But despite these, patients on the Anti-Retroviral (ARV) therapy at the IDCC remain undaunted. Sitting on brownish wooden benches in queues, hundreds of ARV seeking patients-among them the smooth and rough faced, enjoy more happy than sad moments.
The happy atmosphere makes many of them forget why they are at the clinic in the first place. When one joke ends, another starts and the patients are lost in the world of laughter. It is a classic reminder of the Setwana saying: “Loso logolo ditshego”, which translates to: “There is a thin line between sadness and happiness”.
“Go siame bagaetsho. Dipilisi tse le tsone ka bontsi batho. Ke tla dinwa ngwaga otlhe (Bye fellows. These pills are many. I hope they sustain me till the end of the year),” joked one patient, as he walked past the queue towards the exit, carrying a relatively big white bottle of pills. Interestingly, adult patients at the IDCC discuss sexual matters in the presence of the youth. And the youth react by shyly hiding their faces and laughing their lungs out. It happened with a young girl sitting by the computer and playing computer card games. She would often break into laughter, despite her obvious endeavour to keep a straight face.
“Yo o tla a sutelang rre yo e tlaa bo ele seorooro. Semoamoa (Whoever shall give way to this man would be silly. A nincompoop,” shouted a slim, rough faced hyper talkative young woman with swollen lips sitting on the bench at the corner of the waiting room. By “this man”, the woman was pointing to a young man in Prison officers’ uniform, who apparently had just come and asked to be allowed to “jump the queue” because he was on duty.
“You think we here do not have uniforms? In any case, there are many here with such uniforms. You are not alone,” the woman continued, sending the entire room into laughter. Embarrassed, the uniformed man retired to the bench as another man brought him a paper to record his name.
At midday, the uniformed man was number one hundred and fifty something, in the queue. So far eighty something patients had already been attended to. On average it took 20 minutes for each patient to finish with the medical staff.
At some point a fat woman came along shouting: “Disweets, disweets- ice mints, chocolate and others. Buy one for thirty thebe and get one free” to the amusement of the waiting patients.
“Don’t you get it? This lady is playing with our minds. Actually each sweet is 15 thebe,” explained a young girl to another, who had not grasped the joke.
Just then, an old man emerged from the doctors/nurses rooms. Walking through the crowd, the man asked for someone to be his witness, so that he can get the ARVs. Upon interrogation from the other patients, the old man revealed that he came from Rasesa. He said that his wife could not come with him because she was looking after their ailing son at the village. However, “elders” among the queue dismissed the old man’s claims as untrue.
“Ga o bona o riana, wa bo o lobetse mosadi gore o tla go tsaya di ARV. Mme rra ga gona ka mokgwa, boela gae o fete o ba bolelele. Ke bone fela ba ka go supelang (I am sure you have kept your status secretive to your wife. Just go back and tell your family because they are the only ones who can identify you),” teased an equally elderly woman. The old man dismissed suggestions that his wife should be his witness.
“It is impossible that she can come here. She is taking care of our ailing son at Rasesa. I went that side to look for someone to be my witness, but unfortunately he was not there. I do not know what to do next,” the old man told Mmegi. He dismissed suggestions that a relative could look after the ailing son so that the wife could come to IDCC.
“That wont work, either. If we engage relatives for my son, I am afraid they might end up describing my son’s ailment in another light, to the entire village,” he said.
