by Umberto Bernardo

16 October 2007

Eight months have already passed since I landed at Cairo International Airport to undertake a UNV position at UNAIDS Egypt. It was February, the weather was unexpectedly cold and rainy and I had a whirlwind of thoughts in my mind. I was at the same time excited for my first assignment within the UN system and concerned about my being at the height of that. In fact, I had been studying social sciences for the past eight years and had previous experience of volunteerism but I had never worked on HIV/AIDS nor held any position entailing such degree of responsibilities.

Needless to say, the beginnings were not easy. I had to become familiar with the way UNAIDS worked in the field, its coordination role and its strategies to face the multiple challenges of HIV/AIDS in a conservative country. I had to learn UN’s specialized terminology and bureaucratic practices. On the top of that, I faced the difficulties of any expatriate not knowing a word of the local language and struggling even to buy a pair of plain-blue socks. I admit it: notwithstanding my supervisor’s strong support and guidance, I felt lost. Then, at one point, things suddenly changed; and that point coincided with my first encounter with a group of people living with HIV (PLHIV).

The occasion of this encounter was a lunch offered by UNICEF to some Somali UN officers visiting Egypt to meet locals living with HIV/AIDS and share best practices for an effective response to the epidemic. I was sitting at the table with four PLHIV and, despite the linguistic difficulties, we started talking about ourselves, as we were old friends meeting after several years. They shared with me the difficulties of living with the disease, having to fight daily with stigma and discrimination, fear of not being able to get life-saving antiretrovirals, mistreatments by relatives or medical staff and lack of job.

Yet, they told me they were happy for not being any longer alone in fighting with the disease. They had managed to set up a support group for PLHIV, they could count on the support from UNAIDS and on “people like you and your colleagues who are not afraid of eating and speaking with us”. I thanked them for the kind words and felt ashamed for being overwhelmed by UN administrative procedures or ignorance of Arabic. I had finally understood that, when doing my part in the response to HIV/AIDS, there could not be any real difficulties for me. In fact, my tasks were nothing compared to what PLHIV were bound to live everyday.

Since then, I keep those words and this idea with me every single minute. They help me try and do my best in any possible task, as I know this could mean an improvement, even though little, in the life of PLHIV or of any other person at risk of HIV. From writing a request for funds to meeting government’s officials or working on a national World AIDS Campaign, everything deserves the same attention and effort because everything is a potential breakthrough.
In this sense, and especially as a volunteer, I still have a lot to learn and to do. I owe it to those who gave me this incredible job opportunity, to the PLHIV who opened to me as I were one of them and to all the persons like M.F. who, after a demonstration on how to use condoms, handled me a postcard where he had written: “For my dear Umberto, thanks a lot for teaching me something that could save my life”.