KIGALI, Rwanda

Dozens of womenchatted while tod-dlers played andbabies cried in thewaiting room at the

downtown Kigali health clinicrun by the U.S.-based Women’sEquity to Access for Care andTreatment, or WE-ACTx.

The bustling, cheery atmos-phere of the clinic contrastswith the grim reason it exists— to bring treatment and dig-nity to women raped andinfected with the HIV virusduring the country’s 1994 geno-cide.

“We see about 100 patientsevery day at this clinic,” saidJoseph Hakizimana, 29, theorganization’s country clinicalco-ordinator and one of itsfounding employees. With threeclinics and two mobile units,they serve almost 5,000, nearlyhalf of those receiving free,life-saving, anti-retroviral med-ication. “We can still do more,especially in the rural areaswhere women and men don’teven know to get tested.”

Hakizimana is passionateabout community-driven actionin addressing HIV/AIDS inRwanda. He will be in Victoriathis week to speak about thepower of grassroots women’sorganizations in creatingaccess to care and treatment ofHIV/AIDS, a pandemic thataffects all of Africa.

“Because of a lack of doc-tors, nurses, infrastructure andthe aid organizations who con-centrate themselves in cities,many people are not beingreached,” Hakizimana said.

Hakizimana was a highschool student in Butare dur-ing the 1994 genocide, in which800,000 people were killed in100 days, and 250,000 brutalrapes occurred. The traumaand the aftermath moved himto study nursing at universityand to volunteer to work withhis mother’s organizationIMBABAZI, helping AIDSorphans and widows in therural Cyangugu province, thefarthest from Kigali.

“I loved it. That was a hugemotivator for me,” said Hakiz-imana.

His ensuing work with geno-cide-survivor groups led him tobecome one of WE-ACTx’s firstemployees in 2004.

The organization formedafter American journalistAnne-Christine D’Adesky wascontacted by a group of Rwan-dan women who were rapedand infected with HIV duringthe genocide. They were dyingwhile the men who raped themwere being treated in jail await-ing trial.> See DIGNITY, Page D7

From despair to dignity In Rwanda, a bustling clinic propels women’s recovery from rape, effects of genocide

MONITOREditor: Phil Jang > Telephone: 995-4443 > E-mail: pjang@tc.canwest.com

I N S I D E M O N I T O RGood — if aged — sportsThe Major finds that time has taken its tollon the finest athletes of his generation atthe club in Major’s Corner this week.

> Page D9

Seven Days in picturesSoldiers and sailors ship out, and a fugi-tive is captured — we look back at themost striking images of the past week.

> Page D9

Rise of the virtual prowlersWhether you’re posting vacation photos onFacebook or paying bills online, your lifeis becoming an open book to cyber snoops.

> Page D7

SARAH PETRESCUspetrescu@tc.canwest.com

Above: Friends Maria Bahizi, left,and Miriam Jean work on colour-ful items for sale at the We-Actxclinic in Kigali. The work initia-tive is a project of the clinic thathelps women dealing with HIV.

Left: Joseph Hakizimana, themanager of the We-Actx clinic,has been working to helpwomen with HIV since the Rwan-dan genocide in 1994. He will bein Victoria April 23 to talk abouthis work.

PHOTOS BY SARAH PETRESCU

KIGALI STORY TOLD IN VICTORIAThere are two opportunities onWednesday to hear JosephHakizimana’s talk, The Power ofWomen’s Grassroots Organizations inCreating Universal Access to Care andTreatment, about his work with theKigali health clinic and HIV/AIDS inRwanda:! at 10:30 a.m., in the David StrongBuilding (Room C126) at theUniversity of Victoria and ! at 7:30 p.m., in Gibson Auditorium(Young 216) at Camosun College.Admission is by donation.

SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008 D1

S-Kings return 5-4 loss moves series back to Victoria SPORTS >C1

Getting in step High-tech gear gets runners up to speed LIFE >B9

Chinatown Series finale profiles Junior Lion Dancers MONITOR >D5

www.timescolonist.com | Xxxxxxday, Xxxxxxxxx 00, 2008 Victoria, British Columbia High 8. Details, C6 Patti Page is still the rage, B1

1 8 5 8 – 2 0 0 8

ERIC AKIS B9ARTS B1BOOKS D10

CAPITAL A3CLASSIFIED C8COMICS B5-B8

CROSSWORDS D4EDITORIALS D2EVENTS B10

HOROSCOPE B10JACK KNOX A3LETTERS D3

LIFE B9OBITUARIES C14SCOREBOARD C2

SPORTS C1SUDOKU B10TELEVISION B4

CIRCULATION, 382-2255 HOW TO REACH US, A2 150TH YEAR | NO. 130 $1.40 PLUS GSTS E C T I O N SA NEWS, CAPITALB ARTS, LIFE, COLOUR COMICSC SPORTS, CLASSIFIEDD MONITOR

Sunday, April 20, 2008

RWANDA CLINIC HAS VICTORIA CONNECTION

SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONISTJoseph Hakizimana, 29, is the country clinical programs co-ordinator for Women’s Equity to Access for Care and Treatment in Kigali,Rwanda. The organization was formed in 2004 when three American women discovered that HIV-positive men in prisons werereceiving life-extending treatment, while the women they raped during the genocide were not. Hakizimana will be in Victoria thisweek to talk about grassroots HIV/AIDS organizations in the aftermath of genocide. In today’s Monitor section, Times Colonistreporter Sarah Petrescu writes about her visit to Hakizimana’s clinic in Rwanda in February in the second instalment of stories fromher Jack Webster Foundation’s Seeing the World Through New Eyes fellowship program, a partnership with the Canadian Interna-tional Development Agency. She also writes about the friendship that developed between one of the clients at the clinic and a Vic-toria woman and how letters they wrote to each other helped them each to cope with the effects of being HIV-positive and tobecome leaders in their respective communities. Monitor, D1.

Island records fall with late-April snow

JEFF BELLTimes Colonist

All of that April snow yester-day was more than surprising;it was record-setting.

David Wray of EnvironmentCanada said accumulations atVictoria International Airportreached 6.4 centimetres by 11a.m. — more than any Aprilday since 1940.

“The last record for Victo-ria International was 1955 onApril 14, and that was 5.1 cen-timetres.”

But the big record dumpcame in Nanaimo, where thecity hadn’t seen measurablesnow on April 19 since 1947. Asof 11 a.m., 24 centimetres cov-ered the ground at the airport.

“The previous record forNanaimo airport was 1981,April 12, with 4.9 centimetres.So this was quite significant.”

On the Malahat, heavyovernight snow prompted theRCMP to close the highway forabout an hour and a half earlyyesterday. Still, icy Malahatconditions around mid-morn-ing led to at least a pair of acci-dents, one near the top of theBamberton hill involving two

pickup trucks.Three people were believed

to have been taken to hospital.There was also a run of acci-

dents on snow-covered roadsaround Greater Victoria —where accumulations rangedfrom heavy to non-existent,depending on the area. Onemorning crash involved threevehicles at the bottom of an icyMarigold Road hill, nearInterurban Road.

The short, steep hill was sotreacherous that emergencypersonnel kept its ambulanceat the top and wheeled astretcher down to the crashsite. One person was taken tohospital, said Saanich Fire

Department Capt. KevinShields, but all injuriesappeared to be fairly minor.

Keeping the ambulance offthe hill was the best approachto take, Shields said.

“They would have beeninvolved in the accident if theytried to make that hill, it wasnasty.”

The heavy mid-morningsnow kept crews extremelybusy, he said.

“There were three differentunits at three different acci-dents at pretty well the sametime.”

