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Beat It! 2002 Episode 2

In this episode the Beat It! Support Group discussed sex and the positive person, safer sex amongst the youth, and women’s vulnerability and how it undermines safe sex initiatives. Dr Nombulelo looked at how untreated opportunistic infections further suppress the immune system. Lastly, the episode’s Special Report spoke to positive learner Linda Pindani about sex and the need for the Department of Education to make condoms available at schools.

Nombeko Mpongo: Hi. He is Vuyani Jacobs.

Vuyani Jacobs: And she is Nombeko Mpongo. She has been HIV positive for five years now in case you are wondering about that.

Nombeko Mpongo: And you are watching Beat It! – inkqubo ekuphilisa ngcono nogawulayo {IsiXhosa} [the only guide to better living with HIV/AIDS on television.]

Vuyani Jacobs: Welcome to the show this week we have a great line up including Dr Nombulelo Madala who explains some basic things about treatment.

Nombeko Mpongo: And we continue our report on positive learners at school; more on that later. Right now it is time to join the Support Group where we will be talking about sex and the positive person.

Vuyani Jacobs: Hey Nombeko wenza njani ekubeni unogawulayo ngempelasonto ngoku khuselekileyo [What did you do this weekend to look after yourself?]

Nombeko Mpongo: Ag man Vuyani khawuyithethe wendwa lento. {IsiXhosa} [Come on everybody let’s join the group and talk about sex and the positive person.]

Busisiwe Maqungo - Sex and the positive person
Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Busisiwe Maqungo: You know we as black women it wasn’t, in fact, it still isn’t our thing to negotiate safer sex or econdom with our partners. You know how difficult it is. Now that we are living in the age of HIV and AIDS we really need to take responsibility and it is not a very easy thing to do it is difficult, but we need to do it. For instance in my case I really had to do it with my partner because I knew I was HIV positive and I never discussed a condom with a partner before, that is before I knew about my status. Now I loved this man I didn’t want to loose him. I needed to be with him. Then I decided no, I should take the responsibility and I should introduce the condom; we should discuss esafer sex.

Daluxolo: Andiboni ngxaki ukuba bekandixazele nini. Ndandimthanda and ndisamuthanda na ngoku. Ukuba mina ndiyindoda ephila ngaphadle kwetsholongwane, andiboni, andiboni ukuthi angeke ndithandane nomntu onetsholongwane ukuba seyacondomizi. Andiboni ukuthi amadoda kutheni engena kuthandana nabantu abanetshologwane uuba icondom ikhona. {IsiXhosa} [I don’t see a problem, it didn’t matter when she told me, because I loved her and I still do. Because I am a man living without the virus, I don’t think I can’t fall in love with a person with the virus, if we condomise. And I can’t see why the men can’t fall in love with the people living with the virus if there is a condom.]

Busisiwe Maqungo: It is something very difficult for black women discussing the condom with their partners I managed to do it; we condomised. I never disclosed at first and as the time went on when we understood each other I started disclosing to my partner and he understood why I introduced the condom to him when we first met. That I knew about my status and I didn’t want to infect him because I loved him and I never lost him. And ja, he was so understanding fortunately for me.

Beat It! Support Group

Faghmeda Miller: You know Busi I really admire you for what you have done in your relationship and I mean it’s not just in the black culture even in my culture we don’t even talk about sex; what about condoms still. And I think one of the reasons why I’m still not married yet is because, like, you can’t just talk to a man about condoms, you know you must condomise because they want to know why, and all this, and I can’t see myself going through that whole scenario of, you know, telling the person why he must use a condom and all that. So I must say I really admire you. And you know it’s really difficult even for me when I do my awareness programmes in my community if you go to the schools for, like, example once again you can’t even talk about sex, you can’t talk about condoms; so how do you actually tell the kids to be careful. And you know to condomise and things like that.

