Okay, so this is me, Magnetic Mama, welcome to my blog! I am very excited to join the list of TheBody.com bloggers, and I think I might bring a slightly different perspective to the amazing bunch of people already out there. I am the negative i.e. uninfected half of a HIV magnetic couple. In my eyes (err...ears) 'magnetic' sounds so much more positive than serodiscordant because it implies attraction rather than some kind of clash (that's not to say I don't have any of those with my hubby...)I am fairly new to this form of communication but I have somehow managed to make a Mini-Mama 'WeeMee', which kind of looks like me *burstwithpride*. The reason I am not showing my actual photo is to protect my husband, who is not open about his status and I don't want to inadvertently disclose it by proxy.
Who am I? Well I'm a 27-year-old woman, a psychologist, a good friend (at least I think so), an enormous fan of good food, movies and endless chats about everything and nothing. I currently live in South Africa with my husband, I am German by birth and I lived in the UK for a long time (confused yet?).
I have been working for a South African NGO that provides paediatric HIV services to the public, so basically I’ve been working with children, and adolescents as well as their caregivers infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Now that that's out of the way, what is this all about? Well, in about a months time I am embarking on a rather ambitious, exciting and frankly a little terrifying trip around the world, spanning 10 countries in 6 months all on my own. Along the way I am hoping to meet up with other couples or families in my situation or with whoever is interested in connecting with me, and here I will write down my experiences, thoughts and undoubtedly some mishaps as well.
So, if you live in Thailand, Australia (Sydney), New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Peru, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada or the US (especially along the Route 66) and you'd like to get in touch, that would be lovely.
Look after yourselves and each other,
Magnetic Mama