Yesterday’s accumulationsprompted Saanich police toissue an advisory that

motorists travel only if neces-sary.

Blame the snow, at least inpart, on an arctic front thatfound its way to the Island.

Wray said the bulk of theflurries had eased off by mid-afternoon, and temperatureshad risen a fair amount.

“It’s still several degreesbelow normal for this time ofyear. Victoria’s normal temper-atures are lows of plus-5 andhighs of 14.”

Environment Canada’s fore-cast called for clouds and suntoday, along with a 60 per centchance of flurries or rain. Thehigh temperature today isexpected to be around 7 C.

Similar conditions are calledfor in Nanaimo.

On the other side of theRockies, as much as 15 cen-timetres fell on Calgary, just asresidents were trying to dig outfrom Friday’s big drop. Bliz-zard conditions were forecastinto today across much ofAlberta as a storm movednorth from Montana.Saskatchewan residents, mean-while, were expecting as muchas 50 centimetres of snow bythis morning.

In contrast, Ontario resi-dents were facing a smogwarning as a heat wave sweptacross the south and easternparts of the province, with tem-peratures as high as 24 C.jwbell@tc.canwest.com

Victoria’s old markwas set in 1955;several are injured

DEBRA BRASH, TIMES COLONISTFirefighters and paramedics assist the victim of an accident yes-terday morning on the Malahat near Tunnel Hill.

Sewage taxhikes couldexceed $700ROB SHAWTimes Colonist

Treating Greater Victoria’ssewage will cost residents asmuch as $700 a year in extrataxes, according to new esti-mates by the Capital RegionalDistrict, and some municipal-ities are already warning thecosts seem too high to bear.

The hardest hit is Oak Bay,where average homeownerscan expect to shell out $712.98in additional annual taxes by2017, when the entire sewagetreatment system is projectedto be online.

Langford residents are fore-cast to pay the least, $157.49annually, followed by $197.81in Colwood, $408.45 inEsquimalt, $430.88 in ViewRoyal, $464.85 in Victoria and$471.12 in Saanich.

“It’s an astounding figure,”said Oak Bay Coun. NilsJensen, who noted his commu-nity will also be paying $10.7million to upgrade the old com-bined sewer system inUplands. “We are going to takea double hit.”

The estimates are the mostdetailed look yet at how aplanned $1.2-billion sewagetreatment system — the mostexpensive project ever under-taken in the CRD — will hit thepocketbooks of taxpayers.

CRD staff compiled thenumbers after a request frompoliticians in January. But theestimates are far from com-plete. The municipalities havenot formally agreed on how toshare costs, and so the figuresare based on how individualcommunities already chargefor sewer and water usage.Some use property tax assess-ments — which can producebig bills in expensive commu-nities such as Oak Bay — whileothers are moving toward con-sumption-based billing.

Because of the discrepan-cies, CRD staff recommendhiring a consultant to sort outcost-sharing issues. The provin-cial and federal governmentshave already agreed to paytwo-thirds of the $1.2 billion.

The CRD now screens itssewage to remove solids anddischarges the waste into theocean. In 2006, the provinceordered the region to startplanning treatment plants.

The CRD’s current planscall for at least four plants,located at Macaulay Point inEsquimalt, Clover Point in Vic-toria and undetermined loca-tions in East Saanich andColwood. Sludge could betrucked from Esquimalt toHartland Landfill in Saanich.

Local politicians, who willdiscuss the tax estimates at aCRD sewage committee meet-

ing Wednesday, expressedmixed reactions.

“I don’t think those costs willfly in Oak Bay or in Colwood,”said Colwood Mayor Jody Twa.“Maybe we should be lookingat a lot of smaller plantsthroughout the region, someprivate and some public. I thinkwe’ve been going down a roadsimply because we’ve been toldwe have to. And I’m hearing alot of people around the tablesaying, ‘Are you sure?’ ”

Victoria Coun. Dean Fortinsaid, “no one likes having theirtaxes increased,” but that res-idents have shown a willing-ness to pay for environmentalinitiatives.

