Fallen Leaves

Fallen leaves.


I met a girl, who is an active volunteer with the Malaysian AIDS Council, at MAC last year while I was doing my research there.
[I still remember I had to breathe in the stench of cat poo in the small MAC library at that time].

Ahh but anyway, the girl I met had mentioned about Fallen Leaves when I told her I was attached to one of the NGOs in the research I was helping out with.

I had no clue about what the performance would be like / was, until I volunteered in one of the projects was I given the privilege to watch Fallen Leaves perform in Sekolah Tunas Bakti during World AIDS Day last year.

The video above depicts the beginning of a rather lengthy but meaningful play.

The opening was composed of a combination of, well, several "slogans" that we would normally hear as we visit Petaling street / Puduraya bus station / Chinatown.

"Batu Pahat, Batu Pahat, JB, JB, JB, Singapore, Singapore, Singapore, Ipoh, Ipoh, Ipoh"

...anyone who had been to Puduraya would recognise that the clip above shared similarities with how "runners" try to get bus passengers as they walk past the former.
Whenever I walked past the counters to the Plaza Rakyat LRT station, I always had the dejavu of being back to the moment I saw the play.

The actors in this play are recovering drug users and also some living with HIV. The stories presented are real life stories, those of their personal experiences.

Perhaps because these were personal experiences, they had successfully touched the hearts of the participants in the Sekolah Tunas Bakti that we went to during the event.

Those were real stories - with a beginning filled with temptation coupled with an ending with a good and clear message about the consequences to the actions done previously.

I remember clearly there was one story about a young school boy and drug use, another about a curious man patronising a sex worker (without using a condom).

There were people trying to earn a little by "guarding" parking lots, one who was selling "viagra" pills and other traditional herbs to improve masculinity, even pimps that ask you in for a nice sex session!

Very much what I had seen as I walked through the back alleys that house the rather many "brothels" (or well, dens).

The most important message I thought the play had brought up was to strip themselves off the stigma and discrimination that others would toss on to them for their past and go on leading a life that is meaningful (all in their own contexts). With the advancement of better anti-retroviral drug regimens, now a person living with HIV, with good compliance and a healthy lifestyle could life up to 15 years.

Of Tooth brush and Razors

"Injecting drug use with shared syringes and handmade tools is a disaster in prisons. In addition, tattooing with common equipments, sharing shavers and sometimes tooth brush are the other methods of HIV transmission".

"To solve the problem, replacement therapies with agonist substances such as methadone and Buprenorphine, distribution of syringes needles and bleach (only for tattoo) and providing shaver and tooth-brash as health share of prisoners can reduce common use of mentioned tools and equipments".

Not so long ago, I had attended the Iran-Malaysia Joint Seminar on HIV and AIDS as a participant. It was my first time being in a joint conferences and there were many eye opening discoveries, especially interventions and policies regarding HIV prevention, care and support both in Iran and Malaysia.

One of the eye opening discoveries include this slide presented by a professor from Iran. This was a plenary session on Prison and the measures done to reduce health risks associated harm in prisoners.

The speaker had stated that the sharing of toothbrush and razors can transmitted HIV.

...to my utter surprise!

Perhaps they should go back to the basics or better still, check their facts here (and Spelling! If you noticed the 2nd Brush was spelled as "Brash")
(since this is afterall a national level seminar).

For transmission to occur,
Fact No. 1: HIV must be in bodily fluid or blood (Not in the dry-and-already-being-coagulated-by-protein form because the virus cannot survive in the air)

Fact No. 2: A person who has the virus, has to have a cut / open wound with enough blood or bodily fluid (for example semen or vaginal fluid) (in liquid form)

Fact No. 3: The person who is about to be infected has to also have an entry point (bodily fluid / open wound)

Three of the above conditions have to occur at the same time for transmission to occur

I had learnt that the main modes of transmission for HIV are:

1) Via sexual intercourse with a person who is already infected with HIV, being Vaginal, Anal (high risk) and/or Oral (low risk) sex;
2) Sharing of needles with a person infected with HIV;
3) Blood transfussion from a person infected with HIV (to a less extend nowadays);
4) Mother-to-child transmission; and /or
5) From the breast milk of an infected mother to a child.