Anthony Fernandes: Well I don’t think it matters which religion you are or where you come from or which culture, that people still have to negotiate a condom, condoms and sex. Every single teenager wants to know and do and I think it’s there that you say: “How do we make kids aware of condoms, comfortable about condoms to talk about condoms?” You can’t stop people having from sex. They are going to do it because they want to, because they curious. And if we can bring that into our kids and our school environments, in those places already, make them comfortable with the whole issue we’ll have less of a problem today. But thinking back in relationships I think for us ourselves, for women especially, we gotta say we think of ourselves first; this is our body, this is what we want. We respect it and this is what we. It is not about trust; if you think it’s about trust that’s your problem, if you think it’s about being unfaithful that is your issues. I think it is more important to say that I don’t want to get pregnant or I don’t want a STD or any of those things. You don’t have to negotiate it, it is your right to use a condom.

Mathew Damane: Serious uku-raise ukusebenziswa kwecondoms kumathombazane kuma owini awa, because uyofumanisekha ukuthi thina singabantu bamadoda si-stubborn, more as specially thina amajita, thina zi-blacks si-stubborn serious, because if icheri yami i-raise i-point ukuba masisebenzise i-condom ndasolokho ndi-concerned ukuthi kutheni uthi makusetyeziswe i-condom ingaba ukhona umntu o-busy naye okanye awunditrastanga. {IsiXhosa} [it’s important for girls to raise the issues of condoms with boyfriends. Because we men are stubborn, especially us blacks. If a girlfriend suggests using a condom, I’ll be concerned and suspect she’s busy with someone or she doesn’t trust me.]

Nontsikelelo Zwedala: Bakhona abanye abantu bathi bekwazi uHIV positive umntu afune ukuva lento iHIV positive aphakuwe injani. Like ulenyanga iphelileyo kukhona umntu ondibethileyo undibetha apha emzimbeni phofu ndingavumi esithi ufuna utesta sexually ukuba iHIV injani okanye. {IsiXhosa} [There are people who, although they know you are positive, want to taste what it is like to have sex with a positive person. For example, last month I was assaulted by someone because I was refusing. He said he wanted to taste HIV.] How can I put it; this man assaulted me because he knew that I’m HIV positive. I didn’t met him; I don’t even know his name or his surname. And what about those people who can even beat you whereas he knows that you are HIV positive. He wants to taste HIV positive vagina, sexually. He even beat me up in the body, all over the body and on my thighs. And the chance I not being raped by him is that my jean was tight and I have a belt on and so he didn’t pull my trousers.

Anthony Fernandes: How did this make you feel as a woman afterwards? What did you do to this man?

Nontsikelelo Zwedala: I went to the police station, I reported it and then I got the paper to the doctor and then Doctor Hermann Reuter wrote the certificate that I have been assaulted and then I went to the police station again and the investigation officer wrote the little paper: common assault.

Faghmeda Miller: Now that I openly know about my own HIV status in my community a lot of couples have phoned me and they say that they expect that either the husband or the wife are HIV positive. If the one partner already now doubting the fact that one of the partners might be positive then it means that somehow somewhere one of the partners actually went astray and once again that is not allowed in our religion and in the marriage. So how, where does the one partner contract the HIV then? So this actually tells us, me and a lot of other people, you know that my people are not really as religious as they say, as they point out they are, because they do go around having affairs outside their marriage which is not permissible in our religion; but is happening and our Imams, our religious leaders, are denying the fact that, you know, there are extra marital affairs outside the marriage.

Anthony Fernandes: For people whose married I don’t know what they have to say, I don’t know where to go. I mean people, I mean like Faghmeda said in the Muslim community, I don’t think it’s only in the Muslim community, it’s any community where people are married how do you…. I think people should be open enough to talk about it. To say, at least then, if they are going to fool around or have affairs, for god sake, use a condom. It’s the least thing you can do. It’s such a simple thing, it’s such a small thing, such an easy thing. You really just open it, put it on and that’s it you’re protected you can’t get a virus.

