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Remember me

From a “memory book” by a forty-three-year-old Ugandan woman living with HIV, written for her daughter, Viola. The book was written as part of the Memory Project of the National Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (NACWOLA), a nonprofit organization based in Uganda that promotes memory books as a way for women with HIV to record their memories and communicate with their children.

I delivered you in 1985, June 6, but these were bad days where nobody could walk at night. I was forced to deliver you at home. My sister Rose was helping me. It was coming to morning hours, at 4:30 a.m. But after 6:00 a.m., they took me at Nsabya Hospital to measure you, and you had 3 1/2 kgs. I slept in the hospital one day, and they sent me back home. Your father was happy. Your aunt asked your father to give you her name, that's why you were called Viola. That day, the family was happy because of you, baby Viola.

You started, when you were four years old, in the small school near your grandmother's home in the village called Kapeke. It is on the Jinja Road, eighteen miles, you turn right two miles. Your grandmother told me that some of the children were coming to school barefoot, yet you had shoes. When children annoyed you, you used to step them with your shoes on their toes. You did it many times. They were going to stop you from putting on shoes. Your grandmother had to go to school and apologize, and then they forgave you.

I remember the day you lost one sandal and stepped on a nail. The treatment was sticks, so that you don't do it again. And that was the end of it.

In 1991, when your father died, you was brought back to me at Ndejje, where we are. I took you in a small school called Lubega Memorial School. They used to chase you for school fees. Sometimes you miss the all term because of money.

I remember the hard times that followed immediately after the death of your father. All responsibilities bounced back on me, yet I didn't have any stable sources of income. The family seemed to be so big for me, but I don't give up.

I started to think that I have HIV when your father had just died. I went for blood test and they told me that I was HIV positive. I was in bad mood in my heart. I thought I am going to die the day after that one for a long time, up to when I went to Nsabya Hospital. In 1994 I join NACWOLA, and there I learned that I am still useful.

Viola, I hope you will be a well disciplined child even if I die. I hope you will lead your brothers and sisters into a good way. I hope you will have a heart of a Christian. I hope you will study up to University, if you get a chance of school fees. I hope you will keep your body safe from AIDS because I have done all possible to show you the ways in which AIDS can get even. Viola, some people may give you gifts expecting you to pay them back through sex, but say no. It is difficult to tell you all my expectations, but what I'm telling you is to be a good girl all the time. You may seek for advice and information from elders, your senior teacher, or church leaders and relatives, please.

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SEE ALSO: Autobiographical memory; HIV-positive women; Mother and child; Uganda

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