Question From Audience: “Natalia, if you had the chance to live your life again, is there anything you would do differently?”
Natalia: “No. I wouldn’t do anything differently. I would live my life exactly the same way if I had a second chance to start over and live it again”.
Question From Audience: “After you found out you were HIV+, 13 years ago, how did you get out of the commercial sex work (CSW) business?”
Natalia: “I never did. I enjoy my job and life and continue to be a CSW to this day.”
Question From Audience: “After you found out you were HIV+, 13 years ago, how did you get out of the commercial sex work (CSW) business?”
Natalia: “I never did. I enjoy my job and life and continue to be a CSW to this day.”
Lenara and I were selected to participate in a training class to become certified to train HIV and AIDS prevention in our community. In this part of the world this is really important for many reasons. I live in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, considered part of Ukraine. Ukraine has the highest percentage of new HIV infections in Europe, and in Ukraine, AR Crimea has the highest rate of new infections in the country. There appear to be several obstacles to addressing the HIV/AIDS issue here (as with many other developing countries): intolerance, history, and lack of progressive thinking. I suppose, the more I think about it, these are probably obstacles in many parts of the world. Now, as a Peace Corps Volunteer I am living here as a “community developer” who hopes to make a little difference over the next two years, but at this point, some of the challenges seem monumental. The first issue I will run into is intolerance. People here, as in the US, can be pretty forward with their opinions when they are in the majority- or at least feel they have support in present company. People in my English club have no qualms with stating their anti-gay feelings. These discussions usually end with me trying to persuade them that because of sentiments like these, many people in the community are reluctant to identify as LGBT, but that they still exist among us and that we should try to include everyone into our society instead of ostracizing them. My next hurdle is history. Today, CSW is not technically illegal here. But, until the late 1990’s homosexuality was classified as a criminal activity throughout the ex-Soviet states. To this day, I am only aware that the Russian Federation and Ukraine have decriminalized it (though there may be others). Still though, it wasn’t too long ago that the police officers who used to search for guilty parties to arrest, were given the orders to look elsewhere for criminal activity. I understand that things are generally NOT rosy between the gay/CSW/IV drug communities and the police who routinely detain and harass the “guilty” parties, and even though arrests may not be made, physical abuse or corruption, in the way of bribes, is not entirely uncommon. The last obstacle I foresee is a lack of progressive thinking. In Ukraine, most people fall into two different groups. These are the older people, who 20 years after Ukraine’s independence, remember the days of Soviet rule, and long for those days of yore, wishing things could just go back to the way they used to be. The other group is the younger people who say, “yeah, things aren’t that great now, and because the system is extremely flawed, it will never get any better.” A pretty disappointing thought that here is the generation that can make the changes they want to see, but view themselves as a group whose hands are tied. There is a third group, who in a small town like mine, are few and far between as you might imagine. These are the forward thinkers who say “yeah, things aren’t that great now, but maybe someday improvements will be made and this will all be worth the hardships of today for a brighter future”. I have my work cut out for me, when it comes to trying to make change and keep the hope alive and spirits up in the change-makers.
For the most part, during the conference, all of the seminars, lectures, and workshops were helpful. But then we met four extraordinary people. I don’t mean “extraordinary” in the sense of bigger than life personalities or anything, but four people who put a face on the problems we were there to learn about. The first woman we met was a prostitute who is currently working as such, is HIV+, and is an advocate for CSW rights. She works to inform CSW’s in Ukraine about HIV and other issues affecting the CSW community. Next, a gay man who was infected with HIV by his first boyfriend ever and told that it was his own fault by the man who gave it to him! He has become quite a force in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Ukraine as he lives an openly gay life as a champion for rights and education- to the point where some of the attendees to the conference who work in other cities in the same fight against HIV/AIDS, knew or knew of him and extoled his efforts. He told us that he knew he was gay as a young man and that he knew he had to leave his village to pursue his lifestyle in the big city. This hit home for me, since I am living in the same type of village he left. His advices to me were insightful. One of the Ukrainian counterparts asked him if he had ever experienced any sort of head trauma as a child that made him gay. Our next guest was a young woman who told her story of learning of her HIV+ status by chance since her IV drug using husband died suddenly and unexpectedly. And only because she had a relative that worked at the hospital who had access to the medical records was she able to learn that he was HIV+ and told to get tested- revealing she too was positive. The last, and most moving panelist of the day (which was pretty difficult considering some of the stories we heard) was a 35 year old man who had contracted HIV through his IV drug use. His story was full of ill-fated choices as well as lucky breaks that usually lead to another pitfall in the saga that is his life. His story punctuated by his struggles with addiction and finally getting the recovery help he so badly needed only to learn of his HIV+ status when applying for his first job after his sobriety. The people in the audience had mixed reactions and feelings. As the fifty conference participants sat in a large circle with Sergey telling the story of his life, some people sobbed and others sat in silence listening to the soft spoken man admit that his life could have taken a very different path had he not drawn this particular sequence from life’s deck. As his story ended with the realistic admission that he is not using drugs today, but he cannot say for sure what will happen tomorrow, the floor was opened to questions. I was saddened, but not surprised by some of the questions from the Ukrainians who accused Sergey of having a weak character. Basically, “if you were a smarter, stronger minded man, you wouldn’t be in this hole you’ve dug for yourself. If you would have turned to God, you wouldn’t be in this spot”. I thought to myself, “Did they just hear the same story I did?” How could they not feel some sort of compassion for this guy who had just finished telling us about his life and is just working one day at a time to make it to the end of the journey? It did not turn confrontational, but Sergey did try to use some real life analogies to point out that no person in the room was free from making some poor choices in their lives and that his poor choices just took him to a different place than theirs did.
