Hello, my name is Akello Harriet; my home village is Anaka – 49 km from Gulu. My village was a very peaceful place and I was very optimistic about the future, until one morning in 1996, when I woke up to a deafening sound of heavy guns.
The Uganda people defense forces battled the Lords Resistant Army rebels for hours on end.
When our small house was no longer safe to provide cover from flying bullets, we set off for the nearby bushes, ducking all sorts of flying metals.
The next day, the village was quiet and spooky.
A week later, I made up my mind to leave the village for yet unknown place.
The unknown place that would lead me to contract my lifelong disease- HIV/AIDS.
I started living with a man far away in Entebbe.
I was safely out of harm’s way, but little did I know that the main battle was yet to come. One dull morning in 1998, I started feeling busting headache and stomachache.
I had all sorts of thoughts but I knew that my husband’s infidelity might be the cause of my pain. Since that dull day, life has all but remained a gloom.
Although I suspected that I had contracted HIV- the virus that cause AIDS far back in 1998, I did not dare to go for testing due to the fear of the repercussion of the test results, and the sickening stigma at the time.
Every new day greeted me with agony and uncertainty, until the year 2000, when I could not wait any longer to officially test and confirm or disapprove my dilemma.
I finally tested – of course the result was positive.
I don’t want to talk about how I felt that day of the result.
Again, even though I confirmed my HIV status, I did not think of enrolling for the drugs, even though HIV drugs were also too rare at that time.
I retested in 2004, just to be sure there wasn’t a mistake with the previous results. As time dragged on, my health kept on deteriorating.
I returned to Gulu and through connections, I managed to enroll for the much needed ARV drugs in Lacor Hospital- through the assistance of Comboni Samaritans of Gulu.
It was like a double luck, I did manage to join Wawoto Kacel Cooperative as well. Since then, I have not looked back.
I have benefited from the therapy and the frequent income I need through making art and crafts at the cooperative. I am now 38 years old now, and I have four children. I thank God for every bit of life I enjoyed and continue to enjoy at Wawoto Kacel Cooperative.
Life can mean differently to many people, but whatever it takes, I will try not to live in the shadow of my former self again.#
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