AIDS in Africa

Ma's biggest concern for my African Adventures is the threat of AIDS. Despite my protestations that i haven't come to Africa to shag my way round the continent, she says people may want to spit in my food. Charming!

More than 26,000,000 are infected with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Every 24 hours some 6500 Africans die from Aids. There are some 42 million orphans from the disease, and in countries like Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo these orphans are likely to be ensnared as child soldiers. Only one in ten Africans have access to anti-retroviral medications.

Collective denial, migration, famine, lack of health care and prevention programmes, and social, religious and cultural factors have all impacted to contribute to the rabid spread of the disease. The Catholic church have undoubtedly played a huge part in this explosion with its complete rejection of the use of condoms. With the vast majority of its victims being young, the cost of these lives being lost have a knock on effect on the economy across the continent.

An Eye and a Lens - The Bahamas

Colombians have to be some of the friendliest people on the planet.

Having been blessed to get to know many in my four year stint in Bogotá I am still in contact with many through Facebook.

Lucia was the art teacher at the international school where I worked, and she inherited my Nikon F90 and analogue lenses when I turned digital in 2006. She has gone on to enjoy a successful photographic career in Colombia, New York and London. You can check out her photographic blog by clicking on here.

I have stolen this shot from her shoot in the Bahamas.


Ma´s biggest fear of my African adventures is that I will contract AIDS. I tell her I am going there to travel and experience, not to shag lots of women, but nonetheless there is nothing I can say that will alleviate her irrational fears.