The Time I Went for HIV Test

I will never forget the time I went for HIV test at a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) centre not far from where I live. It was on a sunny afternoon in 2017. But I went for the test because I was at a loose end, not because I had misbehaved.

Though I was sure of being HIV-negative, I wanted to confirm if that was the case, especially after remembering how some nurses injected me with medical drugs after I went astray at the university. You see, anything could have happened given that using infected needle-like objects is one way HIV is transmitted.

When I entered the VCT centre that sunny afternoon in 2017, I was struck by how clean and quiet it was. And it looked more like a school with its imposing buildings, but I didn't see any students.

The counsellor who handled me was a middle-aged man. Warm and friendly, he asked me to get seated next to his desk which had two chairs facing each other. I sat on one; the other remained empty.

Before testing me, he probably asked me a few questions but I only remember two. The first was whether I had slept with a woman. When I said "no", he asked me in Sheng, "You mean you have never slept with a woman?"

I again said "no" but admitted to viewing adult content on the internet. He didn't make a big deal about that, perhaps because he knew how we men are.

His other question I remember was, "What if you find you have HIV?"

"That will be deadly!" I blurted out.

He must have sensed I wasn't scared of HIV test because he didn't put me through a long counselling session. So after briefly questioning me, he picked a lancet for pricking my finger.

What floated in my mind was not the fear of getting pricked but whether the lancent was uncontaminated. Since all sorts of people visited the VCT centre, I asked the counsellor if the lancent was safe.

After reassuring me it was, he pricked my finger to draw out blood which he put on a paper strip where he had told me one or two red lines would appear, revealing whether I was HIV-negative or -positive.

While we waited for the lines to appear, he engaged me in a conversation during which he told me sex is good for health, but not masturbation. He therefore urged me to get myself a girlfriend.

Before long, I glanced at the paper strip that had my blood and saw one red line had appeared with the magical suddeness of a rainbow. The counsellor told me it meant I was HIV-negative.

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