My battle with Aids

I feel like journalism is like a jealous lover. It just won't let me be an activist. It wags its finger at me and reminds me of the commitment I made to be objective. Sitting in the Washington Convention Center, at the International Aids Conference opening ceremony - I battled to get the story. It is difficult to be a journalist when you are the story at times. I bear the bruises of HIV and Aids just like many delegates here at the conference. We all have something in common - we are either affected or infected. Sometimes both.

As I attempt to write an objective story - I drown in thoughts and reflections of where I come from. I think to myself, "If I erect a wall and write names of people who lost their lives to Aids, it would look like a monument for fallen heroes in a war as big as the Vietnam War."

But it is a war. The war that people at this conference are optimistic that it will be won. I jump up with joy and clap with other delegates when I hear stories of people who have not let HIV be in the driver's seat of their lives.

I am however pained that most men that I have come across in my life as an African Traditional Healer, as a friend -  refuse to go and test for HIV. Some of them use their pregnant girlfriends to gauge if they are infected with the virus. While there is scientific victory in the fight against HIV and Aids, we in South Africa still struggle to get people to test for HIV. People find out too late when they are infected. Mostly in their death beds.

So for me, I have a dilemma of choosing to write a story about those people who refuse to test for HIV and being an activist that will motivate those around me to test. I believe that would be a life-saving measure. Instead of recording deaths and getting new story angles on such a tragedy. Anybody who finds out that their  loved ones are in danger, is inclined to do something to preserve those lives.

There are still governments that are reluctant to give people the life-saving drugs. Should I get on the phone and interview them and ask why or should I just mobilise people to pressure them into giving citizens accessible health care? I am really caught in between.

If I remain a journalist, I will be an embedded journalist. The one embedded in the war against Aids.