Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
November 29, 2001 Thursday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Foreign Desk; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 1176 words

HEADLINE: AIDS and Death Hold No Sting for Fatalistic Men at African Bar

SERIES: DEATH AND DENIAL: Sexual Bravado

BYLINE: By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

DATELINE: HLABISA, South Africa

BODY:


The bar nicknamed K. F. C. does not serve fried chicken, and working up an appetite might be tricky if it did. It is a cinder block garage on a dirt street next door to a funeral parlor. It has roll-down steel doors, one pool table, one plastic table, two coolers full of beer and shelves full of cheap Richelieu brandy.

On a good night, the house might possess only five or six glasses, so men hand the bottles around.

That in itself explains why safe sex is not the No. 1 topic in Hlabisa watering holes. Poverty and ignorance about health run so deep that even safe drinking is rare.

Why, the question was asked recently at K. F. C., won't the men wear condoms?

By now, everyone has heard the message: have safe sex or die. So why does it not sink in?

"Because if you are a man, you are born to die," answered Albert Msimango, 25. "It is like Shaka said: 'We are Zulus. The men must go forward and get something.' "

Shaka, the 19th century Attila of southern Africa, meant enemies, glory and the possibility of death. Mr. Msimango meant sex and children at the same odds.

Fatalism was the word around the table. Two of the men were in wheelchairs, one from a bullet wound. Two others were off-duty police officers in a province where the police are frequently killed for their guns. Here, a funeral after 10 years of wasting away seems remarkably remote.

"We are not scared of death," said one officer who declined to give his name. "I don't see the importance of AIDS."

His partner on the job, M. B. Ndlela, 34, said: "I use a condom 20 to 50 percent of the time. Because we are Zulus, we don't believe AIDS can affect us. We see our sisters dying, but we don't believe it's AIDS. We think it's TB or pneumonia."

Cynicism about condoms is virtually universal. For years, the government's slipshod testing practices had made South Africa a dumping ground for substandard foreign condoms, and many tell stories of having one break.

"I got one -- a Lucky -- I put it on and saw it was already cracked," said a former schoolteacher. "One of my former students said he used very expensive condoms. He told me, 'You are stupid,' for using the government ones. 'You will die,' he said. But already he has died."

Why can't a woman insist that a man wear one?

In Zulu custom, "the woman has no power with the man," the schoolteacher said. Then, explaining what rights he gained by paying the bride price for a woman, he added, "Because I paid 11 cows for her, she is supposed to do everything I say."

Across the street in the ramshackle Sundwini Shebeen -- the Palm Bar, named for the tall tree holding up the sagging porch roof -- other men echoed the sentiments.

"Most men are bullying," said Khaya Manyanga, 25, a hospital radiographer. "If a girl says 'Please use a condom,' I will say, 'Why? Do you have AIDS?' "

Some say sex with a condom is not really sex.

"The pleasure goes down when you use oil and rubber," said Innocent Mncwango, 31, who is unemployed.

Even the condoms themselves inspire fear. "Some men say condoms come from the white man to stop us having children," said Clifford Manqele, 40. "Some think the AIDS is inside the condom."

Nonetheless, the men were fairly sympathetic to the plight of women.

"For Africans, for Zulus, it's the right thing for a man to have 5 wives or 10, if you can pay" for a bride, Mr. Manqele said. "This can spread AIDS. And the girls can have no job, they suffer from hunger. So they have sex for money, they try to love a guy who is working, one here, one in Durban, one in Joburg -- this can spread it easily, too."

A police officer, Ephraim Sibiya, 31, said he felt responsible for the young women he had sex with. "If I have a girlfriend in my room, and she knows nothing, it is up to me to tell her what the use of this piece of plastic is," he said.

But men in both bars said other men -- not themselves -- could be truly sinister.

"Some men who have AIDS say, 'I don't want to die alone,' " said Mr. Manyanga. "So they go out and spread it."

The same questions were put to nine young women training to become health educators.

They confirmed the essential, hopeless conundrum: everyone in Hlabisa has been advised to use condoms, but few do.

Seven of the women had children; not one had had an AIDS test or a husband or boyfriend who had had one. None had ever heard the words "antiretroviral" or "AIDS cocktail."

Their sex education did not begin at home. "The parent is too shy to talk to his son or daughter," said Goodness Mbikozi. "In Zulu, you say you spoil the child if you talk about it. But parents will say 'If you get H.I.V., I will beat you,' or 'It's a shame disease because it's from sex.' "

In the 19th century, Zulu teen-agers were allowed a practice called ukusoma or "thigh sex," avoiding penetration. Only battle veterans were allowed to buy brides and father children, and it was shameful for a woman to become pregnant before the bride price had been paid.

Times have changed.

"In our tradition," Miss Mbikozi added, "we are not supposed to have boyfriends until we are 21. But we go jolling, we 'jump,' we disobey. We tell our parents we are going to school, and we go to the boy's house."

The young women all said they knew their boyfriends slept with other women.

"It's our tradition for a man to have many girlfriends and many wives -- it's very difficult to change that," Gugu Chakwe, 21, said.

Some men wore condoms, they said, but if the woman suggested it first, her suitor would accuse her of being promiscuous or infected.

"And he will hit you," Miss Mbikozi said. "Definitely, he will hit you."

The women are so powerless that dumping even a violent lover can be difficult. There are few jobs here, and men are expected to give their girlfriends money that helps support their parents and siblings.

"If my boyfriend does not give me money, I will leave him," Miss Mbikozi said. "And if I don't have money, I will fall in love with a 50-year-old man with a pension and sleep with him and take his. Because I like to have watches and jeans and things, and my parents cannot give them to me."

Moreover, if a man contemplates marriage and starts paying lobola -- the bride price, calculated in cows but often paid in cash -- he believes that he owns the woman. In traditional Zulu courts, he does.

If there is one common element between the women and the men here, it is that poverty and tradition have made safe sex almost impossible.

"If he really loves you, he will understand," said Senzeni Khumalo, 30. "But if he doesn't, he will take a lady who will have sex without a condom."


This series about the H.I.V. epidemic in South Africa focuses on a Zulu community in the hills of KwaZulu/ Natal Province.

While the crisis affecting Africa has been widely reported, these articles offer a rare portrait of the everyday struggles in one place.

Previous articles have included an overview of the community, a visit to a local hospital and a profile of a doctor. Later articles will examine migrant workers and teenagers.

Articles in the series and related coverage are available at:

nytimes.com/international


URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Photo: Patrons of a bar in Hlabisa, South Africa, say they often refuse to use condoms, citing Zulu customs, their views about sex and cynicism about the quality of foreign condoms. (Joao Silva for The New York Times)

LOAD-DATE: November 29, 2001