Mathew Damane: Then like kukho izinto eziyezekayo, ufumane umntu uneSTD ne, ubuze khutheni, uphethekala phi endaweni, kwi-point yosebezisa i-condom? But ufumaniseke abantu solokho be bleyma amaou, esithi umntu i-ou yami ithe yathi. But when you reflect the question back kuye ukuba kutheni wena ungakwazi ukuzicingela ngomzimba wako because kubalulekile into ukuba uyazi ngumzimbe wako lona and kubalulekile ukuthi usebenzise icondom to protect yourself and is also irresponsibility yakho {IsiXhosa} [there are things that happen. When a person has a STD and you ask the person, “What’s wrong with using a condom?” You find that they always blame the boyfriend, saying the boyfriend did this and that, but when you reflect the question back, when you ask them why, they can’t think for themselves, because it is your body, it’s important to know that it’s your body, you must protect it and that’s your responsibility].

Busisiwe Maqungo: The other day at the TAC offices we had students, high school students and someone asked this question: “What would you do or say if your boyfriend says, “No condom, like we have sex without a condom.”” Then they respond: “If I love him so much and he doesn’t want the condom I will say yes because I love him.” Then I thought so much need to be done still with these children.

Nomandla Yako: Enye iproblem yabafazi kunye namathombazane, ewe luthando umntu athi uyayithanda i-ou or umyeniwake. Enye into ingxaki yabo yi-lack of knowledge kwi-HIV/AIDS. Azixelele umntu i-HIV/AIDS i-far for bona. Enye into yesithantu yimali, abanye abatwana bayasokola emakwabo or omnye ubazi akaphangeli uzixelele ukuba hayi utata kabani bandimxelela ukuba masisebenzise icondom or ubani xa sithi masisebenzise icondom ndizatyantoni ngomso ekewandilahla wayakomnye lo ongana condom. So kum ingase abafazi kunye namathombazane akwazi ukuzimela angaxomeki emadodeni because enye into eyandisa iHIV. {IsiXhosa} [There is one problem with women and girls, yes its love. A person would say: “I love my boyfriend or my husband.” Another problem is the lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS. A person would think HIV/AIDS is far from them. The third one is money. Some children suffer at their homes and some women do not work. They think that if the husband doesn’t not want to use a condom what will I eat tomorrow if he leaves me for someone who doesn’t use a condom? So I think girls and women should be independent and stop depending on men because that’s another thing that spreads HIV.]

Vuyani Jacobs: Women are quite vulnerable and Tsike (Nontsikelelo) have been saying her own story. It actually does point out that men, we need to change our attitude, our actions, especially our respecting especially our own women, because it all has to do with respect. When some one you love and care about comes out and say: “Is it possible if we can at least use the condom for this situation” and you refuse that kind of thing. It always has to do with respect. We are supposed to be open about with our own peers or guys or men around there and tell them “We are men. Like you are a man and I am respecting my women, why can’t you respect my women and have a healthy relationship to both of us.” That can go quite beyond that because as Nomandla has said it needs to be in schools, it needs to be in education, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an HIV education, there also needs to be an education that creates a life skill for women and creates a life skill for men in an African setting, especially in an African setting that gonna have more impact on realities that happens in actuality.

Busisiwe Maqungo: I think it is high time for girls, especially for girls to take responsibility to protect their selves from getting infected with anything, with HIV, with STDs and with unwanted pregnancy. It is high time they take responsibility, they should believe in their selves, they should respect their selves and they should be strong on what they want and what they don’t want.

Vuyani Jacobs: Ubukhele iBeat It! {IsiXhosa} [You are watching Beat It!]

Nombeko Mpongo: You’re guide to better living with HIV/AIDS. So what’s up next Vuyani?

Vuyani Jacobs: Next up is Doctor Nombulelo with another page from her doctor’s notebook. Going to your doctor and treating each and every infection is one of the things that can make a big difference to your life. Let’s listen to the doctor.

