Diary of a Gay Blood Donor

20 July 2011

Dear Diary
When I think of donating blood, I feel so good inside. I know some people are afraid of needles, while others are bit squemish when it comes to seeing their own blood flow into pouch that fills up to about a pint of liquid (as much as a dumpy), but I am willing to endure this so that another person may live. I asked my friend Henry to donate with me the next time I go. Like me, Henry is gay and he also believes in donating blood. But today I realized that to be gay and to donate blood carries a certain restriction one has to put oneself, a restrction on the desires of the flesh, if one could so speak:

Me: So we'll donate when u get back. Remember to use a condom and plenty of lube.
Henry: Ha ha lol, ur bad. I'll remember to tht whn I do my thang.

I remember sending him this text message when I found out he was on his way to Johanessburg, I know how easy it would be for him to find a man and have casual sex with him. It was then that I realized that Henry would not be able to donate if he had sex with a casual partner, even if it was protected! On the Namibia Blood Transfusion Service (NAMBTS) donor form there is question that asks:
'Have you had sexual intercourse with a casual partner in the last 12 months?' I therefore had to write Henry another message to warn him of what the consequences of casual sex would be:

Me: But if you have casual sex,you won't be able to donate blood with me ;(
Henry: Relax,Pancho, I'm not a manwhore, I'll donate with you.
 
The disclaimer on the NAMBTS form reads : '...because a condom is not 100% protection against HIV, you should not donate blood if you have had sex with someone who might be infected with HIV'.  My impressions of gay men in Namibia is that they are actively disqualifying themselves from donating blood. They are having sex with short-term or casual partners, and I have approached by more than one of them on more than one ocasion. I chose to stay an eligible blood donor and I hope Henry will too.

When HIV first appeared in the US 30 years ago, contimated bloood transfused to unsuspecting hemophiliac patients,who often lose blood due to uncontrolled bleeding, was the unfortunate consequence of the actions of HIV positive gay blood donors who believed they were saving lives. Since then, our screening techologies for HIV in blood have improved considerably, but are still not 100% sensitive. And as for gay men and other men who have sex with men, they are still statisically most likely to be infected with HIV in the US. Hence the question on the US blood donation form:'If you are male, have you ever had sex with another man since 1978?'  I was not even born then, but I would still answer no. But that may change once I decide to break the (unenforced) sodomy law of Namibia.
Then I would not be able to donate blood in the US.

However, I'm not in the US right now, I'm in Namibia. Here we can still donate provided we meet the criteria for low risk HIV infection, just like anyone else. This reason for this may be that the HIV epidemic amongst MSM in Namibia is thought to be just part of the larger generalized HIV epidemic amongst Namibians .This is not the case in Johannesburg (where Henry was going!). A study in Johanesburg found found men who have sex with men to have significantly higher HIV prevalence rates than that of the general population, a situation similar to that in the US and Western Europe. So while you can get married in those places, you can't donate blood as a gay man (though efforts are underway to repeal this, at least in the UK). In Namibia, we can donate blood and lets keep it that way. I pray that Not Another Man's Blood Test Seropositive (NAMBTS) for HIV. And as for marriage, it will come eventually.

--
Pancho Mulongeni
Communications Officer
Namibia HIV Clincians' Society
writinghealth@gmail.com
+264 814456286

--
Pancho Mulongeni
Communications Officer
Namibia HIV Clincians' Society
writinghealth@gmail.com
+264 814456286

July 16th

I at home and in my room, just beyond the corridor I can hear my aunt’s (my mother’s friends speaking). The discussion is now about a different clans and the maternal and paternal systems. ‘We all belong to different clans’ ‘A group of your family has a name’ says Maria to Aunty Marta’s daughter, who is a teenager , born in the new Namibia and may not know about this. ‘Clan is your blood line’ says auntie Peggy, ‘You are a cow,’

Ofamilie ya tate gwoye (your father’s family), also says Aunty Maria. ‘Tell me I’m your mother’ says Aunty Marta to her daughter , ‘Aunty Maria already explained it to me’ came the reply from the irritable teenager

‘Why do they call you Makena?’

‘I don’t know!’ comes the moaning reply.