But Saanich Mayor FrankLeonard said that remains tobe seen.

“Political parties and politi-cians are quick to point topolling that says there’s mas-sive support for sewage treat-ment. I guess this will be thetest for it,” Leonard said. “Fortaxpayers to say they don’twant it now that they knowhow much it will cost, well, it’sa little late.”

Local municipalities will notbe able to spend on much elsein coming years as taxes risefor sewage treatment, a new$269-million tower at RoyalJubilee Hospital and $60 mil-lion for an expanded water-shed, Leonard said.

The tax estimates use capi-tal and operating costs fromthe latest consultant reportsand assume borrowing of sixper cent interest over 25 yearsand inflation of 2.5 per cent.The tax increases are phasedin, starting at as little as $1.79per average household in 2008and rising sharply in 2012 asthe first plants come online.The CRD did not define anaverage household.

The CRD also calculatedsmaller tax increases if com-munities pay only for “dryweather flow” at the plants.However, the larger estimatesinclude the CRD’s chronicproblems of rainwater enter-ing through decaying old pipes.rfshaw@tc.canwest.com

Oak Bay residents would pay most,Langford least in new annual fees

SOURCE: CRD

(Potential cost per year)

ColwoodEsquimaltLangfordOak BaySaanichVictoriaView Royal

$197.81408.45157.49712.98471.12464.85430.88

COST OF SEWAGE TREATMENT PER AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD, BY 2017

timescolonist.com >>>> Read the report on our website

Until June 14th $39 GST included

Includes admission and choice of either Appetizer plus Entrée, or Entrée plus Dessert

in The Dining Room Restaurantwww.butchartgardens.com 652.5256 (general info)

Spring Lunch Package12 Month Passonly $49

All the benefits at

butchartgardens.com/pass

M O N I T O RTIMES COLONIST D7SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008

Information overlords

KATHERINE DEDYNATimes Colonist

Credit-card purchases, businesscalls monitored for qualityassurance and closed-circuitTV in stores. Internet sales,cellphone calls, BlackBerrys

with global positioning systems andGoogle searches. They’re all part of thesurveillance society we increasinglyinhabit — one in which our movements,identity, transactions and interests canbe tracked.

We give out some info because wewant to: Think Facebook. But thanks tothe convergence of computer culturewith everything from security camerasto ID cards, there’s a growing potentialfor others to peek at our personal infor-mation without our permission.

The capacity to manipulate, dissem-inate and profile personal informationhas escalated at an “extraordinary”pace, says University of Victoria pri-vacy expert Colin Bennett.

It’s all very complex, which is whyfor the next seven years Bennett, fourgraduate students he’ll hire andresearchers from four other universi-ties will take part in a $2.5-millionresearch project called The New Trans-parency: Surveillance and Social Sort-ing, headquartered at Queen’sUniversity in Kingston.

The grant from the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council is asignal that the encroachment on privatelife is worth close examination.

“The potential for the linkage of thesedata across technologies is far greaterthan it was before,” Bennett says.

“A lot of this technology is converg-ing and so camera feeds can be down-loaded to the Internet — it’s all comingtogether.”

Which means that personal informa-tion — connected to an individual byname or other identifier such as a socialinsurance number — is at greater riskfor “transparency” or being seen by oth-ers.

“There’s a lot of research that sug-gests that individuals need privacy,” henotes. “And they need to be able to havea set of behaviours and understandingsabout themselves which are not acces-sible by other people. We are losing that,gradually.”

The researchers will try to pin downthe social effects of increased monitor-ing on the fabric of society, on the lev-els of trust between individuals andorganizations and on “social relationsgenerally when people know that theyare being watched in such an extensiveway,” he says. Many people are compla-cent but there’s also an awful lot of con-cern. “But they don’t think about itregularly.”

