Every once in a while, when you have been very good or have been very lucky, a piece of art, a musical composition or a poem that is mind blowing comes your way. When this happens, all you can do is sit and wonder and nod your head to say: without art, we are nothing, without music, we are nothing, without love, we are nothing. (My personal mantra and my reason for being).

Released by Sterns Africa in 2007, African Virtouses – The Classic Guinean Guitar Group, consists of music recorded in the 70s and 80s by Guinean guitar maestros – the Diabate Brothers – Papa, Sekou, Sire and Abdoulaye, yet I can’t get over how incredibly fresh and contemporary the music sounds.

Traditionally, Guinean musical instruments are the the kora, balafon (xylophone), and koni (lute). The aptly named, African Virtuoses in their own inimitable style, include the guitar as their means of creative expression. Here and there, one can hear flashes of Cuban, flamenco and Django Reinhardt musical influences. The overarching elegance is typically and distinctively Guinean however.

African Virtouses, I bow down to your greatness.

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Following on from Keguro…

A leadership that degrades its people is unfit to lead.
A leadership afraid of its people is unfit to lead.
A leadership indifferent to its people’s suffering is unfit to lead.
A leadership afraid of political critique is unfit to lead.
A leadership that betrays and dishonors the Constitution is unfit to lead.
A leadership that feeds on its people’s carcasses is unfit to lead.
A leadership that breaks its people’s bones is unfit to lead.
A leadership that eats while its people starve is unfit to lead.
A leadership that stands by and watches its police kill with impunity is unfit to lead.
A leadership that practices impunity is unfit to lead.

A leadership deaf and blind to its people’s needs is unfit to lead.

A leadership that stops peaceful protest is unfit to lead.

A leadership that curtails the freedoms of its people is unfit to lead.

A leadership that rides roughshod over its people’s rights is unfit to lead.

A leadership that lives in wealth while its people die in poverty is unfit to lead.

A leadership that doesn’t ensure equal rights for all is unfit to lead.

A leadership that allows and doesn’t combat corruption is unfit to lead.

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I am extremely pleased, proud and honoured to present the International Carnival of Pozitivities (2.10).

The Carnival consists of interesting, moving and sometimes funny articles, poems and vidoes by people affected by HIV/AIDs. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I did.

Forward to the Carnival,

We begin in Africa. Nata, in Botswana, is a village of 5000 people located on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans. Unfortunately, HIV/AIDS is having a devastating effect on the people of this small village. Botswana has the second highest HIV infection rate in Africa. Melody and Martha write entertainingly, and with lots of pictures, about the day the AIDS Fair came to Nata! posted at The Nata village blog. Melody and Martha also celebrate their blog’s 2nd anniversary. The Nata village blog is dedicated to the people of Nata who despite enormous losses and challenges still have the courage and determination to fight the ravages of this pandemic.

Giles Crouch, Slimconomy, writes about the many wild and weird claims made by people (unscrupulous and/or misguided) regarding the cure for HIV/AIDs and highlights the fact that the Internet has become the place where people can make declarations that have yet to be officially approved and especially with regard to herbal cures. “The Web means anything can be published. Any claims made. When people are suffering from a fatal disease, certainly any option will be investigated, herbs included”, he writes.

Steve Schalchlin is a songwriter, singer, pianist, actor, proto-blogger and internet legend amongst his many accomplishments. He writes about his recent performance in Chicago and writes that the group he performed for were “from the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, and I always love singing for medical students to remind them that patients are real people”. He hopes the students will remember ”we are vulnerable and we are scared and we usually feel helpless when caught up in the system. It’s hard enough to survive when you’re healthy in this world”.

Yerom presents a very funny video on Safer Sex. Rather risqué (be careful where you watch it) but hilarious, YouTube – AIDS/SIDA | L’avion (The Plane). In English, the text basically reads: “At least they had safe sex…”

“A recent study revealed that more than 30 percent of people living with HIV in New York City are 50 years old or older. Most have been infected for decades. But what’s worrying is the older adults who’re getting new infections”. Supermansaga presents a news report which highlights the worrying rise of HIV/AIDs among older people.

Deb Serani, Dr. Deb, presents a beautiful video – Love is Love is Love which shows us that there is no difference when it comes to love.

I love reading about road trips i.e. something going wrong with the car, the pit stops, the traveling companions etc and Shawn Decker in his blog entitled My Pet Virus does not disappoint. Shawn, who lives positively, writes about traveling with his wife Gwenn to “Milford, PA, to speak for the Pike County AIDS Awareness Day, and the 6-hour trek took close to 10 hours, delayed by traffic, rain and fog”. Despite the ups and down and the minor irritations, the trip is a success. Shawn writes “Gwenn and I spend a lot of time educating about HIV/AIDS and explaining that, by and large, we lead a pretty normal life with my pet virus”.

“I can honestly say that after 24 years of living with HIV I have been angry at it more than once. I have been angry for many reasons and I have been angry because HIV didn’t take me like it did so many others”, writes Mike in a very moving post. There is some hope, however. ”I know that some of my anger will diminish once the first signs of spring appear but some of them just don’t go away at the changing of the season. I can only hope that on most days the anger is balanced out with hope and dreams of what tomorrow may bring”.

Moffie tells it like it is in a post entitled: The HIV Closet. “If you are HIV + and not comfortable with your new state of health, you need to read this and absorb its content to your life…I don’t care if you are a Gay person, a Straight woman or Straight man: it is a part of you and a part of who you are. You might deny it, but to do so is not only futile, but is also very damaging to your own psyche. In the same way, HIV is now part of who you are. It will be with you until you die, and that is just the way it is.”

