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on Pak'd Off (Pakistan), 09/Nov/2007 14:10, 34 days ago
A few mornings ago 5 of us met with the staff and service users of an organisation called New Lite who work in most of the major cities inPakistan. They work in supporting people living with HIV/AIDS (P.L.W.H.A) and their families and one of the other Youth Volunteers, Cat, will be working with them inLahore. This short meeting was a very interesting, shocking and inspiring experience for me.HIV and AIDS supposedly has a very low prevalence inPakistanbut is at high risk due to the stigma and ignorance surrounding the issue. I would also think that stigma and ignorance would contribute to inaccurate statistics but of course, it's difficult to say. We heard from 7 people who are living with HIV and in one case“full blown” AIDS and they spoke of the prejudice they have faced from their families, local communities and even doctors since they have been diagnosed.Unsurprisingly, the existence of HIV/AIDS inPakistanis almost impossible for many people here to reconcile with the Islamic principles they are supposed to live by. I have read and heard from ex-pats living here that there is a lot of“keeping up appearances” here inPakistan. By that I do not mean the T.V. show with Hyacinth Bouquet which has coincidentally just this second started on BBC Prime as I’m writing(!) On the contrary I have been told that extra-marital affairs are quite common. On the whole, it seems that for the women, this is a fact of marriage to be overlooked or tolerated whereas for men, it is seen as a great blow to male pride. In many cases I believe it may be legal/expected for a man or other family member to kill a cheating woman. This is known as an “honour” killing, indicating that it is done in order to preserve the family’s honour.As was revealed in our meeting this has major implications for when a spouse contracts HIV. One male, married, HIV sufferer told us that his wife (who is HIV negative) has stuck by him throughout his illness and would never contemplate asking her husband how he contracted the virus. He then told us“If it was the other way round, I would not be the same, I am being honest”. Another lady who has worked for the organisation for several years told us how she got into that line of work so she could fight the prejudice her husband had suffered before he died from AIDS. However she had no idea how her husband had got it and seemed certain that, had she been the one with HIV, she would have been disowned or even killed by her husband. It was shocking stuff that seems quite deep-rooted in the culture here.Today is the last day of our in-country training. We were meant to be going toPeshawartomorrow but the chap from Dost couldn’t get here to pick us up due to some road blocks that have been put in place to prevent a protest. Now we’re going on Monday with Arif our programme manager who will be babysitting us, like I said before. This last week has gone really fast but I’ve had a really nice time hanging out with theother volunteers, we’ve all been getting along really well and I think I’ll miss them a lot after they all leave tomorrow. On Wednesday night we had a surprise party for a lady called Mary which involved decorating the roof of the guest house with balloons and candles, some booze (naughty!), music from my trusty ipod dock and Sarah with her guitar. I’ve added some more pictures of the party and other stuff like our salwar kameezs arriving to the same place as before…here. I hope you like.Well done if you made it to the end of this depressing blog entry. Until next time xxx