On the 10th of June 2006, I am riding in the Bike to CAP AIDS campaign in Toronto, in an effort to raise funds to fight the AIDS pandemic. This is my second time participating in this effort and I cannot explain fully the fulfillment and excitement that this work brings to me and others that take the time to get involved. The CAP AIDS target for this year is $40000, which for me is a very paltry figure given the population and wealth in this part of the world. For every $200 that is raised, CAP AIDS will put a bicycle into the hands of an HIV/AIDS worker enabling them to provide HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support services to 5 times as many Africans affected by AIDS . Unmathematically, this means at least 200 bikes!!!!!
For me the fight against the AIDS/HIV is very personal and I do not want to hide that I might not have gotten heavily involved had it not for these personal reasons. Southern Africa is the most HIV/AIDS affected region of the world. And I can safely say that everyone in that region have been affected by HIV/AIDS one way or another. Some people have lost distant relatives, others have lost very close relatives, fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers.
In 1994 in a space of three months, AIDS took away my mother, her younger sister and her brother. They all died outcasts and paupers, because AIDS does not only eat one’s body, it also devours their dignity and self. I watched for many years that my mother was suffering, people that were close friends, family creating distance everyday. I watched her suffer with just my young sister and I on her side. Its not easy when you know that the one you love is suffering from a disease that gives them a zero chance of hope of survival. When you know with certainty that they are going to leave you and you are powerless to change fate. The loss of my mother from AIDS brought a loss of motherly love and ushered in a lot of responsibilities. I had to take care of myself and my young sister who at that time was only 9 years old and I was 14 years. My mom was a single mom, before she departed she said to me “whatever comes Rainos take of your sister”. I couldn’t have disregarded her important message. Juggling school and selling produce at the local market, I tried to provide school fees and food for us, with little success. My sister and I were eventually separated, since then I haven’t seen her. I was fortunate enough to have a father who after a long time agreed to take care of me, my sister who had already lost her father again from AIDS was left to fend for herself, enduring mistreatment and harassment from distant relatives. This is just my Mother’s side. On my father’s side, I lost an uncle, aunt and two nephews. And all these people left families that at this time are struggling to make ends meet. My story is not isolated, many people have shaken hands with this genocidal pandemic in most parts of Africa. Thus I feel, failing to act on this pandemic is tantamount to willingly participating in a genocide. With the rich nations failing to make tangible promises to fight AIDS, it is only people like you concerned citizens who can help the unfortunate parts of the world.
I was born and grew up in a very small village in Gutu , Zimbabwe. My village’s economy until two decades ago was entirely based on subsistence farming, gathering and small scale hunting. Its health system depended solely on natural medicines, all of which came from our natural environment . The diseases then the Elders say, “ were easy to manage”. The success of the community was based on mutual partnerships, with loosely structured family based cooperatives providing labor for farming, harvesting and other labor intensive activities.
To a large extent, my village still depends on agriculture, but due to drought and shortage of land young people have to move to the cities and other villages in search of other sources of sustenance. A lot of the plants the old folks used as medicine and food have disappeared such that the health system that we depended on for a long time hangs on a very thin thread. We now have to walk long distances to small village clinics which most of the time suffer from chronic shortages of the Western Medicines that they are built to distribute. The disintegration of our agricultural based economy and the waning of the traditional health system, requires other ways of keeping the community alive. With this realization many communities including mine collaborated to build ‘dust” roads to link each other and themselves with major cities for a more efficient trading and exchange system. While the roads are there, there are no buses that come to my village on a regular basis. No one owns a car in my village. The major mode of transport is the foot, which for many years, though slow, has gotten us a long way. And to compound the already precarious situation, the current economic crisis in Zimbabwe have brought to an instant halt the transportation system as well as the only bus that came to my community.
A combination of a crumbled health system, disintegrating agricultural economy, non-existent transport system and the marauding HIV/AIDS pandemic provides for one poisonous recipe to stagnantise any society. We all know that when the fabric of the society has been compromised , the repercussions are massive.
I am just imagining, since I can’t see with my own eyes, how the people there are passing information to each other, are carrying grain to the grinding mills, carrying sick people to the hospital??? I don’t want to forget that when I was still there, a couple teachers in my community owned bikes. And these bikes were a community transportation source. (I learned how to bike on a borrowed bike). And almost everyone had access to them. This brings me to the importance of the Bike to CAP AIDS campaign. Bikes are not just a luxury to a community like mine, they are not for exercising, nor are they for racing competitions, they perform life saving functions the way the fuel-driven vehicles here do. Imagine the chaos that came when the TTC strike happened in Toronto??? The way the whole city almost crumbled!! No transport, No economy!!!! This is the void that the bike fills in rural Zimbabwe, where shortage of fuel, buses and bus parts have become the norm. The Bike to CAP AIDS campaign is for me a practical way of assisting people to take care of themselves. This method of assisting is respectful of the recipients and gives them ownership of what they are doing in the community. While Bikes are by no means the solution to the AIDS/HIV crisis, they are an integral tool in the alleviation of the logistical glitches that are common in the caring of the sick in rural communities. Delivery of medicine, food and love are made quicker with a bike than foot.
My personal target in this campaign is $ 2000, I would like to reach this goal before the riding day. If you are not able to contribute by the riding date, no problem, donate any time the money will still reach the CAP AIDS . I hope you are going to join us and make a difference
Thanks a lot.

Rainos Mutamba