Since I can remember my life has been marked by obsessive and addictive behaviour. Often, my behaviours and addictions created a sphere of loneliness around me which could be even more debilitating that the personality defects and deficits.

The acts I chose, unconsciously or drunkenly or stoned, to commit, were not the kind of acts many people could understand or even tolerate.

And, in time, I obviously had to make some tough choices and do some rather strict inner searching, in order to live life without the ups and downs which addiction caused.

I overcame cocaine addiction when I was about 29. Then I stopped drinking when I turned 33. But, less than a year later, I was back at the bottle. For the first year, all went ok. Until the past few months.

I have tumbled so deep into the rabbit hole of unfathomable, shameful and painful problem drinking, that once again, I stand at the steep decline of loneliness and utter desolation.

And so, on Thursday, three days ago, I took a vow to once again quit drinking. And since I live in the middle of nowhere there is no Alcoholics Anonymous to turn too. No support group. And since I pissed them off, no friends.

I am lucky that my partner remains with me. But at the moment I feel so lost and afraid, that I'm doing quite a decent job at pushing him away. Away from this wreck of a human being who has once again, after so many many times, committed the ultimate no-no in the world of the non-addicts - demonstrated how sad and pathetic we as addicts can become when we allow the source of our anguish to completely overwhelm us.

And so here I stand - an addict - facing a lifetime of no beer and wine - feeling sad, lost and alone. And I reach out to anyone out there - is anyone listening?

HIV gave her courage

FOURTEEN years ago, when she was pregnant with her second child, a son, Magdalena Ndjuao discovered that she was HIV positive. Since then, her life has been subjected to the ultimate tests of courage, patience and acceptance.
Although the illness with its associated stigma and fear at first rendered Magdalena helpless, she made the decision in 2001 to publicly acknowledge her HIV status.
“On 20th December 2001, I publicly disclosed that I was HIV positive.”
Magdalena describes the relief she felt as immediate and says she felt an immense burden lift from her shoulders, as she no longer felt the need to hide the truth from others.
Her life since then has transformed her, Magdalena says.
“I can say that I'm courageous, and I am brave. It made me strong and I can face many challenges. I can't say that there was a day that I was laid down because of the illness.”
She says that during this time, the “stigma of HIV and Aids was still immense” but her public announcement made her feel less judged and garnered surprising allies who provided much needed support and understanding.
Magdalena admits that when she was first diagnosed, “I thought it was the end. I would not be able to make it, I would not be able to raise my baby. But then he was born, and he was HIV negative.”
Because her child “never got sick, it motivated me. And then, when I went public, I was even more motivated to live.”
Along the way, Magdalena, who belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, said she was helped by her spirituality and the church gave her a platform from which to talk to others.
As she began to accept the reality of living with HIV, she says she “felt there was hope and life.”
The training she received throughout the years from Lirongo Eparo, the first HIV NGO in Namibia, gave her insight into the illness and empowered her.
“In the beginning, you feel defenceless, now I felt empowered through knowledge.”
She said that it took years, before people began to differentiate between HIV the virus, and AIDS, the illness resulting from the breakdown in the immune system when the virus overwhelms the bodies defence mechanisms against illness.
A decade ago, Magdalena and a group of HIV afflicted in the Otjiwarongo area decided to launch a support group, the first in the Otjozondjupa region and one of the few in existence at that time in Namibia. Fellow founders included Elsie Wilas and Richard Gamkwasie, well-known HIV activists.
“The reason we decided to launch the support group, was that we all had the same problems, and we felt the need to support each other.”
A support group not only provides a pillar of strength to the group, she explained, but because “everyone reacts differently to the news” problems can be addressed through the input given by many.
Magdalena is a fervent believer in the necessity of support groups for people living with HIV.
“Many people wonder what others will think. But you are a person and you need to get on with your life.”
She says that support groups encourage people to “fight the stigma and disdain. Information helps us move forwards and to break the myths.”
Isolation is dangerous to any person diagnosed with a chronic disease, and in professional health circles it is believed that a focus on continuing with normal daily activities, such as employment and socialising, can distract patients from the negative perceptions and implications of their illness.
Magdalena says that support groups help people to keep fear and doubts at bay, while at the same time lessening these emotions by sharing them with others in similar situations.
“Don't sit at home. It is better to be with people who are also HIV positive and who will encourage you to go forward.” She also explained that it is up to each person whether they want to disclose their status to the wider community, but inside the support group, confidentiality is protected.
Magdalena says Namibia has come far in certain aspects when it comes to HIV.
“I don't think the stigma is that bad anymore. Yes, it is still there, but the majority of people talk about it openly now and go for tests.”
The Otjozondjupa support group was used as Namibia's pilot test group for ARV's.
“We were chosen because of our fight against the stigma. We were publicly positive.”
Magdalena was excited about the introduction of ARV's into the country.
“Personally, as I understood it, ARV's prolonged our lives, less people would die. There would no longer be a funeral each weekend, I was very relieved.”
Since she has been on ARV's, her CD4 count has remained high and has never dipped below the dangerous mark of 200.
“My CD4 count was about 200 before the ARVs and immediately after I began taking ARV's, it jumped to 400 and then 600. “
In August 2009 Lironga Eparo, the HIV NGO action group, approached Magdalena and asked her to be the Regional Vice Chairperson on behalf of the group for the region. She completed a leadership course and is now streamlining the groups members and meetings from her base in Otjiwarongo.
Magdalena is passionate about her work, and aside from being a volunteer at group support meetings, she works at the New Start Centre in Orwetoweni, which provides HIV testing.
But, Namibia's struggle with the epidemic remains open to improvement.
Magdalena feels that “people must focus on rural areas more, there needs to be more training in communities. Alcohol is the biggest problem as it increases the risk.”
Unemployment is also a factor in the spread of HIV, Magdalena says.
“Everyone must get tested.”

