Ten years of grace

My name is Talent Jackson, and I am a son of Chiweshe communal land in the Mazowe District of Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe. This book is the story of how I died and was born again.In 2012, after testing positive for HIV at the Tsungubvi Polyclinic, I received what felt like a death sentence. Like many in my community, I believed the end was certain and imminent. My body was wasting away; my spirit was broken by the shame and secrecy that defined the epidemic. But then came the miracle-the little white pills provided at no cost, the Antiretroviral drugs that were, quite literally, a global handshake offering me life.Within two years, those pills worked wonders. My body was resurrected: I gained weight, my health was restored, and my CD4 count soared to levels of a healthy man. I settled into a routine of survival, making the journey to the clinic every 3 months for my vital refill. That regular cycle gave me a future, allowing me to focus on farming and family, even as I battled the unrelenting stigma-the mockery in the bars and the painful whispers that often made me feel bad. It was the enduring encouragement of a friend, Anywhere Jonasi, and the quiet success of a massive international effort, that kept me alive.This memoir chronicles that hard-won decade of peace. It is a testimony to the power of medical science and the iron will of those who adhere to treatment against all odds.But that peace is now fractured. The predictable peace is broken.In the mid-2020s, news reached the quiet roads of Mazowe that the US cut funding on drugs. That distant political decision immediately translated into scarcity here. Suddenly, my three-month supply was reduced to just one, forcing me to budget my transport money and fear the inevitable stock-outs. The anxiety that had been suppressed for ten years came roaring back. My life, and the lives of the 1.2 million people on ART in Zimbabwe, is now conditional, dependent not on our adherence, but on the political will of strangers.I wrote this book not just to share my story of survival, but to sound an alarm. This is a demand for drug security. It is a warning that the greatest medical triumph of our time is being threatened by political short-sightedness.The quiet victory of 2015 requires a loud defense today. This is the fight to keep our second life.