The convergence of surveillancetechnologies has implications for civilliberties, privacy and discrimination —the last because “some people get moresurveillance than others … And thosepeople tend to be ethnic minorities orlower down the social ladder.”

“We don’t want to get too pessimisticor paranoid about this, but the more datathat’s collected, the more inaccuratedata gets collected,” says Bennett, apolitical scientist and author of the forth-coming book Privacy Advocates —Resisting the Spread of Surveillance.

He points out that some monitoringis needed to make our complex globalsociety work now that we no longer relyon face-to-face interactions.

Bennett will co-ordinate research oncyber surveillance — how e-mails, cellcalls, web browsing and Google searchescan be tracked and used to profile indi-vidual and group behaviour.

When people make a cell call, forinstance, the number, the location andtime of the call are all tracked.

“We’re going to be trying to figureout exactly what happens when you[make] routine transactions in everydaylife,” he says, with researchers lookingat where the information goes, who hasaccess to it and what rules exist to pro-tect privacy.

He has already mapped out, in 21pages, the information flow involved inbooking an airline ticket at(web.uvic.ca/polisci/bennett/pdf/cpsa99.pdf).

A permanent record, processed in theU.S., is made in every case, with simi-lar treatment for hotel and rental-carbookings.

Legal protections for personal infor-mation in B.C. are “pretty good” com-pared to the rest of the world, he says.“But our laws, just like many others,have a lot of exemptions for variousthings, and organizations over the yearshave figured out how to use thoseexemptions in order to process more andmore personal information.

“We’re going to try to find outwhether the laws are adequate.”

Bennett will also look at the way B.C.employs surveillance cameras at the2010 Olympics and the long-term conse-quences if those cameras are retainedonce the Games are over — as occurredin some sites in Sydney and Athens.

“Is it really necessary to have thatkind of level of surveillance and theentire infrastructure that supports thatat enormous cost for the long term?” heasks.

kdedyna@tc.canwest.com

The convergence ofcomputer culture andhigh-tech surveillancegives others increasingaccess to your life

DEBRA BRASH, TIMES COLONISTUniversity of Victoria privacy expert Colin Bennett will be part of a $2.5-million project to examine the social effects of increasedhigh-tech monitoring on society. The research will look at where information goes, who has access to it and what rules existto protect privacy. “We’re going to be trying to figure out exactly what happens when you [make] routine transactions ineveryday life.”

THE IMPACT OF CHANGEUVic political scientist ColinBennett cites six changes intechnological surveillancethat affect everyday life:

1 The miniaturization ofdevices for collecting audio

information, visual informa-tion and data that makes themeasier to conceal.

2 The “obsession with secu-rity” stoked by the secu-

rity industry.

3 The crossover and con-tracting out between pub-

lic and private sectors.

4 The decentralization ofthe capture of information

thanks to web cams and cell-phones.

5 The explosion of socialnetworking Internet sites

where people post personalinformation without beingaware of consequences.

6 The move to globalizationthat sends a lot of Cana-

dian information about Inter-net purchases for overseasprocessing.

SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONISTJosee Mukamusoni came to the We-Actx clinic after contractingHIV when she was raped during the Rwandan genocide. She nowworks at the clinic.

> From Page D1

D’Adesky made internationalnews of the injustice but saidit was, “a time when wordswere not enough.”

With the help of two friends— a scientist and a doctor —and the collaboration of grass-roots women’s groups and thegovernment in Rwanda, theywere able to form the clinic,which has been a hub forresearch, primary health careand family support since itsinception.

Hakizimana said he is in aweof the women he works with.“They led this movement. Theyare very active,” he said. “Tobe raped or cut by a macheteand then find out you are sickfrom it. To have to explain thisto your children who are nowold enough to know how HIV istransmitted and want to knowwhy they are positive, this isnot easy.”

Several of the women whocame to WE-ACTx as clientsnow work there.