So here I am in Namibia, with my family, in my house, with my mother and brother. Sure I cannot do everything that I would like to do now, but still I should enjoy these moments.

I wanted to perhaps spend hours and hours writing more about my life, my failed attempts at getting a boyfriend (ok or getting a date), my advocacy (today I went round our neighborhood telling people about a biodiversity talk aimed at raising awareness about green open spaces in city coming Thursday – I got their emails and I will send out reminders).

There is only so much I can do in that department.

And then, I would love to continue my LGBT ideas – my picnic idea – the letter reading event and all.

Not to mention writing to the Namibian alumni of the United World Colleges and telling them about the Botanical gardens event and so many other events.

Then there is the mundane stuff: revising my budget, doing my laundry, fitting in the lock in my door which does not close (perhaps I should start with that!)

And today is Saturday evening the first day of the week, this week my father’s birthday week (somehow) I count the week according to the Jewish way, sunset to sunset. That’s why Friday one hour before sunset up to Saturday one hour after Sunset I try and relax from the about 9 hours a day I work during the working week

Its really crazy! And then I want to write to so many of my friends: Mariel, Emilie, Mohammed, Karlis, Ellen-Marie, Roderick, Marco, Danny, Michael Kowen, Josh Weinstein, Daniel (Molbio major in my class, black, studies medicine UNC chapel hill).

I feel this heaviness. This utter heaviness of being overwhelmed. Should I even go to the Christian youth group?

Devrais-je écrire à Rickie?

Oh mon Dieu, aide moi, parce que je ne reussirai pas autrement.

Fui andando por mi barrio sensibilizando la gente sobre el encuentro de la biodiversidad,

¡ Hay mi curso de español que empiece este semana!

Tengo que hacer planes concretos. Hay que hacerlos y prioritizar.

Y por lo tanto, no hago matemáticas todos los días, ¿estoy poniéndome menos flexible en mi mente ¿¿o qué efectos supone no hacer estos ejercicios todos los días?

Ok let’s do a priority list:

1. Replace the door handle in your room.
2. Poster: Town-Thumb tacks, Biodiversity meeting-WB
3. Go to Yoga (Sunday)
4. Door your laundry (and math while you wait)
5. Write the reminder for the Botanical Talk
6. Pray Pray Pray.
7. Go to the Office: Proofread Bophelo! Report
8. Email: Biodiversity invite to Dorado people.
9. Go to the HIV Society Meeting
10. Go to mass
11. Go home, rest.

Monday

Poster: MET Levinson Arcade, MET.

Plan work items: WHO paper, CoW issues/questions, ART study: tie up Uganda, NGO study: set interview times.

LUNCH DADDY BIRTHDAY

Spanish, Anuncio PolyTech

Dance

Tuesday

Lunch Claire of the FNCC

Wednesday

Spanish

Send reminder about BIODIVERSITY TALK

Thursday

Biodiversity Talk

Friday

Diaries of a gay blood donor

So this is what you could call a hobby. Its Saturday, and I am using this day as one to reflect upon. More importantly, I use to as a chance to let my creative juices flow unbridled in my writing. I may even be inspired to choreograph from this, but let me write about it.

Diary of a gay blood donor

Monday 13 June 2011

Today was the day I gave my presentation on the level of HIV infection in the Namibian workforce. I remember though, before I gave the results of Wellness Program – through which this data was collected – the CEO of the Namibian Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS gave the introductory remarks. Listening to him as I say just to the left of the podium (dais) from which he was speaking, I remember ‘this year marks 30 years since the discovery of HIV in San Francisco…we should remember how far we have come…25 million people have died of AIDS and 30 million are infected, and as you know, Sub-Saharan Africa is where most of them live’. He was addressing the business community in the context of diminishing funding for HIV interventions in Namibia, where HIV is truly a generalized epidemic, affecting both men and women, straight and queer people alike. ‘Are you telling me my son is a queer?’ was the line of the father as he stood in front of the cadaver of his son, alongside a doctor – the lead character in the film ‘And the Band Played On’. That is the only scene I remember from that film which chronicles the way HIV devastated the community of men who have sex with men in 1981. The epidemic spread beyond that community in the 30 years since then, as we know, but in the US gay men still are statistically more likely to be HIV positive. So that’s why in US, I could never donate blood. But I donate here in Namibia. The Namibia Blood Transfusion Service has the acronym NAMBTS. For me it means may Not Another Man’s Blood Test Seropositive for HIV. Lest they also bar us from donating here.

