Shuvai Muthanan, Food Aid Beneficiary, Ngomeni Village, Gokwe Province

Shuvai is a Food Aid beneficiary at the FDP in Ngomeni village, Ngomeni ward, Gokwe South district. Shuvai is from Ngomeni village.

Before Concern arrived in December, I was surviving on roots wild vegetables and mashambo (a type of local melon). My neighbours also helped me out. I have 8 children, they are aged between 5 months and 20 years. The 3 months before Concern arrived were very bad and the children really suffered. Some of them started swelling from the hunger and 2 of the younger ones became very ill. I spent many sleepless night wondering about their fate. I really thought some of them would die. I was expecting Liberty, my youngest at the time and I used to faint with weakness from the hunger. Thankfully however, she is healthy.

My husband also became very sick around that time and could not work. I also could do very little to provide food for the family as I was looking after my husband. His legs swelled up and he became very ill. I am sure that the hunger caused him to deteriorate faster. In October things got very bad, he became severely wasted and had sores all over his body, he also had diarrhoea. I spent so much of my time bringing him in and out of hospital, but they could do nothing for him and had no medicine. 

Things became so bad that I had to beg off others in the village. Some gave me food but others were in the same position as me and couldn’t.

In December my husband died.

I was totally helpless and had no money. Even if I got a small amount of money, there was no food available.

A couple of weeks after my husband died, Concern arrived and began distributing food. The health of the children improved immediately and their swelling went down. This gave me some consolation after the death of my husband.

Concern have given so much help to this community. If they had not come here to Ngomeni so many people would have died. Some of my children would have died, even I could have died.

I am very happy with what Concern are doing here. My children are all active again and are running around. Concern should continue with their work and also distribute some seed. When my husband was alive he would do temporary work in other people’s fields so as we could buy seed. I do not know how I will do this work and look after my family at the same time. 

Things have been very bad here since the cyclone of 2000. Since then we have had very bad drought. I harvested very little this year because I wasn’t able to afford seed.

I am still pained by my husband’s death. I face situations now where in the past he could have helped. But at least I now have help from Concern.

My husband had so many sicknesses but the hospital gave no diagnosis. I thought it might have been TB but they said it wasn’t. When I asked them if it was HIV they wouldn’t say.

HIV is a massive problem in this area. Many people have sicknesses like my husband’s but they will deny that it is due to HIV. They are afraid of being stigmatised. Some people isolate those who are HIV positive but others accept them. The stigma is lessening now because more and more people have one or two loved ones who are either sick or dead. This has also helped improve the behaviour of people. People are now not as reckless as they used to be about sleeping around.

At the same time there are many who do not know how Aids is spread. Many people believe that if you are strong and have a good immune system you will not become infected. There is no education about Aids here, people have had to learn the hard way, by seeing their relatives dying. There is no education and no access to testing.

I am not sure how my husband died but I suspect that he died of Aids. Now I am troubled in my heart because I fear that me and Liberty are infected. Secretly I would like to know our HIV status but it is very expensive to go to town and get tested.  
 

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