In 1988, I volunteered with the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) to teach in China although I had no teacher training. I loved it so when I came back after two years I did a post graduate certificate in education and got a job in Botswana.

Whilst I was in Botswana I met a man from Malawi who was working with the UN. We started a relationship and when my contract ended and I returned to London, we kept in touch. In the summer of 1996 I went to visit him. We touched upon the issue of whether he might be HIV positive. He reassured me that he knew that he wasn’t so we had unprotected sex.

After about two weeks I started to feel ill. We were planning to go to South Africa and by the time I got there I was so ill I had to go into the hospital. They did some tests to see and before flying back to Angola where he was working I learned I was HIV positive.

I was really shocked at having to tell my partner, because I was going to get treatment whereas he may not be able to afford anything. I know that there was no intention of infecting me so there was no blame. He’d given blood to a relative and he thought because they had taken this blood he was negative. I suspect that both he and the person getting the blood were positive or that in Malawi tests for blood given in transfusion are not very sophisticated. But I felt he’d let me down and the relationship ended.

I came home and started to plan what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I would be healthy for about five years and I wanted to work abroad again. So I went back with VSO to Cambodia and it was the best job of my life. Cambodia is a brilliant place to be because you can make such a difference.

But HIV was becoming quite an issue in Cambodia too. I lost one of my students. I went to see him a fortnight before he died and I sat there thinking how I couldn’t tell anyone that I was positive because I wouldn’t have been able to get the job if I had. I knew that I was going to be alright and yet within two weeks he was dead. He was fortunate because his family didn’t desert him but it was still a terrible story. I was hearing things about people turning up at the hospital and the staff refusing to treat them.

When I came back I moved to Edinburgh to be near my sister whose husband was dying. I got my treatment there, a lovely service from the NHS. In the end my sister has probably done far more for me than I have done for her, but at least we are together.

Having seen what was happening with HIV/AIDS in Botswana and then by the time I was in Cambodia knowing that it didn’t have to be like that, I was really committed to trying to get something done. I got in touch with the local VSO group and we started ImpAcTAIDS, campaigning on access to treatment. I’ve started to do some voluntary teaching but because I’ve got peripheral neuropathy, I don’t have the stamina to go back into full time teaching. However, I want to specialise in adult teaching so I am also doing a masters degree. I’ve got lots going on in my life and I want to do a lot more.

Cathy