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Virginity Becomes a Commodity In Uganda's War Against AIDS
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"She will be perfect for the virgin scholarships," he said. He was accompanied by a small entourage, including Madada's second wife, Zainah.
"I suspect it will be hard to find the virgins," Zainah Madada said, volunteering that she had not been a virgin at marriage. "But I think there are a few that can set an example."
When the group reached Prussiant's hut, they found her grandmother lying on a mat, coughing and emaciated. Prussiant had washed the clothes, swept the floors and gone out to dig yams.
Prussiant's grandmother told Anatolius that the girl was still in the seventh grade. She had stayed back repeatedly, the grandmother said, because the family had no money to pay for high school. Was there a scholarship, the old woman asked in a whisper, for virgins stuck in the seventh grade?
Zainah Madada said there was no such program. But she urged Prussiant, who had just come in from the fields, to stay in school. "When you stay at home, the boys are around and there are things that happen that are premature," she said.
Prussiant brought out her school uniform, which was old and torn. "It's too short, and I hate wearing it. But I always wanted to study," Prussiant said. Her hands were cracked from hours of digging in the fields. "First, it was fine to repeat the same year. But now it's my third year. Maybe I should marry," she mumbled.
Her mother, who died in 2001, had told her to remain a virgin until she wed, the girl recalled.
"I try to remember what she told me and honor her memory," Prussiant said.
Sometimes, she said, an older man from the village promises her both marriage and school fees. So far she has turned him down. But with her parents dead and her grandmother sick, she might soon be left alone with seven orphans to care for.
"I'm trying, but I can't stay in seventh grade forever," she said. "If my grandmother dies, I will have to opt for a marriage. That would be the only resort."
'Forgive My Ambitions'
Sitting in a village church, her baby at her breast, Alibakinza Tekera bowed her head and prayed for forgiveness. The parishioners, dressed in colorful clothing, swayed and clapped and closed their eyes in song.
"Please forgive my ambitions, God," prayed Alibakinza, 15. "Help me."
