Faces of Edmonton

“It was about 2008. That’s when I started to realize, ‘Well, I’m living now so I need to learn how to live because I don’t know how. Dying is easy, living is hard’ ... Then I started to open my mind a little more and see the big picture globally and realize the affect that HIV has on people globally … Wow, it’s staggering and overwhelming, like what the heck can I do? All I can do is what I can do for me. Hopefully what I do for me can help other people, just by example and s...haring my story—help others become aware of HIV and the kind of struggles people living with HIV face. I also want to create an awareness that this isn’t going away and it is getting worse. Certainly in the aboriginal population it is increasing. That’s what concerns me the most ... I think a big reason why is communication. I’ve been going out and speaking to aboriginal communities. There’s a fear for them because, living in such small communities, they don’t want to be singled out and be shunned. It’s very heavy in the native community. There’s a silence, you can feel it. I wonder why people don’t just talk about it. I think back to my plight when I was first diagnosed with HIV. That was it. I slammed the door onto the world basically—I wouldn’t let anything in and I wouldn’t let anything out. But a human being can’t live that way and we weren’t created that way. We need each other, that’s something I learned through this. I learned about the amount of resources that are available out there to a person who has a disease—thousands of people out there willing to help. I had never seen that before. I saw the other side of life where everybody is taking stuff, so seeing that really gave me hope and made me think I wanted to live again … I just keep feeding my spirit because the rest of me is pretty much gone. But I’m getting healthier. I keep believing that before I die there will be a cure or a better way of treating it. I take four pills a day now, every twelve hours and they kick the shit out of my digestive system. I can’t sleep, no appetite, no energy ... Be sure, get tested. It’s free.”

"I’ve had a lot of struggles because of the stigma related to HIV. In about 2004, I was charged because of trespassing in the General Hospital. This was when I was still drinking—I don’t even remember any of this. But I was charged because I was in there after hours and was passed out on a chair or something. The security guard asked what I was doing there, and I spat on him. So anyway I was charged for trespassing. Once they found out I was HIV positive, they upgraded the ch...arges to assault causing bodily harm. It’s a really serious charge. Now I’m on a watch list Canada wide because of that. So I was in jail because of this. I was doing five months, trying to fight this. The lawyer said, ‘You might as well plead guilty because this is the best I can do.’ So I pled guilt to this big charge. So I was in jail on this charge because of having HIV and they were denying me my medication because they were waiting for one of their specialists to come and check my blood to make sure that I was in fact HIV positive. Even in jail there was stigma. They separated me from the rest of the population ... When I got out, I had a big chip on my shoulder and I thought, ‘This has to change.’ People in jail living with HIV need to have a few more rights than what I was given—medication and proper healthcare.’ So I told my story to a few people and now people in jails have better access to care.”

“I am so excited to work at the Varscona. I used to be a patron here when I was younger and lived in Spruce Grove. Rapid Fire used to play at the Varscona and that was when I was allowed to break curfew, so I could drive from my little town and just stay up all night and then come home, and my mom didn’t care because she was like, ‘Oh, she’s just going to the theatre.’ And then I kept coming here and I started working in the industry. This is the theatre I always wanted to wo...rk in, but never got an in. And then the opportunity finally came up and I jumped on it.”

“In 1995 I was a masters student in nursing and I did a clinical placement with the Feather of Hope, a specialized support group for aboriginal people living with HIV, which was affiliated with the AIDS Network of Edmonton (now called HIV Edmonton). That was when I first became aware of this entity called the AIDS Network of Edmonton. When I finished my PhD in 2000, I was affiliated with HIV Edmonton as a researcher so they helped recruit participants for several of my projec...ts.”

“This is fundraising for helping them build a home.”

“What’s it like to fundraise here and then go back to the Philippines to see the homes being built?”

“It’s a fulfilling accomplishment, you know, seeing children happy. Thanking you.”

“Sir, would you like to buy Krispy Kreme doughnuts? We’re fundraising for kids in the Philippines. The donuts came all the way from Vancouver. We’re volunteers. We want to help people back home … It’s going well today. They love donuts.”

“What makes you want to volunteer?”

“The love for the children. We’re from the Philippines.”

