I believe epidemics, pandemics, wars and natural disasters visit the earth from time to time for a reason. Whenever they come, they leave behind a trail of destruction, but they also bring renewal and transformation to human life. They may destroy some lives, but in some cases they dramatically rejuvenate others.
The coming of HIV into my life ushered in a new kind of existence that I never imagined could be so life-changing in many positive ways. When I compare the life I lived before testing HIV positive with the life I live today, I feel deep gratitude to God for saving my life in such a dramatic way.
The journey I have travelled with my wife, Mai Simba, over the past 37 years of marriage would make a compelling movie if it were documented day by day and year by year. I strongly suspect that I was already HIV positive when I married her around 1989, although I had not yet been medically tested.
In this article, I want to pay tribute to this remarkable woman who has been my pillar of strength throughout life’s challenges and joys. Mai Simba has stood by me during our most difficult moments and celebrated with me during our happiest times.
I met Sarudzai Mudzingwa, who later became my wife, in Sakubva township, Mutare, in 1988. She lived with her elderly parents while I was temporarily teaching at Sahumani High School in Honde Valley after losing my job at the Department of Taxes in 1986. Following my dismissal, I had gone through a period of severe hardship and destitution.
Because I came from distant Gokwe, I rented a room in Mutare where I stayed during weekends and school holidays, as travelling home regularly was too expensive. Sarudzai’s family lived next door, separated from my room by a low wire fence.
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One day during a school holiday, I saw Sarudzai hanging clothes in her family yard. As I looked at her, I felt something deep inside telling me that this was the woman I would marry. Until then, much of my love life had revolved around casual relationships, and serious commitment had never crossed my mind after losing my first love years earlier. I had always believed I would only marry after establishing a career.
Sarudzai was calm, short, dark-complexioned and soft-spoken. She carried herself with quiet confidence, focused entirely on her chores as though nothing else in the world mattered. When she noticed me staring, she politely greeted me from across the fence. We chatted briefly, and before long, friendship blossomed into love.
Soon I found myself travelling from Honde Valley to Mutare every weekend simply to see her. Our relationship deepened quickly, and her parents warmly approved of it. They allowed me to take Saru out, provided I brought her home before dark.
We explored many places around Mutare together, enjoying each other’s company while respecting her wish to abstain from intimacy until marriage. Sometimes she would quietly sneak out at night, jump across the fence and spend time with me, but we only cuddled and talked until dawn.
In late 1989, I managed to buy the house where I had been lodging. I felt ready to marry my beloved Saru and start a family. Since I already had a good relationship with her parents, the marriage arrangements were straightforward. My cousin, who also lived in Mutare, helped organise everything, and we travelled to Zaka, Saru’s rural home, where our marriage was formalised traditionally.
Even then, we had still not been intimate because Sarudzai insisted that would only happen after marriage. On our first night together as husband and wife, we slept on a reed mat in our small two-roomed house because our most valuable possession was an old second-hand single bed. Despite our poverty, we were happy. There were no HIV tests then, no awareness campaigns — just two young people in love.
In 1991, I was accepted at Mutare Teachers’ College, just a stone’s throw away from our home in Sakubva. At the same time, Mai Simba was heavily pregnant with our first child. I had no steady income, and my widowed mother back in Gokwe also depended on me to help support my younger siblings.
That same year, Sarudzai’s parents relocated to their rural home in Zaka after selling their Sakubva house. In March 1991, our firstborn son, Simba, was born shortly after I had started college as a day student.
Although tuition at the college was free, survival remained difficult. We depended largely on rent from two lodgers, but it was not enough. I often took on piece jobs during weekends to provide for my family. At one point, two former colleagues from the school where I had taught generously supplied us with groceries for the remainder of 1991. May God bless Miss Dhemba and Miss Marowa for their kindness.
Mai Simba stood by me throughout my college years and proudly celebrated with me at my graduation in April 1994. She was there when I began my teaching career at Buhera High School. Since our marriage in 1989, we have rarely spent more than a month apart.
When I fell seriously ill in 1999, Mai Simba accompanied me to every medical facility I visited. Eventually, I was admitted to St Luke’s Hospital for tuberculosis treatment, where I later tested HIV positive. Around 2001, I told her the truth about my diagnosis. She accepted it with remarkable strength and composure.
For three months, she stayed with me in the overcrowded TB ward, sleeping under my hospital bed among frail and coughing patients. She remained beside me even when my seven siblings accused me of shaming the family by testing HIV positive.
Later, Mai Simba also tested HIV positive because of me, yet she chose to remain by my side.
Today, she still reminds me every morning to take my antiretroviral medication alongside hers. Whenever I travel, she phones to check whether I have taken my daily dose.
I often wonder what this incredible woman sees in me that keeps her loving me so faithfully despite all the pain I have caused her over the years. I have wronged her in many ways, yet she has never abandoned me.
Today, I am a retired teacher living peacefully at home and enjoying time with our grandchildren. During the recent April/May holidays, all our children and grandchildren gathered here in Gokwe, and it brought us immense joy.
My message to those who still lose hope after testing HIV positive is simple: there is life after HIV. One can still live fully, productively and happily.
We are living proof. My wife, our now 32-year-old daughter — who is married and a mother of three HIV-negative boys — and I have all lived meaningful and fulfilling lives despite HIV.
Due to space limitations, I will end here and continue my story in next week’s article.