According to studies funded by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health, some 80 percent of these Nyamapanda residents and transients are HIV-positive. Unless this cycle can be broken, scientists insist, the African AIDS epidemic cannot be slowed. Dr. Mary Bassett, a New York City-born scientist who has worked on AIDS problems in Zimbabwe since 1986, thinks that cycle explains why HIV is far more prevalent in east and southern Africa than in the far western regions of the continent. Female entrepreneurialism is common and accepted there, Bassett, who has joint appointments at the University of Zimbabwe and Stanford University, explained. But in southern Africa it is really unheard of.
Women here think they're protected by having one partner.
But the issue is the husband's multiple partners. Many men complain that the deteriorating economy and superstitions in village life practically force them into a promiscuous and dangerous lifestyle. It's difficult for most young men to marry, Tarirai Muchayabande, of Marimbindi village in Zimbabwe, said. We are fortunate if we have two wives. But our fathers had three to six.