Our Kind of People: A Continent's Challenge, a Country's Hope by Uzodinma Iweala Page A
Authors: Uzodinma Iweala
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Though there is still a cultural norm that condemns all sex outside of marriage, traditional sexual mores now have to share the space and in some cases do battle with condoms, which can be seen as defining a new threshold between legitimate and illegitimate sex. Good sex involves condoms, and bad sex, the kind that spreads HIV/AIDS, does not.
“Do you use condoms?” I asked Fatimah.
“I practice safe sex. Inasmuch as I want to have sex and enjoy it, I really, really try so hard to practice safe sex, ‘cause I’ve seen someone die of HIV, and it’s not a good experience for my family, for her family, and obviously for the way that she died. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through that. Pregnancy is not something that I’m scared of, because there are many ways to get rid of a pregnancy. But there is no way to get rid of AIDS when you get it. I can be pregnant and my parents might be mad at me, but my parents will forgive me. God will forgive me, and I will live to raise my child. But if I have HIV, I will be hurting my parents, because people begin to judge you, and that’s what I don’t want. I would rather not have that shame and painful death in the future. I would just rather use the protection.”
It is telling that at one point in our conversation, Fatimah told me, “Even if my husband ends up sleeping around, I’ve already prepared my mind on how to control it. I don’t want a husband who sleeps around without protection. I’m the type that would pack my husband’s traveling case with condoms inside. I was telling my boyfriend that if he has to cheat on me—and he was like ‘No! No! No! Stop telling me this. You’re trying to put ideas in my head!’—I was like, ‘No! If you have it in you, you will do it. I’m just giving you my own little conditions. Please, please, please , safe sex whatever you do. And don’t bring it near me.’ I’d rather handle the situation at hand. I’d rather tell him these are my conditions if you have to do it. ’Cause I know, sometimes we’re all human.”
A majority of Nigerians know about condoms, even if we do not always use them correctly or consistently. Ninety percent of people in urban areas and 64 percent of people in rural areas have heard of male condoms. You can find them in hotels and gas stations, in drugstores and even roadside kiosks. Nigerians have used over 900 million condoms since 2002, and that number will only rise. They are here to stay, and they are changing the way we have sex, but the relationship we have with them is complex.
“For example,” a driver I know named Obong told me as we sat at a brukutu joint where he had taken me for an after-work chat, “now, if I see you with a girl, I will now tell you, ‘Remember your bulletproof.’ I will now tell you, ‘If you see a big river—like river Niger or Benue—instead of you to sleep with this girl without condom, so it is better for you to use block, put rope on it, hang it on your neck, and jump inside river.’” He wrapped an invisible rope around his neck and then pantomimed tossing a heavy cinder block over the edge into a river, followed, after a short pause, by his body.
Obong returned to our coarse wooden bench beneath a flamboyant tree with its red blossoms and fanned himself slowly with that morning’s folded newspaper. His shirt bore dark sweat stains where it folded into the creases of his body. He was not an especially large man, but he joked about his growing potbelly and how the extra weight made him sweat a little harder. Around us sprawled a chaotic convention of bars and brothels connected to illegally rigged extensions from the power grid. Men sat in groups, holding bottles of Guinness stout or Star beer as they conversed loudly with one another. Ignored and unhindered, roaming goats gnawed the sackcloth walls of temporary buildings and nuzzled the ground for bits of rubbish.
“To commit suicide is better than you to go on that girl without condom,” he
“Do you use condoms?” I asked Fatimah.
“I practice safe sex. Inasmuch as I want to have sex and enjoy it, I really, really try so hard to practice safe sex, ‘cause I’ve seen someone die of HIV, and it’s not a good experience for my family, for her family, and obviously for the way that she died. I wouldn’t want to put anyone through that. Pregnancy is not something that I’m scared of, because there are many ways to get rid of a pregnancy. But there is no way to get rid of AIDS when you get it. I can be pregnant and my parents might be mad at me, but my parents will forgive me. God will forgive me, and I will live to raise my child. But if I have HIV, I will be hurting my parents, because people begin to judge you, and that’s what I don’t want. I would rather not have that shame and painful death in the future. I would just rather use the protection.”
It is telling that at one point in our conversation, Fatimah told me, “Even if my husband ends up sleeping around, I’ve already prepared my mind on how to control it. I don’t want a husband who sleeps around without protection. I’m the type that would pack my husband’s traveling case with condoms inside. I was telling my boyfriend that if he has to cheat on me—and he was like ‘No! No! No! Stop telling me this. You’re trying to put ideas in my head!’—I was like, ‘No! If you have it in you, you will do it. I’m just giving you my own little conditions. Please, please, please , safe sex whatever you do. And don’t bring it near me.’ I’d rather handle the situation at hand. I’d rather tell him these are my conditions if you have to do it. ’Cause I know, sometimes we’re all human.”
A majority of Nigerians know about condoms, even if we do not always use them correctly or consistently. Ninety percent of people in urban areas and 64 percent of people in rural areas have heard of male condoms. You can find them in hotels and gas stations, in drugstores and even roadside kiosks. Nigerians have used over 900 million condoms since 2002, and that number will only rise. They are here to stay, and they are changing the way we have sex, but the relationship we have with them is complex.
“For example,” a driver I know named Obong told me as we sat at a brukutu joint where he had taken me for an after-work chat, “now, if I see you with a girl, I will now tell you, ‘Remember your bulletproof.’ I will now tell you, ‘If you see a big river—like river Niger or Benue—instead of you to sleep with this girl without condom, so it is better for you to use block, put rope on it, hang it on your neck, and jump inside river.’” He wrapped an invisible rope around his neck and then pantomimed tossing a heavy cinder block over the edge into a river, followed, after a short pause, by his body.
Obong returned to our coarse wooden bench beneath a flamboyant tree with its red blossoms and fanned himself slowly with that morning’s folded newspaper. His shirt bore dark sweat stains where it folded into the creases of his body. He was not an especially large man, but he joked about his growing potbelly and how the extra weight made him sweat a little harder. Around us sprawled a chaotic convention of bars and brothels connected to illegally rigged extensions from the power grid. Men sat in groups, holding bottles of Guinness stout or Star beer as they conversed loudly with one another. Ignored and unhindered, roaming goats gnawed the sackcloth walls of temporary buildings and nuzzled the ground for bits of rubbish.
“To commit suicide is better than you to go on that girl without condom,” he
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