13 Julio 2011

Para mí, hay muchas cosas buenas de vivir en Namibia, aunque la unión entre dos hombres no se reconoce por el estado. Sí que puedo caminar por la calle en plena luz y fijarme en los chicos que me pasen (¿y éste se dará también la vuelta al pasarme para mirarme mi?) Otra cosa bonita es no tener miedo de expresar su propio atracción siempre y cuando te encuentres en un sitio público tal como una tienda. Hace dos días conocí a un chico que trabaja como dependiente en una tienda portuguesa dónde íbamos a menudo antes de mudarnos al barrio en el que ya vivimos. Al inicio le pregunté por su aspecto cansado y él no hesitó decirme estar cansado dado que estuvo trabajando desde las ocho de mañana y entonces eran sobre las cinco de la tarde. Me pareció muy interesado en charlar conmigo, quizás porque le hacía falta el contacto con otro ser humano o simplemente porque era agradable con todos los clientes. De todos modos, me dí una vuelta en la tienda para comprar mi pan integral (hacen un pan muy rico y negro allá – adoro el pan negro y en cambio me gustan chicos blancos como él). Al volver, dí el salto de preguntarle si quería almorzar conmigo y pasó así:

‘Espero que tengas por lo menos tiempo para descansar’ le dije

‘Sí tengo una horita de almuerzo cada día’ me contestó y no de inmediato se lo pregunté a no ser que me pusiera nervioso o tardara mucho tiempo en decirlo

‘Entonces ¿te apetecería almorzar con migo algún día?

Me dio una sonrisa y me fijé en su cara dulce y sus dientes irregulares, unos más grandes que otros, me parecía que no se esperaba a que le preguntara está pregunta que acabó de salirme a mí, que expresé sin equivocarme – fue claro que me entendió. No recuerdo bien lo que pasó pero recuerdo que me quité la bufanda mientras estuve esperando su respuesta como si quisiera mostrar mi sinceridad, sin alguna apariencia falsa.

De repente se puso una cara más bien seria y me dije ‘Sí Sí’

“Vale, y si dijera mañana, ¿qué dirías tu?” le hice la pregunta tras pasar el primer paso en este juego de ligar con él.

‘Mañana no me viene bien’ me contesté

¿Miércoles? sugerí

“Tampoco”

¿Jueves?

‘Sí jueves está bien’

No pusimos de acuerdo y le dije que como hay un café afuera – a unos metros de la tienda – podríamos irnos allá.

Bueno pero ya es miércoles y no tengo ni son número de móvil ni una confirmación verbal pues no nos vimos desde entonces.

¿Se lo olvidó ya o sigue pensando en mí tanto como yo en él? No se.

Pero, sea cual sea la conclusión de está historia, hay muchos sitios bonitos en Windhoek. Mi consolación es la multitud de hombres que voy a conocer en los días por venir.

December 1 2011

Good Morning

Today is world AIDS day

• Rights and freedoms lacking, but we have one right that gay people in the US, in SA and in most developed queer men (sisters are OK) can’t : donate blood.
• To be able … and keep on being able
• There are many things give up, but many ways of being queer.

July 2nd

So many thing have happened since that eclipse. The week after I went to an event organized by the LGBTI network. I met Etienne. Oh did we have a real life conversation? It was magical and what a connection.

Today I was with my neighbor Lorentia, at her house. I sat outside in her yard, with my back to her fence, in the dappled dying winter sunlight, I wrote this poem for Etienne. I had sent him a message last Sunday, after we met, through facebook, but there was not reply. Do I assume he is not into me or is it just that he needs time or that he is just cautious. Yikes! Along came a spider, right now, on my curtain. I do love arachinids, but not this kind, they are wide and flat with stripped legs. I could have caught it and fed it to the brown widow (Lactrodectus geometricus) that is handing just beside my wardrobe, over here. She is there, suspended waiting for prey.

