AFRICA CLOSEUP / FAITH TALKS ABOUT AIDS

Faith at her mother's grave. Click image for larger version

And the health system is incapable of handling the problem. "I think more than 65% of AIDS patients are at home because mostly there is a belief that there is no reason for them to be at hospital because there are no drugs and it's obvious, if someone has AIDS, he is going to die," she says.

"The thing is, the doctors don't tell you that you have AIDS. Usually, no matter how sick you are, they prescribe some drugs for you and they discharge you and most people can't afford them and they just go home and sleep."

The doctors' silence may be contributing to the spread of AIDS; by not revealing the true diagnosis, there's no hope that patients will take any precautions about infecting others.

"I don't know why doctors won't tell people that they have AIDS," Faith says, but she has a theory:"Maybe they think people will commit suicide or think that it's the end of the world.

"The worst thing is we have more patients than drugs, here."

She certainly knows that Anti-Retroviral drug treatments would dramatically help those with HIV/AIDS, but they aren't available, "I don't know... the hospital system these days, maybe they have ARV's, but people can't afford it. Some have the best and some have none at all."

Discussing the general attitude toward AIDS, she said, "We do talk about AIDS, with relatives and with friends. But we never, ever say a person has AIDS, even if that person is sick to the last, unless if that person reveals his status himself."

When describing her parents' death, she says, "My stepfather died from a migraine headache, which they think is a complication of HIV/AIDS. And my mother, [when] she passed away when I was 19, she also had a migraine headache."

She explains, "This side it's offending to say someone has AIDS, I dont know why. Maybe its embarrassing, I don't know.

"But after that person has died, that's when people start saying it was AIDS. But they will be saying it secretly -- unless if that person had become public about his status. If he hadn't become public, you would never talk about it."

The polite silence on the subject doesn't hide the truth."But of course you can see that someone has AIDS," Faith observes.

When asked about young people and romance, she says, "That hasn't changed. People are still going out, young people are still playing, but now they know the truth."

What they do with the truth, is another thing, "You see, if you're a young person, and you have everything at home, you don't think about the bad stuff, or about bad things happening to you. You only realize after, because it has happened to you."

And she thinks it's particularly hard on girls when their parents die, "Most young women don't...I don't know if it's that they don't think they have the opportunities, or they think when they lose someone they love, that it's the end of life. They don't have anyone to encourage them. It's very hard for them." Very, very hard, indeed; the World Health Organisation reports that Zimbabwe's women have the lowest life expectancy on the planet.