By Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye When Silence Screamed Loudest — Living Through the HIV/AIDS Scourge in the 1990s During my primary school years in the 1990s, HIV/AIDS was the most dreaded monster of our time. It was a ghost—no one knew where it had come from, and no one knew where it was going. Families were isolated, individuals blacklisted. Life became a package of myths, superstitions, and uncertainties. The community lived under the shadow of death. Fresh graves filled the cemeteries. There was an eerie silence—a stillness so profound it felt like the entire village was tiptoeing, afraid to disturb the spirit of death, lest it be provoked to strike again. It would often begin with a rumour. Someone developed a persistent fever. Another suffered a miscarriage. A couple delivered a stillbirth. Someone gained or lost weight too suddenly. And I remember vividly—a time when even giving birth to twins could ignite speculation. Then and there, the village wo...