Standing in prison among 80 convicts while a 130kg, 2m-tall convicted murderer carefully rolls a condom on to a massive brown penis should have been a nightmare for a middle-aged white South African male. But I was not too worried.
The fact that it was broad daylight and I was in Durban at Westville prison’s Medium B section at the invitation of the British Council and the Department of Correctional Services helped my bravado. A lot. That the penis was made of wood and that everybody’s trousers were firmly in place was also reassuring.
There is much wrong with the way our prisons function and warders have long slotted in at the bottom of my list of people who are doing their jobs properly. But I’ve softened my views after meeting about 30 and having seen what they do.
Admittedly, the warders I met were the cream of the crop, but they do a difficult job with dedication and intelligence.
My expectations were not high when I heard that a delegation from the Ugandan Prison Services was to train staff and prisoners at Westville in the prevention and management of HIV/Aids. Now I’m impressed after six months of on-and-off involvement as an observer for the British Council and the British Department for International Development, which funded the project.
I also spent time with three convicted murderers in the female prison: a nurse who set her husband alight because he gave her the HI virus and then told her to stay at home and cook while he went elsewhere for sex; a school headmistress who arranged for her brother to kill somebody who had robbed her house; and a woman who took out a contract on her husband.
In the men’s section I spent hours with one of Brenda Fassie’s former husbands who is doing time for hijacking, a former policeman who worked for the state as a bodyguard until he was convicted of planning a political assassination and one of the masterminds behind the R31-million SBV robbery.
They all came across as nice people, if you can ignore the odd corpses bobbing in their wakes. And they were all focused on their new careers.
The first two 10-day courses taught warders, nurses, social workers and prisoners how to train colleagues and prisoners. The courses were not without humour — especially the parts relating to sex.
Among the things we learnt in the male warders’ group discussions was that the female sex orifice is called the epiglottis and that when women orgasm their “socket joints all get loose”.
One of the women contended that when men climax “they go to sleep like frogs that have been knocked down by cars”.
From the Ugandan tutors we found out much more than I ever thought there was to know about HIV/Aids.
There was a lecture on drawing up wills for the terminally ill, which caused a roar of laughter among the prisoners when they were told not to get “crooks” to witness their signatures and not to bequeath what didn’t belong to them.
I went away from the course impressed, but had doubts about the likelihood of the enthusiasm lasting too long behind prison walls. A few months later I went to Westville to meet the prisoners again and see how they and the staff were doing.
We studied the project’s files and correspondence kept by staff and prisoners. We asked lots of questions, pounced when the answers didn’t ring true — and had our suspicions allayed every time.
There are a few problem areas, but the programme is working. The committee members are enthusiastic and every prisoner now learns about HIV/Aids upon admission.
There’s counselling for the afflicted and compassion and an improved diet for the sick. There’s now an isolation wing for tuberculosis sufferers and for those in the terminal stages of Aids.
The advantages of educating prisoners rub off on the whole community. Prisoners also see the inevitable progress of the disease and learn that the journey can be eased with decent care. And, when they’re released, they will hopefully spread the word in their communities.
My natural cynicism still makes me wonder if behaviour in the cells at night has been modified enough to make a huge difference in the infection rate. But at least I know that if the project fails it won’t be through lack of effort by the Department of Correctional Services management, and by the staff and convict volunteers at Westville prison.