 Salima, the face of Monsoon: "My real friends are here in this group" photo: nikki kastner |
Where can you go to have a good gossip about the men in your life, your favourite rice dish, or your problems being an Asian woman living with HIV in the UK? At a new group in west London called Monsoon. Rose de Freitas met some of the women who attend
I think the main reason I came here was to get a more Asian perspective," says 'Pamela'. This is quite ironic in some ways, because when the Monsoon women start chatting it becomes obvious that most of them were brought up with traditional Asian views, which they all rebelled against in some way. Now they find the bond of being Asian and female, as well as having HIV, gives them support.
"The thing is," continues Pamela "a lot of support groups are for newly-diagnosed people or people who have come over to this country recently. If you're a Londoner like me you get sick of talking about HIV and support, full stop. It's much more of a social thing. Like last month we went to the V&A museum.
"What we want is to meet and do things. Not just sit around and moan about Asian men or men in general! [Although, I'll bet they do.] We all love food. We talk about food a lot - so we may go out to a restaurant. Or go to a film or even just go to the pub for a drink sometimes.
"We're all from different backgrounds and, between us, speak Punjabi, Urdu, Guharati and Swahili."
The group is a mixed bag of backgrounds and ages. Salima - the 'face' of Monsoon and the only one happy to be photographed - is herself mixed-race (Kenyan-Asian).
Salima says she came to Monsoon via Body & Soul and Positively Women but likes the fact that this group has an Asian focus.
"I've been in England for a year and a half," Salima explains. "But I'm from Kenya (half Asian, half Kenyan) and got diagnosed two years back. I came here for a holiday and got tested. It was positive. I thought there was no point in going back to my husband and family. My husband gave me HIV. Since then I haven't been able to trust a man. Where I worked - for an airline - in Kenya, you had to have a medical each year. If they'd discovered I had HIV, they wouldn't insure me and I'd lose my job. I don't feel I can go back home yet and, to be honest, my real friends are here, in this group."
Pamela echoes this sense of isolation: "I lost all my friends because I cut myself off when I was diagnosed. I don't feel I can trust men anymore. I haven't had a proper relationship in years. And I think they're more Asian women out there affected by HIV, but they won't come forward."
Another
woman in the group couldn't make the meeting - Rita lives down in Southampton
- but she phones to have her say too: "HIV is just not talked about in my community
down here. My community nurse is my real contact point and I know there are other
Asian women who are positive, but I don't know where they meet. We are still seen
as social outcasts. It goes without saying that if there are more heterosexual
infections occurring, there's bound to be a few Asians in there too."
Rita joined the Monsoon group last summer. She wanted more contact with Asian women, although she uses local Southampton support groups too.
Married with two young children and in her late 30s, Rita describes her situation: "I got HIV from my husband. We don't know how. We're both Asians and raised here in the UK. My husband worked in Africa. He had a blood transfusion in a local hospital there in the 80s and it looks as though that's when he got the virus. Both of us had never had sex before we married and we've been monogamous. We're long-term survivors. I've been living with HIV probably for 15 years. He's maybe had it for 18." Rita goes on to talk about the group:
"It's very strange this virus. It does bring very different people together. The group of us women at Monsoon, are very different, from very diverse backgrounds. But we get along."
Another reason why Rita likes the group she says, is because: "I don't want to burden people in my daily life with my situation. I prefer to be with other women who can appreciate some of the issues in our culture, like family, religion as well as HIV."
Meena is the outspoken one in the group. She's a young Asian Londoner who's been living with HIV for five years. She steers the discussion round to sex.
"The hardest thing about HIV is disclosure," says Meena. "I'd love to be able to tell my family, but I think they'd be devastated. No one even talks about sex in my family."
In fact, all of the younger women agree that because of their strict backgrounds they ended up either in promiscuous relationships or being too trusting of people.
This is how Meena sees it: "Asian families, they build a wall round you and so when you finally get freedom - like when you leave home - you go mental. From girls' school off to work. No chance to learn earlier on because there's no chance of forming any relationships with boys or experiencing anything to learn from. I definitely think this lack of freedom had a part to play in my getting HIV. I wouldn't have been so naïve if I'd had more experience younger. I really didn't get a chance to work out how people play games or develop any judgement skills. This is the problem with strict upbringings and backgrounds.
"And Asian men... they have it so easy! It's us girls that have to be strong and rebel 'cos we get treated with such strictness."
At Monsoon the women also talk about the good things in their lives too. Meena mentions the wonderful relationship she's had with her boyfriend since she was diagnosed. Despite difficulties with treatments, she's in love. Oh and the sex?
"When it comes to sex, we're like any couple," she laughs, "sometimes we have lots, sometimes we don't have any for months. I mean we always have to be careful. But I'd like a baby at some point. Maybe if it's a girl I'll call her Monsoon."
Names have been changed in this article
The next Monsoon get-together is on Saturday 14 June at 2pm at Naz Project London, Palingswick House, 241 King Street, London W6 9LP. Tel 020 8741 1879 (ask for Parminder). Email: naz@naz.org.uk
