A LDIN K.

M UTEMBEI

HIV/AIDS in Kiswahili and English Literary Works

ABSTR AC T: Although HIV/AIDS has traumatized the foundations of humanity and is mocking the advance in biomedical sciences, it has conspicuously escaped the attention of literary giants of both Kiswahili and English creative works in East Africa, save the likes of Meja Mwangi. Most of the literary works evolving around HIV/AIDS are by budding writers who have created their own stage to creatively reflect on what is going on in their respective societies. In this article, I will analyze creative works from Tanzania and Kenya in all three main genres drama, prose and poetry that have problematized the HIV/AIDS crisis using either Kiswahili or English, sometimes including code switching between these two languages. Is there a difference in the way creative writers deal with HIV/AIDS which can be related to the usage of Kiswahili or English?

The initial oral literary responses to HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda were very similar. The reaction, especially in indigenous languages, started with imaginative orature 1 of the then paradoxical malfunctioning of the body. However, creative writings on HIV/AIDS took time to appear in bookstores, but once it penetrated the artistic consciousness, the HIV/AIDS challenge turned out to be one of the major themes in East African literature in Kiswahili and English. How did East African authors (concentrating here on Tanzanian and Kenyan authors) experience and conceptualize a common tragedy in two different languages? In other words, in which manner did they use Kiswahili and English to thematize HIV/AIDS? Is the East African peoples understanding of HIV/AIDS, projected through their literary works, the same?
1

In this paper, orature is taken to mean African Oral literature as explained by Micere Githae Mugo, African Orature and Human Rights (Lesotho: Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho, 1991).

Habari ya English? What about Kiswahili? East Africa as a Literary and Linguistic Contact Zone, eds. Lutz Diegner & Frank Schulze-Engler (Matatu Series; Amsterdam & New York: Editions Rodopi, 2013).

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This paper discusses the works of creative writers with a focus on HIV/AIDS issues. In contemporary East African literature, one notices the foregrounding of the HIV/AIDS theme in both Kiswahili and English narratives. In East Africa, Kiswahili and English struggle to be recognized as the main occupiers of social and political space. Using language contact theory 2 it will be interesting to find out what prompts the use of English and Kiswahili figures of speech and metaphors in creative works on HIV/AIDS. We will especially follow the arguments raised by Sarah Thomason in discussing the way Kiswahili and English have featured in creative works on HIV/AIDS in East Africa. Thomason argues that social factors should be given primacy in envisaging contact induced change. 3 She also adds that deliberate decisions by speech communities contribute to linguistic change. However, in this paper I do not regard the use of Kiswahili and English among East African elite communities as necessarily a change, but rather as an issue of coexistence and/or code-switching. The general approach of the paper is to study and interpret HIV/AIDS literary texts using a linguistic perspective singling out the language contact framework. The discussion will deal with a comparison between creative works written in Tanzania and those written in Kenya in Kiswahili and English. Most of the literary works evolving around the HIV/AIDS theme are by budding writers who have devised their own stage to creatively reflect how this pandemic impacts on their respective societies. The main focus of the study lies on Ibrahim Ngozis Ushuhuda wa Mifupa (Skeletons Testimony), and Carolyne Adallas Confessions of an AIDS Victim 4. Further works which are part of the corpus are Sekundu Morgans Zimwi la UKIMWI (also published in English as The Beast), Ngumi Kiberas Shazas Trials, Nyambura Mpeshas Marions Dream, Steve Reynolds Orodha, 5 Fortunatus F. Kawegeres Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi (Mateso, Victim of AIDS), Shaaban S. Mngazijas Njia Panda (At a Crossroads), Bitugi Matunduras Sitaki Iwe Siri (I dont like it to be a secret), Meja Mwangis The Last Plague, the Medical Aid Foundations Kilio Chetu (Our Weeping), and Ambrose Mghangas Kilio cha Jeska (Jescas Moaning). 6 Other related literary
Cf. Robert Nicola & Bernard Comrie, eds., Language Contact and the Dynamics of Language: Theory and Implications, in Journal of Language Contact. THEMA Series 2 (2008). 3 Sarah Grey Thomason, Social and Linguistic Factors as predictors of contact-induced change, in Journal of Language Contact. THEMA Series 2 (2008): 42--56. 4 Carolyne Adalla, Confessions of an AIDS Victim (Nairobi: Spear Books, 1993). 5 Orodha is a translation of The List, a Play that contains a list of things people should do, to avoid HIV. 6 Sekundu Morgans, Zimwi la UKIMWI (Nairobi: Matbaa ya Kimataifa ya Morsel, 2010), and The Beast (Nairobi: Morsel Publishers, 2005), as well as Ngumi Kibera, Shazas Trials (Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers, 2005), Nyambura Mpesha, Marions Dream (Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers, 2006), Steve Reynolds, Orodha (Dar es Salaam: MacMillan Aidan, 2006), Fortunatus F. Kawegere, Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi (Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers, 2007), Shaaban S. Mngazija, Njia Panda (Dar es Salaam: Matthews Bookstore & Stationers, 2004), Bitugi Matundura, Sitaki Iwe Siri (Nairobi: Longhorn Kenya Ltd., 2008), Meja Mwangi, The Last Plague (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 2000), Medical Aid Foundation,
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works will be referred to when elaborating on a certain aspect. The paper intends to shed light on how East African writers in both Kiswahili and English have managed to handle such a terrifying and traumatizing theme in creative writing.

