Trying to remain unaffected on Aids Day

pic from www. blog.bioethics.net/world-aids-day

I was not going to do a World Aids Day post, to be honest, it has been so fashionable to scream at the top of our "laptop activism" lungs slogans urging people to wear condoms and be safe and then 02 December comes and all the rock-concerts are gone, we go back to our daily lives and forget about Aids Day till next year, or for some of us, until someone we know dies of "Aids Related illnesses". So, what made this year different was that I was chatting to a friend of mine, lets call him Mr No-Nonsense Journo a.k.a NNJ, who was telling me that he is depressed with this whole World Aids Day. And if you had to be out in Soweto at 10pm to do a story, I guess you would be too. But he was saying that it was because you feel so helpless when you sitting there interviewing three sisters, who live in the same house and are all HIV positive, on ARVs and one of them is terminally ill. When it is your JOB to speak to these people and remain unaffected, it gets to you says Mr NNJ. Those are the kind of stories that the media laps up and the rest of us turn our noses up as we read about "those people" as if they are not our colleagues, neighbours, family or even friends. Being the journalist in this picture says No-Nonsense Journo, is the one who has to feed this to us and after doing the story drive back to Sandton, maybe buy a cooldrink on the way and remain unaffected... And these are stories that make World Aids Day worth it for me. The fact that as much as it is fashinable to scream RED, having a day like this makes people conscious of Aids, because we do need to talk about it more, not only on the first Day of December. On my way to work, for the first time I was noticing the red in everything. From the colour of the taxi speeding past me, to the little baby boy on the train in a red top, to the fire alarm in my office. And I was embarrased for only noticing today, for not doing more. This feeling of helplessness. So I tell these thought to this NNJ, asking (almost demanding) to know how one stays detached and he aswers simply "smoking and drinking" but we both know it is not that simple.. and then he ends our conversation with " but its all good man, one thing I know for sure is that Blacks always prevail bra, no matter how detriment circumstances may seem, they've become so resilient to suffering that it's bad to underestimate their capicity to survive" and it is this quote and the story about the ladies that reminded me of the importance of World Aids Day and made it worthy for me want to write, to have to write something in the hope that I inspire someone else to do something and if they are also feeling helpless, that is okay too..