Aids patient lives on, 17 years later

[Guest guest]

Aids patient lives on, 17 years later

Story by PETER KIMANI and MUCHEMI WACHIRA

Publication Date: 1/6/2007

Nineteen eighty nine is the year Kanu wanted to build a sky-scrapper

at Nairobi's Uhuru Park, Mandela was still in jail and the

Internet technology was nearly 10 years away.

Amidst all these monumental developments, Aids still made the news

headlines, as Kenyan doctors worked to provide drugs that could halt

its spread, or at least prolong the lives of those who had been

infected.

Aids awareness crusader joe Muriuki gestures during an interview at

the nation Centre recently.

It was in September that year that Joe Muriuki, a clerk with the

Nairobi City Council, went for a HIV test because of some skin

infection that refused to go and persistent night sweating that left

him cold.

But the news that awaited him was numbing. He was HIV positive.

The worst was yet to come. Doctors predicted that it would be a

matter of time before his wife, then three-weeks pregnant, also

tested positive. In the light of those developments, they suggested

that the Muriukis abort the foetus.

Muriuki then started preparing for his death by packing his

belongings to return to his rural home.

" I was running away, " he says, " I thought it was better to die among

my people. "

And to prepare for the life thereafter, he also got " saved. "

These were fairly rational things to do then, as it is today. But

Muriuki also did what was unthinkable then, as it is today: He went

public about his status.

Soon, people were vacating their seats in matatus to avoid his

contact, his wife was out of a job and his two children kicked out of

school. A bank wouldn't accept his money.

It has been such a long time that a majority of Kenyans repeatedly

asked this week: " Is that man still alive, " when I mentioned his name

to them this week.

The gloom that pervaded December 1989 did lift somewhat, for Kanu did

not succeed in rooting Uhuru Park out of the city; Mandela

left prison, and the Green Belt Movement founder, then at loggerheads

with the Government, was ultimately vindicated when she won the Nobel

Peace Prize in 2004, with the Uhuru Park campaign specifically

mentioned as one of her achievements.

And Joe Muriuki , as it were, survived to tell the story.

" Those were very difficult times, " Muriuki says easily, revealing the

gap in the teeth that became synonymous with the tragedy.

" We suffered the social stigma and people started discriminating

against us, " adds his wife, Jane. " We refused to succumb and

continued on, despite the unending pressure from relatives and

friends that I desert my husband. "

Muriuki, too, had his own fears.

" Those days, testing HIV positive was equated to a death sentence. It

was a matter a months and... " Muriuki gestures helplessly. " You would

be gone. "

The first few months came and went.

" I had learnt by then that one could live up to three years. But

after they lapsed, I learnt one could live for five years. After five

years, I had known one could manage a lifetime. "

Eighteen years on, Muriuki is convinced that one can live as healthy

as others and he is a living testament of that resolve.

Our interview had to be rescheduled several times because he was out

of the country, attending a World Health Organisation meeting in

Geneva, when we first make contact. The following day, a jet-lagged

Muriuki was in a lecture hall at Kenyatta University sitting his

final year exams for a diploma in Public Health. After Christmas,

there were more exams to sit. Then the rains flooded the city and for

a while, we did not hear from him. Then he surfaced at the Nation

Centre, walked in briskly and carried on with the story that he first

narrated to a former Daily Nation writer Jemimah Mwakisha.

" Then she was a young woman. I don't think she was even married, "

Muriuki says of the journalist, currently pursuing doctoral studies

in the US.

So, what became of his wife?

Jane tested negative but a prejudiced society found it hard to

believe.

Today, Jane is a community leader in her own right a leading HIV/Aids

trainer and an emerging philanthropist.

Together with her husband, they have helped different groups in Nyeri

start community based organisations with the aim of sensitising

people about Aids. The two are consultants on Aids issues.

" Actually my occupation is to train people, groups or companies and

any other organisation in areas related to Aids, " Jane, a trained

teacher, says, adding that she had been doing it for the last six

years.

She recently started a project to help orphans access higher

education — Tabitha Orphans Project — which aspires to assist Aids

orphans join secondary school.

The project has four-acres in Lamuria in Kieni West division, where

they plan to set up a school. " This is not a new project here in the

country. We have Starehe Boys centre and Starehe Girls.

But unlike the two, which only go for the brightest children, TOP

will be admitting any girl irrespective of her academic performance, "

Jane says.

And to the surprise of many, Jane is not willing to look for an

external donor to set up the school. She is raising funds from women

groups in the district.

" What I have been telling the groups, which are to be found in every

place is that with a small contribution, they can support all the

orphans in the district and help them get secondary education without

relying on the so called donors, " she says.

She asks women to give at least Sh10 for the project, saying every

child belonged to the community and people should not depend on

donors to feed the needy.