Telling the story

In East Africa, telling the HIV/AIDS story has changed with time, and in the course of changing, several aspects have been uncovered and critically examined. As explained elsewhere, the initial literary response to the crisis was through oral narratives, where singing was the most popular avenue. 7 This was as true in Tanzania as it was in Uganda and Kenya. Although I generally disagree with Simon Gikandi in his subjective examination of East African literature, 8 I would concur with the notion of looking at HIV/AIDS literature in East Africa as forming one entity. As I will show, the HIV/AIDS theme is treated in a similar manner from one genre to the other in both languages across East Africa. One can easily see a particular issue that started just as a mere naming of a phenomenon growing into a central theme. The growth, like an infection, jumps from one genre to another and resonates in all three East African countries. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with a similar colonial master, as Gikandi would have it. It would even be far fetched to relate the similarity in HIV/AIDS literature to the politics that followed immediately after flag independence in these countries. It is, I would argue, the modern geopolitical landscape on the one hand, and the similarity of the socio-cultural landscape on the other that enable comparison in the way the HIV/AIDS crisis is narrated in Kenya and Tanzania. Ushuhuda wa Mifupa from Tanzania is probably the earliest Swahili play on HIV/AIDS in East Africa. Written in a flashback style, Ushuhuda wa Mifupa is a testimony of the dead. It is a narrative in which skeletons agree to give their testimonies of what life was like during their time as humans. As realism would have it, the testimony is given retrospectively, where skeletons had to change first into humans to be able to narrate their lives. The story starts off with a malignant question: where did the virus (viini) come from? It is here that an interesting linguistic contact between Kiswahili and English occurs.
Kilio Chetu. (Dar es Salaam, 1995), and Ambrose Mghanga, Kilio cha Jeska (Dar es Salaam: Angaza Initiative Company, 2004). 7 See Aldin K. Mutembei, Poetry and AIDS in Tanzania: Changing Metaphors and Metonymies in Haya Oral Traditions (Leiden: CNWS publications, 2001), Aldin K.Mutembei, M.A.C Emmelin, J.L.P Lugalla, & L.G. Dahlgren, Communicating about AIDS-Changes in Understanding and Coping with Help of Language in Urban Kagera, Tanzania, in Journal of Asian and African Studies 37.1 (2002): 1--16, and Gregory Barz, Singing for Life: HIV/AIDS and Music in Uganda (New York: Routledge/Tylor & Francis Group, 2006). 8 See Simon Gikandi, Encyclopedia of African Literature (New York: Routledge, 2003). As the editor of the Encyclopedia of African Literature, Gikandi focuses primarily on literature written in English. Consequently, most prominent writers who have used Swahili as a literary language are conspicuously not included. Thus, to Gikandi, African Literature written in African languages exists under erasure. For this see Euphrase Kezilahabi, Erasure and the Centrality of Literatures in African Languages, in Kiswahili Journal 75 (2012): 104--108.

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In Kiswahili, viini, is a concept that was used to refer to what is today called Virusi Vya UKIMWI -- VVU (lit. the virus of AIDS). In Ushuhuda wa Mifupa, viini is the very first word that we hear from the character on stage. The text goes:
ViiniViini VIINI! Virus -- H.I.V. VIRUS -- Viini. Hivyoo Hivyoo Hivyooooo vinazagaa, vinazagaavinasafirishwa kwa sindano. Nuclei, Nuclei, NUCLEI! Virus -- H.I.V. VIRUS -- Nuclei. Those nuclei Those Those over theeere they are spreading, they are scattering, they are carried through needles. 9

In Kiswahili the word kiini which translates into nucleus, essence or gist would make more sense to the ordinary mind than the abstract word virus. However, the creative mind of the author picks what had been discussed among scientists 10 before they settled for HIV as the cause of AIDS in 1986. Cautious of losing the scientificity of the matter, the author puts the words virus and HIV in between, before going back to viini to enable his audience make associations and properly follow the staged arguments. In other words, he starts from the known to move into the unknown, or to follow the basic arguments in this article, he starts from Kiswahili and moves to English. But even then, the Swahili abbreviation VVU is not the accurate translation of the English HIV. VVU (Virus vya UKIMWI) is literally the virus of AIDS. Again the Swahili acronym would probably be the correct conceptualization of the idea. This moving forth and back between the Kiswahili and English lexicon is deliberate. And this rhymes with what Sarah Thomason says: the existence of deliberate change is ultimately the main reason why no one-size-fits-all overall theory of language change is likely to succeed. 11 This notwithstanding, it is from such contacts that we start having other concepts which inform one of the metaphorical interfaces between Kiswahili and English as far as the HIV/AIDS crisis is concerned.