Dr Nombulelo Madala’s consulting room

Dr Nombulelo Madala: Molweni kwakhona ngu Doctor Nombulelo iHIV/AIDS community doctor. Siyani amukhela kwakhona kwinkqubo yethu. {IsiXhosa} [Hi, viewers this is Doctor Nombulelo your HIV/AIDS community doctor. We welcome you back viewers to our programme.] Not very long ago one of our HIV positive patients moved away and couldn’t attend his regular check ups anymore. He became quite sick and he thought he was dying eventually one of the relatives decided to bring him back to our clinic and we immediately made a diagnosis of PCP pneumonia and started treatment. He became well soon after we had started treatment and he wouldn’t have been so sick if he had come for his regular check ups and if he had come to the clinic immediately after feeling sick. This is a common mistake that some of our patients make. Another common mistake is that when people first test HIV positive they think it is a death sentence and they must go home and wait for death. There is no need to think like that. You see, HIV/AIDS is a chronic illness just like high blood pressure and diabetes and together with your doctor at your clinic or your nurse you can actually look after yourself and live a long and fruitful life with HIV. What makes the person with HIV positive sick is not HIV itself usually it’s more the opportunistic illnesses that invade the body because of the weak immune system. In a normal healthy person as soon as an infection or illness invades the body the body automatically makes immune cells to try and fight the disease. Now when a person is HIV positive the HIV targets these immune cells, it gets into them, makes more HIV viruses and kills them and it does this all the time. That’s what lowers the immune system. Also at the same time when a person who is HIV positive develops one of the opportunistic infections the body makes immune cells to try and fight the opportunistic infections. Only what happens then is, HIV targets the immune cells as they are produced, gets into them, makes more HIV viruses and kills them and that’s what makes a person sick, it’s this vicious cycle. The main message is that if you are HIV positive please go to your clinic regularly for your check ups. If you feel any symptoms coming on go to your clinic immediately so that the doctor or the nurse can pick up any opportunistic infections early and treat it early because if you leave it for a very long time the body is going to make immune cells to try and fight it but then these immune cells become targets for HIV which will multiply in them and make you sicker. The next time I see you, I’ll speak about nutrition which is a very important aspect of staying healthy with HIV. Thank you very much. Bye.

Nombeko Mpongo: This is Beat It! – the only programme for people living with HIV and AIDS our partners, families and friends,

Vuyani Jacobs: And health workers too, don’t forget health workers Nombeko.

Nombeko Mpongo: Coming up is part two of our Special Report on positive learners. We join Linda Pindani a HIV positive learner who believes that condoms should be easily available to youth; ulutsha izikolweni {IsiXhosa} [the youth in schools].

Special Report - HIV positive learners
Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Linda Pindani: I found out in 2000 of I’m HIV positive, in September. So, I was shocked. It was too hard to go to my mom and tell them I am HIV positive. So it was difficult to go to my friend and express my status, you see. I was afraid because I don’t know either you are informed or you are not informed about HIV/AIDS if you are going to discriminate me.

Gavin Michaels (Principal, Simunye High School): The stigma will only be stopped if we, in our classes, all teachers, it doesn’t teach maths and science only, it teaches life skills, it teaches one class on HIV/AIDS in a preventative way. That is where people are open, where the discussions start talking and that is a way that a school can move forward and then more learners will come out because now they are aware of it they are conscientised about HIV/AIDS, of AIDS in the classroom and the more teachers that are open about it, the more learners will come to them. A number of teachers are afraid to speak about it because culturally they can’t speak about these things or it’s against there religion, it’s not Christian to speak about AIDS and sex education but for us teachers to embrace it and to work with it. The learners at this school should know what is their rights and their right is to have a good basic quality education and no matter what disease they have that we as a school and as educators must come out and support them and work with them for a better future for them.

Linda Pindani: What I’ve seen people from fifteen years upwards, you see, they having sex without using the condom. Most of them they go to the tavern and they get drunk and they go to sleep with their partners without even using even condom, you see. When they wake up straight, no condom and they get infected, you see. I experienced in 1998, you see. When I’m going to the party, when you are going to the party you get drunk, you want some girls, you go with the girl that you get, you sleep and you go again to get another girl, you don’t know even if you HIV or not HIV positive, you just spread it you see.

