In Zimbabwe, Fewer Affairs And Less HIV

"That behavior is changing significantly is clear," Gomo said from Blantyre, Malawi, where he recently joined the medical school faculty at the University of Malawi. "The question is: What has caused that change?"

Inflation and Fear

With unemployment estimated at 80 percent, trading sex for money remains an appealing choice for some women, said Tsitsi, a sassy 23-year-old wearing designer jeans and a red, scooped-neck top. She spoke about personal matters on the condition that her last name not be used.

A 40-year-old businessman pays Tsitsi about $75 a month to be his girlfriend. She said the man also takes her out to dinner and buys groceries for her parents.

Tsitsi said that, though she is not in love, she regards the relationship as better than many marriages. The man agrees to use condoms, and there is no possibility of betrayal if she does not expect sexual fidelity, she said.

"He's like an ATM," Tsitsi said. "You just go and punch money and it comes out."

Several of her friends have similar relationships, she said, but they are becoming harder to find and maintain. When a man gets low on cash, Tsitsi said, "he'll just take care of his wife."

Pastor Elliot Mandaza of New Life Covenant Church in Harare has noticed a similar trend. As the capital's night spots have closed -- the church uses a former cinema for Bible classes -- pews have filled with financially troubled newcomers seeking divine solace. Few of these men can afford several sex partners.

"That's by and large now the preserve of the wealthy. You have a 'small house' if you have the money," Mandaza said. "It's hard enough to look after number one."

Business is down as well in bars and liquor stores in the dense bedroom community of Chitungwiza, 15 miles south of Harare. Weeknights are especially slow as customers hoard money for the weekend. Every time prices jump, the crowds dwindle again. A brewery truck that once arrived twice a week has stopped coming; bottles now arrive by wheelbarrow because bar owners keep stocks low to hedge against inflation.

The changes are not only economic. Most Zimbabweans have watched a family member or a close friend wither away before their eyes. And unlike Zimbabwe's neighbors, which have used international funding to create increasingly extensive treatment programs, AIDS means almost certain death here.

Brighton Ndlovu, 35, a trader in computer hardware who wore a dapper black suit on a recent visit to a popular Chitungwiza pub, has lost three brothers to AIDS. Each one got thin, lost his hair and sweated his way through terrible fevers, he recalled.

Ndlovu said he uses condoms faithfully, and he made several changes likely to reduce his risk of infection: He avoids prostitutes, cut back on girlfriends and broke up with a "small house" woman whose living expenses he paid.

Driving those decisions was a combination of financial stress and fear of AIDS.

"I know the consequences," he said.

This potent combination has changed business calculations as well. Frank Muhamba, 64, who owns the building that houses Ghetto Blues nightclub in Chitungwiza, said the club no longer employs a night shift of cleaning women who double as prostitutes. Muhamba said that contributing to the death of customers was wrong, and bad for the bottom line, too.

"Before, we could go to a bar," he recalled, "and we'd find 10 women wanting us."

Now, Muhamba said, "We will go home without talking to any of those girls. . . . They will kill us."