Makass

By James A. Levine

In 2010, Dr. James A. Levine was commissioned by Doctors Without Borders to travel anywhere in the world where they have a station and write about the experience – in an effort to give a voice to people who would otherwise have none. The novella was published, along with nine other major international authors, in Italian, in the anthology, Dignità, for Doctors Without Borders’ 50th Anniversary.

Dr. Levine traveled to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he visited AIDS clinics and witnessed the remarkable medical care that’s being provided. He almost wrote about that. Until he spent time with some of the people living in HIV-positive communities. There, he met Paulit, an extraordinary woman living with AIDS, who refused to be victimized, a woman whose capacity for love will be an inspiration to all.

Now, for the first time in English - this is her true story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NYLA
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781641970532

James A. Levine

James A. Levine is the co-director of the Mayo Clinic/Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and the inventor of the treadmill desk. He has published more than 100 scientific papers, worked on dozens of corporate programs, and served as an advisor for schools on how to make the classroom a more active place. He is the author of Get Up!  He was awarded the Invention of the Year Award by NASA, the Platinum Award at the World Fair, and Entrepreneur of the Year in the State of Minnesota. His work has been featured on Rock Center, 60 Minutes, BBC, and all major network US morning shows, as well as in The New York Times, and The Times of London.

Book preview

Makass

James A. Levine

Contents

Publishing History

Disclaimers and Acknowledgments

Introduction

Makass

Praise for The Blue Notebook

Excerpt from The Blue Notebook

Discover More by James A. Levine

About the Author

Copyright

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Makass

Copyright © 2011 by James A. Levine

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64197-053-2

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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NYLA Publishing

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Publishing History

Makass was originally published in the collection, Dignità (Feltrinelli Editions). Dignità is an anthology compiling the writings of nine major international authors who participated in one of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) projects – and sought to document the experience, in an attempt to give a voice to people who otherwise would have none.

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The Italian edition of Dignità is available through retailers.

Disclaimers and Acknowledgments

All of the events and people described in this novella are real. Names and locations have been changed to protect identity. The narrative is in the mind of the author alone.

I thank, Marina Berdini, Corinne Benazech, Robin Meldrum, Papa Clement and the staff of the Kinshasa Unit for Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders. My gratitude to Papa Jean Lukela, President, RNOAC-Gs/PVVH – an organization that builds cooperatives for survivors who live with SIDA in Kinshasa.

Introduction

I was giving a lecture at the Turin Book Fair when a woman asked to talk with me.  I had just published my first novel, The Blue Notebook, in 2009.  It was fictionalized memoir of a child prostitute I had met in Mumbai, India.  Her name was Batuk.  That book accomplished as much in 242 pages as the prior twenty-five years of my life working in science.  The Blue Notebook impacted policy, attitudes and child reclamation programs.  For me too my life changed, I started to work with organizations around the world to help release prostituted children; I now serve on the Board of the International Center of Missing and Exploited Children.  Fiction, I learned, can impact the collective mind.  It is the collective mind, like the human brain, that determines the actions of humankind.

The woman in Turin who wanted to talk with me was from Doctors Without Borders.  We went to a Turin café and spoke for an hour.  She asked if I would travel on behalf of Doctors Without Borders to anywhere in the world where the organization has a station and from there, write a novella for them.  I would not be paid or compensated.  The novella would be put in an anthology for Doctors Without Borders 50th anniversary celebration.  Without hesitation I said yes. 

I decided to travel to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  I visited the HIV clinic and saw patient after patient who had come to receive AIDS drugs, paid for by the Global Fund.  With resources a hundredth of what I knew of in the United States, the medical care was exemplary; the doctors inspirational.  I almost wrote about that.

However, one evening I said to the head of the clinic that I wanted to visit patients in Kinshasa living with AIDS.  Two days later with Papa Jean, 6 foot 3 inches tall, always ready with a smile, we went to visit people across Kinshasa living with AIDS.

People in Democratic Republic of Congo who have HIV are excommunicated from society.  Husbands throw HIV-positive wives into the street – even though they are the ones who infected their wives.  The only way for HIV-positive people to survive is to cluster into groups.

Groups of HIV-positives and AIDS survivors have emerged in Kinshasa to form isolated communities scattered across the city.  The groups function as stand-alone units; the members farm together, take their HIV medication together and live as one.  Whatever food is not eaten, is sold.  These communities make money and have medical care, which is more than most people living in Kinshasa, where a typical wage is nothing.  These HIV-positive AIDS communities have become so successful, people pretend to be HIV-positive to join.

I visited three of these AIDS communities.  At each site I was greeted as a dignitary and deeply humbled.  Wherever we went we sat, talked, ate and drank soda. I was fed by people who earned less in a year than I make in an hour.  Never would the community take money; instead they wanted my advice; How can we build a school? Do you know about irrigation?

At the third community I met Paulit, the heroine of Makass.  By then it was night.  Her community of seventeen survivors was located in the hills to the west of the airport.  Paulit towered over everyone.  She was as a mountain; possessed of divine force.  The whole community, Papa Jean and I sat in a circle of white plastic chairs and together we ate and drank.  Paulit spoke little but stared at me constantly.  Quite suddenly, she left and returned with a Pyrex plate on which were three leaf-wrapped finger-shaped objects.  I was given the plate and I ate the fingers.  The leaves were bitter and raw.  The filling was sweetened vegetable.  I sipped orange Fanta, smiled and nodded at her; Thank you, I said.  Then, and only then, she smiled at me and happiness spread across her face.

Papa Jean interpreted so that Paulit could tell me her story.  Her community listened.  The moon was giant.

Makass, she said when she was done and pushed her fist into the air.  The community responded, Makass! and thrust fists on thin arms skywards.  Paulit told me, Makass is the power inside your fist.

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James A. Levine

For Paulette

Makass

From the French.

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I wrote this, so that you will find me.

Mammon was more pleased than me. She sang in the street, in the market - anywhere that ears heard; Paulit is marrying a captain. Paulit is marrying a captain. My little sister, Natalie, thought Mammon was ill. It was not normal for Mammon to be happy, especially with me. I felt Mammon’s bursting happiness, but it was nothing compared to my ecstasy.

I married a captain. Mammon called him Captain Antoine. Natalie called him Your Love-Love-Captain. Not only was my husband a captain but he was the son of wealth and so he was wealthy too. His family lived in Kintambo where the bourgeoisie live. We lived in Kasa-vuba with the poor.

I met Antoine by chance; Miracle, Mammon called it.

The miracle was this. Yvette was my friend. Her father worked for one of the unions. He got promoted and gave Yvette 20-dollars to celebrate. She wanted to take Saadyah and me to Bandal - music, beer and boys. The 20-dollars was enough for the three of us. I agreed to go.