‘Let me kill myself’
‘I had left my job as a security guard because I thought ‘anyway I am going to die’,’ says 34-year-old Kabanyane, a beanpole-tall, slender man with a quiet charm.
‘My mother had died of AIDS and I had not seen my father for a long time. So there I was, HIV positive, no work, no life, living with my grandmother.
‘I was feeling very sick by that time and I was depressed about life. My uncle, who was also living with my grandmother, would swear at me about having HIV when he was drunk. And that pushed me to decide: ‘let me kill myself’. I took an extension chord, locked all the doors and took a paper to write my suicide note.’
Luckily, Lebo’s younger sister became worried that her brother might be planning to kill himself and called the police, who started banging on the door before Lebo had slipped the chord around his neck.
They took Lebo back to Tembisa Police Station where he met Captain Moses Dladla, who became an unlikely guardian angel to Lebo.
‘That kaptein was very good to me. He organised a counsellor to talk to me and he was there for me. He would visit me, invite me to events to make sure I went out in the world. He is still my friend today,’ says Lebo, his gold tooth flashing as he smiles.
Dladla advised Lebo to join a support group for people with HIV and being with other people in a similar position to him slowly changed his life.
That was three years ago. Since then, Lebo has reclaimed his life, little by little.
‘I was playing ignorant with my life,’ he admits candidly. ‘In 2002, I was living with a lovely lady and she became pregnant. During her pregnancy, she started to feel sick and when the baby was one year and one month, she died.
‘My aunt, who was staying in the same street, heard the rumour that my girlfriend had died of AIDS so she advised me to go for a test.’
So Lebo tested but he refused to accept the positive result. He blocked out the idea of HIV until 2006, when he started to lose weight and feel weak.
A doctor who knew his girlfriend suggested that Lebo get tested for HIV. So in 2006, he found himself being told once again that he was HIV positive.
The sister at the Kempton Park Clinic also took his CD4 count and found it was a mere 61. He was immediately referred to Masakhane Hospital in Tembisa to get antiretroviral treatment.
But the experience was very uncomfortable for him: ‘There were people there that I knew, who hid behind the newspaper when they saw me. Even me, I pretended I was only there to look for someone.’
While the doctors took a break, Lebo went out and bought a newspaper so he too could have something to hide behind ‘ but instead he found an advertisement that changed his life. A certain Dr LM Masemola was advertising free treatment for people with HIV.
Lebo found it much more comfortable to sit in the more anonymous waiting room of Dr Masemola and finally got onto antiretroviral treatment in 2007.
But by then, depression was eating at him and he tried to kill himself soon after starting ARVS. It was really only after meeting other HIV positive people in his support group and realising that he was not alone, that Lebo started to build up hope, little by little.
In time, he was elected the chairperson of his support group and for the past year, he has worked as a Treatment Literacy Practitioner for the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
‘I am healthy and I am HIV positive. I preach the Gospel of HIV every day. Because my own mother died of AIDS and I am living with HIV, I find it easy to tell people about HIV.’
The only dark cloud in Lebo’s life is that the family of his girlfriend who died of AIDS refuse to let him see his daughter, Refiloe.
‘I think of my daughter every day. But the family still blames me for her mother’s death.’
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