What have you done lately to help yourselves?

Eighteen-, 19- and 20-year-old Namibian students, who otherwise would be settling into their local villages during the university winter break, sit in chairs arranged in a semicircle and begin to tackle a question that has frustrated and eluded many for years:

Why has HIV, the virus that tears apart the human immune system, savaged their nation to the point where one out of every five citizens now carries the it?

The statistics are hard to come to grips with – 20 per cent of the nation’s people, and in some areas of Namibia like the Caprivi region, close to an astounding 40 per cent carry the virus.

The students, attending a workshop run by the University of Namibia’s HIV/AIDS peer education program, blame poverty, inequality, underdevelopment and even the lingering travesties of colonialism for their country’s predicament. They even blame themselves and their fellow citizens for abusing alcohol, not using condoms or for having multiple sexual partners.

Themselves? Really? Who woulda thunk it? After all, the colonialists are not grabbing every African dick and shoving it into the nearest available hole, are they? I sincerely doubt the diamond trade - or even the slave trade - had much to do with Africans not being able to keep it in their pants. How about learning a little personal responsibility and a few morals, then see what happens.

And if you get the hang of it in Africa, come on over and teach our gay communities a thing or two about how barebacking just isn’t cool.