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The fourth estate

By Willemien Brümmer

It’s strange how our hypotheses never seem to work out the way we planned. And how inherent judgments about the world always find a way to sneak into the stories we construct. So called fourth estate journalism is certainly not exempt from this.

The story I constructed in my head about men and HIV starts about five years ago when I conducted in depth interviews with ten women at the paediatric HIV service based at the Groote Schuur hospital.

Most of these women talked and easily shared intimate details about their families and how the virus had changed almost every aspect of their lives. They spoke to me about love, abuse, loss and death. But what I remember most vividly is that most of them were single mothers who would do almost anything to keep themselves and their families alive.

Late bloomers good after all these years

By Lungi Langa

A train ride from Cape Town to Newlands recently made me feel old-fashioned and dull. This was all thanks to a conversation between two grade eight learners Bonga and Sipho who were sitting opposite me.

I’m not sure if it’s because of my occupation, but to eavesdrop has become a way of life.

It started when Sipho asked Bonga whether his girlfriend was in grade 9 or 10, a question Bonga seemed keen to answer until he noticed that I was looking in their direction (an act I regret).

However, it seemed my curiosity did not deter Sipho from persisting with the question. Bonga eventually responded with “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Sipho wasn't pleased by the answer and asked Bonga about the girl he had seen him with in class. Sipho thought she was Bonga's girlfriend.

Bonga said the girl was not his girlfriend and then asked his friend what was wrong with not having a girlfriend.

Fellow Lungi Langa is taken aback by the sexual antics of today's youth.

Lessons from Swaziland: male circumcision

By Wilson Johwa

We already know that male circumcision is the next biggest frontier in South Africa's fight against HIV-AIDS.

Enabling policy guidelines are still being finalised before the expected roll-out. This could be anytime soon, most definitely after the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup which, mind you, is expected to chew up an extra 1.5 billion condoms that the government is providing.

While doubts and counter arguments follow male circumcision, it is possible that South Africa can learn something from Swaziland. However, unlike South Africa which has a mixed experience regarding male circumcision, the Swazi kingdom has one of the lowest circumcision rates in the world, most of which are performed for medical reasons.

But the scale of the AIDS epidemic made it consider any intervention that would help reduce the scale of the AIDS epidemic. Swaziland has among the most acute HIV epidemics in the world, with HIV prevalence among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics estimated at 42% in 2008.

Reunion

By Willemien Brümmer

During those nine months I’d experienced the heaven and the hell of journalism: In our jobs we are afforded the rare opportunity to become intimately acquainted with our “subjects”, even if only for the duration of the story. We become parasites to their most personal longings and fears, and then we remove them surgically from our hearts. We try to block them from our dreams and we forget their faces when they cry, as we move on to other stories and other people…

Fellow Willemien Brümmer discovers that there are some relationships that cannot be picked up where they were left off.

“You have brought the sickness:” HIV and a woman’s plight

By Lungi Langa

I was recently paging through a back-copy of the Big Issue magazine when an article titled Teen love gets more complicated, caught my attention. It told the story of a teenager who was born HIV positive. She found out about her status when she was thirteen years old.

Because she had been a sickly child, her mother knew every witch doctor around and took her to all of them.

Her father was also sick, convincing her mother that they were both bewitched, probably by one person. After her father died, the girl’s health continued to deteriorate until she was referred to a health facility where both she and her mother were tested and diagnosed with HIV.