Telling through metaphors

Looking at HIV and AIDS through metaphors has been discussed in considerable depth. In her exemplary critique Susan Sontag attempted to deconstruct attitudes toward HIV/AIDS as they are constructed through metaphors. 12 She was against stigmatizing the disease and those who are ill. While this remains true, metaphors do more than just stigmatize people. In Confessions of an AIDS Victim, Carolyne Adalla conceptualizes AIDS as a blind beggar who can stop by anybody. 13 She is writing in a context in which an infected person could not point to the exact
Ibrahim Ngozi, 1989, page 1. All translations in the following are mine (A.M.). See Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: People, Politics and the AIDS Epidemic, (New York: St. Martins Press, 1987), and Philip M. Boffey Long-Running Debate on AIDS: How Well Did Americans Respond? in New York Times 13 October 1987. 11 Thomason, Social and Linguistic Factors, 47. 12 Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and HIV/AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Picador, 2001). 13 Adalla, Confessions of an AIDS Victim, 2.
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source of the infection. Moreover, this metaphor gets its meaning in a socioeconomic context where beggars in the streets are a common phenomenon in urban centers of East Africa. Disproportionate and erroneous governmental priorities, unequal distribution of wealth, unrealistic policies and consequently a growing irresponsible mentality have all contributed to the emergence of the so called street beggars. They are such a common observable fact that Meja Mwangi thought of using one to start off the initial dialogue in The Last Plague. 14 The analogy agrees with the framework that one starts with a common or familiar occurrence before presenting the uncommon. A similar metaphorical thinking is seen in Pelagia Katunzis Sukari Yenye Sumu, where she equates the libido with a poisonous sugar -- the metaphor that carries the title of her anthology: sukari yenye sumu (lit. sugar with poison). 15 Again the correlation is based on the understanding of the use and desire for sugar in African tea. The poison metaphor that is being referred to is death that is brought by HIV/AIDS. It is no ordinary death, but one that leaves stories behind. Due to this fact, the HIV/AIDS disease has been producing a variety of metaphors. Judith Laurence Pastore holds that some of the AIDS metaphors mold what it means to be human. 16 A similar argument is echoed in The Way we Write Now (1995), where Abraham Verghese equated HIV/AIDS to life. He says: in many ways, AIDS is life -- its a better insight into life than life itself. (xi). 17 In Uganda, Greg Barz (2000: chapter 4) tells us the way metaphors such as worm or animal in a saucepot localize the otherwise complicated biomedical concepts, and through musical performances they give them a meaning that is well grasped by ordinary people. 18 In East African creative works on HIV/AIDS, authors tell their stories through metaphors. They do not look into HIV/AIDS alone, but also at the perception of risk behavior, the act of becoming sick, living and survival amidst sickness, attempts to look for a cure, death and dying itself. All of these are conceptualized through metaphors. Metaphorically East African writers in both Kiswahili and English illustrate issues like sexuality and gender relations as they relate to the scourge. Thus examining metaphors related to HIV/AIDS in both Kiswahili and English creative works gives us a glimpse of what people have taken the HIV/AIDS crisis to be, and how they have coped with the challenging calamity in the last thirty years. Like in The Last Plague where AIDS is referred to as the ghost, 19 in The Beast, Sekundu Morgan talks of zimwi, beast, ukimwi (ogre/monster, beast, AIDS) 20 -- all are used to refer to one and the same challenge. The English
Mwangi, The Last Plague, 6. See Pelagia A. Katunzi, Sukari Yenye Sumu (Bukoba, Tanzania: Tanzania Educational Publishers Ltd., 2003). 16 Judith Laurence Pastore, ed, Confronting HIV/AIDS Through Literature: The Responsibilities of Representation (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993): 93. 17 Abraham Verghese, The Way we Write Now, 1995, xi. 18 Barz, Singing for Life, chapter 4. 19 Mwangi, The Last Plague, 6. 20 Morgan, The Beast, 1.
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metaphor beast could not satisfy the authors inner meaning of the disease. He thus makes use of the Kiswahili alternative zimwi (ogre), a metaphor that appeals to the understanding of the ordinary intellect. Following the same pattern of starting from the known into the unknown, Morgan deliberately chose to use three names to insist on the reality of HIV/AIDS. The zimwi metaphor has its roots in the history of HIV/AIDS knowledge in East Africa. In The Last Plague, Meja Mwangi gives us the background: my brother did not die from Aids [] My brother died from witchcraft. 21 In this context, witches were believed to be sending unseen but lethal agents like zimwi to inflict death. If this should be called denial, it has to be seen in a historical context. In the beginnings of the disease, such a statement could have been based on ignorance, the thought that was brought by a mythical understanding of the cause of body waste. It was believed that HIV/AIDS victims were killed by ogres or monsters sent by bad people. In The Last Plague the narrator points out: Crossroads is dying of ignorance. 22 In these two literary works, both Sekundu Morgan and Meja Mwangi illustrate the ignorance over not only the cause of deaths, but also indeed the mode of transmission of the deadly virus. In the fictional town of Crossroads, people were ignorant of the real cause of the deaths. As time went by, biomedical science generated new insights, and later the world confirmed that HIV was the cause of the immune deficiency. Following this advance, the former reality of ignorance changed into denial, as Katunzi puts it:
Wengi waliukashifu, wazee vijana pia Wengine walijisifu, kwao hautafikia Ukiwafika halafu, wachawi, husingizia Ukimwi siri hatari, mwenye nao hajijui. Many defamed it, the old and the young alike Many boasted, onto them it wont reach But when it reached them, they made witches scapegoats AIDS is a dangerous secret, one who has it doesnt understand himself. 23

