HIV-positive honored with pageant

? Donning both shimmering evening gowns and traditional Botswana costumes of animal-skin skirts, porcupine quills adorning their hair, 14 women competed in a beauty pageant for HIV-positive women and their relatives.

Some 38 percent of Botswana’s people are HIV-positive, the highest infection rate in the world. Infected people are often ostracized, and the organizers of Saturday’s Miss HIV Stigma-Free pageant said they hoped the contest would show the disease does not have to prevent women from being vibrant and beautiful.

Smiling widely, blowing kisses and singing songs in the local language of Tswana, the women also shared their stories in testimonials.

Contestant Malebogo Mongwaketse, 24, told judges and an audience of 1,000 that she was so overwhelmed at testing HIV-positive that at first she contemplated suicide.

Kgalalelo Ntsepe, 31, who was crowned the winner in a long black and silver gown, spoke of the AIDS drugs that transformed her from bone-thin and sickly to robust and healthy. She urged others not to wait until they were at death’s door to seek treatment.

“I feel honored; it’s like I’m a queen,” said Ntsepe, who works as a counselor for HIV-positive youths.

“I’m going to go around the country to talk to people to say that (being) an HIV-positive person does not mean you have done something wrong. You are still who you are,” she said.

The pageant’s organizer, Kesego Basha, is herself HIV-positive. She said her experiences with prejudice helped inspire her to create the pageant, now in its second year.

Surveys in this southern African country have found that many would avoid buying produce from HIV-positive vendors and support the removal of teachers who carry the virus.

Buoyed by multimillion dollar support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the New Jersey-based drug giant Merck and Co., Botswana has launched a program to provide free AIDS drugs to all of its people — the first wide-scale free program in Africa.