Josee Mukamusoni’s gleamwhen she talks about her workin the family programs beliesthe hell she went through dur-ing the genocide.

“My goal is to have all thefamilies I work with get testedand know their status,” Muka-musoni, 42, told me in Kin-yarwanda through a translator.“I have so much gratitude forthis work. I was rock bottomand now that past is fading.”

Mukamusoni and her hus-band, a petroleum productsalesman, lived in Butare withtheir three children before thegenocide. He was killed alongwith most of their relatives.

Mukamusoni broke intotears as she described the nighther daughter died.

“I had two of the children onme, one on each hip like this,”she gestured. “The militarymen came and she was shot inmy arms.”

Mukamusoni is also a victimof rape. She suspected shemight have HIV when the manwho assaulted her died of AIDSin prison in 1998. The stigma ofrape and HIV prevented herfrom getting tested until 2004,when she came to WE-ACTxand found out she was positive.

“Rape was just a weapon ofwar for them, to cause a slow,painful death of disgrace.Women were treated like ani-mals, abused in their ownhouses after the men werekilled,” said Mukamusoni.

“I feel sad hearing these sto-ries. They remind me of myown. But helping gives me away to do something and, atleast, help pay my rent. Lifedoes go on.”

Generating income isanother leg of the WE-ACTxproject, with an inventive 25-

year-old, Frank Mugisha, at itshelm.

“Everyone was coming heresaying, ‘Frank, food, we needfood,’ because poverty is a realissue and it’s hard to treat peo-ple who have nothing to eat,”said Mugisha, who co-ordinatesthe income-generating craft co-operative, Ineza. “We neededto do something sustainable,that didn’t cost a lot of money.”

Mugisha insisted I see theproject for myself.

“It’s very cool,” he said. Sowe took a taxi across town to asmall gated house where adozen or so women sat side-by-side sewing everything fromyoga bags to little brown dollson antique foot-pedal sewingmachines.

“The designs are the bestever,” Mugisha beamed, show-ing off the reversible purses,lap-top bags and aprons hedesigned with the head seam-stress, Sophie Nyiranawu-muntu. They looked to westerntourists and magazines forinspiration.

“You won’t see anything elselike this here. Even the fabricsare the most beautiful and rarewe could find.”

The women in the co-opera-tive receive weekly wages,transportation, food and yogaclasses. A constant stream ofinternational visitors and aidworkers purchase the items, aswell as retailers in the U.S. andnow at the online store atwww.manosdemadres.org.spetrescu@tc.canwest.com

Sarah Petrescu travelled to Rwandaand Mozambique as a winner of theJack Webster Foundation forJournalism ‘Seeing the World throughNew Eyes’ Fellowship – a partnershipwith the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency for emergingjournalists to report from developingcountries.

RECOVERY IN RWANDA

Dignity risesfrom the ashesof unspeakablehorror in Rwanda

FACING AIDSIN RWANDASome of the latest statistics com-piled from the UNAIDS 2006Update on the Global AIDSEpidemic and the United Nations2008 Country Report! In 2006, about two-thirds ofall persons infected with HIV(about 25 million) were living insub-Saharan Africa.! AIDS deaths in sub-SaharanAfrica represent 72 per cent ofglobal AIDS deaths.! People living with HIV/AIDS inRwanda: 190,000! AIDS deaths in 2005: 21,000! 75.8 per cent of women nevertested for HIV.! 78.1 per cent of men never

tested for HIV.

Cyber snoopingJust because you’re on a laptop in the privacy of your own homedoesn’t mean your web searches are private.Searches might or might not be identifiable via the Internet proto-col address attached to home computers, depending on the com-puter, the Internet service provider and whether users haveinstalled encryption software, says UVic privacy expert ColinBennett.Take note: “If you don’t clear your browsing history and yourcookie files, then third-party advertisers can find out where you’vebeen to.”Cookies store information, including a username, on the computerof a person using the Internet. Cookies allow a website to identifyusers who have previously visited the site and to tailor content,including advertising, to the user.

