In a land of disease, some find hope and a future

First of two parts.

LIVINGSTONE, Zambia -- At the altar of Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church, a groom stood nervously as his bride walked down the aisle in a white dress, her face partially hidden behind a white veil.

Hilary Hakayebe , the groom, stretched out his large hands to Loureen LiFunga and she took them shyly, her eyes on the floor in a traditional sign of respect. This was a big moment not only for the couple, both 28, but for the church. For nearly three years, its priests had not presided over what they called a ``white wedding,"a ceremony referring not to the color ofa bride's clothing, but to the couple's decision to abstain from sex before the wedding.

The Rev. Patrick Lynch wished them many children and counseled them to respect and love each other. ``If two elephants fight, it's the ground that suffers," he said. ``If a husband and wife fight, it's the children who suffer."

After their vows, the newlyweds walked outside, ducking under arcs of rice thrown over their heads. Hours later, more than 500 people joined them in a boisterous outdoor reception at Livingstone's largest private club.

But the joy of the day was clouded by an unacknowledged presence; it was a celebration of life and possibility in a land where the meaning of both those words has been radically foreshortened.

In Zambia, the AIDS epidemic has, in one generation, cut life expectancy from 51 years to 32 years, eight months -- or just 40 percent of a typical life in the West, and perhaps the lowest in the world.

Across Africa, from Senegal in the northwest to the countries of Southern Africa, the situation is much the same -- the continent's young and middle-aged are forced to fashion a way of life, and improvise a sense of the future, in an era shattered by a disease, AIDS, whose worldwide toll already rivals the Black Death plague in Europe in the 14th century and will almost certainly surpass it.

Zambia is only the most desperate of the 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where life expectancy has fallen below the age of 40, a United Nations study estimates. It is a place where, by one astounding estimate, a 15-year-old has a 60 percent chance of dying from an AIDS-related illness.

And it is a place where the disease touches just about everyone in some way; for Hilary and Loureen, it was the force that devastated their families, but also, along with love, what brought the couple together.

Ten days spent this spring with young people in the community showed how hard it is for them to trust the future, or even to imagine one, in such a time and place. But it was also a chance for encounters with those who are finding their way, summoning power from simple acts of accountability -- being tested, being safe -- and from learning to talk honestly, and openly, about the threat that envelops them.

For two decades in Africa, groups have been trying to change people's behavior to save those at risk, with limited success. An ingrained culture of promiscuity has been one foe; silence, and denial, have been others.

In Livingstone, HIV prevalence among adults ages 15 to 49 has risen steadily over many years, and now 30 percent of them, about 15,000 residents, are thought to be infected. Still, in some ways, the conversation about this most obvious fact of life and death is only now beginning. Some young women here speak proudly of being virgins; some couples talk of their determination to be faithful to each other . Within weeks of Hilary and Loureen's wedding, the church held two other white weddings.

``Maybe," Lynch said, ``they saw the first one, and that encouraged them."

But young men and women also speak of many who had similar intentions, but gave up on them.

Livingstone, a town of 80,000 surrounded by a clutch of smaller villages, sits on a bluff 6 miles north of the majestic Victoria Falls. It is named after the 19th-century British explorer David Livingstone , who marveled at one of the wonders of the world. But the wealth and opportunities of tourism fail to reach most people here.

Today, the town's center consists of five long blocks of shops. Young men with nothing to do lean against the storefronts, wearing all styles of hats, from bowlers to baseball caps, angled stylishly on their heads. Some sell cards for cellphone airtime. A few hawk newspapers and old magazines on blankets. On weekdays, life moves at a crawl; shops shutter by 1 p.m. so owners can take their afternoon naps.

On weekend nights, though, downtown Livingstone throbs, beer flows freely, and the streets fill with young people, businessmen, and a few tourists. Three nightclubs remain open past midnight, including one that closes close to sunrise. Boys as young as 10 play eight-ball pool, guzzling beer in between shots. Prostitutes rent rooms in the scores of flophouses on side streets.

West of downtown are the city's two graveyards, known simply as the Old Cemetery and the New Cemetery. Processions of slow-moving cars arrive almost daily, sometimes several on the same day. Only half of the gravestones are marked, as many families cannot afford the cost of engraving; the average age of death on the most recent 200 markers was 38 years, nine months.

At the northern end of town is Our Lady of Angels , one of six Catholic parishes in the Livingstone area, and one becoming so popular that the crowds during 10 a.m. Mass spill out into the street. One thousand parishioners belong to Our Lady, including some of Livingstone's wealthiest residents.

On a recent Saturday morning, the Rev. Thomas Zulu , 39, a balding, bespectacled priest who favors wearing jeans and a T-shirt, was assigned to one of the routine grim tasks in his job -- presiding over a funeral. The dead man was 31-year-old Ignatius Kanyama Daka .

At the service, Zulu mentioned the man's age -- three times, hoping that mere repetition would cause people to think about why someone would die so young.