It was indeed because of the blame on uchawi (witchcraft) that many people failed to face the reality of the existence of a killer virus. But HIV or viini, as the author of Ushuhuda wa Mifupa would have it, could not escape the power of metaphor. Slowly the idea of the existence of the unseen reality was settling in and soon people knew how to explain it. Both in The Beast and in Confessions of an Aids Victim, the virus is metaphorically conceptualized as an underground train. Morgan says that AIDS kills indiscriminately. It is a death broom that is equated to a speedy unstoppable train. Carolyne Adalla puts it clearly:
As I write, I cant help likening the HIV infection to the underground trains. I can envisage many people boarding the trains daily from various stations all over the world. These underground trains will take those aboard to their graves. 24

21 22 23 24

Mwangi, The Last Plague, 85. Mwangi, The Last Plague, 140. Katunzi, Sukari Yenye Sumu, 6. Adalla, Confessions of an AIDS Victim, 88.

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Such narratives on and about HIV/AIDS make a meaningful impact through metaphors. East African creative works have managed to work out a way of creating a meaningful dialogue among people. It is an often metaphorically loaded dialogue that uses both Kiswahili and English to express social reality. It is a literary dialogue that creatively crafts an oeuvre which appeals to all the people through poetry, prose and plays. An added value of these compositions lies in enhancing HIV/AIDS awareness and the ultimate change of risk behavior and social impediments, which will now be discussed.

Creating the East African HIV/AIDS Literary Opus

The East African HIV/AIDS opus forms one entity which starts with a false idea: the existence of witches. Attitudes, stigma and all the challenging aspects of the HIV/AIDS crisis today are connected to, and indeed could be traced from this mistaken start. To understand what I am referring to as East African HIV/AIDS composition one has to appreciate this myth 25 in its social context. It is this context that makes the East African HIV/AIDS stories unique. In the following sections, we discuss various aspects of HIV/AIDS which relate to an initial myth as they are seen in literary works in East Africa. In Ushuhuda wa Mifupa, the testimony given by skeletons is remarkable. It is a demonstration in retrospective of what life was like before the killer disease. The blame and counter blame that marked the debate in the early 1980s 26 is reflected in the dialogue between characters: Mtu 2, Mtu 3, Mtu 4 and Mtu 5 meaning an American, African, Cuban and Russian in that order. 27 Characters representing Americans and Africans (Mtu 2 and Mtu 4) blame each other over the origin of the virus, while Cubans and Russians enter to talk about the results of their own research as opposed to that of the Mtu 2 and Mtu 4 characters. The use of the term jujuoloji by character Mtu 2 is not only meant to ridicule the mythical connection of the matter, but also the contact between two medical traditions: the African one reflected in juju and the Western carried in the Swahilized ending of the English --ology. This induced terminology takes aboard the myth existing at that time. Juju or fetish originates from West Africa where it is traced from the French word jou jou (toy). It is the use of toys in witchcraft that gave juju its mythical power. As mentioned above, the thought that HIV/AIDS was nothing but witchcraft/sorcery has been documented in early anthropological studies on HIV/AIDS in Africa. 28
Myth is used here to refer to a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone, only having an imaginary or unverifiable existence. 26 Rene Sabatier, Blaming Others: Prejudice, Race and Worldwide AIDS (London: The Panos Institute, 1988). 27 Sabatier, Blaming Others, 4. 28 See for example Alexander Irwin, & Joyce Millen, Global AIDS: Myths & Facts. 1st Edition (Cambridge MA: South End Press, 2003), Ezekiel Kalipeni, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong & Jayati Ghosh, HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology. 1st Edition (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), John Iliffe, The African AIDS Epidemic: A History. 1st Edition (Ohio: Ohio UP, 2006), and Alexander Rdlach, Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa. 1st Edition (Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, 2006).
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Jujuoloji was thus a form of human refusal to accept a defeat from a tiny unseen worm -- a denial of its being, as Richie in Morgans The Beast says:
Unamaanisha nini? Eti watu wengine? Hata mimi siaminihili ni jina tu la kuzuia utovu wa maadili. What do you mean? You talk about others, even my self, I dont believe this is only a name to shun people from immoral acts. 29