M O N I T O R TIMES COLONIST

Letters extend ties that bindSARAH PETRESCUTimes Colonist

KIGALI, Rwanda

E merithe Nakabonyesmiled proudly as shecame into the livingroom holding a remnant

of a rusty sign bearing thefaded word “Legumes.” It is theonly piece of her husband’s artshe owns. It is the one scrapshe was able to rescue afterInterahamwe militia-mendragged the young commercialpainter into the road and killedhim during the 1994 Rwandagenocide. They pillaged thehouse he built and leftNakabonye to spend monthshiding their four children in theplantain groves that filled thearea before it became a Kigalighetto.

“Life was so easy before. Wewere happy,” Nakabonye, 43,said as she served a generouslunch spread in honour of thevisiting reporter — matoke(fried plantains), goat stew, riceand isombe (a traditional dishof pureed cassava leaves andspinach). Her nephew KennethMudenge, 24, translated fromKinyarwanda. “Now they’venicknamed this area after theAIDS ward at the hospitalbecause there is so much HIVhere.”

Nakabonye moved her fam-ily back to their home after thegenocide but the pain from thatperiod persists. She was repeat-edly raped by a neighbour whoinfected her with HIV, as weremany women in the nieghbour-hood. She relives the atrocitiesshe experienced and witnessedevery Sunday during Gacacacourt, the community justicemeetings set up to expedite thetrials of thousands of accusedclogging local jails.

Entire neighbourhoods arerequired to attend and testifyabout the murders and rapesthat took place, often at thehands of their neighbours,friends and even family mem-bers.

“Gacaca is good but theproblem is when you have tosee someone who killed yourrelatives live next door,”Nakabonye said, looking atthree of her grown children —Eric, 23, Patrick 18, and Sonia,14 — who came to listen in. “Itis very difficult.”

Nakabonye’s friendship witha Victoria woman is what shecredits as the source of herhope and inspiration to go on.

“Because of Peg and Posi-tively Africa I did not feel des-perate anymore,” Nakabonyesaid, referring to Peggy Frankand her Victoria non-profitsociety Positively Africa, whichsupports HIV-positive groupsin several African communi-ties.

The two women are workingon a book about their own HIV-positive stories and the friend-ship that has led them tobecome advocates in theirrespective communities.

Frank was introduced toNakabonye through a pen-palprogram at a retreat with thePositive Women’s Network in2002.

“We were told there wereHIV-positive women in Rwandawho wanted to write with us,”said Frank, 54, at her Oak Bayhome last week. “My letterwent to Emerithe and, when Igot one back, it was so movingto make that connection.”

Frank was a 32-year-oldgraduate student doing fieldresearch in Zimbabwe whenshe contracted HIV from onenight of unprotected sex. It was1987, a time when AIDS wasconsidered a death sentenceand Frank was the only womanamong mostly gay men in whatsupport groups there were inVancouver.

“I thought, ‘That’s it; it’sover.’ I wouldn’t have a life, adegree, no family or be able towork in development,” saidFrank. The virus did advanceto full-blown AIDS over thenext few years, forcing Frankto quit her job. “It was a very

sad time to be in the AIDSmovement. People were dyingall around.”

Advancements in medica-tion and a move to SaltspringIsland helped Frank get backto health. It was there that shemet her first husband DavidRayment, whose portrait hangson her wall.

“When we met I was so ter-rified to tell him I was HIV-pos-itive,” said Frank. “But he saidthe most beautiful thing: ‘I havetwo choices. I can walk awayand never get to know you or Ican be with you for howeverlong we have.’ ”

Rayment never contractedHIV but his words were tragi-cally prophetic: He died in acrane accident in Ganges har-bour in 1997.