He also asked the mourners to think about the future of three children who were under Daka's care. Zulu said the extended families must now look after them, which meant no one should take any of his possessions.

``There has been a culture developing in Zambia of robbing from the dead," Zulu said, his voice rising. ``I hope this is not going to happen here. If you love Ignatius, if you love the children, not one thing will be removed from his house."

As the mourners filed out of church into bright sunlight and walked past a casket that showed the face of the dead man and a white corsage pinned to his blue suit coat, 10-year-old Martha Daka took one look at her father and let out a piercing scream: ``Daddy, daddy!" she wailed, ``I want my daddy!"

Two hours later, after Daka was buried, Zulu , driving a pickup truck across town, reflected on what neither he nor anyone at the service had said out loud.

``Even though it may be obvious that a person died of AIDS, I say nothing about AIDS," he said, starting straight ahead at the road, angry with himself. ``Even though people in Zambia are open about discussing AIDS, when it comes to death they don't want to mention it. Maybe it's time we started talking about it in the funerals."

The next day, after Sunday Mass, Jacob Mulenga , 24, an unemployed electrician with distinctive mocha-colored skin, closely shaved hair, and long eyelashes, walked down Livingstone's main tarred road with his best friend, Edgar Sintema, also 24, a math teacher.

They paused and sat for a spell in the shade of a gigantic ficus tree in the yard of Jacob's grandmother's house. This was part of their Sunday ritual, a time to catch up. They could talk about almost anything, these two -- with each other, if not with anyone else.

Both young men were single, and both liked the idea of going to the nightclubs on the weekends. But they often stayed away -- because they knew much could go wrong once they started to drink, and because sometimes the scene depressed them.

``We knew a certain lady -- she's late now, dead -- and she was doing sex work," Edgar said. ``I asked her why. She said, `Look, if I'm going to stop doing this, how am I going to eat? This is how I earn my money. So unless you provide for me, I'm not going to stop.' "

Edgar raised his hands. ``What could I do?" he said.

Jacob reminded his friend that prostitutes weren't the only danger. He recalled something that had happened to him, and changed him, the year before.

``I went out with my girlfriend one night, and in the process got drunk, and I slept with her," he said. ``I didn't use any protection. I was so drunk I didn't realize at that moment how dangerous it was. I realized later how easily people die here. That's how they die. During a night like this one."

The experience nagged at both Jacob and his girlfriend. But he said little about it. She, though, urged him to join her in getting an HIV test. Finally, six months later, he agreed.

Both tested negative.

Jacob shook slightly as he recalled his fear that day. Quietly he said, ``It brought us closer together."

``I hope you get married," Edgar told him.

``I'm too young," he replied. ``I have to go back to school, get a degree, get a job first."

``I don't know," Edgar said. ``Maybe you should get married."

Our Lady of Angels also sometimes seems Our Lady of Perpetual Motion. Last year, its priests blessed 14 traditional marriages, performed 45 baptisms, confirmed 14 young people, and gave Holy Communion for the first time to 86 young people and five adults. No one counted the funerals.

At every Sunday Mass, the church prays for those living with HIV, though none are named. No one in the congregation has ever come forward to acknowledge being infected with the virus, but the HIV-positive status of several people is a collective secret. After one service, a nun whispered to a visitor the name of a woman who was HIV-positive as she walked by. ``There are many more," the nun said.

During the week, groups of young people arrived at the church after school. Some sang in the choir. About 30 boys and girls gathered in the courtyard one afternoon to practice skits. At first, the boys were far more interested in kicking around a deflated soccer ball.

Eric Mwali , 14, eventually brought together the boys for a moment of prayer. He is thinly built, average height, and has only one good eye; he lost sight in his left in the first grade when someone threw a stick at him.

After the prayers, Eric watched his friend practice a short drama about a husband who cheated on his wife; the wife retaliated by casting a deadly spell on him. Other boys acted out a play on a cholera epidemic.

Then Eric stood. He recited the first lines of a poem he had written:

Where did you come from, AIDS? You killed my mother And my father And you killed my brother And my sister, Leaving me behind.

On the way home, Eric said the poem was not about his own family. ``It's about a lot of people here," he said.

More than he knew.

Eric is the church's lead altar boy. Over the weekend, he had served at Daka's funeral and the marriage of Hilary and Loureen. ``I remember my first funeral -- I was just 10 years old," he said. ``I thought maybe the dead person may come alive, so I just stayed far away. But now I'm fine. I did more than 10 last year, and this year, in just two months, I've done five."

At his family's small three-room shack, his mother, Jane Mwali, was eating nshima , a thick porridge made from corn. In the crowded living room, Eric's 13-month-old nephew was the center of attention, walking from kneecap to kneecap, propping himself on each person's legs as he made his star turn around the room.

