"As a young woman, being HIV positive has brought out the best in me, let me just say that. Because I have learned to be strong, I’ve learned to be more reliable and I’ve learned to live a positive life. It’s all about that, so, everything I do I do it because I know that maybe some day it will happen that I get sick, but I just love myself the way that I am right now. Being HIV positive, life has turned out to be more different now because I have to be healthy most of the time. I have to learn to exercise, I have to learn to live happily because the more I get aggressive or angry, like I can say it’s dangerous to be angry because it compromise my self-esteem. So now, because I have to live a positive life, I have to be happy all the time, I have to just be myself, just be me, so I’ve changed . I’ve changed the eating habits, no alcohol, I don’t smoke and it’s fine. Okay, being a woman, it’s very much great and I think God has given me that much talent you know, as a woman because as a woman I’m the mother of three children and I’m happy to be a mother and you can look at my body. It doesn’t show that much, even though I’m so young, but to live as a woman knowing that I have to live for my children, that’s the most happy thing I do every day. I just wake up and look myself into a mirror and tell myself that you have to live as a strong woman for your children, then I’ll survive, I know I will do that.
Being thin doesn’t mean that you are HIV positive.
A person can be thin, a person can develop a rash or pimples but knowing her status or his status, that doesn’t mean that person is positive because you can see my face,, I don’t have any skin rashes and I’m not thin and I look, I look firm. If a person says I’m positive then that person means he’s positive. As I feel proud about it. I talk about it, I teach people about it because it doesn’t mean that I have to lie on the bed, be sick, to let people know that I’m positive. " - Nontsikelelo