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| This is the essay series by women living with HIV. The authors in Japan,
Cambodia, Portugal and the Philippines, write about episodes and the
feelings of their daily lives. |
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 This is a story about an oyster girl. She had no pearl inside just the hermetic shells involving her body. There were some oyster girls and boys in that village but they didn’t meet each other. For the normal boys and girls she was strange.
Strange because they did not know the story about the reason she become an oyster or because they know and could not accept.
But this oyster girl wasn’t always an oyster. Long time ago she was a normal girl with lot of friends, she was quite popular. And she needed all that friends all that love.
One day a virus met her. And she became an oyster.
She had a family - a mother, a father and a sister. A normal family like others. At first the sister couldn’t accept her, rejected her, she was afraid of transmission.
Her sister didn’t even share her glass or forks or anything. Mummy and daddy always accept her. They were not afraid - she was in there eyes the lovely child of ever.
Her friends couldn’t accept the transformation. So she isolated from her friends. Of course she did not want to become an oyster. She need love, she need friends.
The years go through and she met other people, she made new friends. Well it was a fragile friendship because she was so used to be isolated, to not be accepted that she couldn’t give herself away. She was afraid of rejection so present in her life. Anyway she felt that she always will be different to other’s eyes. She always will be an oyster.
Nevertheless she had had loved truly two friends. They were different too. Not oysters but different. But they died and she felt abandoned. Alone.
Actually the only people she feels comfortable is with her nieces because to child’s eyes she isn’t strange or different. Her nieces accept her unconditionally. The oyster girl feels free and accepted by them. With those 3 lovely baby girls she can be herself. Laugh, play, enjoy. Not feeling as an oyster. And how she wishes to be just a normal girl… And feel love, be accepted, belonging. She hopes one day things will be different. And everyone could accept the difference.
“All different, all equal.” |
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