“I remember looking at thestars that night and feelingcomplete loss but still a sensethat life goes on,” said Frank.

Frank’s life moved on withher work helping others. It wasthrough fundraising for devel-opment projects in Africa thatshe met her current husband,realtor Peter Bardon (whoknew and admired Rayment).Their fundraisers includeeverything from art auctionsto Africa-themed nights ofentertainment.

“We were fundraising forthe Village of Hope [inRwanda] and it felt reallygood,” said Frank, an artist.This was around the timeFrank and Nakabonye startedwriting to each other.

“At the time, I had isolatedmyself from any bad news tohelp me get better,” said Frank.“So I really didn’t know muchabout the genocide until I metEmerithe.”

Frank and Bardon went toRwanda in 2005, where theymet Nakabonye and were intro-duced to the WE-ACTx clinicand Hakizimana. Nakabonyewas a client and now worksthere part-time.

“When I met Emerithe, wehad just started PositivelyAfrica and she was starting

UMAHUZA,” Frank said. “Wehad this amazing connectionbecause of the parallels ourlives took.”

Every penny PositivelyAfrica raises goes to theAfrican development projectsit supports, including morethan $150,000 for projects inRwanda, Kenya and Zimbabwe,among other places.

They also supportNakabonye’s HIV-positive com-munity group UMAHUZA, buy-ing items such as a telephoneand grinding mill to help gen-erate income.

I attended an UMAHUZAmeeting while I was visitingNakabonye in Rwanda. About60 members of the group hud-dled in a mud-floor shack nextto a local pastor’s house. BeforeI could be introduced, severalpeople started to makedemands.

“Where is the money forhouses Positively Africa prom-ised us?” one woman asked.

“We need motorcycles to getaround,” a man piped in.

“What about food? Why can’twe get money for food?” saidanother.

In a country where aid work-ers drive brand-new whiteSUVs and base themselves outof mansions built by wealthyexpatriates, it is understand-able that the group would asso-ciate any white person wantingto help with infinite funds andresources to do so.

“It’s hard for me to hear thatbecause I want to help … andwe will,” said Frank. While Pos-itively Africa does have onepart-time employee to helpFrank and a board, it takes upmost of her time and personalincome. Frank’s goal is find adonor or sponsor to hire some-one full-time, allowing her totake more of a support role.

“Right now I feel like thebiggest crisis for PositivelyAfrica is me because I’m aboutto crash,” said Frank. “We’re asmall group that catches theprojects and people who fallthrough the cracks. It is impor-

tant work but it takes moneyand commitment.”

To find out more about Pos-itively Africa, call Peggy Frankand Peter Bardon at 893-7064.spetrescu@tc.canwest.com

How a friendship between a Rwandan genocide survivor and Victoria womanhelped them each cope with HIV and become community leaders

DEBRA BRASH, TIMES COLONISTPeggy Frank holds a photo of young Rwandan Patrick Kalisa, theson of her friend and fellow HIV activist Emerithe Nakabonye.

RECOVERY IN RWANDA

SARAH PETRESCU, TIMES COLONISTEmerithe Nakabonye shares a smile with her nephew, Kenneth Mudenge, outside her home in Rwanda. Nakabonye, who works at the We-Actx clinic in Kigali andruns UMAHUZA, a support group for people with AIDS, has carried on a long-running correspondence with Oak Bay resident Peggy Frank, who started a non-profitagency called Positively Africa.

DEBRA BRASH, TIMES COLONISTPeggy Frank goes over some of the letters in her Oak Bay home she has received from RwandanHIV activist Emerithe Nakabonye. Despite barriers of distance and language, the two women havestruck up a fast friendship.

Sarah Petrescu travelled to Rwanda and Mozambique as a winnerof the Jack Webster Foundation for Journalism Seeing the Worldthrough New Eyes Fellowship, a partnership with the CanadianInternational Development Agency for emerging journalists toreport from developing countries.

D6 SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008