Jane apologized to her American guests for the cramped quarters. She said the family -- herself, her four children, and one grandchild -- had moved into the small home from a larger house nearby after her husband died five years ago; she rented out the house in order to buy food. Asked about the cause of her husband's death, she said it was AIDS.

Across the room, Eric looked up, hearing for the first time how his father died.

Asked whether she had been tested for HIV as well, she said that she had, as had her youngest son, Paul, 10. Both were HIV-positive.

Eric cast his eyes downward.

Sensing his discomfort, his mother changed the subject to her volunteer work. ``I'm a member of the Nazareth organization of women," she said. ``I help people in prison. People are really struggling there. It's not a nice place."

Eric got up and left. He walked past his family's old house and onto the sandy road, heading toward church.

``I'm not happy," he said finally. ``I didn't know."

He didn't know about his father, his mother, or his brother.

And, he realized at that moment, he didn't know about himself.

East of downtown Livingstone, about a 20-minute walk from Eric's home, lived the newlyweds. Four days into their marriage, Hilary and Loureen were getting used to their new lives together. She had moved into his three-room house, one of dozens set aside for teachers; his two younger brothers also lived with them. She was just starting to rearrange the house.

Out went her husband's red carpet, for instance. ``She didn't like how it went with the brown couch," he said.

``Awful," she said.

The two had met a year earlier. She was his student in an evening class. He began walking her home at night. Their conversations grew. Soon they were talking about family, and about themselves. He proposed, she said yes, but tradition called for Hilary's family to ask her family for permission.

His father and mother had died, both from AIDS; three of his five brothers were born with HIV and also died from the virus. Loureen, he had learned on the night walks, also had three brothers who died from AIDS. In his parents' place, Hilary's uncle and aunt approached her parents last September. They accepted, and the Hakayebe family paid a 2.2 million kwacha dowry, or roughly $680.

During their courtship, the two decided not to sleep together. Loureen, who spent a year in a nunnery before deciding that such a life was not for her, said she wanted to remain a virgin until they married. Hilary had tested negative for HIV.

``It was the right way of doing it," he said about their decision not to have sex before marriage. ``Nowadays, men are sleeping with many women, making them pregnant, and ditching them after that. Morals have gone to the dogs. Lots of people drinking, lots going to the nightclubs."

But he, too, had once been a regular at the nightclubs. ``I just like drinking with my friends," he said. ``I think I will feel a little confined now.'

``Too bad," his wife said, smiling.

The two walked outside. A tall papaya tree grew by their front door. Melon plants snaked through a garden full of corn stalks. Hilary reflected on their wedding ceremony. He was especially proud that his brother, Chola, 18, read St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5 . It said in part, ``Husbands, love your wives."

Chola, he said, almost died last year; his weight had declined to 77 pounds, he became bedridden, and Hilary brought him to the hospital. There, Chola refused an HIV test, denying that he was infected with the virus; Hilary persuaded a nurse to take Chola's blood, which was sent secretly for tests. The tests came back positive.

A nurse told Chola the news; he accepted it, and enrolled for antiretroviral therapy.

``I was 18 when my mom died, 21 when my father died," Hilary said. ``I was left to support myself and my two brothers. The whole experience made me want to be there for them, and not to do anything that risked not being there. When Chola was sick, I had to do something."

The next day, Chola was home alone. He was happy that his brother had gotten married, but he worried that Hilary would still be tempted by the night life and the bars.

Chola has big plans for himself -- he graduated from high school this year, and now wants to go to Lusaka, the capital, to study hotel management.

``I just pray to God I'll be OK," he said. ``Sometimes I get angry, I must admit it. I'm angry at myself."

He was talking about being HIV-positive. His older brother was certain that their mother passed the virus to Chola during birth, as well as to their three late brothers. But Chola, who said he was a virgin, didn't know what to believe.

``I think sometimes I'm at fault," he said.

The next night was Friday, and slowly Livingstone's downtown filled with people. At one bar, Mercy Chibozhi leaned close to her boyfriend, Jacob Mulenga. They and people all around were drinking locally brewed Mozi beer. She looked around the bar and saw someone who looked in his 40s or 50s.

``Old," she said.

``Nowadays if you reach 40, it's like reaching 60 before," Jacob said, shaking his head.

Mercy, 22, said men were to blame.

``As long as you take care of yourself, I will live to 50 or 60," she told her boyfriend. ``But if you start misbehaving, then I suffer."

``Hey, what about you?" he replied. ``The opposite can be true as well."

Mercy rolled her eyes and drank another swig of beer. ``The important thing," she said, ``is we stay faithful."

It was only 9:30 p.m., and the bar was full. Across the table, Faith Musaba Benya , 23, watched them closely.

``I envy you," she said to them.

``Why?" Jacob said.

``You know each other's status," she said. Faith said she has been trying to convince her boyfriend that they should get tested.

Jacob leaned over the table to give her advice. ``You can't test alone," he said. ``You are cheating yourself if you go alone. You must go together so you can see each other's results."

Minutes later, