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The wedding photograph of Odette Mukakabera and her husband shows a couple who are clearly in love. During their happy 10-year marriage they had two girls and a boy of their own as well as fostering a girl from her extended family. But five years ago Odette lost her husband: AIDS had claimed another victim. Her husband, Jean-Baptiste, worked in a bank and earned a good salary while Odette, who had trained as a teacher, worked for the police. When Jean-Baptiste first developed some marks on his skin, he and Odette joked about the possibility of it being AIDS because it seemed so unlikely. But when he became seriously ill he took a test and it proved positive.
Later, Odette tested positive, too. “From that point, everything in our life was turned upside down. My husband had much pain, especially in the last period,” she tells me. “Our household finances were also in a poor state.” As she continued her own job, looked after her husband both in and out of hospital, cared for their children and tried to stretch their money as far as it would go, Odette found it a struggle. IsolationWhat made things worse was the ensuing isolation from the rest of her family. She had lost many family members during Rwanda’s genocide but after Jean-Baptiste was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, there was no rallying round by the rest. Mixing with Odette and her family was evidently asking for trouble and they found it easier to withdraw. “They didn’t know how to treat this new situation,” says Odette. “They got frightened and embarrassed.” Alone apart from the children, Odette had to keep working – and not just to feed the family. Jean-Baptiste told her that he had taken out a life insurance policy through the bank, and that in order to have some money from it when he died, she had to make sure she kept the payments up. Throughout the three years that Jean-Baptiste lived after his diagnosis, Odette made sure she paid the insurance policy. And when he finally died, she went to the company to make her claim only to be told that because he had been diagnosed with AIDS, she was not entitled to any money. Given her situation, it would have been natural for Odette to harbour bitterness – towards her husband, the insurance company or even towards God – about the situation she now found herself in. Struggle“I had many feelings,” she tells me, “but I decided not to let the bitterness reign. I thought, ‘I will never let myself be put down by this; I will start to study the law and I will struggle for the rights of HIV/AIDS people.’” So she started evening classes at the University of Kigali, and a thesis that she finished in 2003 on the rights of HIV-positive people in Rwanda is her contribution to the long-running discussion in all the African countries affected by HIV/AIDS. To add to her troubles, Odette’s only son, 13-year-old Bertrand, has also tested positive. Surveying her experiences, Odette sees many comparisons with the description of the Suffering Servant. The words from Isaiah 53 have a special meaning because she sees in them a relevance to herself: Despised“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not… we considered him stricken by God.” (Isaiah 53: 2-3, 4 NIV) “I find much comfort in the Bible,” she says. “Christ is the one who suffered for us all. He has compassion and love. He forgives all sins!”
Through some HIV/AIDS work she did in Kigali’s media and schools, Odette became quite a well-known figure and started to work with widows and HIV-infected people. This in turn has led her to set up an HIV/AIDS association for HIV-infected people in her neighbourhood. On occasions her children have complained
that her openness has led to their being bullied at school, but she
defends her actions on two grounds. First, by giving hope to others,
she strengthens herself – and strength is the key to surviving
long enough to see the children secure and able to manage by themselves. ImpressedHer second justification is a broader one. “There are still so many people hiding!” she declares. “There is so much shame with this virus! I like the message in the booklet Where is the Good Samaritan Today? We need to create Good Samaritans to help each other. Christ is our best example: his constant love gives me strength.” Impressed by the enormous strength of Odette, I ask her if she ever cries. “I cry at weddings,” she says.
“Or when I’m feeling alone after the children have gone to
bed, when I have nobody to discuss private things with, when the children
ask me why I married their father, and when I think of my husband. And
sometimes in the evening I look at our wedding photo and I am just crying…crying.”
(WR 390/29 - 02.05) |
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Odette’s
vow: 
