KOTIDO, 9 June 2008 (IRIN) - Christian Nachan was forced to leave her manyatta, a small group of mud huts that make up a homestead in the remote region of Karamoja in northeastern Ugandan, when her husband, his second wife and two of her children died. After discovering she was HIV-positive, she started a new life in the town of Kotido.

"Three years ago, my husband died. Also my co-wife [his second wife] died and two of my children. In the village they started beating me and saying that because my family is dying I must leave the village. I left in the evening hours and slept in a bush nearby, and then went to town the next day and looked for a place to stay.

"In Abim [district in Karamoja], I found small work washing and cleaning and fetching water for people. My husband's brother came to find me and marry me. I moved to Kotido with him; he is sick too.

"I hear news of the village, and the children say, 'Why don't you return?' But the people of the manyatta are not willing to receive me back.

"People in town, they say, 'This weak one! What's wrong with you?' But now they see strength coming to me.

"I am learning how and when to take [antiretroviral] drugs and so I am not so sick. The main problem is hunger - when you are taking drugs on an empty stomach you are vomiting and having dizziness.

"After I saw other people improve, I thought, 'Let me look for that life so I will also become somebody'.

"Now I am two months pregnant. I will come here to take drugs during the labour and to take care of the child. In my mind I'm thinking maybe I will deliver a child who is HIV-positive and I am having fear that the child will develop this sickness like me. But if I follow what they are telling me at the centre maybe the child will not be sick."

gg/kr

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