Next week the national museum will be open including the arachnology department, where I spent many a good afternoon with Erin Griffin and the arachnids I came to love. I think I will meet interesting people there, just like I met these two Americans today the monthly walk at the botanical gardens – one an anthro student and his professor who is a department chair of a big well known US university.

Do you remember the line from Trick, the movie, I need to get it!

Miss Coco Peru: ‘So he comes in my eye and the next thing I know he’s out the door. Do you know what its like to have cum in your eye Gabriel, it buns! So I call the number he gave me the next and you know what it turns out to be the number of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’.

I never went there, I guess I still can.

9^th July 2011. (9 de Julio 2011)

Nunca me ha contestado ese hombre, pero ya no me importa. Hay que decir que unas personas te contestan a su modo, es decir, no contestan, te ignoran a ti y luego lo entiendes que no quieren ligar contigo. Quizás eso fue lo que pasó con Etienne. Pero eso no importa más ni Philip – un germano namibio al que invité a almorzar conmigo hace casi un mes al conocerlo en el estudio de camel art y a los pocos minutos conocí a su novio –Memo que es mexicano. Aunque no me lo dijeron directamente, que eran una pareja, eso se hizo bastante obvio y no había que decirlo sino aceptarlo y entenderlo.

Bueno, ya estoy muy harto de todo eso, de está búsqueda interminable (me parece) de una pareja, de un novio entre los escasos hombres potenciales que se encuentran en esta ciudad. ¡Basta ya! Dios, ayúdame por favor, que tu paz me llene el corazón y que no me aleje de tu camino. Amen.

June 7 2011

Dear Blog,

There is so much one could write about so where do I start? Well, why don't I just begin by thanking the Lord. Thank you Jesus. That's a start. Now you may ask 'for what?' but is this as important. Well of course it is otherwise you would not be reading this blog post.

Thank you Lord for my brother and that tomorrow is his 19^th Birthday. Thank you Lord for Him in my life. I asked my parents for a brother about 19 years ago (I think) and they agreed. Our relationship is kind of frigid and cold at times, since I am twenty something and starting with my life as a gay man and he does not take kindly to the fact I am openly gay (or that I would be seen outside the house in tights or ladies shoes), but still I love his sarcastic approach to it 'How can you be Christian and gay...unfortunately you are going to hell,' He said that one day at the dinner table, I was moving past the fridge and he was still sitting down and the way he said it, especially the 'unfortunately' just made me crack up.

Then there is the way he sometimes swallows his words. Yesterday I gave him a pencil 'The New Otjihereo dictionary ' ( a new one from Otjiherero to English done by a Namibia Herero lady that lives in Rochester, NY) . That was what was written on the pencil – I got it from the launch. It was neon yellow (I guess I could have given him the neon pink one, I am sure he would still have taken it, I mean it's a pencil). He mumbled 'thank you'. The way he mumbles just melts my heart. When he does that I am ready to cook for him, even bring his food to his room (which I NEVER do) just because of how adorable he is. He has grown, much taller than me and I dare say more handsome.

Tomorrow, I think I will have some fun though – I am going to 'cake him'. My mother bought a cream, massproduced, cake for about U$3.15. I could hardly call it cheap given the number of people who live less than a dollar a day here, but honestly, its so mass produced, not that tasty and just about the right size for someone to smack it into your face. At Mana Christian Fellowship, I know how the students ,friends, fellow Christians used to that for each other. Somehow, I missed this rite of passage. I never was caked by them, though I do not resent that at all, because I still felt love there and still do from my friends and other members of the Mana fellowship (whom I adore, in fact, I love them all, how could I group into friends and 'others'?) .

So it is really cold, but I am sure my brother will still take his morning shower. My plan is the following: Wake up before him (at about 5:00 am) do yoga. Wait for him to open his door (my door is just next to his) and as he takes the step towards my mother's room I shout 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' and let him have it. Were it not for his birthday, I may consider this action wasteful and decadent, but honestly, this cake is of such poor nutritional value that it almost seems meant to be used for this very purpose. Oh am I gonna get it! My brother could beat me up if he wanted to, but will he?

