Njoki sits on a wooden chair outside her family’s adobe house, in the central highlands of Kenya. A thick brown cardigan drapes her shoulders, a bright orange scarf winds around her hair.
Like many Kikuyu in the central highlands of rural Kenya, Njoki’s family are subsistence farmers. Plots of land in this part of the world are often small, as land is divided from one generation to the next. In this family allotment, maize, bananas and coffee grow right up to the edge of the house. A stream runs through the lower part of the property. While this year’s crop looks like it will sustain the extended family, it may be one of the last seasons that Njoki sees.
Like an estimated 14 per cent of rural Kenyans, Njoki has contracted HIV/AIDS. Her weight and energy levels have plummeted, and although she is in the most productive years of her life, she depends on family to care for her. They will also have to take on the responsibility of raising her 7 year-old daughter when she dies.
The father of Njoki’s daughter is long gone, and in rural Kenya where people with HIV/AIDS are stigmatised, how will Njoki be remembered? What can she leave her daughter?
The pain of her situation at times overwhelms this young mother. Njoki is only 24, but she does not have the luxury of much life ahead of her. She allows a tear to escape, then dabs at it with a handkerchief. There are other families in the district dealing with similar issues.
Alata, a mother with five dependent children, whose husband died last year from the disease, sits on the mat outside her house. She is gaunt. Her battle with the disease is almost over. Alata’s sisters look after her, just as they will be called on to look after her children.
Perhaps it is because of her closeness to the finality of her earthly existence or her age—somewhere between 45 and 50—that Alata seems to have acquired a level of acceptance that eludes Njoki.
‘There are many responses to HIV/AIDS’, explains Florence Nderitu, HIV/AIDS coordinator from the Good Samaritan clinic in the central highlands town of Nyeri, a two and a half hour drive from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Florence is a woman who understands the complexities that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has on individuals, on families and on the community. A trained public health nurse,