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Ana Mdoda

Ana Mdoda

My Name is Ana Anile Nosiphiwo Mdoda. I am 32 yrs old. I was born in Cape Town in the multiracial community of Cape Town "Cape Flats" in a Town ship called Welgamoed near Bellville. We were then moved to Modderdam before being moved again to Crossroads because of the Group Areas Act. I had a chance of growing up in both Transkei and Western Cape. I'm from a very close, neat family of hard workers. I'm a proud mom, grandmom, sister, daughter and friend. It is always a pleasure for me to tell my story. Currently I am working for the Organization called Yabonga as a HIV Programmes Co-ordinator. I love my Job because I'm serving directly my people, I mean my people from the dissadvantaged communities - where exactly I'm coming from. Sometime in the year 2000 I became weak ...

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Andile Gidana

Andile Gidana

My partner’s act of courage helped me to confront my fears and take the test, writes Andile Gidana. It is such a breeze for me to disclose now because I know that HIV is manageable, and that there is life after HIV. I never thought that I could live with it. It was in 2003 that I met my current partner, Derrick Fine. I met him through Exit, the gay newspaper. It was love at first sight. I was swept away by his looks, his voice and his warmth. We started dating from that day and I was always looking forward to seeing him. The last time I went for an HIV test was in 1996, and I was negative. I never bothered to go again. I just assumed that it would never happen to me. Although I had an inner voice telling me to go and have myself tested, I just ignored it because ...

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Barbara Kingsley

Barbara Kingsley

I have slowly come to terms with my HIV-positive status and try to tackle it with a positive attitude. My partner, who has given me all the support I need, is a wonderful woman whom I married in 2009 and my life is great right now. But it hasn’t always been this way. In mid-2007 I became quite ill. I developed persistent flu-like symptoms, headaches, a nagging cough and sores that wouldn’t heal. My skin felt as if it was crawling, my legs ached, I felt nauseous and lost weight. Then exhaustion hit. It was an indescribable tiredness and no matter how much I slept I never felt rested. In 2008 I was hospitalised when my CD4 count nosedived to 86 (HIV-negative people have a CD4 count of between 700 and 1,000; a CD4 count of below 200 is considered dangerously low). It was a terrible time. I have a vivid memory ...

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Bonginkosi Mthembu-Moloi

Bonginkosi Mthembu-Moloi

Finding out your HIV status can be a life-altering moment, especially when you are young and have much to look forward to. But being HIV positive need not be a death sentence. You can make your status work for you in a positive way, and help better the lives many South Africans in the same situation. Someone who has done this is 29-year-old Bonginkosi Mthembu-Moloi. He is HIV positive, and now works as a treatment literacy co-ordinator for the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Ekurhuleni District (Gauteng). Bonginkosi, originally from Duduza, in Nigel, found out that he was HIV positive while he was working at a local clinic as a counsellor. He felt that, since part of his job entailed informing people about their HIV status, it was only right that he know his own. He tested in 2002 and the test result came back positive. But that wasn’t the only reason he decided ...

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Brett Anderson

Brett Anderson

I am your average, Capetonian through and through. I dreamed as an eager young 27 year old, back in 1999, of being one of the first South Africans to win an Oscar. Caught in the glamour of the television industry, a young star in the making, so I thought. The world was my oyster. I was involved in my first ever relationship, in love, and monogamous. I was your average South African in many ways, believing, pretty much like everyone else, that it wouldn't happen to me. AIDS only happened to other people - despite living in the most infected country in the world, and not knowing my own status or that of my partner. Never did I think I would become a statistic. I thought I had malaria, having just returned from a film shoot in the Kruger ...

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Buysisiwe Maqungo

Buysisiwe Maqungo

I am a 37 year old mother of two boys. I became involved with HIV and AIDS advocacy after losing my child to AIDS in 2000. In May 1999 my newly born baby was desperately ill with several diseases and I agreed that the baby be tested for HIV. The test was positive and I had to face the terrible reality that I infected my baby. My partner also tested HIV positive. My baby died 9 months later and the baby’s father committed suicide 8 months after my baby’s death. I had to deal with the guilt of infecting my baby, the sorrow of my great loss, the fear of having been given the “death sentence” as well as the fact that I was a single mother to a then 7-year-old son (not HIV positive) who needed me more than ever. During ...

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