She had however tried to approach key donors and the rich who at

first appeared interested in the project but gave her conditions she

could not meet.

She at first approached some rich people in Nyeri town asking them to

give her their disused buildings to be used as classrooms for her

project.

" None of them was willing as they said their buildings were for

making profit, " she said, adding that a civil servant donated his

four acres.

An ever smiling Jane is the mother of three boys. Her last born,

Munyiri, the boy that doctors wanted terminated, was one of the top

performers in the 2003 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education.

" I had sought advice from a number of doctors who all felt that there

was no need for me to give birth to a baby who would soon die, " Jane

recalls. "

But I rejected their advice and left everything to God. "

Their second son, Mike, was also in the limelight early this year

after he scored an A plain in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary

Education.

He was among the top 100 candidates in the country and one of the

best students at Nyandarua High School.

" He wants to join Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and

Technology to do a degree in Mechanical engineering, " Jane says.

Their first born son, Jeff, was an A- student at a high school in

Kampala and is about to join the University of Dar-es-salaam to study

electronic engineering.

Jane, who was only 26 when Muriuki went public says, " Initially it

was strange for me to be negative.

I did not understand and thought maybe it was God's will and

therefore I decided to fully support my husband to overcome the

social stigma or any unfairness he would encounter. "

She adds, " I decided to embrace my husband and his condition without

limitation. And that is how we have been able to make it. "

Muriuki is grateful for the counselling offered to his immediate

family by the National Council of Churches of Kenya.

Looking back, he concedes that he had strayed and had other sexual

relationships, although he cannot pin-point the specific woman who

infected him.

Today, Jane says that when women who are known to her realise that

they are about to die after contracting the HIV/Aids virus, they call

her.

" They tell me they have left their children with me since they are

confident that I will take care of them. "

Today, things are totally changed, thanks to Aids crusaders like

Muriuki.

The stigma associated with HIV has dwindled (one can actually sue for

discrimination), there are free anti-retroviral drugs to those who

need them and HIV/Aids found space on the political stage, when it

was declared a national disaster.

Even insurance cover is available for Aids patients.

What does he consider his greatest contribution?

" To normalise Aids, " he says .

He should know. After 18 years, Muriuki is not on ARVs, goes for

periodic medical tests and generally keeps healthy by eating well.

It's called the spirit of life.

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?

category_id=39 & newsid=88984

[Guest guest]

Aids patient lives on, 17 years later

Story by PETER KIMANI and MUCHEMI WACHIRA

Publication Date: 1/6/2007

Nineteen eighty nine is the year Kanu wanted to build a sky-scrapper

at Nairobi's Uhuru Park, Mandela was still in jail and the

Internet technology was nearly 10 years away.

Amidst all these monumental developments, Aids still made the news

headlines, as Kenyan doctors worked to provide drugs that could halt

its spread, or at least prolong the lives of those who had been

infected.

Aids awareness crusader joe Muriuki gestures during an interview at

the nation Centre recently.

It was in September that year that Joe Muriuki, a clerk with the

Nairobi City Council, went for a HIV test because of some skin

infection that refused to go and persistent night sweating that left

him cold.

But the news that awaited him was numbing. He was HIV positive.

The worst was yet to come. Doctors predicted that it would be a

matter of time before his wife, then three-weeks pregnant, also

tested positive. In the light of those developments, they suggested

that the Muriukis abort the foetus.

Muriuki then started preparing for his death by packing his

belongings to return to his rural home.

" I was running away, " he says, " I thought it was better to die among

my people. "

And to prepare for the life thereafter, he also got " saved. "

These were fairly rational things to do then, as it is today. But

Muriuki also did what was unthinkable then, as it is today: He went

public about his status.

Soon, people were vacating their seats in matatus to avoid his

contact, his wife was out of a job and his two children kicked out of

school. A bank wouldn't accept his money.

It has been such a long time that a majority of Kenyans repeatedly

asked this week: " Is that man still alive, " when I mentioned his name

to them this week.

The gloom that pervaded December 1989 did lift somewhat, for Kanu did

not succeed in rooting Uhuru Park out of the city; Mandela

left prison, and the Green Belt Movement founder, then at loggerheads

with the Government, was ultimately vindicated when she won the Nobel

Peace Prize in 2004, with the Uhuru Park campaign specifically

mentioned as one of her achievements.

And Joe Muriuki , as it were, survived to tell the story.

" Those were very difficult times, " Muriuki says easily, revealing the

gap in the teeth that became synonymous with the tragedy.

" We suffered the social stigma and people started discriminating

against us, " adds his wife, Jane. " We refused to succumb and

continued on, despite the unending pressure from relatives and

friends that I desert my husband. "

Muriuki, too, had his own fears.

