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to pieces, and it's much harder to speak against condoms when funeral processions wind through your neighborhood every weekend. Occasional religious educators claim that promoting condom usage waters down their message and therefore makes anti-HIV education less effective; but most churches I've encountered take a pragmatic, condom-promoting approach. Indeed, one of the best HIV curricula I've seen so far is the "Channels of Hope" workshop, created by the Christian organization World Vision and designed to train church groups. It not only promotes explicit condom education, but urges compassion towards sex workers and homosexuals. And it discusses why marital rape isn't okay! I'd venture to say that the majority of liberal, secular sex education curricula in the USA aren't as awesome.

Just the other day, I was surveying a bunch of kids aged 11-13 and they asked how to put on a condom. Cursing myself silently, I had to admit that I didn't have any to show them... at which point one child dashed from the room and returned minutes later bearing both a condom, plus a rather splintery stick from a firewood pile. Condom distribution is in full swing; I can think of three places to pick up free condoms within a ten-minute walk from where I'm seated. Condoms are described in kids' textbooks, and condom demonstrations are welcome in every school. Condoms are lauded by politicians, pop icons, and religious leaders. Take any person off the street and they'll know the HIV-prevention mantra: ABC -- Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms. Yet condom usage rates are still killingly low.

* * *

Though I'm fishbelly-pale, I'm not great at wearing sunscreen, and I live in Africa. I try... I mean, I kinda try... I mean it's so annoying to apply, and it feels gross! And this notwithstanding the fact that I literally have ten bottles of top-quality, non-sticky, oil-free sunscreen sitting across the room from me as I type this. On the other hand, I religiously take my malaria prophylactic pill; I've noticed no side effects, and getting malaria would really suck.

I recall one recurring conversation between myself and a former boyfriend, whom I dated for years. We'd both had excellent sex education, and yet we used withdrawal as our primary birth-control method. We did it even though we both had boxes of condoms available. We did it even though neither of us wanted me to get pregnant, and -- though I'm definitely pro-choice -- I wasn't sure I could bring myself to have an abortion. We'd both been tested, and we trusted each other not to cheat, but that's some dangerous trust to extend -- and we knew it.

One particular moment comes to mind: we were lying lazily in bed together, talking about how stupid we were.

"We should be more careful," he said seriously.

"We really should," I agreed.

"Let's be more careful," he suggested.

I nodded.

We weren't.

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