In Uganda, the denial is well documented by Isichei who says: Slim 30 had come across from Tanzania -- the witches and sorcerers there had conjured it up as a punishment for Ugandan traders who had cheated them in the past. (2004: 160). This denial, or ignorance, of the time is also reflected in the way death was being perceived. We now turn to examine the way death was seen in creative works. Death and the process of dying from AIDS are both constructed through metaphors. The argument that death is a metaphor for living has been given in several writings. In an article by Sam Alexander ten metaphors for death are examined. One of the metaphors explained sees death as a deep sleep. 31 Death as a deep sleep metaphor is also used in different parts of the Bible (see for example in 1 Corinthians 15: 6). 32 In The Last Plague, Meja Mwangis concept of death is notable. Dying was not new to Crossroads. Crossroads had died many times before. 33 In this manner, one gets an idea that the kind of death being referred to here is no ordinary one. Indeed his first sense is given thus:
With no one to turn to for reparation, heart-broken Crossroads had simply died from the outrage of it She had risen and died and risen and died again many times after that; so many times that she had become good at dying. 34

This type of death is not the same as the one in Shaaban Mngazijas Njia Panda (Crossroads). Although both fictions use the same imagery of crossroads, their sense of death is different. In Mngazijas sense, dying of AIDS is real and people are caught in a dilemma where ultimately they will face death, be it death by disease or death by starvation. Mngazija thus talks of AIDS death as a process when he says:
Umalaya mpaka unatembea na changudoa? Umenasa kwenye virusi! Jiandae kufa taratibu babu we! Are you so promiscuous that you have sex with harlots? You are caught up in viruses! Be prepared to die slowly, old man! 35

Morgan, The Beast, 3. In Africa, AIDS is called slim disease because it is characterized first and foremost by extreme wasting, a condition primarily caused by prolonged diarrhea. For this see Celia Farber, Out Of Africa. Part One, VIRUSMYTH. A Rethinking AIDS Website (March 1993), http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/cfafrica1.htm (accessed 7 December 2012), originally published in Celia Faber, Out Of Africa, SPIN March 1993: 61--63, and 86--87. 31 Sam Alexander, 10 Metaphors for Death, Xamuel.com. Articles by Sam Alexander (27 September 2009), http://www.xamuel.com/10-metaphors-for-death/ (accessed 20 November 2012). 32 See for example in 1 Corinthians 15: 6. 33 Mwangi, The Last Plague, 6. 34 The Last Plague, 6. 35 Mngazija, Njia Panda, 119.
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Death by AIDS was no ordinary death. Once infected, an individual entered into a continuum, not of living but of dying. The crossroad sense in Meja Mwangis novel is slightly different. In the back of their minds many people in The Last Plague still have the thinking of death as a myth, as something not real but imaginary. To them, so-called AIDS is another series of misfortunes that has befallen Crossroads and they hope that one day they will rise from that death. From this kind of a background, one can understand why some people were reluctant to accept the reality of real death. So when the character Uncle Mark tells the people about the reality of AIDS and death as its eventuality, no one is ready to listen, because to them AIDS is imaginary and the death by AIDS remains illusory. By using metaphors and figures of speech, creative works on HIV/AIDS in both Kiswahili and English have acted as shock absorbers of the demises horror and have helped people to cope with the tragedy. This is done through the artistic use of language, an aspect explored in the next section.

Conceptualisation and Construction of AIDS

The language of HIV and AIDS is constructed from a social reality. Like in most societies, people in East Africa consider sexual organs as sehemu za siri (lit. secret/confidential = private parts). Anything related to this part is also seen and perceived as siri (secret). It is one of the body parts that traditions guard with much esteem. Consequently, sexually transmitted diseases were perceived as magonjwa ya siri (lit. diseases of secret). Indeed the initial understanding of AIDS was ugonjwa wa siri (secret disease). 36 This was the time when AIDS was being referred to as Matokeo ya Hali ya Burugiko la Silaha za mwili -MAHABUSI (A result of the state of disruption of the bodys defense), 37 before it was later conveniently described as Upungufu wa Kinga Mwilini -- UKIMWI (Bodys immune deficiency). Like in Kiswahili, in English too there were adjustments in the names before settling for HIV and AIDS. 38 The uncertainty seen in naming the cause or the consequence has its effects in the later cognition and the right perception of HIV and AIDS. In the background the socio-linguistic force of seeing sexual organs as secret parts remains strong and influential. One can thus appreciate the obstacles to the challenge of making the HIV/AIDS crisis a public issue. It is both linguistically and conceptually contradictory to have something secret or private, on one hand, and maintain or establish a public aspect of it, on the other hand. This dilemma and contradiction is well captured in Peter Kirumbis 1971 novel Nataka iwe Siri (lit. I want it to be confidential/secret)
Elimu ya Malezi ya Ujana (EMAU), AIDS (MAHABUSI). Mfululizo Na. 15 (Dar es Salaam: Jumuiya ya Kikristo Tanzania, 1987). 37 EMAU, AIDS (MAHABUSI), 2--5. 38 M. van der Graaf and R. J. A. Diepersloot. Transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV/HTLV-III/LAV): A review. In Infection,Vol 14, Number 5, September 1986, pp.203211. Also, AIDS initially was referred to as GCS, gay-related immune deficiency - GRID and acquired immunodeficiency disease - AID. See http://www.avert.org/aids-history-86.htm , while Gallo's group used human T-cell lymphotropic virus, type 3 - HTLV-III.
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from Tanzania and its counterpart Sitaki iwe Siri (I dont want it to be confidential), written more than thirty years later by Bitungi Matundura from Kenya. 39 The social reality during Kirumbis Nataka Iwe Siri is quite different from Matunduras actuality. They both conceptualize traditions of sexuality and love affairs. The world of Kirumbi, supported by masculinity, is not the world with HIV and AIDS of Matundura. Even then, discussions were already underway to question the legality of some traditions, notably the tradition of parents planning for the wedding of their children without the childrens consent. But, more often behind such traditions there was a hidden agenda, where due to their dishonesty, some parents having involved in adultery, were risking the marriage of siblings. One narrator says:
[] hata ikiwa mila inaruhusu hayo, mimi sikubali. Mila za aina hiyo leo zabidi zivunjwe na kutungiwa sheria [] even if traditions allow that, I do not agree. Today, such traditions have to be abolished through enactment of laws 40

