Our Kind of People Page 14

  In other words, we have our drugs and our prevention campaigns, but that is not enough. To restore basic functionality, we must focus on providing treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS, just as it is necessary that we develop tools to treat the broader epidemic. But we also need to focus on restoring the human connection that the disease tears asunder. As a nurse and HIV counselor I spoke with told me, “When you have HIV, you’re the type of person that is supposed to be loved by people. There is need they have that love, because when there is not love, the tension will be too much and they can easily die—not from the sickness but the heartsickness.”

  It is no surprise, then, that many people with HIV/AIDS find comfort not only in the fact that medication will help them live longer, but also in the connections made through support groups and associations, and through work that reconnects them to their communities. As Samaila Garba, the activist and former police officer, put it, “I would have been a different story without the ARVs. I would have been talked of as ‘he was,’ not ‘he is.’ I was about to die just like that. I saw death coming, and then I saw it pass me by, so to speak. If you entered an airplane, and the airplane crashed and every other person died but you didn’t die—you came out and escaped—you are going to have an entirely different perspective on life. And that is the perspective that I have now. There are finer, more beautiful things in life that we have looked at but we have not been able to see, simply because we didn’t place any value on life. It is not the amassing of wealth, the mad rush for material things, the mad rush for academic laurels and other things. That will pass by. I have seen amassing wealth or things that other people attach to life as important as nonsense and useless. I now have time to understand people. I now have time to think twice before dealing with people. My relationship with my community, with my neighbors, even my children, has been greatly affected by the fact that I was about to die and didn’t die. I have realized that the greater things of life are love, being useful, being counted, and making a positive impact on other people’s lives.”

  It should not be a one-way street. The onus of promoting this shared sense of humanity should not rest solely on those who are HIV positive. Those of us who are not HIV positive must understand that people with HIV/AIDS are people, and this should be reflected in our actions and relationships.

  I know a barber named Gabriel, who told me about a friend of his who contracted HIV. While others ran away from the man on account of his illness, Gabriel stayed with him and took care of him until he died. When I asked him why, he said, “I have that spirit of love that sees every human being as part of me, that spirit of love that you see your fellow man as part of you.”

  He spoke as we sat outside his barbershop in Abuja late at night, at a table placed just by the roadside. He had stretched his long legs out between us, crossed them and slumped into the fatigue of a day’s worth of standing on his feet cutting hair. He played with his sweatpants as we spoke, zipping and unzipping the side pockets or twirling the waist tie.

  “At that time, HIV wasn’t that popular like now. Those years, it’s something that just started, and people knew that this thing kills and there’s no cure—automatically no cure. People were not open to such information about HIV, and that was the first reason for discrimination. When somebody has it, you will find your way, you will not even come to him again because you heard he has HIV. You will just discriminate the person, meaning that you will not relate with the person.”

  “But you stayed with your friend,” I said.

  “I did that because I found out that you cannot continue to say that you put a condition to love somebody. I can love anybody. I love everybody. They may call you prostitute. They may call you armed robber. Whatever it is! Love you! Love you! I’m being serious. I’m being sincere. Believe me. If you don’t have this character, meaning that you see beyond certain things, you will not be free to live as free man. But when you have this mentality, this spirit at work in you, there is nowhere you cannot stay because you will always have people around you, and those people are your brother and sisters. You don’t see them as stranger or foreigner. You can’t meet good people by limiting yourself. You can’t go further in life when you have those limitations,” he said. “I don’t have that idea of separation or discrimination. It’s not a part of me.”

  In the quivering fluorescent light, a squadron of insects flickered against its harsh illumination. The night air, warped by the heat, encouraged slowness, silence. He looked at me, his eyes wide and glowing, and said, “I am ready to cross any boundary.”

  If this virus and its epidemic are to be contained, the strategy must be one that in word and deed reaffirms human connections on individual and international levels. We must endeavor to cross the boundaries we have set up that separate HIV-positive people from HIV-negative people. Then will the healing begin.

  AIDS IS NOT MY IDENTITY

  The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is now more than thirty years old, and in the absence of a miracle cure, it will grow older. In its short time with us, HIV/AIDS has become a powerful force, and not just because it has caused millions of deaths. It is more than just a biological occurrence. It is a major cultural event of the modern era that has reshaped the relationships that individuals, countries, and even whole continents have with one another. It has come to represent the continent of Africa and the people living in it, limiting their abilities to define their own identities as individuals interacting with a challenging and complex world.

  One of the last people I spoke with in Nigeria was a family friend, Paul Nwabuikwu, a former editorial board member of the Nigerian newspaper the Guardian. His editorials and opinions are highly regarded by many Nigerians, and he has written extensively on a number of social and political topics, including HIV/AIDS. “I’m very uncomfortable with the way AIDS has morphed from being something that started in the West to being another face of Africa. Just like hunger. Just like political instability. Just like poverty,” he said. “I’m very uncomfortable with that transformation. As a Nigerian, as an African, I have to make the point that, yes, I understand this is real, but it’s not my identity. I refuse to accept it. It’s a disease that affects everybody, but it’s not my identity.” Because Paul does not have HIV, one might be tempted to dismiss his statement as the thoughts of someone who doesn’t really know what it’s like to live with the disease, but his words reflect an attitude apparent in all the people I met, HIV positive or not, while researching and writing this book: HIV is not the entirety of who I am as a person; it is not the entirety of who we are as a country or continent.

