English
FrançaisICASA Young Writers Series - Winners
Piter Matias Pedro, Mozambique
1st Runner up - Harm Reduction
My Story
"My name is Piter Matias Pedro, I'm 22 years old. I’m from Cuamba District, Niassa Province, Mozambique. I was diagnosed HIV positive when I was 14 years old. Before that, I got very sick, for few years, what worried my entire family about my health, because I stayed sick for long time.
I decided to go a health facility to do HIV test and for my surprise the result was positive. At that time, I felt very bad when I received the test result and when I noticed that I have HIV. That was shocking for me. I have imagined how I would live with the HIV virus in my body, how the people around me who live without HIV would treat me, I even thought I was going to die.
I have received a very strong support from health providers in those difficult moments of my life, but even with that, I didn't think about anything other than death, because I always heard that it is a dangerous disease, at that moment I couldn't believe what was happening to me, it was terrible.
With support received from the health providers and the advice to move forward, I started to do antiretroviral therapy. When I got home, I tried to hide the pills, afraid of my father that would find out, because I didn't want him to know and humiliate me about my serostatus. I have isolated myself for a long time, I lost weight, my friends and family started asking what was happening to me and I always answered “nothing”, because that was my personal secret. As I wasn't taking the ARVs correctly, the disease started to take over me.
One certain day, my father decided to take the hospital where I ended up hospitalized and they tested me for the second time, and from that time, my father knew from that I was HIV+ and it was not easy for him accept that situation.
With advice of the health providers, he ended up realizing and supported me to be strong. Also, with the help of a friend, who is HIV+, I managed to move on. I started the treatment in 2014 and till today I have not stopped medicating, thanks to the support of my friend and my teacher who ended up helping me. I still remember his the words saying that “HIV does not kill.