THERE was once a very dark period in HIV and AIDS when an HIV diagnosis was equivalent to a death sentence. It was during those days when many lives both young and old, were lost to the ravenous AIDS pandemic owing to the absence of effective treatment regimens, stigma and discrimination against people with HIV, ignorance and negative attitudes from healthcare workers, among other factors.
By Michael Gwarisa
Throughout that period, finding love as an HIV positive person especially if your status was known to the public was a Sisyphean task. This forced many people, especially young people to go underground and shun opening up about their HIV status, taking up lifesaving medications, testing for HIV and above all, dumping prospects of finding love.
Growing up as a young person living with HIV in Bindura, Benson Luckmore Pamhidzai (24), had made a commitment and promise never to get married and probably confine himself to a life of solitude as a single Circuit Overseer in the Jehovah’s Witness church. During his days as a young boy, there were very few programs for young persons living with HIV and there was no hope for people like him. He thought he was the only one child throughout Zimbabwe living with HIV.
However, as years went by, a few programs were introduced to his community and from the teachings he got, this prompted him to publicly announce his HIV positive status in 2017. Even though he knew very well that he had made the right decision by letting the world know about his status, deep down he knew it would have its fair share of consequences especially on his dating journey.
That being said, Cupid’s arrow struck Benson at a time when he had lost hope of finding love. Three years after he had made his status public, his perception of love and marriage changed completely when he met the woman of his dreams, Natasha Mbirikuwanda. Their story reads more like an Elizabethan fairy-tale which is a mixed bag, a hodgepodge of emotions, laughter, self-stigma, fear and above all and most important, true love.
I first knew Natasha in the year 2020 through social media. By then, I was in Mt Dariwn and she stayed here in Harare. What drew me closer to her was that we shared the same interests and I also discovered that we go to the same church, the Jehovah’s Witness,” said Benson, during an Interview with HealthTimes.
“What made her appear on my mutual friends’ list was because she was also part of the Young People’s Network, which is the program that i am also part of. I first met her face to face during those public hearings on the removal of age restrictions to Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). She contributed very well during the hearings and that actually got my attention. I was intrigued to be honest. That day, I did not even tell her how I felt, i had to rush back to Bindura but I couldn’t take her out of my mind.”
As time went on, he kept on thinking about Natasha but did not make his intentions clear to her due to a myriad of factors chief among them being the fear of rejection.
“During this time, I didn’t know about her HIV status, I just thought she was negative and I did not bother to find out. In 2021, there was this training of trainers for Harare province for young people’s network. Harare has 11 districts and the districts were divided into two then, the first Cohort meeting, I went there anticipating to meet her but she was not there.
“I really wanted to meet her and not seeing her there really ate me up. To kill time, I joined a group of boys who were discussing general issues. You know when boys meet, they always end up talking about girls. They starting talking about girls and one out of nowhere, this other guy just said he also loved Natasha. This other girl who was there went on to suggest that anyone who was harboring intentions with Natasha should drop them as she was hard to get. They spoke highly of Natasha that day. This however made me develop cold feet, I just thought I wasn’t a match to her high standards.
“At this juncture, I was just saying I want to get to connect to this person and probably not have an intimate relationship with her but probably just to get to know her better since we had a lot of things in common. As time went on, we had another advocacy training in Masvingo in 202, that is when I got to have a deep conversation with her and to know more about her and got to learn that she was also living with HIV.”
This meeting really loosed things up a bit for Benson. However, even after making such inroads, he was failing and struggling to say the proverbial three little words to her.
“I started developing a real interest to date her after the Masvingo meeting. However, telling her that I loved her was a challenge. It was as if whenever I wanted to say the words “I LOVE YOU,” some invisible hand would come and tie my tongue. I would rehearse and come up with killer punchlines during my alone time but would lose ground the moment she showed up or whenever I attempted to text her anything along those lines.
“I felt like even if I was to tell her, the probability of her accepting my proposal was very low. When I approached her, she thought I just wanted to use my influence to use and dump her. It took me about two to three months to really tell her how i felt. I sent emissaries at some point but to no avail. I then went to her closest friend and told her my story. I waited for about a month without getting a response. During that period, she would even blue tick some of my whatsapp messages for over five days. I became very anxious and afraid at the time, (Hakuna mukomana anoda defeat) no man wants defeat,” he said.
Following countless efforts and a series of blue ticks, Benson was convinced that he had officially hit a brick wall and was ready to throw in the towel. However, after another month, Natasha’s friend came back inquiring if he had made any headway and why he had not taken any meaningful action to get the girl.
“This boosted my confidence and I resumed my quest to get the love of my life. One day, I just updated a whatsapp status with another girl, a colleague in the industry and she replied to that status. You know girls, she was asking if I was dating the girl on the status and I said no. I also asked her if she was in a relationship as was being indicated by the Facebook status and she said no. (Ndopandakadzifambira nyaya dzacho), that’s when I made my move, even though it wasn’t easy, I won at last.”
Benson believes self-stigma is more destructive compared to societal stigma as it kills self-confidence and self-esteem in young people living with HIV. As a young person who has deified odds and challenges, the self-stigma and societal expectations for young people living HIV, Benson believes the sky is the limit and anyone can be whatever they want to be.
Giving her side of the love story, Natasha says even though she was giving Benson a hard time and playing hard to get, behind the scenes, she was stalking him and already getting interested.
“Like Benson said, we met through social media between 2019 and 2020. I then saw him during this public hearing but he was a bit far. That’s when I said to myself ohh, so this is the Benson. I developed an interest and started stalking him thereafter,” said Natasha with wide smile on her face.
“I started stalking him on all his platforms and what really got me interested was his posts on social media where he would publicly speak about his HIV positive status without holding back. That triggered me to want to know more about him and what he was on about. We never talked even on the phone and social media. We never talked all this while, I remember sending him a friendship request but going for long without hearing from him.
“I was not ready to date especially dating boys from the network. I had had a series of heart breaks. It had become a habit that at times I would go for even more than five days without responding to his messages and would give him excuses. I had trust issues and I feared having my heart broken again. However, my friend came this other day and convinced me that Benson was really a good guy and I should give him a chance. I developed interest after this and I started to even respond to his messages on time and that’s when i gave it a shot and accepted him” said Natasha.
By giving Benson a shot, little did Natasha know that she was giving a chance to true love. Little did she know that she had finally found her soul mate, a man who would make her his wife and share a lifetime with her. Sometimes all it takes is giving someone a chance, even in this era of Mjolo, love still exists. Natasha and Benson recently got married at a colorful traditional wedding ceremony in Harare as a precursor to their white wedding to be held in April this year.
Natasha and Benson’s love story is just beginning and to those who still believe in love, this here is a story of hope, hope that even in the most hopeless of places, you can still find love. Being HIV positive is not a death sentence. Being HIV positive should not drive you into solitary confinement. The world is too big for you to partake of its hidden secrets.
