Having AIDS is difficult, but talking about it can be even harder. That is how Kenneth Winifrey describes living with a virus that affects lives beyond those it infects.
Winifrey spoke Sunday at an AIDS awareness day sponsored by the Fighting AIDS in the Homeland Foundation and La Siringitu Vegetarian Cafe in Albuquerque.
He emphasized both the difficulty and the triumph of the first time he told someone he was infected.
"We become very concerned about what others know about us because it makes us vulnerable," said Winifrey, a 34-year-old Albuquerque graphic artist who has lived with AIDS for five years.
"The first time you tell people you have HIV, it feels like you're taking your clothes off."
The support to endure and overcome that vulnerability comes from both talking and listening, he said.
"It becomes an empowering experience to talk about having HIV," Winifrey said of the AIDS virus. "I think some people have found strength in the fact that I can talk about having HIV out loud, and they have gotten some sense of what it's like in the long haul - that their fears are real but manageable."
The awareness event took place at the cafe, 1501 Mountain Road N.W. Activities included free HIV testing, African drumming and dancing.
Winifrey joined poetry readers and other speakers in educating the public about life with AIDS.
"I really want people to understand that there is an AIDS epidemic and reawaken our senses to the suffering that's going on because of it," said Maniki Sinandile, a member of the board of directors for the Fighting AIDS in the Homeland Foundation.
Sinandile's mother, Nkazi, lost a niece to AIDS earlier this year back home in South Africa. She said she hopes people learn AIDS affects everyone, not just the people infected by it.
"When one person has AIDS, all of us have AIDS," she said. "Many people have a stigma against AIDS, and some people don't come out until they are about to die because they are afraid to be ostracized."
In Africa, family members struck down by the virus leave behind many children, said Janet Shaw, who attended the event representing the Goromonzi Project, a nonprofit organization that sponsors children orphaned by AIDS near Goromonzi, Zimbabwe.
For the cost of $350 a year, the Goromonzi Project can fully fund the education and feeding of an AIDS orphan, she said. The project currently sponsors 66 of more than 600 AIDS orphans near Goromonzi.
Shaw stressed that, although they face a tough life without assistance, these children are not to be pitied.
"We don't want this to be `Oh, these poor little AIDS orphans in Africa dying of starvation,' " Shaw said. "We want to give them a leg up because these are great kids who are full of life and a lot of fun.
"As far as I'm concerned, these kids are survivors."
Shaw's neighbors, Ed and Susan Macy, sponsor Simon Muchinani, who at 19 years old is the oldest of the children in the project.
"It doesn't take a lot to make a tremendous difference in the lives of these children, and that's pretty sensational," Susan Macy said. "We can't do everything, but we can do something - everyone can do something.
"I say to our friends that Simon is our hope for Africa. We hope his future is going to be better with the opportunity that we were able to write a check for."