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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I am extremely pleased to announce that the next International Carnival of Pozitivities will be taking place on this blog in April. The International Carnival of Pozitivities is a blog carnival for people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. This includes every human being on the planet Earth. The aim of this initiative is to provide an international forum for interaction among people living with HIV/AIDS and for their caregivers, family and/or friends or those who are involved in the fight to end this worldwide pandemic. Read more about the Carnival here.

The guidelines for participation are quite straightforward and can be found here. To take part, please register your entry here. You can also nominate blog entries by other authors for this Carnival but their consent must be obtained first. I will also be on the lookout for posts that are suitable for the Carnival.

The most recent Carnival (2.9) is currently taking place at Creampuff’s blog.

The Carnival is maintained by Ron Hudson – a great person and a friend.

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Yesterday was No Smoking Day here in the UK. I am ecstatic this year as I don’t have to have to go through the unending cycle of convincing myself that I need to quit only to see the day come and go with me still smoking. Oh the guilt and the denial.

This cycle went on for so long; I almost gave up trying to give up. Then something happened. I am not exactly sure what. Perhaps it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, when the moon was in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligned with Mars and peace guided the plants and love steered the stars (I am now going to have this tune going round in my head all day) because last June (22nd to be exact), I gave up the evil weed forever.

I went through phases where I convinced myself that smoking was just one amongst the many things one could die from. I reminded myself of the fable about the man who lived to 93 and suffered nary a cough even though he had smoked practically all his life.

I comforted myself with the thought that you could be knocked down by the No.38 bus one morning on the way to work and die on the spot, whether you smoked or not. The difference, which I ignored, was the control issue. Even after doing all the right things i.e. look twice to the left and right, crossing at the pedestrian crossing, etc, you could not account for how the driver of the No.38 bus would be handling that steering wheel that morning, his/her state of mind, the mechanical state of the bus, etc. In other words, you had no control over what happened after a certain point.

With smoking, you, the smoker, have the control. You decide to buy the cigarettes and you decide to put one in your mouth. It follows then that you can decide to stop doing all these things and stop smoking if you really want to do so. It sounds easy enough but as any smoker knows quitting smoking is extremely difficult. I received help from my local NHS clinic which included weekly one-to-one sessions with a health care worker, nicotine patches and gum combined with the important fact that I was ready to stop smoking. The NHS has calculated that helping people who want to stop smoking is cheaper than treating people with smoking-related diseases – once you mention you want to stop smoking to your doctor the support is instantaneous.

The support from your doctor and the use of patches and gums can be useful but I believe the most important tool at the disposal of anyone who wants to stop smoking is will power. In my experience, really wanting to stop smoking enables you to exert the discipline to turn your mind away from cigarettes. What I am saying is that you can stop smoking (with or without the assistance of nicotine patches, gums, etc) if you really want to stop.

At the risk of sounding evangelical if you are reading this and you smoke, take a minute to consider the damage you are doing to your lungs, body and health generally. Consider stopping. Take the challenge and see if you can last a week. You will feel the benefits almost immediately. I stopped and it has changed my life.

No Smoking Day

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