  The people who shared their stories with me have approached HIV/AIDS and its impact in different ways. Some, like Hope, have sought a quiet existence full of routine, family, and daily concerns, of which HIV/AIDS is one of many. Others, like Samaila Garba or Jessam Nwaigbo, have been more vocal in a quest to combat the stigma that limits the opportunities of HIV-positive people in Nigeria and the rest of the world. Many have tried to provide care and emotional support to people living with HIV/ AIDS. The driving force for everyone, it seems, is a profound sense of commitment to the idea of a common humanity. Their lives, their stories, and their actions are an acknowledgment that, disease or no disease, we are all fundamentally the same. We are all human.

  HIV/AIDS, however real, cannot change that.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Our Kind of People has been a long time in the making. There are many who have helped me along the way.

  First and foremost, I owe much to all of you who, over the past few years, were kind and trusting enough to share some intensely personal stories with me. Many of you will remain anonymous, but your words, your thoughts, your experiences are this book. Thank you.

  To Dr. Chukwumuanya Igboekwu: over the past few years, since we first spoke about HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, you have become a close friend. I am very grateful to you for your thoughts and your guidance on how to make this book a reality.

  To Samaila Garba
: I am full of admiration for the work that you have done. Your warmth and enthusiasm have always been an inspiration. I hope that in some small way this book embodies the spirit with which you approach your work.

  I would be remiss if I did not thank the following people for the help and insight they have provided: Rolake Odetoyinbo, Helen Epstein, Paul Nwabuikwu, Femi Kuti, Jessam Nwaigbo-Okoi Edet, Ibrahim Umoru, Femi Adegoke (and everyone he introduced me to), Frank, and my friends at NACA and the Ministry of Health.

  To my agents, Jeff and Tracy (and Andrew), and my editors, Tim and Eleanor, thank you for your encouragement and your willingness to stick with this project despite my taking a “little” detour through medical school. I’d say I owe you one, but I actually still owe you one, so we’ll just skip that.

  To my research assistants: Desta, Katharine, and Rachael. Thank you for all your help with the nitty-gritty.

  To my friends who have provided both moral and material support: I would not be where I am without you.

  Emma: not only did you read this draft in its original form, you also housed me for the summer it took to turn it into something readable. I am so grateful for your help and friendship. Thank you, Tim and Eliot, for your kindness as well.

  Larissa: thank you for all the lunches where you listened to me drone on about this book and my anxieties. Thank you for a thorough reading of my first draft and your equally thorough commentary. Thanks to you and Philip for housing me this summer. Last but not least, thanks to the girls for taking care of Maximus while I was away.

  Ian: WLA. This book has words—real words—because of you. Thank you for all the time you spent wrestling with not so very good drafts as though they were your own work.

  Thenji: your cover, your thoughts on my chapters, and your appreciation of what it means to try to tell the right stories about our continent are all such a big part of what this book is. Thank you.

  Elliot: you are one of the few people who really understand what writing means to me and what I hope to do with it. Thank you for listening and for reading.

  Meehan: working with you was such a pleasure that I looked forward to our many therapy—I mean editing—sessions at your house as the highlight of my week. You have a mind for structure like I have never known and such a wonderful way of being brutally honest with the utmost love. I would not have made it through this book without you.

  The Robins: consider this as me thanking each of you separately but wanting so badly to be able to call you “the Robins.” In completely different ways you have been a source of perspective, wisdom, and support.

  Megan: your research was always on point, your transcriptions incredible, and your stories—priceless.

  Ragamuffin, Louisa, Jennifer S., Steph, Julie, Rebekah, Jennifer B., Manka, Mary: thank you for your support, advice, and eyes.

  Nina: you were there at the beginning, when this book was just an idea I pestered you with—constantly. Thank you for the poster, and thank you for still being there.

  To my family: Uncle Chi-Chi and Auntie Uju (Lagos just isn’t the same without you) and of course to Daddy, Mommy, Onyi, Andrew, Oke, Uch, Milo, and now Adaora. I love you all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  UZODINMA IWEALA is the author of Beasts of No Nation, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2007 he was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, he lives in New York City and Abuja, Nigeria.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  NOTES

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

  AIDS IS REAL

  25 American Invention to Discourage Sex: Ogoh Alubo, “Breaking the Wall of Silence: AIDS Policy and Politics in Nigeria,” International Journal of Health Services 32 (2002), no. 3: 551–66.

  26 “wipe out entire generations”: “Nigeria: Statement by His Excellency President Olusegun Obasanjo,” 57th United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Secretariat, New York, Sept. 15, 2002, www.un.org/webcast/ga/57/statements/020915nigeriaE.htm.

  27 4 percent of Nigeria’s population: National HIV/AIDS & Reproductive Health Survey, Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, 2006.

