“I was in despair knowing I was near the end of my life. Each day I realized how badly damaged my body was, but even worse was my family’s indifference. And then she came. A strange woman holding my hands without gloves. She washed me, consoled me, told me stories. Since then, she has often visited me” – a woman in the last stage of HIV talks about Tam Dong.
Part 1: Reviving hope in the lives of HIV patients
Part 2: Worn out by drugs
Part 3: Drug use and the life long battle
A silent work
Dwellers at Nhat Tan market say Tam Dong, or Bui Thi Dong, owns a tea shop towards the rear of the market, which is usually deserted.
“She is always out raising awareness of HIV and visiting patients, neglecting her business. Thus her shop has virtually no guests. Even when we see her back from washing the HIV patients, we get scared”, says Do Thi Minh – a merchant near Tam Dong’s shop.
Yet she does not seem to be worried about being unable to earn a living. Stories of her work with HIV patients have become more and more widespread, despite the fact that she is getting older and older.
By the end of 2010, Nhan Tan Ward had 287 residents infected with HIV. Many of them were in the last phase, in which internal organs are destroyed, ulcers appear everywhere, and family members are hesitant to be in contact.
In such moments, they remember Tam Dong. Everyday, she searches all over Nhat Tan market for dry wood and packaging paper, and stockpiles them at the market’s warehouse. Then she boils water with the leaves she has collected to shower and wash the patients at their homes, for free.
She says: “At first, when I approached them, many were defensive and wanted me to go away. But when I started to talk and offered to take care of them, they burst into tears. In their last phase, everyone seems desparate and hurt. I can only use my heart to show compassion”.
In 15 years of being friends with HIV patients, Dong has only acted on her instincts, experience, and kindness. In 2005, when the Global HIV/AIDS prevention fund visited Nhat Tan ward to publicize information on HIV, she eagerly called for everyone’s participation. Since then, she has become the fund’s volunteer.
She visits each household to personally give information on the disease, and distributes condoms and free injection needles for addicts. But her most frequent job is getting HIV patients to hospitals.
There are months where she takes nearly 20 people to the hospital for diagnosis and consultation. Afterwards, she again boils water and cycles to each patient’s house to wash and clean them. When someone dies, she washes them, covers them with shrouds, and buries them on her own.
By 2008, thanks to the awareness work of Dong and the Tre Xanh group, resident’s prejudices against HIV patients had significantly decreased.
Dark corners of life
Dong’s house is tucked inside a small alley in Nhat Tan Ward, Hanoi. The soft-spoken woman telling the story of her life seems nothing like the enthusiastic, smiling one that visits HIV patients.
Tears roll from her eyes. Her husband left home years ago. Her eldest son, Dung, became a drug addict. She had to borrow money for his rehab, but her effort was futile. Then, her second son also became addicted, and was eventually infected with HIV.
“Until his last stage, Dung feared loneliness and wanted to get married, to have a taste of family happiness”, she says. In 2002, Dong managed to borrow money for her son’s marriage with a girl who was also HIV –positive.
13 months later, her daughter-in-law died. Dung passed away in 2004, leaving behind the HIV infected brother, a debt of nearly VND100 million, and an insurmountable loss for his mother.
It was then that Dong began to get involved with HIV patients with compassion from her family’s experience. Some say she has gone mad doing what everyone loathes, while others show understanding and pity her.
Nonetheless, what others say does not matter, whether her tea shop sells anything does not matter. She does everything she can to save up for her community work and her infected son. What she hopes for is to live a long and healthy life so that she can help those HIV patients in need.
A pure heart
Duong Kim Tuyen, a project coordinator at the Care organization in Vietnam says: “Tam Dong, along with other volunteers from the Tre Xanh group, have taken part in the project “Stronger” to take care of HIV patients and vulnerable children. She is very eager and devoted. Even though she is illiterate and poor, her kindness towards HIV patients has never ebbed.”
“She has turned the pain of losing her son and daughter-in-law, who were both victims of AIDS, into compassion and empathy towards HIV patients in the local area. Along with the ward’s womens’ group, she set up the “Let’s get together” club, which is a meeting and sharing hub of HIV patients in Nhat Tan and surrounding wards. She does all the jobs related to helping HIV patients without any salary, only a kind heart”, says Nguyen Xuan Truong, Vice chairman of Nhat Tan ward’s People’s Committee.
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