My remote controlled world

– confessions of an unashamed (part-time) TV junkie

FOR the modern eight-to-five worker, convenient lifestyle accessories are a given. But aside from cellphones and laptops, which reek of work and deadlines, there is an ideal “me time” accessory that hands me control and a way to shut out the “real world”

My DStv PVR. After a hard day at work my PVR is the one technological device in my life that gives me total control; it does not ring at inconvenient times or allow rude messages to ruin my dinner time; it only gives me pop-ups on screen when I demand it to do so; it opens up a window of control rarely available to me in the working world.

I became a fan of PVR two years ago, when I was living in Windhoek without any free or pay-television. Twice a month, I drove to my parents, who live in a small, quiet rural town. Here, I spent a day relaxing, watching my favourite TV programmes , pre-programmed to tape during the week. No longer at the mercy of set TV schedules, I was able to watch what I wanted when I wanted.

I know that there are some out there who will scoff at the notion of a person watching TV for a whole day (my mother for instance) but for me, mental health is often fleetingly restored to me when I can disconnect from the world and enter another via my remote control. I can, for a brief moment, relinquish my problems and replace my own worries with the on-screen lives of others – whose problems are always solved.

Recently I started sharing a house with a good friend. And although we have pets, books and a garden to keep us occupied, I still retreat to the ethereal world of television after a hectic day at work.

My house mate and I have dual PVR, which allows us to watch TV in our separate rooms and has, I firmly believe, contributed greatly to our peaceful and loving living conditions – no remote control fights, no “I wanna watch this rather than that” disputes and most importantly of all, no man vs woman power struggles.

The best part of this arrangement, and the mere presence of my PVR, is that I decide my TV schedule. With a working life that is not exactly limited from 8 to 5, I never have to worry about missing a favourite show. And now, I have discovered a new delight: DStv on Demand.

This little gem is one of the newest gadgets available to PVR fans – the men in the machine tape the most popular shows for you – without you having to pre-programme the taping.
This is really handy, considering that my television tastes are quite eclectic and I often have to choose between taping a prime time show and a less popular, but equally (to me and my cat) interesting show. (Cooking shows, Ruby or those mind-blowing Discovery shows about the universe that make you feel cleverer than you really are).