More than thirty years later, from a Kenyan perspective, Matundura extends this argument in a more radical voice. It is the voice of youths literally complaining against the same traditions. Their voice Sitaki iwe siri is an echo of the cry against social pillars which feed language with phrases such as magonjwa ya siri (lit. also: diseases of confidentiality), thus creating silence surrounding sex and sexuality. It is in turn this silence that denies the youth the badly needed sexuality and reproductive health education. Thus, Sitaki Iwe Siri is an appeal from the young generation calling for abandonment of social pillars of silence. In other literary works, this appeal is illustrated by way of a cry.

The Voice of the Younger Generation

Whereas the voice of the older generation was raised to defend some traditions as seen in the preceding section, that of the younger one was pleading for the right to know what was going on in their society. It was the voice calling for the right to be educated. In both Kilio Chetu (Our Cry) and Kilio cha Jeska (Jeskas Cry), we witness these voices being raised by the younger generation. In both creative works, the appeal is to get reproductive health education, including the education on sexually transmitted infections. In Kilio Chetu, the younger generations voice sees HIV/AIDS metaphorically as dubwana (a huge effigy with unknown name) that kills indiscriminately. 41 The gist of the argument is given right at the beginning of the play:
[W]akati wakubwa wakijikinga [] wakaandika mabuku kupeana habari, wakaandika mabango kupeana tahadhari, lakini watoto wakateketea kwa kukosa habari zozote za kuwaokoa. Wakubwa [] wakajitetea: mwiko kuzungumzia mambo haya kwa watoto, dini inakataza, mila haziruhusu [].
39

Peter S. Kirumbi, Nataka Iwe Siri (Dar es Salaam: Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili, 1971), and Bitugi Matundura, Sitaki Iwe Siri (Nairobi: Longhorn Kenya Ltd., 2008). 40 Kirumbi, Nataka Iwe Siri, 20. 41 Medical Aid Foundation. Kilio Chetu, 1.

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[W]hen the adults are protecting themselves from the disease [...], when they write books to inform each other, they write billboards for preventive measures, but children are perishing due to lack of information that would have saved them. The adults [] keep on saying: it is forbidden to speak these things to children, it is prohibited by religion, and customs disallow it [...]. 42

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In the above quotation, we hear the voice of the younger generation pleading for information to prevent the AIDS crisis. Suzis voice puts the appeal from another angle:
Mama hakuwa radhi kuachana na utamaduni [] naapa kwa Mungu wangu, mimi na Joti tungepata bahati ya kuelimishwa, tusingetumbu [] anaaguka chini [] My mother was not ready to abandon the tradition [] I swear before my God, if Joti and I were lucky enough to be educated, we would not have dared to [] she falls down []. 43

That was a voice against a tradition of silence and submissiveness; a tradition that ensures that children are not supposed to get information on sexuality. A similar lament is amplified in Kilio cha Jeska where the tradition which gives parents social power to choose husbands and arrange marriages for their daughters is condemned. In the circumstances where HIV/AIDS looms large, this kind of tradition becomes a catalyst for the spread of the deadly virus. In this play, the arranged and forced marriage leaves Jeska raped and infected with HIV. Jeskas education dreams 44 are cut short by a cruel tradition where parents not only choose the husbands for their daughters, but also force them into marriage; thus her future is ruined. In other words, Jeskas voice claiming the right to education is silenced. Another example of an oblique future in youngsters lives is seen in Nyambura Mpeshas Marions Dream. Marion lost her father to HIV while she was still in primary school, and soon, the family was thrown out of the house for failure to pay the rent. In a while, the health of Marions mother was deteriorating. As misfortune would have it, Marion spent most of her childhood nursing her mother and loitering on the streets of Nairobi begging for money to maintain her family. Unlike other characters we have seen, Marion keeps her spirit high and goes back to school to realize her dream of becoming a medical doctor. Her inner voice was never silenced by the social impediments, stigma and the loss of her father. Marions ending opens up a new chapter of facing up with the HIV/AIDS crisis. It is the chapter of not only perseverance but also of breaking the psychosocial silence, embracing acceptance and going public. 45

