"When I was a young girl I dreamt of having a happy family. I dreamt of having kids. I wanted to marry, have children, and shower them with love." Kausalya got married all right. When she was 19, to a relative.
That was in 1995. A few weeks later her husband tested positive for AIDS.
All she knew about the disease at that point was that "it was dirty, and anyone who caught it would die".
"It was very cruel of him to marry me because he was tested positive before," she said. "The doctors had asked him not to marry, but he did not pay heed."
Seven months on, Kausalya's husband died, leaving her HIV-positive. "All my dreams were shattered," she said. "I could only wait for death."
Time erased her tears, only to replace them with a dull sense of despair. She contemplated suicide. But friends persuaded her not to take her life.
Then, slowly, she began wanting to live again. To fight AIDS. And the best way to do that, she felt, was to educate people, especially girls like her, about the disease.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!