5 years to live! How lawyer Marufu beat the HIV and Aids doomsday clock

Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter 

ON 23 March 2000, Kensington Marufu, alongside his brother, father and mother, received a damning prophecy. 

All of them, the prophecy said, would not live beyond five years. 

Of course, for many it is easy to disregard prophecy. One can always comfort themselves with the thought that the seer they consulted did not catch a true picture of what would happen to them when they cast their eye on the future. One can also argue that they are in the hands of a false prophet, an untrustworthy man of God who somehow peered into tomorrow and misinterpreted what he saw happening. 

However, what Kensington and his family received that day was not the kind of prophecy one could easily dismiss or dispute. The man dressing them was not just another mere prophet of doom. They were in the hands of a medical doctor, whose prediction of the future was grounded on the prevailing science. 

The entire family, the doctor said, had five years to live at most. They had just tested positive for HIV and in those days at the turn of the century, before antiretroviral drugs were easily accessible to the populace, it was thought to be a death sentence. 

“We got tested on the 23rd of March in 2000,” Kensington testified recently. 

“This is something that was diarised by my father who was a police officer. So I had a diary entry of the day when this happened. When we got tested, the doctor who diagnosed us said we were not likely to live for more than five years. This meant that I had five years to live. 

“When I found out I had the virus I went into hiding like anyone who had it at that particular point. Back then, some of the slogans you’d see would go ‘Aids kills’ or that it would be called Mukondombera. We were part of the generation that was labelled like that,” he said. 

For the next few years of Kensington’s life, it seemed that the medical prophecy would indeed come true. His elder brother died in 2003, three years after the doctor’s prediction and his mother died a year later. That meant that he and his father only had a year more to live before their fate caught up with them. 

His father would buck the trend, however, showing that the prophecy was not exactly watertight. He died in 2006. 

“Stereotypes got affirmed. My brother passed on in 2003. My mother passed on in 2004 and my dad went beyond the five years that had been predicted and passed on in 2006. So everyone predicted that I would not live longer than three years,” said Kensington. 

His father had passed a year later than scheduled, if their doctor’s prediction was to be believed, so it meant they might be hope for Kensington yet. However, for a scrawny 16-year-old now suddenly alone in the world, it did not feel that way. 

He had lost his entire family in the space of six years, leaving him alone in a world that still cast accusatory and judgemental looks in the direction of people with his condition. Bereft of all hope, it would not be long before he turned to drugs. 

“When my father died I came to live with my paternal family, my grandmother and my uncles. Things were very tough. I failed my O-levels, passing only one subject which was English. When we were staying in Shackleton, life was measured by the ability to perform hard labour. I worked at the farms but I didn’t have the strength for some of the work. However, I had friends who would assist me, friends who wouldn’t judge me. 

“Those were the days when I had a tattoo and a Mohawk hairstyle. I also used to smoke marijuana because I had no faith in life. I stopped believing in myself. Losing parents who loved me for who I was and being placed in an environment where I was judged on how I was greatly affected me,” he said. 

In those years, anyone living with HIV and Aids was marked and Kensington was no different. He was the butt of all jokes, as many took delight in poking fun at a young boy who was only the victim of his circumstances. 

“Most of the people who lived with me thought I was going to die. I was called many names, I was called Go Slow. When we were playing football on the field, I would not be allocated a team. They’d just say get in and you should just score at whichever goal that you like. But that is how life has always been for me. I don’t remember being HIV-negative,” he said. 

 Four years after his father’s passing on, Kensington decided to take a chance. He remembered that his father had left an account at a local bank. Surely, he thought, it would not hurt to find out just how much his old man had in his account before he passed away. 

“In 2010, at 20, I realised my father had an account with Barclays Bank. I had kept his payslip and also had his account details so I thought let me just get into one of the branches and check if he had any money because things had been hard. 

“When I entered this bank there was this lady. I remembered her because she knew my father. She did not know he had died four years back. So I told her and then requested to see if my father’s account had something in it. She checked and she told me there was US$1 000 in my father’s account,” he said. 

With such a tidy sum at his disposal, Kensington felt that he had hit the jackpot. 

However, the ticking clock that the doctor had placed into his family’s life was still on his mind, 10 years later. Should he go back to school and try to do something meaningful with his life or should he squander the money like a man who knew that he had a limited time on earth? After all, he had already lived for five more years than he was meant to. 

“The lady at the bank told me to go to the Master of High Court and undergo the process of getting the death certificate and other necessary documents. So I went to see the police chaplain, Inspector Munyonga. He assisted me in getting those documents and I got the money. I wanted to buy a Mazda 323 and become a pirate on the road. The inspector suggested that I should go back to school. 

“It was four years after I had sat for my O-levels. He said if I could go back and sit for my O-levels, I would pass and he told me that he would pray for me. I had a decision to make. I had to consider my lifespan on earth because the doctor had told me that I was going to die. Now I had money that needed to be spent while I was alive. I remember things were so hard at that time, when I got that money I went to TM’s delicatessen because I needed to eat something now,” he said. 

In the end, Kensington decided to trust in the chaplain’s prayer. He would give school a chance. However, he was now out of his teens and school children rarely show kindness to those from unfortunate circumstances. He was taunted, and mocked, as day after day, fellow pupils would have a field day with the fact that he was the oldest at school. 

“I decided to go back to school and there I was called a lot of names because I was the eldest at Chipinda Secondary School. My mother had always taught me that when people laugh at you always laugh with them so when they called me KaDhara, I would tell them to call me Mudhara instead. So in the end I passed my O-levels with 4As, 3Bs, and a C,” he revealed. 

For Kensington, the path to the future now seemed somewhat clearer. He could now see a job and perhaps, finally, some happiness in his life. The joy and hope he enjoyed in those days were short-lived, as short of money, he did not find himself in a cushy office with a nice job but back in the fields again, herding cattle. 

“When it’s not your time, it’s not your time. So, I expected to get a job, maybe join the police, or maybe join the army. However, my health, my age and other factors hindered me. I could not go to teaching because I didn’t have money to pay for college. So the euphoria disappeared. In 2011 and 2012 I was still at home. So I was herding cattle for this old woman who would say, my cattle are taken care of by a person with Maths and English at O-level. It is funny in retrospect because it was true,” he said. 

For two years, the dark clouds gathered again around his life. Yet, when all hope seemed lost again, a silver lining appeared. A well-wisher gave him a choice: he could continue languishing in the rural areas as a herdboy, or he could go back to school, two years later than he would have wanted. 

“I went back to school. I would get embarrassed when teachers asked us our age in front of the class. I had my medication but it was difficult to take because I was sharing a hostel with other students. I was made the class monitor and then the deputy head boy. For me, at that time, these were things that meant a lot. I would later score 15 points and I was admitted into law school,” he said. 

Now, Kensington is a fully-qualified lawyer, a bright mind that many turn to for legal advice in Harare. When they do so, few know the obstacles and hurdles that he had to jump before he could get to that position. 

It is now something that Kensington takes lightly, as he seeks to inspire other young people to rise above their hardships and pull themselves up by the bootstraps. His story is also a testimony of Zimbabwe’s long and impressive fight against the HIV and Aids scourge. Both Kensington and his county have come a long way.

“I understand that there are Kensingtons out there going through the same challenges. I am not alone. Kensington does not have role models because most people like him are in hiding. So that’s why I wrote a book. Maybe that boy out there can one day read it and appreciate that life can change,” he said.