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  Potamienne Komezusenge aged 37, plays with her youngest child. A school teacher, she was infected by her husband and left to bring up their children alone. He is buried in the back garden, marked by a wooden cross. "Am I angry at my husband? How can you be angry at one you cannot see."   Emmanuel Singizumakiza (left) is a health educator in Kibaye. He shows a boy how to use a condom. "Yes, I give out condoms - often in secret, in private. Sometimes people come for one or two - but sometimes to save them returning and being identified, I give twenty at a time. When a boy doesn't know how to use them I show him in secret - I show him quietly".  Nadine Uhatswenayo aged 11, dances with her cousin and her grandfather. "I don't go to school because of the illness - especially the coughing, that is really bad sometimes. I like to sweep and fetch water and I like to play with my friends. I really like rice and meat. Sometimes when there's no meat we cook the rats (these are Guinea pigs). My father died in the war when I was a baby. My mother died in July or August this year. I don't remember when. She was suffering like me. When I feel ill I go to bed with my grandmother and she looks after me, but being ill doesn't stop me from playing with my friends.  Kibaye Health Centre : Assumpta Ntibazinkayo aged 26, receives her unproven HIV result meaning that she must be re-tested.  Nyianeza Gloriose aged 35, (left) is fed by her neighbour, also called Gloriose: "I am taking anti-retrovirals. This medicine really is making me worse. I can't work at all when I take them - I am not strong and my legs become swollen. I was widowed in 1994. It's after the war that I got infected by a person, I can't even remember his name. When I began to feel ill, I approached the health workers at the hospital but they could find nothing wrong with me and said I should have the test. This is how I found that I had the virus. That was at the end of 2002 and now everybody knows about my status - even the small children know. Everybody helps. My neighbour comes here every day and when I am sick looks after me."  Saidi Ruhimbana aged 40, comforts his wife Anastasie Hwamerera, also 40. Both have AIDS but Anastasie is very sick. Saidi says "these days thing have changed. We both need medicine and our savings have gone because of this and even some of the children had to stop school because we could no longer afford to send them.... I was a builder but now I can't lift anything heavy. In fact from my land I have to give a percentage of my crop to my debtors."  Narcisse, HIV positive and the president of his local AIDS Association called Girimpuhwe ("Have compassion") works in his field with a neighbour.  Dorothy Mbazumutima aged 27, with other members of the AIDS Association at Kansi Health Centre. All the women are HIV Positive and one or two days a week they go to the centre to make baskets and other handicrafts which are sold for a small profit. Dorothy's child is too new to be named and the mother is unsure whether he has the virus. The association's name is "Abatanyuranya" which loosely translates as "Those that bond together".  Francine, 34 and a neighbour's child, Kibaye sector, Rwahambi village. Francine tested positive for HIV in Jan 2005. "My first husband died in 1994 during the Genocide. I think I got infected from my second husband - because after my first husband died, I had to look for another. I did marry him ... but now he is in Tanzania (it is likely that he fled as a genocide suspect). I cannot lose hope and I cannot be angry with my husband for all this". |
