The 1st of this month marked yet another World AIDS Day, and sadly more and more youths in Rwanda, are getting infected with the virus at an alarming rate of 1%.

The figure sounds not quite astonishing, but how would you feel if you were the one in a situation where anti- retroviral drugs are sometimes scarce. One can obviously feel the pain of those affected but with way out.

To all my fellow teens who feel early sex as the in- thing; keep your fingers crossed at all times because HIV is out there ready to devour its next host.

Remember, this deadly virus has changed in gene composition in the past generation and it is still. So, the next generation children infected will have a stronger and resistant HIV to the current anti- retroviral.

I always sit and ponder after seeing all this but remain optimistic, as one priest in a class session said to my teen class last term.

He told us to try as much as possible to keep our bodies healthy because it’s where The Lord lives, and that we should not follow the bodies’ desire for sex as it is so normal, but we have to stay focused and chill (relax). The right time will pop and your dignity will still be there as it was before.

I can’t forget those of us who have already tasted the forbidden fruit. There is what is called ‘secondary virginity’. One can enrol in sports to make friends and keep healthy, advise fellow teens not to fall victims of peer pressure and so on.

All these will help you not to anticipate for the next time you’ll have sex again, but help you abstain and chill till the right time pops by itself.

Let us join as one youth and come up against this life taker for he has no room in our world. Let us help the infected by doing works of charity; like offering to clean the hospitals, sensitize communities on the use of protection and abstinence, and ‘chilling!’

benjis2007@yahoo.com