CELESTINE'S STORY: "I feel I have a second chance"

“People thought I would die, and some even thought if they sat close to me they would get the disease,” she says. “Close relatives here thought that.”

Celestine, now 39, put them right, but her case illustrates a problem faced by countless HIV sufferers in Africa. Ignorance is rife – and it’s anything but bliss.

Today, Celestine is defying her HIV, living a proactive life and sticking diligently to her treatment.

She is a beneficiary of the rural transport network (RTN), which brings information and help to the most remote parts of Kenya. She is a member of a local support group, which meets every Monday, and she also has a weekly meeting with her health worker Rogers Ochieng.

“I feel I have a second chance,” she says, as she talks to us in her simple home. “I feel healthy and good. I am not worried about getting disease, because we have been taught.

“I have benefited from the support group both materially and socially. There are things we are given when we go that help, like cooking fat or fuel, and we are able to interact with one another.

We’re happy that there’s somebody else in the same position.”

Rogers and Celestine discuss her progress and also general issues around malaria, HIV and AIDS, stressing the importance of medication, education and mosquito nets.

Celestine receives valuable advice, but she also passes it on to others. She shares her home in Usenge village, beside Lake Victoria, with her daughters Lavender and Irene (20 and 15 respectively) and also cares for her late sister’s and brother-in-law’s four children, including a four-year-old, Evans, who has polio and HIV.

She would like the children to learn, urges them to continue with education, and stresses the importance of safe sex, but has not yet told Evans in full about the significance of his HIV.

He takes his drugs as part of his daily routine, but Celestine will explain more only when he is eight.

Her own illness came to light in 2006, after she was diagnosed with malaria. She was put on medication but remained sick. Her hair turned a paler brown and black spots appeared on her skin. Rogers advised her to be tested for HIV, and the result came back positive.

“I was not frightened. When I was pronounced positive, I was very courageous, because Rogers had prepared me and told me there were drugs, anti-retrovirals, that were helping people.

“I told my mother and children. They asked “mummy will you die?” But my response was no, because now there are drugs making people live for longer.

“Without Rogers, I would have died because I would have been threatened and frightened.”

She takes two pills a day, one in the morning and one in the evening.

She believes she contracted HIV through her husband, who had died in 1999, and who is among 15 relatives she has lost in recent years, many probably to HIV. Her positive outlook, though, is striking.

Rogers says that is because she has accepted her status. “She is stoic and strong and knows to seek medical help if she’s ill,” he says.

Celestine puts it down also to her own strength and faith.

“Right now, I’m just concentrating on prayers,” she says.

She looks up at the wall opposite her chair and points at a large crack running down from the ceiling.

“I am a strong woman. I am facing life religiously. Right now, what disturbs me is that crack.”

Gavin Aitchison travelled to Kenya with Christian Aid, to witness the charity's work with HIV victims and to meet those on the front-line in the fight against the virus.

• Christian Aid’s Christmas appeal this year is focused on HIV, marking the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the virus.

If you would like to donate to the appeal, or would like to find out more about Christian Aid's work on health and HIV, visit christianaid.org.uk/christmas or call 0845 7000 300.