“What brings me hope is that we’re not afraid to speak anymore. I worry that our history has been lost. There are young people out there who don’t even know that HIV and AIDS ever happened—they have no idea that fifty percent of my generation is gone and can’t mentor them because that happened. So that’s a bit astonishing to me, but it created a community that speaks. It doesn’t sit back anymore. We act. We react. We can’t wait for government and community support. We can’t w...ait for people to say it’s okay. We just do it. So that’s really important and a tremendous thing that we’ve learnt.”

“A high point has been the way the HIV and AIDS crisis brought the community together. There was a divide—it was gay men on one side and lesbians on the other side. Then women stepped in and looked at the men and said, ‘We’re here for you.’ So the community came together in ways it hadn’t before and that was significant. And also lobbying the government and making change and watching the community be creative in ways that it hadn’t before and being empowered, you know just sa...ying, “We are who we are, and you can’t tell us who we can’t be.’ That’s really important.”

“I first started work on HIV in the eighties in Calgary. We did workshops on mosquito bites and kissing, it was kind of crazy what people thought you could get AIDS from … I lost a lot of friends. You can’t not be connected when you bury forty or fifty people you know. It’s been a big part of my life. I’m almost sixty so I’ve lived through the AIDS crisis and it just becomes part of who you are. It’s part of your bones and flesh and your own mind and memory and the collective... memory of the community. It changes how you look at the world and how you think about things and how you see AIDS and HIV today. I live, work, and breathe in the queer community.”

“I’ve been selling ice cream off and on for three years. I did it on the bike and I also did it on this and I really don’t mind it. I worked on a carnival since I was sixteen years old. I grew up around it. My dad worked on the carnival for thirty-five years. I was six by the time my dad got off the carnival. Throughout that time I kind of got used to it. This would have been my third season if I would have gone back to the carnival, but I got this job instead and I am starti...ng to like it, you know—you give a kid ice cream, and they smile. It’s just like putting him on a ride at the carnival.”

“When I reconnected with my family, it was pretty overwhelming. Throughout the years I never cried. I lost my emotions—I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know how to feel anymore and still today I don’t really know what my emotions are—it’s really hard. It’s hard for me to understand what emotions are because I don’t think I really felt them because I was always under the influence of something. For these past three years I’ve been really trying to work on myself and it’s... been hard. I want to have a relationship again, but it’s hard because the only relationships that I had in my life were with addicts and alcoholics, but I want something different. I’m trying to put myself out there to have a different kind of relationship, but it’s hard. I feel it’s hard too because I have HIV so it’s scary to put it out there and let people know, but I’m learning to accept it. I’m undetectable and I’ve been taking my meds. I was infected with HIV in 2007 or 2008 ... it’s hard for me to talk about time because, for so long, time had no essence in my life. Everyday was just a day to be homeless so I never really knew what time it was. There are a lot of things that I’m learning to do. It’s still hard for me to measure time. So I’m trying.”

“It was kind of hard transitioning from Ottawa to here because I was away from my family for fifteen years too because I was using. It’s been fifteen years since I’ve had contact with my family. I’ve reconnected with them now, now that I’ve stopped using. It was quite an experience. Trying to recognize the younger ones which are older now, I didn’t recognize their faces anymore. I lost touch with them because of my addiction plus I didn’t want them to know how severe my addic...tion was. I phoned home every once and a while, but they didn’t really know if I was alive or dead. It was quite hard for me. I ended up in jail in 2012. I phoned my sister and when she answered the phone she cried. I didn’t understand what she was crying for, but that made me look at myself and I said, ‘Okay, do I want to be back on the streets and still using or do I want to be with my family?’ I chose my family. So I went though a drug treatment course and did that for nine months then I ended up getting the train here and here I am today.”

“I’m a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s kind of my thing. Everything—the hoodie, the bag, all of it. It’s my obsession. I watched it as a kid and then I fell in love with it ... the music, the animation ... it’s beautiful.”

“Is there anything you really want to do in life?”

“Get my diploma. I’m going here for two more years and then I’m done. I’m going into nursing. My parents have always been jail guards and I’ve always wanted to help people, so it’s been an o...ngoing thing with my parents. I’ll start at U of A in a couple of years ... I don’t have a whole lot of support when it comes to my future. It feels great to help other people. I’d give someone the sweater off my back. If I have something, then who needs anything else but the happiness someone else can give you. It’s a great thing. It’s nice to give others the support that I never had.”