Poverty

the coutnry has a facade of being in good shape but it is really a complete disaster. today after almost three weeks of being here I saw the first affluent house. I have seen medium sized homes and they are always surrounded by shanty towns, cow dung houses, houses constructed out of metal tins or anything the poeple could find. The HIV rate of the people ages 15-30 is something like 60%. Parents are dieing off from AIDS and the country is raising a generation of children without parents. Many people do not believe that the anti retral drugs work at all; they instead prefer to go to their local healers. The man who is most likely to be the next president is notorious for having sex with HIV infected women because he believes that if you shower afterwards you can't become infected. If a man of education, money, and fame thinks this way the millions of people who have zero education must believe it as well.

About five years ago there was a rumor going around in this country that if you had sex with a virgin you would be cured of HIV. This led to thousands of men raping girls as young as 5 years old.

I went hiking with a guy I met the other day to a water fall out in the jungle. When we got there we went straight to the top and jumped the 30 feet or so into the pool underneath. When he took his shirt off I noticed a massive scar on his side. It was 12 inches long and 3 inches wide. I asked him what happened and he told a story that I am sure is an everyday occurance here. Seven years ago he was in his township and got into a fight with another guy over a girl. He won the fight but the guy he was fighting had been circumsized whereas he had not been. In the xhosa tradition (same tribe as Nelson Mandela) you are not a man until you have been circumsized. The guy then went to get a knife and stabbed my buddy to try to save some face. I asked him why he did not go a hospital and he said he had already lost so much blood he did not want to lose his money as well. It would have been too expensive for him to take transportation to the hospital to get treatment. He then went on to say that he wanted to press charges but it would have cost him too much money as well. He would have had to pay to get to town, pay for court fees, and pay for lunch while he was in town. He did not have the money so the guy did not get into trouble.
Driving along the highway you pass through villages of postage stamp sized houses. I have been in bathrooms bigger than these houses where 10 people could be living. Many people seem happy despite the poverty but sometimes you can see the desperation in peoples faces. A look of helplessness, misery, and fear. Some people look as if they reached the end of their limit and have given up.
I have seen poverty before traveling but it has never had this type of effect on me. It could be that it has been building inside of me or it could be that here it is just everywhere.

I would not change the privelages I have had my entire life. Having said that it does not seem fair that one person can have so much and millions of others have nothing. There are millions of people living with no electricity, water, food, work, safety, or education. Without education these people will have no weapon to better themselves.

These are just some of my thoughts that have been going through my head on my travels. My next entry will have some of the adventrues I have been going on.