For the most part, during the conference, all of the seminars, lectures, and workshops were helpful. But then we met four extraordinary people. I don’t mean “extraordinary” in the sense of bigger than life personalities or anything, but four people who put a face on the problems we were there to learn about. The first woman we met was a prostitute who is currently working as such, is HIV+, and is an advocate for CSW rights. She works to inform CSW’s in Ukraine about HIV and other issues affecting the CSW community. Next, a gay man who was infected with HIV by his first boyfriend ever and told that it was his own fault by the man who gave it to him! He has become quite a force in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Ukraine as he lives an openly gay life as a champion for rights and education- to the point where some of the attendees to the conference who work in other cities in the same fight against HIV/AIDS, knew or knew of him and extoled his efforts. He told us that he knew he was gay as a young man and that he knew he had to leave his village to pursue his lifestyle in the big city. This hit home for me, since I am living in the same type of village he left. His advices to me were insightful. One of the Ukrainian counterparts asked him if he had ever experienced any sort of head trauma as a child that made him gay. Our next guest was a young woman who told her story of learning of her HIV+ status by chance since her IV drug using husband died suddenly and unexpectedly. And only because she had a relative that worked at the hospital who had access to the medical records was she able to learn that he was HIV+ and told to get tested- revealing she too was positive. The last, and most moving panelist of the day (which was pretty difficult considering some of the stories we heard) was a 35 year old man who had contracted HIV through his IV drug use. His story was full of ill-fated choices as well as lucky breaks that usually lead to another pitfall in the saga that is his life. His story punctuated by his struggles with addiction and finally getting the recovery help he so badly needed only to learn of his HIV+ status when applying for his first job after his sobriety. The people in the audience had mixed reactions and feelings. As the fifty conference participants sat in a large circle with Sergey telling the story of his life, some people sobbed and others sat in silence listening to the soft spoken man admit that his life could have taken a very different path had he not drawn this particular sequence from life’s deck. As his story ended with the realistic admission that he is not using drugs today, but he cannot say for sure what will happen tomorrow, the floor was opened to questions. I was saddened, but not surprised by some of the questions from the Ukrainians who accused Sergey of having a weak character. Basically, “if you were a smarter, stronger minded man, you wouldn’t be in this hole you’ve dug for yourself. If you would have turned to God, you wouldn’t be in this spot”. I thought to myself, “Did they just hear the same story I did?” How could they not feel some sort of compassion for this guy who had just finished telling us about his life and is just working one day at a time to make it to the end of the journey? It did not turn confrontational, but Sergey did try to use some real life analogies to point out that no person in the room was free from making some poor choices in their lives and that his poor choices just took him to a different place than theirs did.
Even though I have worked with Lenara for two months now, I am finding that I am still getting to know her. I took advantage of the time at the conference to ask her about her feelings for the ideas she heard and the people she met. Since we will be working together on the projects in our town, I wanted to see how she reacted to the presentations- if only to see if there are issues I need to work on with her before we tackle the town’s issues together. Our dialogues are open and eye opening to me sometimes and I think we have the makings of a great working relationship. As we talked about some of the comments made during Sergey’s story, she said she was very disappointed in the intolerance she had heard many times over the course of the week by some of the other counterparts. Then, yesterday, at lunch Lenara and I were standing and chatting about nothing in particular when one of the counterparts came to her, shook her hand, and said something in Ukrainian. I asked what that was all about and she said, “You know, I had a real problem in this group today. We are all people here to learn tolerance, and some of these people are not tolerant, so I stood up and asked them how they plan to leave this conference and preach tolerance to their community when they themselves are not tolerant?” These people were coming to my counterpart to thank her for her words and tell her that they supported her sentiments. “Well done, I am so proud right now”, I told her. Then I started to think, if we are intolerant towards those who are intolerant, does that make us “intolerance hypocrites”?
I think we all judge people, all the time, every day. We say we don’t (at least most people say they don’t), but we do. And, I am trying to use this opportunity to reflect on my own guidelines for judgments and wonder what I should take away from it. I recognize that we do have the ability to change our opinions and that eventually you have to want to change your view for the change to occur. When we were first introduced to Natalia, the CSW, I’ll be honest, like everyone else in the room my judgment wheels started turning. I mean, really, a 32 year old woman walks in and introduces herself as an HIV+ prostitute. I expect that no one has a neutral opinion. At first, she is a prostitute who contracted HIV on the job. Then she becomes a prostitute who contracted HIV 13 years ago and continues to work as a prostitute. Lastly though, I realized that we were speaking with a woman who is trying to make some improvement in her community (through her activism for CSW rights), loves her family, and likes her job (she said it “made her feel like a woman”). And with that, I start to question my ability to make judgments and assess situations. Since, as I think about it, she wants the same things out of life that I do even if I wouldn’t go about it in the same manner. My eyes were opened a little more this week as I realize that what I think a person or community needs is not always what they want.
I have to take this time to reflect on my own ways of thinking, as only then will I be able to begin to be the change I want to see in the world. All I ask is that you don’t judge me for it.
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