AIDS challenges among youths

“I wish I was the only HIV positive person on earth today because I can definitely keep the promise and my doing so would let me die with the virus thereby eliminating AIDS from the earth for good. If I was the only person having it, it could end with me.”

These are the words of Bernard Kampolombo a second year student in the School of Education at the University of Zambia (UNZA). Bernard is HIV positive and as he utters these words he says them with an indescribable passion. The look in his eyes says he means them with all his heart.

The first time you meet Bernard you would think otherwise about his HIV status. He is a lively healthy looking person with a huge sense of humour. He is a down to earth kind of person. He says most people do not exactly believe him once he discloses his status. And you cannot really blame them because even his body physique is like that of an athletic person.

Born in the North Western Province of Zambia 34 years ago, Bernard says his life has taken a new turn ever since he found out he was positive. He recalls the fateful day in July of 2005 when he learnt of his status at a time when he was in a serious relationship with a girl he was so much in love with and wanted to marry.

Because he loved his fiancée so much, Bernard decided that they go for an HIV test before they tied the knot. His fiancée did not see the need for the test because as a couple they had been faithful to each other and had abstained from sex since their relationship began. But eventually she agreed to go for the test. With the trust they had in one another, they decided to go for the testing together. They wanted their results to be announced in each other’s presence.

For Bernard, taking the HIV test was also just like one of those by the way things that everyone does in life. He says for him it was just a process that he had to go through, not because he thought he was positive. The thought of being positive never even crossed his mind. Little did he know that behind that test lay something that would end up determining whatever decision he made in life from then on.

When the counselor brought their test results and announced that he was positive, Bernard was shocked and for the first time in his adult life he cried.
“I cried for over thirty minutes. That is the longest time I have ever cried in my adult life,” he says.

Bernard explains that he felt like he was just having a bad dream at that moment and he even wished someone could just pinch to wake him up and tell him it was all a dream. But it was reality. He was shaken to the core of his heart and could not believe it. And the counselor attending to them also thought the results were wrong and might have been switched for another clients’. She told him he did not look one bit positive. To make sure of this, she took the results for confirmation with lab technician who had done the test and yes Bernard’s results had not been switched. He was HIV positive. That was the reality of the moment.

He felt like everything he had been building career wise was now shattered. Bernard is a teacher and had acquired teaching Diploma (Science) and certificate from Nkrumah and Solwezi teachers’ training College respectively. His dream in life was to become a teacher. All his life he had wanted to aim high and teaching just seemed like the route to his success in life. He was trying to build a personality for himself and the knowledge of being HIV positive made him feel his dreams had been shattered.

The big questions that kept resounding in his mind at that moment were how? when? and who? He was confused. He says he knew all the ways that people acquired the virus and the major way was through having unprotected sex with an infected person. Yes, he had had unprotected sex way back in the 1990s. He recalls that the first time he had sex was in grade seven in 1990 and it was just something he did just because he and his peers on a school football team had done when they went out for games. The relationship with the girl he first had sex with was not even a serious one. It was just child’s play.

Bernard seems to be sure that if he had indeed gotten infected when he had sex for the second time in 1991 in grade eight. He explains that this relationship was not one that he had planned or wished to get into. It just happened. One of his peers had organised a girl for him and she seemed more than willing to be in a relationship with him. As usual, he did not love the girl. It was just about experimenting with sex as most teenagers do; trying to explore the unknown. Bernard remembers having unprotected sex with this girl on two occasions.

“A few months after these sexual encounters I got a sexually transmitted infection (STI),” he adds. He quickly got the STI treated, but months later he developed Herpes Zoster on his abdomen which he also got treated himself.

All this time, it had not occurred to Bernard that all these illnesses were linked to the fact that his immune system was slowly deteriorating. The HIV was taking his toll.

However, suffering from the STI made Bernard vow never to indulge in sex because he says the treatment process for the STI was the most painful thing he had ever experienced.

“I decided that if sex could bring me such pain I would never have it until I was ready and that was until I was married. So, since Grade eight I abstained,” This is the more reason why he was confused about where the virus had come from.

Bernard had turned a new leaf. His academic performance became excellent and he used to spend most of his time in books and as such managed to pass to go to Grade ten with flying colours. He was made prefect in grade eleven and was the jets chairperson. He was a shining example of what a perfect student and morally upright person is. Most of his fellow pupils used to look up to him. He was their role model.

“If I was told to put my life records on a billboard years after grade 8, I think I can do it with pleasure because I am so sure I led a clean and morally upright life,” he emphasizes.

He did have female friends after grade eight and just friendship is it was; no strings attached. No sex. Even as he went through Nkrumah and Solwezi colleges he was still as disciplined. Temptations would come, but he always managed to over come them by just standing his ground and simply remembering the vow he had made to himself.

