Family, friends, AIDS and a pot of nshima.

I spent most part of today with family friends and their friends. It was a nice day of nshima, okra, fish and yes you guessed it chicken. I was impressed with the quality of the nshima, upon complimenting the young woman in charge, I was kindly informed that the maize meal was imported from Zambia.

All you Sossanites craving for the real mcCoy, just buzz me, there is plenty of Zambian maize meal to keep you bellies full for the rest of the winter.

Anyway, while we were having a lavish feast of zambian meal, the issue of aids come up. Who has or does not have aids, how can you tell. What if you fancy someone, does it matter? And of course, condoms.

Mind you, here is a self professed HIV/AIDS activist sitting with 20 somethings men and women discussing sex and related matters. It is quite easy for me to post a comment or article on the internet about aids, but quite different to talk to young people you have known for a long time about an issue which is now taken for granted. It was a challenge to say the least.

My take on this issue is simply this, there are lots of lovely and beautiful people out there. It is only natural to get smitten by the bug called love, and it is a natural step to sleep with your luv thang.

Please, please, remember this, just wear a johnny while you at it!

All the young ones thought I was nuts and laughed about it. One even had the audacity to ask me about my favourite flavour. I'm talking about kids who do not even know who flava flav is, that Dr Dre side kick from NWA. Anyway, teaching youngesters who know so much about sex is a very daunting task.

I think the message should be geared to responsibility. The youngsters have so much access to information, yet they lack the sense of responsibility. If we teach these young things how to be responsible with all the info the hold in their tiny brains, we are getting somewhere. And the message on HIV prevention will hit home.