ARIAKA

She is gone, gone for over two decades now.  Her name, simply Joyce.  Variously Joy, Aiiko, Happy: okay a similar joyful sobriquet.  She died a painful death.  I saw for a time, a short time; her misery in her eyes, her life, her suffering.  She was young.  Very amiable, very beautiful, very promising.  She was the first victim of HIV/AIDS and represented the trilemma the disease paused to us.

She is my sister.  A primer who our dad loved dearly.  Our grandfather loved her so much he called her his mother.  For an old man, it was the ultimate expression of affection to a child and this signifies an important posturing.  A mentoring inrecent speak to play a crucial role in the clan.  However, fate would now rule in a completely different direction.

As Joyce blossomed to a dashing beauty, the politics of the country was taking a turn for worse. Especially for Lugbara, seen in the country as henchmen to Idd Amin Dada.  So Tanzania People’s Defence Forces and the groupings of  libearting soldiers descended on WestNile and drove the Lugbara into the then Zaire (now Dr. Congo) and Southern Sudan. 

The disturbance thrust her into Zaire.  For a sensational beauty; chocolate skin, dimples - you understand - she was a hotspot.  The war paved way for her to traverse that vast country.  She travelled deep into Congo.  She went to Kisangani, Gbadolite and ended in Kinshasha and joining the society of the high classes.

The thrills of high living knows no bounds and Joyce enjoyed it to the full.  We all do.  Do we not?  But along came the mystery of a disease.  It has the combination of sicknesses.  Fever, loss of appetitie, atrophying skin cells and a cocktail of other complications and stigmisation.  The treatment of this sickness, she was advised was seek the forgiveness of people who so loced her, but whom she had forsaken; she had been away from home for over five years.

The traditional spiritualist beseeched her to go home and make peace with her clan; for the clan missed her and they wanted to see her.  In African spiritualism, the clan is a powerful centre on which the lives of people is centered. So in the first rainy season of 1987, Joyce made the imperiloius journey of travelling over 2000 km from kinshasha to Arua.

Offude woke up to an amazing discovery that May morning.  The story of the return of the prodigal daughter spread like bush fire around the valleys and hills of the of the village.  The news of the strange disease also followed and people wre eager to see the lost one.  When the clan council sat to receive her, the patriarch was shocked when Joyce made her case.  Amvile denied ever wishing any evil on his grand daughter and suggested that she visit the hospital for a qualified opinion on her affliction.

It was also decided that her sibling would nurse her to full recovery whence she would settle down in the community. The next morning, Joyce and Madira went to Arua hospital where the girl was prompt;y admitted for medical examination.  She was admitted into a special ward where people where people with serious sickness were admitted.

When it occurred on Madira that his sister was suffering from SLIM, the new disease that conscricts people, he lept in alarm and jumped throw the window into the road, running wildly to deliver the sad news to the clan.

He cursed the day he qwas borne, crying that his siter had killed him.  It was known in the 80’s that contact with a person suffering from HIV/AIDS was a licence to die.  And that he had earned his death by nursing his sister. 

The clan sat to consider this sad turn of events; and on advice of the medical authorities, arranged to receive Joyce.  After a week of admission at Arua hospital, Joyce returned home to await the inevitable out.  Death.  Poor girl returned to an uncertain future.  The nights were long and the days longer.  Many of her sisters and cousins avoided her like the plague.  She was truly alone and frightened. Her only companion was her grandfather, who having lost his sights, could not fathom the physical condition of his granddaughter.

The demands on her was great.  Having weakened hopelessly, she needed nursing.  Her own brother was too distressed to face her.  So one morning, the sad news was announced that Joyce had left us to join her ancestors.  Her mourning was muted.  The old women crying that such a beautiful child would have been a great service to the clan.  They wished to see her children.  Her grandfather mourning the passing of a child before her time.  She should have outlived him so that she could to bury him.  For a child to die before her time is such a calamity to befall the family.

It was now time to bade farewell to the departed girl.  As the her final resting place was prepared, mourners gathered.  But they could not dare reach the coffin.  Everybody peered from a safe distance.  Lest the disease should jump like  a tick on the onlooker.   When the grave was done it was time to lay her to her place.  A spectacle unfolded.

The mourners refused to touch the coffin and hosit it into the grave.  No ball bearers, no body.  In fact people run for dear life, avoiding the misfortune of being picked to bid farewel to a fallen sister.  The entreaties of our elder, my uncle to respect the dead fell on deaf ears.  Finally, Mzee Primo, the elder made a most startling decision.  He told the crowd, who now stood several metres away that he would bury his daughter, alone.  The crowd murmured something about the mental standing of this man.  Then a miracle happened, two drunken men stepped forward to help.  And so it entered in the Offude folk lore that Joyce was buried by three madmen.

Madira and Mzee Primo are alive today, and they are a powerful testimony that, HIV/AIDS can only be transmitted through other means other than contact with the sick.  The courage of Mzee Primo is a shining example that the sick can receive care without the risk of infection.  His story helped the community around Muni to better manage HIV/AIDS cases.

I wish Joyce lived long enough to benefit from advances in the care and treatment of HIV/AIDS cases.  Maybe Ariaka would have shared her love.

May the soul of Joyce rest in Eternal Peace.