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RHODES STABBING SURVIVOR SAYS AIDS PLAYS A ROLE IN BATTERY RELATIONSHIPS

by Mike Loewe, East Cape News

GRAHAMSTOWN (ECN) -- Regardless of the outcome of her court case, Rhodes University third year Bachelor of Arts student Thabisa Dyala, 26 has one message to South African women: get out of battery relationships because Aids will probably kill you if he doesn't.
Ms Dyala, who also works as a personal assistant at the university's administration block, said she had decided to come out and declare that she is HIV-positive to protect others.
She said that her conflictual relationship with Rhodes economic's lecturer Phillip Ndimande, 29, was kept alive by the misconception that they were doomed.
She has changed her mind since then, and says she wants to live a healthy, normal life and to work hard at keeping the virus in check.
Mr Ndimande, formerly from KwaZulu Natal, is likely to face a charge of attempted murder in the Grahamstown high court next month for allegedly plunging a serrated knife through her neck and slashing her neck. He is out on bail of R1000 and has been suspended from the university on full pay.
Tracing the complex and insidious impact of Aids on their relationship, Ms Dyala said it first emerged when the live-in couple were discussing his attempts to obtain insurance in 1999 which were rejected with the advice that he should contact a doctor.
She said the penny dropped when she too tried to obtain insurance and got a similar written response.
She says she had been faithful to her lover, despite the heavy boozing and violence.
In the saddest statement, she described how once they both knew they were HIV positive they did not want to break up.
"I was not HIV-positive before I met him. If I hadn't found out I was HIV positive, I would have been out of this relationship a long time ago. Every time we broke up we would get together again saying 'We are both HIV positive, so we may as well stay together. I didn't know if I would be able to find someone else."
Since coming out of hospital after the slashing which left her "within five minutes of dying", she has gone to live with her parents, but is still terrified of her ex-lover and wont go back to their house to get her belongings.
She claimed he was hassling her relatives with bizarre requests, mainly wanting 'the knife' allegedly used to stab her.
She says she does not move around Grahamstown without having someone by her side. "I don't want to see him. I'm scared of bumping into him."
She said police had been notified of the claims and would be contacting Mr Ndimande's lawyers. She had been told that if it were true, Mr Ndimande could be jailed in contravention of his R1 000 bail conditions.
Meanwhile, Ms Dyala said she wanted to warn women about checking if their sexual partners were clear of the virus. Asked about why she was prepared to be identified, she said: "I don't mind if my name is used because it's happened. I'm HIV positive and I don't mind the public knowing. I would like to warn other women out there."
Meanwhile, she was hoping to return to her final year studies, in anthropology and information technology. "I will go back in April. I am hoping to catch up."
She says the couple met at Rhodes while she was working as a receptionist and he came for a job interview. Speaking about her HIV status, she said: "Being positive is very serious. I've got the virus but I am healthy now. It is just there. I'm not sick. I am just a carrier. I am not on medication. He is."
"I have known that I have the virus since August, 2, 2000. I can never forget the day I found out." -- ECN Weekend