Days after the HIV diagnosis Bernard could not sleep most nights and so he turned to sleeping tablets to take him to sleep every night. In addition, for the first time in his life he turned to alcohol to forget his troubles. He had withdrawn from most social activities. “I could lock myself up in my room and just drink the hard stuff mostly spirits as these could get me high and then take me to sleep,” he recollects.

Slowly, Bernard started accepting his status and decided not to dwell on spilt milk but to move on in life because this was a situation he could not do anything about. The deed was done.

In the same year (2005) that he found out his status, Bernard got accepted to study at the University of Zambia and this turned out to be a debate for him. Whether to go to UNZA or not. He wondered what the point of coming to UNZA was if he was positive. He actually thought once positive your life is over.

After a lot of thought, he decided to go UNZA in the hope that the studies would help him forget about what he was going through. He thought being busy with schoolwork would relieve him of the burden of thinking about his status. Meanwhile, he started taking Antiretroviral Drugs because after taking the reconfirming HIV status test which was also positive, his CD4 count had gone down to 60 way below the normal of over 200.The doctor attending to him actually told him it was a miracle that he was still healthy and not suffering from any opportunistic infections.

And when he came to UNZA in 2006 he was worried about his ARVS running out as he had registered with a clinic from back home. This really worried him so he decided to go to UNZA Clinic to find out about whether they gave ARVS to students and to his amazement there was more in store for him apart from the drugs. He was asked whether he could help reach out to students on HIV related issues considering that he was positive. Without hesitation he agreed to be a Health Promoter under Zambia Malawi Namibia Western Cape University (ZAMANAWE), an organisation that coordinates HIV/AIDS Activities in the four named Universities. This meant he had to go public about his status.

Bernard was very comfortable about going public about his status, which is quite a daunting thing to do for most HIV positive people. He decided that if his life had changed it was time to make the most of it. And he thought teaching others about HIV/AIDS was the best way to go about it. The only problem he was facing was that after telling some of his friends about it some of them were advised him not to.

“While I appreciated their advice, I decided that this was not up to my friends but up to me and so on 1st December of 2006 which was World AIDS day I made my first public appearance and it felt good and rewarding,” he recalls.

Reaching out to others about HIV /AIDS to Bernard feels like it is a responsibility he had to take up. “It is my life project,” he says. It is feels like a new field and I am not going to give up on it. People have to learn about HIV / AIDS.” He adds that, even if three out of ten people listen to him it is fine because he will live to remember that he taught someone something that would save their life.

Bernard says he has spoken to a number of students about HIV/AIDS within UNZA and numerous other schools and he admits that he has had challenges especially where most of them would rather not go for VCT.

“VCT is something people should take seriously; it helps save your life. It has to be a responsibility that some one takes up because of the ones he or she loves,” he adds. He says most people could be HIV positive without knowing and will only realise it when its too late which was what happened to him, but was lucky enough to be put on ARVS that have been sustaining his life so far.
“You can be healthy for a number of years without realising that you are carrying the virus. Am a perfect example; it took the virus almost 17 years to manifest, but it was there all the time.

Bernard admits that life has not been easy as a person and student living with the virus, but he says he just takes one day at a time remembering that he has a role to play of teaching others about HIV /AIDS and sharing his life experiences. Life has given him a different direction and he feels he has to give himself up for one or two lives.

And it looks like Bernard’s efforts are paying up. Just recently on this year’s World AIDS Day, he scooped the ‘UNZA Award’ for best UNZA Health Promoter. He says this award is a great inspiration to him as he is even more motivated to teach more people about the pandemic.

His major appeal to young people is for them to abstain from sex until they get married, which he did after grade 8 only for him, it was already too late. He was already infected with the virus. He adds that in this era of information explosion parents should also take up the role of telling their children about HIV/AIDS and the dangers of unprotected sex. He says it is high time that parents started calling a spade a spade.

“Issues of sex have to be talked about openly in the homes, there is no time to beat about the bush,” he says. Bernard adds that the family is the route to the community and once families know about HIV/AIDS they can relay it to communities and the communities will in turn relay the knowledge to the nation at large.

“Spreading, AIDS is like setting fire to the same forest you are in, because not taking precautions will make you infect all those innocent people in the world including your own family members,” he says.
He adds that talking about AIDS and other sexual issues seriously will help us save many people that are at risk of getting burnt especially the young ones who are also our future leaders.

“That is why I wish I was the only HIV positive person on earth because I would ensure that it ended with me. As such, right now am being faithful to all humanity in that am abstaining considering that am infected, am also teaching others about HIV, abstinence, faithfulness, condom use and the importance of going for VCT in good time. I am not setting the fire to the forest I am in,” he states.

It is clear that the sky is the limit for Bernard Kampolombo; his dream of reaching out to people about HIV/AIDS is exactly what his ‘life project’ is all about.