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Uganda's Early Gains Against HIV Eroding
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"It was a mistake," Okware said. "That message was loud and clear."
Nearly 18 years after Lutaaya's dramatic crusade, billboards warning against the dangers of reckless sex are hard to find in today's Kampala, the graceful, hilly capital. Far more common are photocopied fliers brazenly saying "Get a Lover" and listing a cellphone number.
Using Condoms Sporadically
As Uganda's AIDS programs lost their focus, Raymond Kwesiga, a quietly charismatic altar boy with gentle eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses, contracted HIV.
It wasn't for lack of available condoms or familiarity with abstinence messages. Ugandan high school students receive AIDS education focused heavily on abstinence. And in a 2004 survey, 92 percent of young, urban Ugandan men said they knew where to find condoms.
What gave Kwesiga HIV, he said, was the behavior Lutaaya once warned against.
Kwesiga, 24, had a girlfriend, several occasional partners and a knack for seducing others so reliable that his friends dubbed him "Raymond the Great," he said. Many nights, too lazy to call a girlfriend after downing a bottle of Uganda's bitter national liquor, Waragi, he spent 75 cents to hire a prostitute.
Sometimes he used condoms, sometimes not -- a common but uneven approach that research shows almost entirely undermines their value.
"I was enjoying my life, and I thought I wouldn't get the virus," Kwesiga said, speaking with the deliberate cadence of one trying to live up to newly learned ideals. "I wasn't very scared. . . . During the night, you don't get scared."
Now many of Kwesiga's nights are filled with fear. He fears dying. He fears he may not be able to marry or have children. And with the painful clarity that has come with sobriety, he fears he may have given HIV to somebody else.
With his voice filled with regret, Kwesiga said darkly, "I'm like a murderer."