Breaking the silence and facing the challenge of prevention measures

One further characteristic of East African literature on HIV/AIDS is narrating the story through letters. In most works, authors have created characters who break
42 43 44 45

Kilio Chetu, 1--2. Translation by M.A. Kilio Chetu, 36. Mghanga, Kilio cha Jeska, 9. See Mpesha, Marions Dream.

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the cultural tentacles of silence, become liberated and hence live a positive life. In Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, Fortunatus Kawegere narrates his story through a series of anonymous letters. The whole novel Confessions of an Aids Victim is a letter to Marilyn from her long-standing friend Catherine Njeri. In Njia Panda, Shaaban Mngazija makes his characters communicate through letters to solve their differences. And finally, in Sitaki Iwe Siri, Bitugi Matundura could only complain and lament through letters. Why is this mode so popular? What could be the role of letters and letter-writing in HIV/AIDS literary works? In Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, there are three letters with several functions examining many aspects relating to HIV/AIDS. The first letter plays a provocative role. 46 The anonymous writer changes the addressees name from Furaha (Happiness) to Mateso (Agony) for the simple reason that the addressee has AIDS, and therefore he must be or at least he should be experiencing unhappiness. This letter is given in a context where names do carry a meaning. As expected the addressee becomes furious and takes the letter for an opinion from a health counselor. The second letter becomes even more provocative and makes Mateso -- the addressee -- even more angry. 47 He becomes furious with everyone, including his counselor:
[S]itaki maongezi yenu yasiyokuwa na kituo wala mwisho... Mnaongea kama kwamba mmetumwa kuniudhi na kunisakama. I dont like your endless conversation You talk as if you were sent to annoy and offend me. 48

But once provoked, Mateso becomes even more open for other opinions and suggestions. He goes public and discusses his agonies with close friends attempting to solve the puzzle. In the third and last letter the writer not only discloses his name, but also says that his objectives have been fulfilled. 49 His aim of writing was to provoke the AIDS victim, and through the provocation the writer gets the information and becomes knowledgeable. However, AIDS letters are more than just educative measures. They significantly acquire psychotherapeutical features, too. Psychotherapy is the central theme in Confessions of an Aids Victim. By writing a letter to her long time friend, the protagonist feels relieved of her sociohealth stress. Through the letter, the protagonist moves back and forth in her previous twenty-eight years of life. Sometimes in a very humorous way, the protagonist recounts her life journey releasing, like a safety valve, the burden of feeling guilty. Towards the end, she says: I believe nothing happens to us in life that is not meant to serve a cause greater and bigger than ourselves. 50 Instead of just stopping at feeling guilty, the protagonist looks back at her life and sees that she was meant to educate others through her own life narrative. Consequently, through the letter the protagonist delays the onset of HIV/AIDS and keeps her
46 47 48 49 50

Kawegere, Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, 9--10. Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, 59--61. Kawegere, Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, 62. Mateso Mwathirika wa Ukimwi, 102--103. Adalla, Confessions of an AIDS Victim, 98.

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spirit high with so much hope. Although she could not realize her dream of going abroad for her Masters degree, she is satisfied that by writing the letter she can save people and make them change their risk behavior: I have good reason to think that if this letter were to be made public [] it would help transform the sexual behaviour of a section of our Kenyan society. 51 It is also through a letter that Mama Furaha, a character in Orodha, reveals what killed her daughter. In Orodha, Steve Reynolds narrates the story of a protagonist called Furaha, an eighteen year old girl who dies of HIV/AIDS, leaving a letter to be read at the time of her funeral. During the funeral, her mother -- Mama Furaha, fulfills her deceased daughters wish; she reads the letter to the public:
Pamoja na kwamba alipata maumivu na mateso, lakini aliandika barua hii hapa [...] na kunipa. Katika barua hii kuna orodha ambayo amesema inadhihisha yote juu ya mateso yake na kifo chake [...] na jinsi alivyokipata kirusi hiki hatari! Alinitaka niisome kwa sauti ili kijiji chote kijifunze kutokana na makosa yake [...]. Besides the fact that she had pains, she managed to write this letter [] and gave it to me. The letter contains a list of things she believes show clearly everything concerning her suffering and ultimate death [] and the way she was infected by this deadly virus! She obliged me to read it loudly so that the whole village should learn from her mistake []. 52