He will take a shower anyway and then go to school. He is in his last year of high school now and next year he hopes to study law. I basically made him fill the application form for University in South Africa alone. Why? I wanted to instil in him the agency necessary to apply to University and I don't think holding his hand while he fills in the form would be helpful. I did offer to answer any questions he had,provided he had tried to fill in the form first by himself. This caused a lot of strife in my home, because my mother wanted me to just do whatever he wanted. But I held out. I know I may not be a parent, but honestly I am over just doing things for him. I really want him to be prepared for the world. And it seems to be working – just yesterday he told my mom 'No go back and click 'my computer' and try again, you did not do that, you need to do that, go back and do it!' after she asked him to help fix her internet connection (broadband). I think he realizes it's important to exhaust all of one's own capacities before going for help. If there was one thing I learnt at Princeton that must have been it.

Thank you Lord for my wonderful mom and my dad and my friends dear Lord (too many to mention by name here) and my sister and my cousins.

Then one more thing before I end this letter. At last, thank you Lord for answering my prayers! Thank you Lord for this boy Riaan I met (actually remet) last Tuesday. It was a cold Tuesday evening and I was heading home from the office (did I mention saying thank you for my awesome job that gives me a lot of work including the submission of abstracts, high level analysis of data and generally stimulation that I have not felt since Princeton?). He was in front of a bankomat, and I saw it was him. I passed on by. I had seen him there before, walking past that bank that has ATMS on the ground floor. I don't know if he noticed me. I knew he was gay, or at least into men, because I had met at the LGBTI party earlier this year. Then he was with his boyfriend Anthony. Flash forward. I wait for him to finish withdrawing his money and come back to his car, the only one parked on the side of this lonely road at this hour and cold temperature. He comes and I go 'Hey...'

 

I have to exercise great discipline not to relate to you our conversation, for it is private.  Of course, I remember every detail, nearly every word uttered between me and him as he stood at the side of his car. And now I do recall his smile, he inquisitive look. Did he decide then? Yes he did because he volunteered his number and I took it, although only under the pretence that I would remind him of the picnic I was hosting the next day. Even though he said he was not dating Anthony anymore, I still thought of him as taken. You never know with couples, they break up and then get back together. So there was no need in thinking of him that way. Now, however I do. I think of him 'that way'. His advances have been welcomed.  Though we have not seen each other since, we have communicated via 'text'. We've both been under the weather and I pray we will recover. We both want to see each other, I do believe.

 

Thank you Lord! How long have I waited? I now know my friends were right (about love)!

I do not know if I am love with him, let me first know him.

I do not know if he is the one, let first know if we will walk together hand in hand, under the sun.

I do not know what course this will go; would I be his second mate and he my first?

All I know is that I am happy for just the chance to date.

The rest I leave up to you and fate,

'O fate show thy force!'

 

May 7th 2011

Saturday May 7th.

Two weeks since Holy Saturday and so much as happened again. I sit and wait for the light cascading on wall to move higher and higher giving way to the shadow. Espero a que la luz cayéndose en la pared del jardín vaya por arriba dejando paso a la sombra que anuncia el anochecer.

So I will read my friend Rickie Siegle’s blog instead! I will comment on her blog!

Holy Saturday 2011

In as much as I know that I cannot possibly chronicle my life in a blog, I would like to take some time to write about it. Some time, not more than that and not less. Any more would mean I would loose out on life happening to me and any less would leave unsatisfied with what I write at the end of the day. Life has become so full, my cup is really overflowing. The different impulses for me writing come from nearly every single event that happens in my life, my life outside y room here in our house. I premedidate what I will write about and often the urge to write becomes really so strong it numbs that I just don’t know what to say. Well let me write about what happened inside this room of mine, for starters.

The room is on the lowest part of the house. I have the garden facing my window, or the back side of the garden, that part only we can see. There is a lemon tree infront of my window and next to a mango. We are really blessed with these fruits. Of course, those of you who come from fertile areas of the world, Tsheko – Zamibia, would perhaps think of the mango as banal. Here it is not that common in a garden.

