Verse 27: Condoms

Here in the township, if you're ever out on a walk with a lover and the urge kicks in...well you could just pull her around the corner and enjoy the moment in one of the many alleys, and the convenient thing is, you don't even need a condom handy in your pocket because you can just pick one up from the ground. One that's still in an unopened package, of course.

So that's the joke around here, because of the condoms lying around everywhere.

The South African government issues free condoms in many public places. You can spot the blue boxes/packages in hostels, libraries, bus station, shopping malls...everywhere. In the volunteer house, we have 400 of them.

It isn't so shocking why the government spent so much time and energy to promote condom usage here. The HIV/AIDS proficiency is 35% nation wide and about 45% in the township. However, exactly what the real stats are, no one knows. Some locals suspect it being higher than as advertised, one reason being censorship. Due to the fact that HIV does not directly cause death and some legal issues, a person with HIV will not have any indication of the virus on his/her medical record. Rather, multiple organ failures are often recorded as the cause of death.

With education and massive supply of and easy access to condoms, improvements are slowly taking place. To start off, visual instructions are printed on the back of the package for easy accessibility. The kids seem to know what condoms are, what they're used for, and why they are used - looks like parents and government are doing the right things to make changes they want to see. An article in last Friday's newspaper suggested an increase in condom-use nation-wide and a slight decrease in HIV rates among teens. However, nothing was written about the manner in wThich the researched was conducted in.

Because of the availability of condoms here, they're often used for purposes other than sex. Once in a while, you'll bump into a kid playing with a "condom balloon". Personally, I've used condoms to make sling-shots (they make quite good elastic actually). And the volunteers? Well...one night when we wanted to play poker and didn't have any chips...those 400 condoms we have...

I think you can fill in the gap.