Now, I don't bother with taping popular shows any more, because I know that the next day, they will be available on my DStv on demand schedule.
I could go on and on about the wonders of my remote controlled world: pausing during live viewing, rewinding etc. but all I will say is this: Once you've tasted a PVR, you can never go back to the “controlled” TV world we inhabited before the revolution.
And as Julius Caesar said during the birth of civilisation: “Veni, vidi, vici” - “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Or is the other way around, and did the PVR conquer me?

A future without face

ONE WEEK ago, I killed myself! Or rather, my online identity. I deleted my Facebook account. But there is a hitch.
Facebook has given me 14 days to change my mind, before it deletes four years of photos, chats, status line updates, accumulated friends and vampire points.
This window of opportunity to sign on and save my Facebook account has given rise to a feeling akin to beating an addiction. There is a little hum in my head, a voice, that whispers and encourages – sign on, save your information, get back into the swing of things!
It hasn't been easy. A part of me loves Facebook and my cut off from daily perusals of the lives of friends, most of whom I haven't had non-Facebook contact with for many years, has led to inner conflict. Why does this feel like kicking a habit, and why I am doing this to myself?
The whole point of Facebook, after all, is that it is a central meeting place that conveniently keeps you in touch with friends from near and far, gives you a chance to re-connect with long lost friends and even, sometimes, make new ones.
But, despite this, I keep on going back to the fact that a part of my Facebook time is spent looking and listening in on the lives of 'friends' with whom I've shared very little non-facebook time with, and would not go out of my to see face to face.
Could it be that Facebook hints at our collective need as human beings to ensure that we are part of a 'tribe', that we belong, that we are not alone? And, by doing it from a technically isolated place in the real world, at your desk with your computer – you engage with your 'tribe' only in a superficial way, and forget how to do it in real life?
It could even be that Facebook has blurred the idea of friendship and enlarged the proverbial circle of friends, just as gossip magazines have deepened our intimate knowledge of celebrities – people we will never meet, but who are as familiar as close friends.
This is the information age, but for me, Facebook has dramatically shifted the natural boundaries of personal information, making it possible to delude myself into a sense of 'friendship', when in reality, that relationship is based on a carefully selected array of information that we feel comfortable enough to share with others. Real friendship can be messy and force us to deal with issues that come up when human beings forge lasting bonds. Facebook, on the other hand, can create artificial relationships that never require any proper emotional input.
A close 'friend' (well, our communication is limited to g-talk) had this to say when I told him about my decision.
“Why the f … ck would you want to do that? You lose a massive part of the current human experience. You lose touch with folks you know or have known who now have no route to find you. You stop taking part in the common cultural dialogue.”
My friend might have a point. And that could be the reason I am struggling to wean myself off Facebook. It is the thought that I'm cutting myself off from the positive benefits of technological advancement and that I am quite probably romanticising an old-fashioned idea of a close-knit circle of 'real' friends.
To me, the massive cultural evolution that is Facebook or Twitter or the like, has created a new sphere of human interaction – but is it real or false?
We possess unprecedented amounts of information on mere acquaintances, on movie and rocks stars and Facebook friends, that to a degree, subtracts from the real meaning of friendship.
Facebook and similar sites broaden the injection of intimate details of others into our own lives, while at the same time pushing out the old fashioned mechanisms and need to create real friendship.
Another friend, who lives in Britain but with whom I shared a close friendship while we were both living in Cape Town, and whose life I have been able to track to a degree via Facebook, also disagrees with me.
“As a discerning Facebook user, I point out that it is possible to in fact say no. No, you are not going to be my friend, random person I last saw in Grade 11. And, if I must say yes after all, I can block you from seeing anything at all, that I don't want you to see (person at work I do not trust completely).”
He added that the fact that “we have become lazy” makes Facebook useful. “Log on only once, instead of picking up the phone five times. Which is great, but also a bit sad. But if we are keeping in touch, and that means, in touch with the people we really want to and should and more so care about, why not through Facebook?”
I guess I could choose to ignore the automatic trap that Facebook places in front of me – the trap of immersing myself in an ocean of 'friends', and limiting my acceptance of them. Honestly though, who can resist the temptation? Where is the line in which you decide not to accept a friend? Can you? Do you? I am uncomfortable with this particular apple on the Facebook tree.
Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the evolving technological wonders just as much as anyone. I am a little too fond of my TV, I write emails and I adore my laptop. I couldn't, and wouldn't, wish for a day without my cellphone. I love Skype, and its face to face time afforded to me on cheap broadband.
And yet Facebook makes me feel torn about a revolution of co-dependent voyeurism, which, if we are not careful, can cost us valuable emotional ties that create meaning and struggles needed for our growth.
Will I make it through 14 days of being 'faceless'? Who knows? I can change my mind, and decide to return to it, creating a more select group of online friends - ones I am sure to want to have a drink with in real life. After all this thinking about Facebook, I am ready to re-define my use of it, in order to make it work for me instead of exposing myself to its potential of acting like a global-suburban gossip magazine.
There is another voice in my head though. It teases me with the thought that I will be okay without Facebook, that friends will continue to locate me without exact directions on Facebook, that I'll still be in the loop and know what is going on in my friends lives, without a little help from this social network.
And anyway, I could never post this long an opinion on my status line – it by far succeeds the 300 character limit ...

