Gus Cairns meets the members of a new HIV group for all Portuguese
speakers in London
A couple of years ago, PN did a piece called ‘Latins in Exile’ about the surprisingly large South American community in London (about 200,000 people, or one in 35 Londoners). Since then, London’s Brazilian group Naz Brasil has changed its name to Naz Vidas! (meaning Naz Lives!) to include more clients from Portugal itself and former Portuguese colonies like Angola. A lot more women now use its services.
I interviewed three of them. I have changed their names, as one at least is in a position of some prominence in the London Portuguese-speaking community.
Rita, 47, from Brazil, has a troubled story to tell, and is grateful for the group’s psychological support.
“ I was diagnosed two years ago. I had been married 10 years but I knew something was wrong. I asked my husband to get an HIV test because I wanted to get pregnant. He was going out and seeing friends all hours and I suspected he was bisexual. I’d come back to the flat and find condoms.
“ I took the test, and it was positive. He claimed not to believe me but said he’d take himself to the GP. He told me the result was negative and showed me a bit of paper. I took it to my doctor and she said it was a fake!
“ I think he’d been positive all along. He said he still wanted to have sex with me but I didn’t want to... I told him to pack, and we got divorced.”
Some time after, a guy whom Rita was with one night wanted her not to use a condom and when she refused he gave her something like a candy.
The ‘candy’ turned out to be a date-rape drug. “I vaguely remember being drugged. I remember telling him I had HIV and him refusing to believe me. I know he had anal sex with me because afterwards I couldn’t sit down. Afterwards, I found burns on me - he had done them with cigarettes. I went to the hospital and they said: ‘You were raped’. I went to the police, but didn’t dare tell them about my HIV.
“I found out about the group through my doctor and for the first few times here, all I did was cry. Naz helped me a lot. It’s the only place I can come and talk.”
She’s still baffled by the attitudes of the men she has met. “I had an African boyfriend who seemed totally unbothered when I told him. He said he’d go for a test and texted me back saying ‘I’m positive. OK?’ I think he was all along.
“ Others still don’t want to use condoms. It’s like they don’t care.”
Fabiana, 47, agrees. She only discovered she had HIV four months ago, having come to London to look after a friend’s baby. “I had a negative test in Brazil in January 2001, but I had a history of yeast infections and I wanted my boyfriend to take an STD test, but he insisted it must be my medical problem, not his.
“ So I went to get tested by myself. They called me in last. They said, ‘Well, there’s no gonorrhoea, no chlamydia, but you have HIV.”
She’s still coming to terms with her diagnosis. And she is still with her boyfriend: “I wanted to break up my relationship, but he didn’t want to. We talk, and we argue, but about everything other than HIV. My doctor seems more concerned about the fact that I also have hepatitis B when it comes to safer sex.
“Having HIV has changed my aims in life. I used to have more strength. Now, as we say in Brazil, ‘I go as the wave takes me’.”
(Since we did the interview, Fabiana’s boyfriend has also tested positive, and plans to join the Vidas group as its first male heterosexual member).
Rebecca, 37, comes from Angola. She was diagnosed in London in July 1999,
but thinks she actually had a positive test when she fell ill and was hospitalised
in Angola that February.
She’s been on medication since August 1999 and did fine, but like many
Portuguese speakers in London she is a member of a small community and didn’t
feel able to tell many people apart from a close friend.
“ Since I started to use Naz Vidas I’ve been feeling much better,” smiles Rebecca, “though I’d like them to organise other activities and bigger events.” She’s working as a seamstress and would like Naz to organise more beauty and fashion evenings.
The men I meet from the group are all gay but their stories and backgrounds are as varied as the women’s.
Rafael, 29, is from mainland Portugal, from Riu Maior, a port town 50 miles from Lisbon. Despite his age he’s been living with HIV for 12 years and is the longest-diagnosed member of the group. He found his way to the group after many years on heroin, a period he luckily managed to survive.
“ It wasn’t drugs that gave me HIV, I probably got it the first time I ever had sex, when I was working in a restaurant as a waiter. I was also very good-looking in those days and was a fashion model, and this guy forced me to have sex.
“ I went for an HIV test and when I told my dad he threw me out, saying: ‘only gay people get Aids’. I tried to pursue my studies but I wasn’t allowed to study with the other kids.
“ I was told by the doctor I’d have about three years to live and went straight into taking drugs.
“ I only managed to get clean three years ago, and still don’t know how. That was when I came to London. I had a boyfriend for the first time - I’d never had a partner before, just casual sex. He stopped me thinking about drugs.
“ We split up a year ago and I went through a huge depression and nearly started using again. Then I found my way to Naz. I’d phoned up the THT but I had to answer too many questions to get an appointment. When I phoned up José (who runs the group) he just said: ‘We’re going to have a party, if you want to come you’re welcome’.
“ I was expecting Vidas to be full of sick and dying people and didn’t want to mix with them, but I really like the guys here, they’re all different.”
Lielmo, 33, has a very different story to tell. Now a teacher, he is not your stereotypical Brazilian gay man at all.
“ No, I come from a very strict Protestant Christian family, and am an ex-preacher! I still would be, if my church accepted gay people.”
He’s from the central city of Goiania near Brasilia, and was only diagnosed 10 months ago.
“ Oddly enough, people always thought I was HIV positive because I’ve had a history of immune suppression and Aids-like illnesses such as histoplasmosis. And when I was diagnosed they found my CD count was only 43. But I’ve had negative tests before.
“ I was 25 before I went with a man. There was a group in my church for gay men and people with HIV, but when I went I realised it was an ‘ex-gay’ group. They were using psychology to try and make me straight.
“ I actually became the pastor of the group and made friends among the
gay guys.
“ Eventually I had a relationship with a Catholic guy for two years. I
told my
own Pastor I was gay.”
After some time trying to save Lielmo from his real feelings, his pastor said, “Well, you can’t preach here any more,” so Lielmo packed his bags and came to London.
Lielmo eventually discovered a gay church in London (“though they take it to extremes - they act as if everyone in the Bible is gay”) and made mainstream friends.
The youngest member of the group, Lineu, 24, who caught HIV when he was working for an escort agency, says:
“ My doctor in Sao Paulo asked: ‘Do you want to go to England and risk your life? You’ll have to pay for your medications, you know’. But the first day I went to a clinic in London they gave me a month’s supply.”
The lesson would seem to be: if you’re HIV positive and speak Portuguese,
make tracks to Naz Vidas; it might save your life.
For more information phone Naz Vidas on: 020 8741 1879
Para maiores informações ligue Naz Vidas em: 020 8741 1879.
Email: vidas@naz.org.uk
Latins in Exile is available online if you go to issue 77, April 2002.