One can easily perceive the similarities between Confessions of an AIDS Victim written in Kenya and Orodha written in Tanzania. They are both extensions of the skeletons testimony in Ushuhuda wa Mifupa, written more than ten years earlier. Although in Ushuhuda wa Mifupa we do not see the use of letters, certainly this method in creative works on AIDS needs more research. It seems logical to argue that, in a way, letter writing is a method used to release the innermost feelings of characters, especially those with psycho-social challenges. Through analyzing the contents of the letters in both Confessions and Orodha, one may understand the psyche of the protagonists. Some of these challenges are captured in Ngumi Kiberas mini fiction entitled Shazas Trials. Kibera builds his literary stratagem around the concepts of quandary and apprehension, two aspects which go with the HIV/AIDS challenge. He skillfully avoids the centrality of HIV/AIDS while at the same time keeping it as a necessary evil in building up the dilemma in his kidnapping story. The main theme is not about AIDS, but about the kidnapping of an HIV positive teenager who is on regular medication. 53 Shazas trials can be read as metaphors for the miseries and challenges encountered by those who take antiretroviral drugs. Although the book is in English, the competition with Kiswahili is obvious. One of the characters, Mr. Ndewa, responds with the remark God is great to the Alhamdulillahi offered by another character, police officer Ali. 54 On the surface, this might be perceived as a competition for social space between two languages; however, in the background, there is a political rivalry of two religious cultures -- Christianity
51 52 53 54

Confessions of an AIDS Victim, 98. Reynolds, Orodha, 3. See Kibera, Shazas Trials. Shazas Trials, 99.

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versus Islam -- that have historically competed for supremacy in East Africa. Christianity is represented here by the use of English words: God is great. It does not seem far-fetched to argue that today Islam is associated with Arabic (Alhamdulillahi), while Christianity is associated with English. Interestingly enough, the author uses expressions that both represent Islamic formulae while maintaining the idea of language change. In Shazas Trials it is a dilemma brought by the ARV intake. The taking of the medicine in a poor society faces the challenges of lacking infrastructure for taking such life-long medication and the strain on existing social networks where people have to help each other to prolong lives, but are actually dying in the process. These challenges and the way they are artistically constructed are of paramount importance in East African creative works on HIV/AIDS. They give us one coherent composition.

Conclusion
The creative works on HIV/AIDS in East Africa present an interwoven body of literary texts. Although they encompass several genres with different focus, they have one theme that connects them together. Due to the similarities of the respective socio-cultural landscapes, the creative works project a comparable social consciousness. Although modern politics may be dissimilar, the precolonial societies cultural outlook still influences peoples thinking, especially in aspects such as diseases and myths, sex and sexuality, and gender relations. The use of Kiswahili and English phrases, words, and figures of speech in creative works indicates not only the historical contacts among East Africans, but also their bilingual, or more precisely, multilingual makeup. One can justifiably compare the drama Ushuhuda wa Mifupa with the novel Confessions of an Aids Victim. Indeed where Confessions ends, Kilio Chetu and Kilio cha Jeska continue: like a well-arranged flashback they illustrate the misery of the young generation as a result of not having had the badly needed sexuality education. Consequently, society finds itself at Njia Panda (Mngazija), or at a Crossroads as Meja Mwangi would have it. This dilemma has often been blamed on modernity. One of the earliest metaphorical realizations of the absurdity saw AIDS as an evil of modernity -ugonjwa wa kisasa (modern disease). The metaphor comes with a framework of blame. In Ushuhuda wa Mifupa, villagers cast their blame on town dwellers. Through characters such as Makalikiti, town people are seen as prostitutes and therefore infectious. Although Korido Doctors dubious treatments may actually have contributed more to spreading the infection, he is seen as an innocent individual. While the older generation often employs the ugonjwa wa kisasa metaphor to blame the younger generation, the latter in turn often complains against the former, because it upholds outdated and often risky traditions. It is out of such generational conflict that we hear Matunduras appeal Sitaki Iwe Siri (I do not want it to be a secret) as opposed of Nataka Iwe Siri (I want it to be a secret) of Kirumbi, thirty years earlier.

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The fact that it is now possible to read creative works on traumatizing realities such as HIV/AIDS gives the readers a kind of relief. Societies can gain a better understanding of what it is to be infected with a deadly virus. Reading Catherine Njeris confessions, Shazas trials or Matesos tribulations, East African societies get to know better the challenges facing those families with HIV positive individuals. In a way, the notion of Habari ya English? in these creative works juxtaposed with the massive spread of the use of Kiswahili do create an open debate that is needed for raising peoples consciousness and making them aware of the realities of HIV/AIDS. These realities are illustrated through figurative language and literary suspense. Almost all the works discussed in this paper have titles which are figurative or metaphorical. Hardly any of them address the scourge by its scientific name: The HIV/AIDS dilemma is referred to as a crossroads. In other words, the disease is conceptualized as a journey where travelers have arrived at a junction and do not know where to go. They are facing a dilemma. Characters lives are framed in a condemnatory situation where they either have to confess or face trial.

WORKS CITED
A. Primary Texts
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