UNITE FOR CHILDREN UNITE AGAINST AIDS

December 1 2007

Love at first sight

Champassak province is in the 'deep south' of Laos, in fact it's where I grew up, so when I go for a field visit there, I feel very much at home. On this occasion, I dropped in to visit the self- help group members. As I entered the sewing room, I saw three of the women taking their lunch break. They were eating tasty fried crickets with their sticky rice and one tall, thin lady called me to join them. I recognized her as Ning. During past visits, I've never had time to talk with her, so I sat down to chat about her life and family over lunch.

From our discussion, I found Ning to be a quiet but friendly person. I can see that she has had a hard life. Ning told me she only attended primary school. At the tender age of thirteen, she left Laos to work in Thailand. There, she found work at a local market and then at a garment factory.

Like other young Lao people working in Thailand, Ning said that she returned to Laos to celebrate the Lao New Year with her family. This was a treat that she looked forward to every year and so every year, for nine years, she made the trip until the day she met a man who was not from her community. Ning told me it was love at first sight. They decided to get married after three weeks of courtship. Both were 22 years old.  After their marriage, Ning and her husband went to work in Thailand to earn their living. The young couple worked very hard and did not have the time to visit Laos every year. However when Ning became pregnant, she came back to deliver her baby in Laos and looked after her baby girl until she was one year old. Then she had to leave her child with her mother and went back to work in Thailand. After seven years of marriage, Ning had three children, two girls and one boy. The couple often had to leave the children with Ning's mother due to their work in Thailand. However, her family life changed radically when her husband died from AIDS and she found out that she had become a single mother living with HIV.

As she told me about her HIV status, Ning started to cry. She is now living with her mother and explained that it wasn't easy earning a living to feed her mother, herself and the three children. At present, she is growing vegetables and selling them at the market. When there isn't enough money, she calls her younger sister working in Thailand and asks for help to make ends meet. Whenever possible, her sister sends 500 Thai Baht – the equivalent of US$15. 

I can see that Ning's health is not good. She told me that her CD4 count has declined dramatically and she is worried. She says she wants her children to have better opportunities than their mother. She is willing to work hard for her children but this is only possible if she is in good health. With anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, I hope her health will recover quickly. At present, the UNICEF-supported project is financing Ning's 300 km travel to Savannakhet province to receive the ARV treatment. The project also provides school uniforms and school supplies for her children. Ning was also encouraged to join a sewing group which produces shirts and blouses for sale at the local market. This was aimed to help her supplement her family earning. When we started to talk about her new sewing activity, Ning cheered up.

The more I work on HIV and AIDS, the more stories I hear like Ning's. Hers is only one of a growing number of women living with HIV. Today, HIV has reached a group once considered not at risk – housewives and their children.