IT HAPPENED TO ME – A couple engaged a diligent and trusted maid, but unknown to them she would infect their beloved daughter with the deadly virus, reports SIMON MWALE as told by a former colleague. Find out what happened.…

WHEN I visited my former working place in Lusaka recently, the aim was two-fold.
First, it was to request my former colleagues in the public relations department to remove my mobile number which I acquired while I worked there from their website, telephone directories and any other publications which the company’s customers may access.
The reason for this request was that since my retirement from the company a couple of years ago, I have been receiving phone calls from some customers needing customer service and erroneously seeking solutions from me.
Each time such calls come, I have religiously asked the callers, never mind what time it is, to call me back so I could give them the number of the person in the company who might attend to their needs or querries.
This I have always done without fail.
Second, my visit was also to see if I could secure a 2016 calendar and diary seeing as 2015 was slowly coming to an end.
But a visit to one’s former working place cannot be complete unless one includes a courtesy call on some of the closest former colleagues and friends.
In fact, this bit occurs naturally because you meet some of these people either on your way in or out of the company premises, but there are certain people you have to make an effort to see because you shared very close relations with them as former colleagues and friends.
And so, having achieved my mission and exchanged ‘notes’ with some employees, I was on my way out when I thought of checking on a Bemba female friend who, I’d heard weeks ago, had been hospitalised recently.
As you may expect, I used to joke a lot with this Bemba
woman since we happen to be traditional cousins (I’m Ngoni from Chipata).
I had not seen this friend for a long time and when I knocked on her door, I did not quite wait for an answer, but literary barged her office in a police-looking-for-a- criminal-style and our excitement at seeing each other was mutual.
“So, what have you been up to?” she said with a generous smile as she showed me a seat.
“Nothing much really,” I said.
“I mean what are you doing these days?”
This question reminded me of a friend I asked a similar question years back and his answer was;‘I buy and sell anything. So be careful, I can buy and sell you.’
But I did not want to answer my good friend like that.
Instead, I told her I was doing what in Zambia is called ‘thamanga’ business with my wife in addition to some journalistic works with this newspaper and part-time lecturing with one of the universities in Lusaka.
“Yes, I remember you write something on boxing, right?” she said.
“That’s right. I do a weekly column on boxing, but I’m also involved with another column, also a weekly, about real life stories,” I said.
She did not sound familiar with the real-life stories column, so I explained that both columns are published in the Saturday edition of the Times of Zambia.
She said she did not always read the Saturday paper and then I tried to encourage her to be buying a copy whenever
she could.
I went further to describe how the column was born and told her that recently, about three weeks back, we published a story under my by-line about a queer maid. I told her that the maid worked for 10 days only and she quit after her shortcomings, including attempted theft and wanting to sleep with my son and myself, were exposed.
“Really?” she asked.
“Sure, that’s what happened.”
“Guess what?” my ex-workmate said. “What you have said reminds me of a very sad story that happened to a family friend of mine. And it has something to do with a maid, too.”
“What happened?” I asked, eager and expectant that the story would make this column.
My friend explained that her friend was married to a certain manager and they have three children.
Their youngest was about two years old.
The couple are both working and the friend is a secretary at one of the private companies in the city.
“They employed this maid, a very nice, humble, hard working and obedient person to look after their baby when they are away to work,” she said.
Unbeknown to the couple, she continued, their maid also had a baby about the same age as their baby.
As time passed, the couple noticed that their baby was not looking too well.
“The baby fell very ill one day and the couple took her to the hospital. There, the couple said they had never seen their baby in a such a bad shape since she was born and were puzzled as to what she could be suffering from,” my friend said.
The doctors asked, and the couple agreed, that they conduct an HIV test on the baby.
The result came out positive. The shocking result brought the couples’ lives to a crashing halt. Their ears could not
believe what the doctor told them that their baby was HIV positive.
“Where, when, and how did the innocent child get the virus?” were the inexplicable questions that not only flooded their minds, but needed immediate answers.
The couple suggested that they undergo the HIV test themselves and when this was done, they were both negative!
This deepened the mystery about the source of the infection.
The doctor then asked whether there was someone else who they lived with who could be HIV positive and, they couldn’t think of anyone else, but their maid.
“The doctor then suggested that the maid needed to be tested for HIV as well so that the search for the mysterious infection could be further narrowed. The couple were reluctant at first saying even if the maid might be infected, the chances were slim she could infect the little baby unless she had cuts or bruises.”
But they finally agreed to have her tested.
The result? She tested positive! And so, how did the maid pass the virus on to their baby?
According to my friend, the maid innocently confessed what she used to do each time the baby cried and its parents were away.
She would breast-feed the baby after which it kept quiet! Asked whether she was aware of her HIV status, the maid is said to have pleaded ignorance until after being tested!
Asked why she was breastfeeding the couple’s baby who was not her child, the maid is said to have said she learnt that it was the easiest way of silencing a crying child!
It was at this point that the couple discovered that their angelic, hardworking maid was also breast feeding her own baby who, most likely, was also HIV positive.
“My friends were devastated and they did not know what to do with the maid,” my friend said.
“Perhaps they can sue the maid?” I suggested.
“Maybe, but do you think seriously that would be useful? Consider how slow the judicial system is in this country. And, more importantly, the baby will live with the virus until she answers the Lord’s call.”
The baby is now on retroviral drugs along with the maid and her own baby who also tested positive.
“How cruel this world can be,” my friend said as I nodded my head and stood up to leave.
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