AIDS and Music in Venda

The peer educators had already gathered outside the Midway Bottle Store as I climbed out of the mini-bus taxi and headed through the barbed wire gates into the crowd. It was March 2005, late afternoon on a month-end Friday, and the usual mix of recently paid drinkers and thirsty beggars had taken up residence for the evening ahead. Slowly, a group of young women dressed in bright red skirts and smart polo shirts with ‘Prevention is Better than Cure’ on their backs formed a long line. In single file, each holding onto the performer in front of her in symbolic re-enactment of the famous Venda girls’ initiation python dance (domba), they forced their way through the crowd towards the main seating area next to the bar. The song that accompanied their intrusion into the men's drinking session had a familiar melody, but it was not from the domba repertoire. Instead, it was based on a well-known song from the anti-apartheid days in praise of ANC stalwart Joe ‘Ntate’ Modise. The echo of peer educators singing in the sparse drinking arena prompted sporadic tenor and bass accompaniment from groups of men perched on empty beer crates, but the male and female vocal parts struggled to find harmony: the educators had changed the lyrics. Shuffle-stepping towards the bar, they were met with a combination of laughter, feigned shock, anger, and indifference as the audience made out the new words:

I took a seat next to some elderly men who seemed bewildered by the scene unfolding before them. Within minutes they made excuses to leave, making their way to the shaded area outside. Several others followed suit, leaving a handful hunched over bottles of beer and cracking jokes under their breath as the peer educators’ performance got into full swing. An introductory drama about a drunk man sleeping with an HIV-positive girl before returning home to beat his wife and children proved controversial with the remaining audience: ‘You should know, you are the prostitutes!’ someone yelled. ‘Don't come here with your AIDS story!’ shouted another.