Uma's Battle

It had been raining hail all of yesterday in Gebreguracha (Oromia region) and when I arrived in the morning, there were still mounds of hail everywhere. The sky overhead was grey and I already had misgivings about having chosen this dark day to meet *Uma Shewa, our current diarist whose story is running on Aantee on Radio Ethiopia. Nevertheless, Shewaye Arega, the producer of Uma's diaries had told me a disturbing story and had me worrying about her. The dark day did nothing to ease my mind. I had to go out to Gebreguracha and see the situation for myself - it had already been more than 2 weeks since Uma's parents asked her to leave her home.

Uma and her 14 year old daughter, *Sara, had been living with her parents for some years now, all the while paying them rent. However, even that benefit didn't stop her parents from asking them to leave the 2-room house she occupied on their compound. Uma's frustration arose partially from being asked to leave the house she had spent her time and money re-building; but the bigger aggravation was that her eviction was unwarranted, undeserved and initiated by her birth parents. They still haven't said why they want her out, although Uma suspects it was her candid narrations on Aantee that provoked them.

I arrived at Uma's office early in the morning, where I found her clad in a thick rainproof coat, as though dressed not only against the weather but also the familial battle that was looming ahead of her. We chose an abandoned café to sit and talk. I was cautious about bringing out my notepad to take notes, so as to not pressure her into talking immediately or attract the attention of the waiters. But Uma didn't hesitate to start spilling her story. She told me that even the intervention of the family priest and other friends made no impact on her parents' decision to evict her. Her eyes hardened when she mentioned her daughter Sara had been there to witness the whole scene unfold between her mother and grandparents with teary eyes. On Aantee, Uma already speaks about her relationship with her mother and elder sister that has been strained since her childhood.  The bigger betrayal for her seems to be her father's standing in all of this, despite how close she always believed they were. I asked her if she thought there was a way the dispute could be solved. "I could have kissed their knees and apologized, but I can't do that for every episode that might offend them in the future".I always perceived Uma as a fiercely independent and determined woman, but today, with her guard down, it showed that she was sad and deeply hurt. Her story was affecting others besides just me - when I turned around, I saw all the waiters and new customers had been listening intently and incredulously.

Her search for another house met with no success (after being mysteriously turned down by several landlords who had initially agreed to sublet) until 2 days before my visit. Uma found a 2-room house in a kebele compound where four other tenants living with HIV lived. "Maybe I'll find peace amongst people of my own kind," Uma mutters under her breath as she shows me half heartedly around her new home-to-be. Several children and adults from the compound were helping to move her furniture in. It must have been comforting to Uma to know that other people are so devoted to helping her, but I also knew they could never replace her family. "Do you regret talking on Antee?" I asked her. She shook her head, "the only thing I regret is that it's my own flesh and blood doing this to me, instead of strangers I might expect it from. This is my family! Who do I go and complain about them to??"

The fact that Uma is experiencing stigma, and at her family's hands no less, makes me understand that we will never run out of issues to navigate and negotiate in the realm of HIV, on our radio diaries and in life. And that no matter how hard our diarists try or how far their voices reach, there will always be that one listener in the form of a neighbor, employer, colleague (or even parent I'm now learning) who will remain impenetrably ignorant about the dangers of stigma and discrimination. And while we are always conscious of how talking on the radio can create or add to complications in the diarists lives, it is stories like these that encourage us not to give up and to continue producing and broadcasting Aantee, Me'munay and Betengna. Uma certainly isn't ready to give up, so how can we?

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the persons