Brian Diggs of BlackAIDS.org writes about a presentation by Julian Bond, the NAACP Chairman speaking out on behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS. “A veteran civil rights advocate and former Georgia state representative and senator, Bond, 68, said he’s motivated to advocate on behalf of people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS because many of them are rendered silent by the stigma attached to the disease and “suffer alone” as a result.”

And on cue, the British Columbia People with AIDS Society write on HIV/AIDs stigma and calls for its end. ”Stigmatization is a social practice that brands an individual or group as disgraceful and devalues them because of some actual or perceived characteristic. It is a powerful force that negatively influences not only the way an individual or group is viewed, but also often the individual or group’s self-perception and self-image”.

The Alliance of AIDS Services, Carolina, is organising an AIDSWalk + Ride, Raleigh, NC, USA on Saturday May 8 to raise funds to support programs and services for persons living with HIV/AIDS in the region. Further information can be found on Ron’s blog, 2sides2ron.

Paul Kidd presents a video, We are the world posted at buggery.org.

Wille J. Phillips, talented author, artist and rap artist, debuts and guest writes over at 2sides2ron in a post which is the first in a series of chapters of Willie’s science-fiction martial arts novel, Godfist Legend: Zero7. Willie’s work is not HIV-related and offers a brief respite from the norm.

Bill Mann, poet also debuts and guests and presents a lovely poem at 2sides2ron. The poem is entitled “Resurrection of Renewal” and includes the following lines:

Coming of Spring
Revels a new call
Of awakening
A powerful resurrection.

The wonderfully named, Shadowstar ex Machina, aka, Willie J. Phillips guests also at 2sides2ron and presents a poem “Sometimes Forget”.

On his blog, dropdeadhappy, Mark Kokocki presents an article on shame written by guest writer, M. Dewayne Benson, comedian, poet, writer and POZ speaker. “What echoes in my ear is that everyone seems to feel shame on some level. Why is this? Certainly shame devalues us and our self esteem…As adults we should learn to accept and love who we are and what we have done! Otherwise we only hold ourselves back from change and/or progress in this life”.

Last but not least, Gug, GayUganda, writes about the complexity and strengths of the extended family in Africa. In the story of his uncle, who is terminally ill, Gug shows how differently people deal with death. Of his uncle he writes, “He is sick, and dying, and knows it. He has fallen back to his extended family, and they surround him. Reconciled to death’s appointment, he can even afford to crack morbid jokes, alarming and embarrassing the relatives who are distraught and fearful. But he is ready, and I hope when mine comes, I am as ready!”.

Gug also writes about Lesbians and HIV in Africa and the problems ‘of a hidden, closeted society…A society of the shadows”, where HIV prevention campaigns fail to address gay people because of “official inertia and homophobia”.

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This is the house that hate built

This is the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the machete
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the man
That used the machete
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the gun
That killed the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the policeman
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the politician
That gave the order
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the mob
That confronted the politician
That gave the order
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the priest
That calmed the mob
That confronted the politician
That gave the order
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

This is the coffin
That carried the priest
That calmed the mob
That confronted the politician
That gave the order
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built.

These are the people
That mourned and wailed
That bore the coffin
That carried the priest
That calmed the mob
That confronted the politician
That gave the order
That shot the man
That killed the boy
That threw the rock
That lay in the house that hate built

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we hear a woman’s raped every
30 minutes this fact needs to be
adjusted as 56 & more
many more were assaulted
inside the first 2 days of
premeditated brutality
of the elephants’ skirmish

their bodies are the frontline
where foes are belittled
& age-old grudges viciously settled

meanwhile rallies sermonise
peacemakers negotiate &
dealmakers mediate
they play the blame game who instigated
what who killed whom excuse me while
i spit & yet do not speak
of the trauma & the terror
& shun the soundless screams of
untold others who in mute silence suffer
they talk about democracy
about ethnocracy autocracy
& just about any cracy you can think of
malevolence shrouded in words
while powerless women little girls
boys & men are abused what
do they know about sacrilege how much
do they care about the shame & humiliation?
how many little girls did you rape today baba?
we know bodies may be healed but
spirit bruises soul lacerations are
indelible quotidian &
never ever leave your side

their bodies are a battlefield
whose destruction’s a conscious
act of ethnic cleansing

in some place we hear
the price for one rape is a goat how
many goats for gang rapes or
for sodomised little boys
we know this isn’t about gratification
nor passion & we are aware of the imperative
revenge domination control
opportunism thuggery it
really doesn’t really matter as the
sacrifice’s been made
the earth’s tasted their blood
their tears soak the ground
mission accomplished
they ask what they should do
as they pray for divine reckoning &
vengeance of cosmic magnitude
they live in constant sorrow & in dread of the hatred spewing
men with rungus for fists & serrated panga eyes
do they not feel pain when you
hurt them do they not bleed when you defile them?

their bodies are a battle ground
their violation
a weapon of war their
bodies are a combat zone
their degradation a
weapon of mass destruction

baba = father
rungus = clubs
panga = machete

First published in Pambazuka

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I dreamed of death last night
Chaotically strewn corpses
Decomposing body parts

I dreamed of death last night
My mind buzzed ceaselessly
Befuddled by the sickening reek of death

I dreamed of death last night
With a requiem my heart awoke battered &
Frayed & welcomed me to
The eighth circle of hell
Where death and life are as one
Kyrie eleison
Lord have mercy
I was one with fraudsters & lechers
Evil brutes &
Charlatans
Souls submerged in muck
Confidence tricksters
Dastardly crooks
Dodgy merchants &
The breeders of hatred and discord
Shady politicians &
Devious advisers
Bogus prophets
So twisted they walked backwards

All hope was forsaken

I dread the night

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