Two face?

Source: The Fire Wire

One side says that we "do not" stigmatise nor discriminate people living with HIV;
the other says that we should take all possible precautions in the whole wide world to prevent HIV transmission, as if people living with HIV are diseased people who can spread the virus anytime they wanted!

Talk about being activists and "saviour" of the mankind.

Obstetric fistula

Obstetric fistula is a gynaecological condition whereby prolonged labour without prompt medical treatment leads to the formation of a hole in the birth canal, often resulting in severe incontinence and a stillborn baby.

Maternal mortality is fueled by gender inequality and discrimination towards women, especially in under-developed or developing countries. One of the main reasons to high maternal mortality rate is the denial to prompt medical treatment. The same reason is also the cause of obstetric fistula, that leaves a woman with the smell of leaking urine and faeces.

There are many reasons to why there are activists out there who fight for gender equality (or even to "near" equality) ; if only a husband would put down his ego and try a little more to love and to make the correct decision, than to deny a women from what actually constitutes her rights.

I saw this video on the United Nations Population Fund website to "End Fistula".

Les Misérables

I check my email the first thing every morning :)
This morning, as I opened the web browser, a piece of news on British's Got Talent caught my attention.

It was on Susan Boyle. Curious, I clicked on it. I saw the video of Susan singing Les Les Misérables "I dreamed a dream". Needless to say, it was beautifully sung!

I tudou'ed (www.tudou.com) Les Misérables and found the musical online.
I played it while I was doing my work.

Les Misérables
translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo. I have not read the novel myself, but the musical that I listened (and watched) online had painted the whole story beautifully.

Fantine, was one of the characters from this novel / musical, she had to offer sexual services to earn a living because she was fired from her job as a factory worker after people have found out that she has an illegitimate daughter.

I reckon Fantine is one of the sex workers portrayed in famous literatures. Prostitution has been thought to bring shame to a woman because she is "expected" to be faithful to one (the husband) whereas he is "expected" (or perhaps that is too strong a word, "allowed") to have more than one sexual partner - the more to show masculinity!

I hear stories of wives consenting to their husbands' hobbies to purchase sexual services while they are at work, abroad. How so? - These wives will place condoms in too, as they pack their husband's luggage.

Ahh well, there are many miserable things that happen in life, that we cannot prevent (I presume?)

One of songs sang "At the end of the day, you are another day older, and that is all the thing you can say about the life of a poor".

As I continued you-tubing, I found a few videos. I shall stick them here, as a reminder that stigma and discrimination existed since a long time before.

Societal values that form social norms today, unfortunately, have not significantly change for the better.

Please click here for Susan Boyle's performance.


Andrew Johnston performing Pie Jesu.

When the judges asked whether his friends had provided him (moral) support to be in Britain's Got Talent, Andrew reveals that he gets bullied in school (because of his weird singing).

Andrew's mom (video at 0:30 secs) said "He gives me strength, as much as I give him strength".


Madonna Docena performing I will always love you (for her children)

I you-tubed further and found Madonna Docena's performance. She is a Filipino earning a living in the Wales. Many women like Madonna leave their homeland in search of a better life, for their children back at home, ironically, abroad.

I have met so many single mothers here.
So many who have ended up doing sex work in this country, to support their children and parents back at their home countries.

I think there are some who see them as "different".
That is where stigma branches out.


Pol Pot

Finally, I had also came across this video of Pol Pot singing. I thought his voice is absolutely brilliant! Yet, he mentions that he finds it difficult to discover his own self esteem.

There are two extremes of finding self esteem.
I have friends who belittle others in order to exert and confirm their existence and self esteem.
The other extreme is believing that they do not have self esteem, as that is what the "majority" says.

The one thing that we can change (or do), is just learning to respect others the way we want others to respect us; despite the difference in values, religion nor ethnic groups.

The other thing that I always do, is trying to be content of life and be proud of myself, my family, friends and everyone around me.
Life is beautiful.

If we look carefully, we look at life in different fish tanks (that forms our perception via cognition). There is no need to calibrate ourselves to what the "majority" believes is "normal" or "true", as long as we know what we do is right.

There is nothing wrong to be the "minority".