Look before you leap

On Tuesday all the buzz was about Valentines Day. But nothing summed up what the day is all about than a two-part illustration I received via WhatsApp. The first part dated February 14 (Valentines Day) showed a guy chasing a girl, and the second part showed the same people nine months later, with a dramatic reversal; now the girl was heavenly pregnant but the guy responsible didn't want to know; that's why he was running and the poor girl was now the one doing the chasing!

It was such a sobering illustration that I don't think any sensible unmarried lady or man who saw it crowned their romantic day with sex, or if they did they used a condom. But take a moment and consider those young men and young women in a cloud of love that painted the city of Kampala red with their couture. Those that bought all the flowers and all the chocolate in town; that ate all the food in fine restaurants and sipped all the wine. You heard them on the radio requesting the latest love songs for their lovers. Some went on a boat cruise, booked the finest rooms in the finest hotels and emptied all video labs of the most romantic movies because Valentines Day comes once a year! How do you think most of those young couples who are hardly out of their teens ended the day? 

 I couldn't help wondering especially after reading a recent report to the effect that over 500 Ugandan girls get infected with HIV daily. It's an alarming statistic yet Valentines Day has lost its original essence and been reduced to a day that is not complete unless you wear red ('the colour of love'), go to some cozy place on a date and end up rolling in the hay. No wonder all the chasing that guys do during Valentines Day climax a few months later with some girls becoming pregnant and turning around to do the chasing. The moral of the story is embodied in an old proverb: "Look before you leap."