Adventures come in three's

Today at work we started off in a couple homes and then went into a shebeen, as shebeens are often located in homes on residentail streets. The shebeen wasn’t ‘open’ but men were sitting outside drinking and the owner opened up for us to test a couple of the men. The first man I tested was in his 20’s, spoke English, and was really receptive and interested in what we were up to. Men and women like that make my day! I really enjoyed talking with him about his life, schooling and of course his risk for HIV. The next man was super keen as well; unfortunately I didn’t realize he was keen because he had been drinking until after about five minutes when he started trying to hold my hand and silly things like that. He could speak broken English, but not well enough for me to gauge his intoxication level so I called in a counsellor to help me out. She chatted with him and decided that he was just flirty and said that he was fine to test. I should have listened to my intuition. While we were waiting for his test result I saw him fidgeting and looking at the alcohol cleanser that I use for clients. Thinking about how patients were occasionally caught drinking the hand sanitizer back home I moved my alcohol cleanser beside me on my bench and continued talking to him about STI’s. He still wasn’t able to sit still and began fidgeting with items on the table. I was busy trying to move items away so he would listen when he sneakily tried to take the dilutant that we use for testing. I asked for it back thinking that he was simply being cheeky and he coyly shooshed me thinking I might let it slide. I didn't let it go, and when he wouldn’t return it I called in a counsellor for help. The client then stood up and hid it behind his back while she was asking him to give it back. The mood began to change from him being funny and goofing off and I could see him start to get ansy.  Suddenly he ripped off the cap and started drinking the dilutant! He was drinking it as if it was a drug and he desperately needed to get a fix before he was caught. Now, the dilutant is in a tiny tiny bottle that only lets out a drop at a time. So here he was, backed up against the wall trying his hardest to drink the dilutant. I was sitting across from him a little dumb founded. And the counsellor reached over and snatched it out of his hands. The client proceeded to tell us all sorts of things that I didn’t understand, and all I kept thinking was, “if I get stabbed in a shebeen Chris is never going to let me live it down!” I quickly started gathering my gear not knowing what he was going to do next as he was looking pretty erratic. He then kind of schlumped down onto his bench, turned to me looking utterly beaten down and asked, “but could you give me two rands?”

I later learned that people can make a drug out of ARV medications. So when people are diagnosed with HIV, others ask for their medication and make drugs out of it. This system not only leaves the person with HIV at a high risk of getting sick, but also puts risky drugs on the street. The other counsellors thought that this man might have come hoping that something we were using could give him a similar 'high' as we were talking about HIV. It is so incredibly unfortunate that people can be so desperate for alcohol that they will drink hand sanitizer, or in this case go for a bottle of dilutant that is probably made of saline.... salty water. I’m not going to get into the social and financial background that contributes to this man’s addictions in this blog, I am simply sharing my day. As we all know, unfortunately, alcoholism is a common ground that bridges cultures.  

An older gentleman had come into the shebeen looking for us so once we left the shebeen we walked with him to his home. He wove us in and out between the shacks until we finally came to his home. He was a cute little man built a little bit like Santa clause and I immediately liked him. As I went about testing him we sat and chatted. I was relieved after the fiasco we had just had in the shebeen to be simply testing someone and chatting when I glanced over at his test to see if it was done... two lines. Oh man. This gentleman is HIV positive. (At this moment I was so thankful for my training and previous work experience in difficult situations). I took a breath and explained to him that when a test shows two lines it means that a person has HIV, so he was HIV positive. He then turned to my counsellor so she could explain it to him in Xhosa and then he just kind of nodded and walked us back into his home and sat down. It turned out that his wife passed away from AIDS three months ago. He handled the news really well as he’s had time to prepare himself. I on the other hand kept checking and rechecking the test to make sure that there really were two lines.... there were. He was definitely HIV positive. I referred him to the closest clinic and will follow up with him on Friday to see how he’s doing.

I have been asking and asking when the sun and heat were going to show up as I have been freezing and today it came with gusto. People all over the place were walking around under umbrellas and staying inside sheltering themselves from the sun and there I was sweating my butt off with my jeans rolled up to my knees sitting out in the open soaking up the sun.... hey! I need a tan! Everyone gets huge kick out of it when I say that, ‘I’m too white,’ they then say, “yes, yes you are!”

So there’s my day: an adventure in a shebeen, my first HIV positive client, and some sun.... pretty well rounded I guess. J Now, please don’t think that all of my days are this action packed. On other days I am quite content walking house to house chatting with people and having only HIV negative test results. On days that I’m not testing people I am working in the office. I have to work in the office because I know how to use a computer, haha....  I kinda wish I didn’t know how to type an e-mail so that I could be in the field all the time!