and who did not want to bother to read up on the facts. I guess it was difficult for him to imagine a woman without a medical background to be smarter than him. Well, mister, my education level is good enough to study and understand live-saving information and share this with my community.
I will never give up because those kind people. What I will continue to do, is educating them, show them the way  to communicate. If you are an educated person and you see somebody sharing wrong information, the first thing you do is correcting that person. NOT INSULTING. In this way you can show the World that you are better educated!

This showed me how much stigma and ignorance there still is in this World, even amongst well educated people. They will melt down the moment we stand up against bullies and promote  U=U, PrEP as tool to fight stigma and discrimination.

I live to Empower, Inspire and Educate.

Peace ,
Eliane