Dog Diary vs Cat Diary: Insights into our beloved pet's minds

I received this email today, and I can honestly say that it is the best, to my mind, "forward" email I have received in a while:

DOG DIARY

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!

1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!

7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!

11:00 PM - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

CAT DIARY

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash

or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations

perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my

strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I

had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly

demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending

comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed

in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear

the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to

the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this means, and how to use it to

my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my

tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this

again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.

The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to

be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

Whirlwind

Today in a week, my job as a reporter at the newspaper ends. Unbelievable, what has happened in the space of nine months. Unhappy and fat, I began my first job as a writer. Withing weeks I knew that I had finally found the job of my dreams. I wrote, and they paid me. Yes, they did not pay much, but nontheless it was my break through.
And in a week, I head off, towards new waters, new rivers and probably a crocodile or two. While I am leaving the media, for a while, I know that I'll be back. It is that knowledge that keeps me going now.

On the first of June I begin work at a lodge situated close to the hear of Hartman's Valley, near the Kunene and on the border of Angola. Rural does not begin to describe this isolated luxury post, catering to the needs of the few who can afford it. It will be a privilege to work in such a pristine environment. I'll also get up close and personal to the Himba tribes from whom the lodge rents the land. I'm quite excited about that, and look forward to my experiences with them.

The good news, is that it is not permanent. I'll be coming back to the world of news very soon. Sooner than I at first thought was possible. Yesterday, out of the blue, I got a call from one of the major national newspapers operating in Namibia. They offered me a job. So, soon, after a bit of time out, serving the privileged, I'll be back again, kicking the ass of the privileged. Such fun. Such brilliance. Such sunshine (I'm trying to talk like Tom Schmooze, who doesn't seem to be able to utter a single sentence without using 'brilliant', fantastic, adorable, absolutely and amazing).

So, I'm looking forward to the absolutely amazing privilege of serving and then kicking. Serve. Kick. Serve. Kick. Yay.

In the meantime, I'll keep on writing here on a regularly basis. This is after all, the absolute right time, to continue blogging on "Rural Adversities."

Goodbye, Baby

My day's as a bona fide reporter are numbered.

It's really very sad. It seems that despite my sincerest hopes that this life would be the beginning of something, it proved only to give me a taste of something and then wrench me away again.

But sometimes, in life, we are forced to make decisions that are unpleasant. That are unimaginable. Like saying good-bye to my dog, Gilby, who has been my loyal and loving companion for the past months.

It is all so sad. Very, very sad. My heart is breaking.