A girl is deep in thought. She is almost a child, but has the eyes of a woman. Her shoulders seem to bear the weight of a life and responsibilities she should never have had. Paska is deep in thought and seems infinitely sad. Mechanically, her hands smooth the hem of her print skirt. She gazes far into the distance, beyond the tall grass and white buildings of her little village, in her native Zambia.
Today, she sees what she has seen every day, for as long as she can remember, and it has made her unhappy ever since she was very small. Yet now something has changed. Yesterday, when she looked at her life and the situation of her fellow villagers, she felt fear, rejection, loss, and despair. Today, she looks at her life with a feeling of rage, mixed with a deep desire to change things. From now on, and for the rest of her life, Paska has decided to stop being resigned and to fight for change instead.
Paska has always had to face a devastating scourge that her people know little about. She hardly knows what this terrible disease is called. She has only a vague idea of how it spreads. She has no one to answer her questions or to confide in. But today, she has decided that everything will change for her, the people of her village, and perhaps all of Zambia.
The change was triggered this morning. When Paska awoke, she got a nasty surprise. She realized that some villagers had stolen the firewood she so carefully prepared the night before. The teenage girl thus had to manage to find something else to burn for fuel. Otherwise, she and her little sisters would have to do without. Life had been this way ever since Paska’s parents died. Paska’s eldest brother had cared for the little girls after their parents died. But then he got sick too. He died last year, when Paska was only 15. She was so sad and distressed after her big brother died that, at first, she almost didn’t notice the crushing weight of the heavy burden that had just fallen on her shoulders. From that difficult time onward, her sisters had known nothing but rejection, fear, uncertainty, and extreme poverty. The villagers all avoided them like the plague. Yet they were not the only ones who had lost loved ones because of AIDS. Many villagers had died. Death didn’t care if you were a parent, a child, a woman, a man, or an orphan.
Now it seemed to Paska that, if nobody did anything, her whole village would be devastated, die, and be forgotten. But nobody was reacting. Paralyzed by fear, villagers lay low. They avoided talking about the damned subject, as if keeping it taboo would prevent the disease from spreading.
So this morning, when Paska realized she had been robbed again, she asked herself, “Why? Why rob people who have already lost everything? Why rob each other when we are all poor? Why don’t we help each other, instead of hiding our faces and looking for someone to blame?”
That morning, Paska told her sister, “We’re never going to get ourselves out of this situation unless we change our attitude. It’s time to react, or we’ll all die.”
The teenage girl then went back to her daily chores. She took care of her sisters and found food any way she could. But, every second, she thought about a possible solution, and a plan slowly began to form in her head. People needed knowledge. Only then could they overcome taboos and start helping each other in practical ways. First, Paska had to learn about this terrible disease. A long time ago, when Paska was still going to school, she had heard about a place a few hours from her village, where people could get help, through an international assistance program created to support Zambia’s people.
Paska waited a long while until the time was right. One morning, she took her two sisters and went looking for the assistance centre. They walked along the dirt road until a truck gave them a lift to the town they were looking for. When they got there, it was almost dark. The girls had to find shelter to keep them safe during the night.
The next day, at the centre, they met a very nice white woman. She explained to them about the CARE Canada program in Zambia and its project to prevent and control HIV/AIDS, which was the name of the disease. Paska was very embarrassed, now that she had actually found someone who could and would answer her questions. She felt out of place, but took the plunge anyway, and asked the woman all her questions about AIDS. The young woman answered her. She also found the young girls a place to sleep, and invited them to come back to the centre the next day for tests.
Paska had learned so much in a few hours that she felt she could never remember it all. This information frightened yet reassured her. Now that she knew how the disease was spread and what its symptoms were, she could protect herself and her sisters. She could also tell the other villagers.
The next morning, Paska and her sisters went back to the centre. They were tested to see if they were HIV-positive. The program officer then suggested that Paska find a Canadian friend and offered to give Paska an address. Paska merely had to write to a girl who was already part of a program that sponsored young Africans. Paska objected at first. She said that she could read and write very little, because she had to quit school when her parents got sick. But the program officer said she would help, and Paska finally agreed.
Three months later …
Paska found a new friend — a Canadian girl who supports her and finds answers to her questions, by surfing the Internet or by getting information from doctors at local community health centres. This gave Paska the courage to form a small group of people who think like her. Paska was able to tell these people everything they didn’t know about AIDS to help them avoid contracting the virus. These people then went from house to house and talked to families in their village. At first, people were reluctant to hear all this about AIDS. But they soon realized they had to work together. They could not ignore the problem any longer. Little by little, through public information sessions, villagers changed their minds. They now saw the distress of their HIV-positive neighbours. Paska and her new adult friends set up a program where village families took in street children orphaned by AIDS. With Paska’s help, some children even found Canadian pen pals. That showed them that people very far away wanted to help them and be their friends. Sometimes, the Canadians could send money to pay for drugs to treat their new friends for AIDS. Paska has now succeeded in rallying the whole village to achieve a single goal: to control the spread of HIV/AIDS. She and her group are taking small initiatives that are making a big difference. For instance, they are setting up condom distribution outlets, answering people’s questions confidentially, through a question box, and holding information sessions.
Paska and her group now have a new goal: to do the same thing in neighbouring villages. They will go from house to house to convince people on a one-to-one basis. They will also hold information sessions. Maybe these villagers will do the same in turn for the next village! They are also receiving help from CARE program officers and a little money from their Canadian friends. If everyone works together, perhaps the movement will spread throughout Zambia.
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