Trim It!

Imagine pulling up to your local grocery store, Vons, Safeway, Trader Joes, whatever. And as soon as you get out of your car and head into the store, you see 10-15 people in bright yellow shirts and a guy announces in a large booming voice on loud speaker “Get Circumcised!”

That was my day yesterday. As I was walking home from work, I did my usual walk to new mall and peered around the corner to Choppies (grocery store) and a bright yellow tent with an accompanying street team of 15 people in bright yellow shirts, were all donned with “Get Circumcized!” Behind them is a truck with loud speakers and a guy on stage with the same yellow shirt barking hurried Setswana.

These types of events are everyday occurrences in and HIV/AIDS ravaged country. In Botswana, 17.9% have HIV and in Maun, women my age (25-30) have a 40% likelihood of having HIV. Getting circumcised is one way to curtail a man’s chance of contracting HIV, but in no way (or remotely close), completely protects a person from contracting it.

One would think that a campaign like “Get Circumcized” blaring in a bustling high traffic town centre would gain a lot of attention. However, I did not see many bystanders showing interest.

I recall a friend in LA whose job was to call men who had opted to be contacted to hear about hair replacements. These calls were designed to be stealthy, because men are often too shy to talk about their hair (lack thereof) even to their wives. This sometimes resulted in their wives thinking that their husbands were sneaking around behind their backs – why would a young girl be calling you about an inquiry of a matter that she won’t state?

Anyway. If men are too shy to talk about their shiny balding heads to their wives, then why would any men want to talk about the head in their pants publically in the Vons parking lot and that they would like to get it trimmed?