" Those days, testing HIV positive was equated to a death sentence. It

was a matter a months and... " Muriuki gestures helplessly. " You would

be gone. "

The first few months came and went.

" I had learnt by then that one could live up to three years. But

after they lapsed, I learnt one could live for five years. After five

years, I had known one could manage a lifetime. "

Eighteen years on, Muriuki is convinced that one can live as healthy

as others and he is a living testament of that resolve.

Our interview had to be rescheduled several times because he was out

of the country, attending a World Health Organisation meeting in

Geneva, when we first make contact. The following day, a jet-lagged

Muriuki was in a lecture hall at Kenyatta University sitting his

final year exams for a diploma in Public Health. After Christmas,

there were more exams to sit. Then the rains flooded the city and for

a while, we did not hear from him. Then he surfaced at the Nation

Centre, walked in briskly and carried on with the story that he first

narrated to a former Daily Nation writer Jemimah Mwakisha.

" Then she was a young woman. I don't think she was even married, "

Muriuki says of the journalist, currently pursuing doctoral studies

in the US.

So, what became of his wife?

Jane tested negative but a prejudiced society found it hard to

believe.

Today, Jane is a community leader in her own right a leading HIV/Aids

trainer and an emerging philanthropist.

Together with her husband, they have helped different groups in Nyeri

start community based organisations with the aim of sensitising

people about Aids. The two are consultants on Aids issues.

" Actually my occupation is to train people, groups or companies and

any other organisation in areas related to Aids, " Jane, a trained

teacher, says, adding that she had been doing it for the last six

years.

She recently started a project to help orphans access higher

education — Tabitha Orphans Project — which aspires to assist Aids

orphans join secondary school.

The project has four-acres in Lamuria in Kieni West division, where

they plan to set up a school. " This is not a new project here in the

country. We have Starehe Boys centre and Starehe Girls.

But unlike the two, which only go for the brightest children, TOP

will be admitting any girl irrespective of her academic performance, "

Jane says.

And to the surprise of many, Jane is not willing to look for an

external donor to set up the school. She is raising funds from women

groups in the district.

" What I have been telling the groups, which are to be found in every

place is that with a small contribution, they can support all the

orphans in the district and help them get secondary education without

relying on the so called donors, " she says.

She asks women to give at least Sh10 for the project, saying every

child belonged to the community and people should not depend on

donors to feed the needy.

She had however tried to approach key donors and the rich who at

first appeared interested in the project but gave her conditions she

could not meet.

She at first approached some rich people in Nyeri town asking them to

give her their disused buildings to be used as classrooms for her

project.

" None of them was willing as they said their buildings were for

making profit, " she said, adding that a civil servant donated his

four acres.

An ever smiling Jane is the mother of three boys. Her last born,

Munyiri, the boy that doctors wanted terminated, was one of the top

performers in the 2003 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education.

" I had sought advice from a number of doctors who all felt that there

was no need for me to give birth to a baby who would soon die, " Jane

recalls. "

But I rejected their advice and left everything to God. "

Their second son, Mike, was also in the limelight early this year

after he scored an A plain in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary

Education.

He was among the top 100 candidates in the country and one of the

best students at Nyandarua High School.

" He wants to join Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and

Technology to do a degree in Mechanical engineering, " Jane says.

Their first born son, Jeff, was an A- student at a high school in

Kampala and is about to join the University of Dar-es-salaam to study

electronic engineering.

Jane, who was only 26 when Muriuki went public says, " Initially it

was strange for me to be negative.

I did not understand and thought maybe it was God's will and

therefore I decided to fully support my husband to overcome the

social stigma or any unfairness he would encounter. "

She adds, " I decided to embrace my husband and his condition without

limitation. And that is how we have been able to make it. "

Muriuki is grateful for the counselling offered to his immediate

family by the National Council of Churches of Kenya.

Looking back, he concedes that he had strayed and had other sexual

relationships, although he cannot pin-point the specific woman who

infected him.

Today, Jane says that when women who are known to her realise that

they are about to die after contracting the HIV/Aids virus, they call

her.

" They tell me they have left their children with me since they are

confident that I will take care of them. "

Today, things are totally changed, thanks to Aids crusaders like

Muriuki.

The stigma associated with HIV has dwindled (one can actually sue for

discrimination), there are free anti-retroviral drugs to those who

need them and HIV/Aids found space on the political stage, when it

was declared a national disaster.

Even insurance cover is available for Aids patients.

What does he consider his greatest contribution?

" To normalise Aids, " he says .

He should know. After 18 years, Muriuki is not on ARVs, goes for

periodic medical tests and generally keeps healthy by eating well.

It's called the spirit of life.

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?

category_id=39 & newsid=88984