  27 34 million positive people: AIDS Epidemic Update 09 (Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Nov. 2009), http://data.unaids.org/pub/report/2009/jcl700_epi_update_2009_en.pdf; UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2011 (Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2011), www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2011/JC2216_WorldAIDSday_report_2011_en.pdf; National Policy on HIV/AIDS, Federal Government of Nigeria, 2009, http://nigeria.unfpa.org/pdf/ntpol.pdf

  34 “worst years of my life”: Fred Adegbulugbe, “I Waited Four Years for Death,” interview of Rolake Odetoyinbo, Punch (Nigeria), Feb. 8, 2009, http://archive.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20090208193851.

  35 “I didn’t know much about HIV”: Jemi Ekunkunbor, “HIV Made Me Feel Ugly and Battered but No More—Rolake Odetoyinbo Nwagwu,” interview, Vanguard (Nigeria), Aug. 1, 2004, www.impactaids.org.uk/newsletter/Newletter_Archive/VAN–1.htm.

  35 “wasn’t in a hurry to kill me”: Adegbulugbe, “I Waited.”

  37 “I don’t want to go out and look like HIV”: Ekunkunbor, “HIV Made Me Feel Ugly.”

  STIGMA

  57 “only part of the story”: Philip Alcabes, “The Ordinariness of AIDS,” American Scholar, Summer 2006, 18–32, http://theamericanscholar.org/the-ordinariness-of-aids.

  65 “undesired differentness”: Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 4.

  68 “Dearly beloved”: Michel Foucault, The History of Madness, trans. Jean Khalfa (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 63.

  69 “dominant religious discourse”: Daniel Jordan Smith, “Youth, Sin and Sex in Nigeria: Christianity and HIV/AIDS-Related Beliefs and Behaviour among Rural-Urban Migrants,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 6 (2004), no. 5: 425–37 (p. 430).

  69 “sinful immoral lives”: Ibid., 429.

  71 “AIDS is God’s way of checking”: Ibid., 430.

  72 “Black shapes crouched”: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer (New York: Signet Classics, 1997), 83.

  73 “continent of AIDS orphans”: Christiane Amanpour, CNN Presents, Where Have All the Parents Gone? CNN, September 23, 2006, excerpt, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDIZWOWkKA.

  75 “Traditional Ways Spread AIDS”: Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Traditional Ways Spread AIDS in Africa, Experts Say,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/ll/21/world/africa/21cameroon.html?pagewanted=all.

  76 move between populations: Michael Specter, “The Doomsday Strain,” New Yorker, Dec. 20, 2010, pp. 50—63, www.gvfi.org/docs/Specter%2012–20–10.pdf.

  76 “endemicity of disease”: Paul Farmer, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 222.

  78 “the stage of social impact”: Elizabeth Fee and Manon Parry, “Jonathan Mann, HIV/AIDS, and Human Rights,” Journal of Public Health Policy 29 (2008): 54–71.

  SEX

  94 35.6 percent of sex workers: National HIV/AIDS & Reproductive Health Survey, Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, 2006.

  94 “not only of sexual excess”: Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Picador, 1989), 114.

  95 “this disease’s version of ‘the general population’”: Ibid., 115.

  95 “gay plague”: David Black, The Plague Years: A Chronicle of AIDS, the Epidemic of Our Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986).

  96 African sexuality as Other: Marc Epprecht, Heterosexual Africa? The
History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008).

  97 “promiscuous by Western standards”: Daniel B. Hrdy, “Cultural Practices Contributing to the Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Africa,” Reviews of Infectious Diseases 9, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1987): 1109–19.

  98 “not found in the Eurasian system”: John C. Caldwell, Pat Caldwell, and Pat Quiggin, “The Social Context of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Population and Development Review 15 (1989), no. 2: 185–234.

  99 “greatest struggle”: Anonymous, Marita; or, The Folly of Love, ed. Stephanie Newell (Leiden: Koninklike Brill, 2002).

  110 sequentially monogamous relationships: Martina Morris and Mirjam Kretzschmar, “Concurrent Partnerships and the Spread of HIV,” AIDS 11 (1997): 641–48.

  110 concurrent partnerships: Adaora A. Adimora and Victor J. Schoenbach, “Contextual Factors and the Black-White Disparity in Heterosexual HIV Transmission,” Epidemiology 13 (2002), no. 6: 707–12.

  110 “the speed with which the epidemic spreads”: Morris and Kretzschmar, “Concurrent Partnerships.”

  112 multiple or concurrent partnerships: National HIV/AIDS & Reproductive Health Survey.

  113 rises to 77 percent: A. O. Arowojulu, A. O. Ilesanmi, O. A. Roberts, and M. A. Okunola, “Sexuality, Contraceptive Choice and AIDS Awareness among Nigerian Undergraduates,” African Journal of Reproductive Health 6 (2002), no. 2: 60–70.

  115 “‘shared pleasure’ has gained prominence”: Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale, Richmond Tiemoko, and Paulina Makinwa-Adebusoye, eds., Human Sexuality in Africa: Beyond Reproduction (Auckland Park, South Africa: Fanele/Jacana Media, 2007).