Andre Gaum (MEC for Education, Western Cape): Our main focus is still, and our policy is still, that the first prize is to delay sexual debut as long as possible among teenagers. And if we speak about the moral regeneration of our country, our president has mentioned it, we should also think about that in our whole approach as far as HIV/AIDS education is concerned. It is not acceptable that there is such a massive sexual activity going on in our schools, that’s not acceptable. That is not as it should really be. We do not want to have condom distribution on a massive scale in our schools. We do not want the impression to be created that sexual activity is part and parcel of everyday school life that that is acceptable and the only thing that we must do is to manage it. What we… The other problem is of course is that teenagers tend to experiment and if we have for instance condom machines now in the bathrooms and so on we do believe that it could be contra-productive.

Linda Pindani: I-sexual intercourse iyayenzeka na nini na, akhuko umntu o no yijika lentoleyo siyotlala siyiyenza isex. Sifuna i-condom izikolweni zethu into esiyifunayo sifuna zinikwe abafundi istudent ne student bakwazi ukusebenzisa icondom basebenzise isafety sex because xasinikwa icondoms ezikolweni, into ezokwenzeka sizokuseleka sisonke xasiyenza i-sex. So siya cela ukuba sizinikwe icondom izikolweni zethu. {IsiXhosa} [Sexual intercourse takes place anywhere. No one can change that. We are always going to have sex. We want condoms at our schools. They must be given to learners so they can practise safer sex, because if we are given condoms at schools, we shall all be protected when we have sex. So we are appealing that we be given condoms at our schools.]

Gavin Michaels: The Department as a whole are not yet comfortable about HIV and AIDS, coming out open. They will send posters out, but I’m here I am saying to them, I went to them and said listen train the whole staff and the staff in question will train the whole, their classrooms, their learners so they must go out and teach their class about HIV/AIDS. So you can’t just take one or two principals, you take the whole staff and work with them for a week, weekend, and spend money on it.

Linda Pindani: We are trained to educate about condoms at school, because our teachers are not well educated about HIV and AIDS, you see. What we want is we want to have classes on HIV/AIDS, two times a week.

D. Lizo (Teacher, Simunye High School): What is needed for the teachers is they need to be educated about the HIV/AIDS itself, the developments what’s taking place around the HIV/AIDS today; so that they are able to disseminate the information to the students. You know we need that kind of education because even the teachers, we are loosing the cream of the crop, because even the teachers are dying of AIDS. How much more when it comes to young children?

Zuko (Linda’s friend): To be honest for me it was a bit difficult. I was very scared, I thought, eish, what’s happening to Linda now? Seeing that, eish, this guy is really sick and I know that this can kill. I was one of the people that was saying that AIDS is a death sentence. So it can be treated, although it cannot be cured, it can be treated. If you know how to survive with it then.

Sibusiso (Linda’s friend): So we want to teach them about it. Some of the students they are given the wrong information by their parents. Like I remember asking one of these boys “Can you hug someone with HIV?” then he said “No” and I asked “Can you kiss him?” and he said “No” and then I asked him “Why?” he said he will get infected, then I asked who told you that and he said his parents, they told him that. People who are HIV and those who are not, guys stand up for your rights, life your normal life. Friends be there for your friends, ’cause what I’m saying is: “My friend with HIV is still my friend, no matter what.” I can hug them, I can kiss them.

Zuko: You can look at anyone. The question is: “Is it going to be your mother, your father or your cousin?”

Linda Pindani: Life it is easy. Like me, you see, I told you I am not using the tablets, but you see I’m healthy because I speak about it, you see. I break the silence you see. I’m happy, nothing wrong with me.

Vuyani Jacobs: Khuya nyanzeleka zibekhona i-condoms nasezikolweni. {IsiXhosa} [I really think we need condoms to be easily available at our high schools.]

Nombeko Mpongo: Kunjalo {IsiXhosa} [It’s like that], that’s where most young people meet after all. And that is our show for this week. Please send us your thoughts or comments on the programme to any of the numbers on the screen now.

Vuyani Jacobs: We really need to hear from you so please call write, fax or email us.

Nombeko Mpongo: You can catch the repeat broadcast on Sunday at 11h30 and we'll be with you again next weekend on e. Until then remember we can Beat It!

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