My room walls are plastered with photos – rectangular snapshots – here and there. From my time in Italy to up to the day we went to that boy’s house in upstate New York (he graduated class of 09 – Denis yes that’s his name!) I actually don’t care for pictures at all. But I have always put them up since I went to the United World College of the Adriatic as a way of reminding me of the past and the people in it. Some of the photos are also from Bulgaria, with my grandparents, photos from my brothers christening into the Orthodox Church and others. That’s my decoration photos.

I also have some table cloths – one on my desk that faces the window – and two drapped down from shelf. Bulgarian red patterns, I love them. There is one that sis brown with purple embroided flowers that I gave to my mother for the birthday in 2009. She rejected it, not because she hated, but because I gave my father a plate as his Christmas present, a plate for him to use in his new apartment or wherever he stays (still don’t know, all I know are rumors, in deed I hear more about my father from my mother other people than I know about him). That is a whole story on it’s own.

I feel sometimes there is a whole backlog of issues I want to write about. As if experiences are saved in my mind, conversations recorded, movements remembered by my body all waiting for me to unleash them on this blog. Then I think to myself, did I blog about this can I go back and find it? I remember then that I do not remember what I blogged about, mostly. I remember that using a blog need not be an obligation. It is like a diary and I since I was 15, I always kept writing about things. This need not be a bad thing.

But last night I had just had dinner. The good Friday dinner at my house. The priest earlier at Church told us “ don’t go out tonight…don’t eat to much, just a little bit, and don’t drink to much, because you should suffer with Jesus tonight. Unless your doctor told you for medical reasons you have to eat this and this, then you can, but you can also choose to suffer with Jesus, if you want. But I always advise that you listen to your doctor, because if you don’t there will be consequences and then later Jesus will ask you ‘ so why did you not listen to your doctor?’

I love the Catholic homily’s always so pragmatic. So he did not prescribe us to fast as much as too just bear in mind the suffering of the Lord. Nonetheless, three of my mothers friends were over at our house and we had a dinner with them. Lamb with Spinach (a Bulgarian style of cooking) and an egg herb salad I made, with bread (whole weat: mine, white: for my mom). There was just enough food for all of us! Somehow there was. I had a torn slice of bread with penut butter as my desert, but that was it. So we did not plan to eat ‘litte’( such a subjective term, I am sure by the standards of many people here and most people in US, we would have eaten really little, but then for others perhaps this was indeed a feast). It just happened that way. I loved that we could eat together though on a Friday, the Sabbath, even though we had less than one would expect at a typical Sabbath dinner (but then again, I am assuming all Jews can afford to hold huge Sabbath dinners and perhaps this assumption needs questioning, seriously). I loved it. The friends of my mom have known me since I was a child. We would go to there houses. They are all Oshiwambo speaking women and they indulge me as I try to speak my father’s language. Two of them never married while the third is a divorcee and then there is my mom who is effectively divorced, but still legally married. And there was me. We had a family dynamic and that was us. Usually Friday nights it would be just me and my mother. My brother loves going out with friends and he took a trip to coast with his friends this weekend.

After diner as I washed the dishes I laughed and laughed as Aunty Martha (aunty is term used to show respect and it transcends biological notions of ‘aunty’) told me about the cumbersome process of recruitment in the public service. Had I not found the splendid job I have now, I would have gone for the interview to work in a lab for the ministry of fisheries. “…Even after the interview…” she said, “…there is still a long process of the application to be sent to the public service commission and for it to be approved…it usually takes four months.” The length of the entire process is more like 8 months – from the time of handing in your application to hiring, “…by which time many candidates have already found another job…”

Alright I will stop this blog post here.

I wanted to write about how I lost my modem (the size of memory stick) in my room and could not connect to the internet and how it spurred me to just clean up my room and vacuum certain areas…but I think you got the picture.

I can’t be sitting here and writing while I have stuff to do. I have math to learn (and use!) for my job as a research assistant – I am on the brink of a project that I have been dreaming of since senior year and I have to make sure I can do it (do the analysis of the statistics).

I’ll tell you about this project if you ask me.

I have to make a salad now. Guests coming over.

Closing prayer:

Oh Lord on this Holy Saturday, please help us all to grow closer to you.

O Dio aiutaci questo sabato ad avviccinarsi, sempre di più, a te.