Late bloomers good after all these years

Lungi Langa

15 June 2010

A train ride from Cape Town to Newlands recently made me feel old-fashioned and dull. This was all thanks to a conversation between two grade eight learners Bonga and Sipho who were sitting opposite me.

I’m not sure if it’s because of my occupation, but to eavesdrop has become a way of life.

It started when Sipho asked Bonga whether his girlfriend was in grade 9 or 10, a question Bonga seemed keen to answer until he noticed that I was looking in their direction (an act I regret).

However, it seemed my curiosity did not deter Sipho from persisting with the question. Bonga eventually responded with “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Sipho wasn't pleased by the answer and asked Bonga about the girl he had seen him with in class. Sipho thought she was Bonga's girlfriend.

Bonga said the girl was not his girlfriend and then asked his friend what was wrong with not having a girlfriend.

“You guys are way too young to have girlfriends or to be having this conversation”, I thought to myself.

Bonga was able to wiggle his way out of answering any further uncomfortable questions by telling Sipho about a common friend who had gotten a raw deal.

Apparently Marcus was ‘misled’ by a girl who pretended to be in love with him.

"That girl acted like she liked him but he eventually realised that she didn’t care,” Bonga explained.

I’m not sure how the girl showed Marcus that she didn’t care about him, but both his friends clearly felt really sorry for him. After all, this girl was deemed the prettiest in the school.

"That's probably why Marcus only realised too late that she had no interest in him,” I thought.

Earlier that day I attended the launch of a study called “The Health of Our Children”. Researchers announced that children between the ages of 12 and 14 were having sex.

“They are doing what? “ I thought in shock.

I certainly wasn’t having sex when I was 14. I often blushed when I saw people kissing on television. And that was just TV. I never even thought that one day find myself in that position. I was one of those people who thought friends who bunked school to hang-out with boys were too stupid to be in school anyway.

But here I am, a parent of a two year old daughter in an era where children are having sex and using condoms. When this details was revealed I didn’t know whether to say at least they are using condoms or they shouldn’t be having sex in the first place.

I guess I and many others like me should face the fact that some of these children are having sex and doing so at a young age.

Researchers estimate that 4 to 5% of children between 15 and 18 years are HIV positive. This groups was thought to be more sexually active than their peers. This group exposed themselves predominantly through unprotected sexual intercourse and multiple partnering. Within this group, more girls than boys had multiple partners. Girls were also involved with much older partners.

The findings were not all gloom and doom though. The good news was that those who delayed their first sexual encounter outnumbered the early starters.

So much has changed from the time when I was growing up. I guess that is everyone’s experience. We all look at a younger generation and think it is worse than a previous one in some way. I look at these kids and wonder what they’ll say when they are my age, looking at the new generation. Although different trends continue to surface for each generation it is good to know that the basics remain the same.

In every generation there is a unanimous call for youth to delay sex as long as possible. It emanates from diverse directions like schools, churches, research institutions and so on. Basically everyone still calls and motivates for young people to delay sexual debut. One hopes that they will listen.

*not their real names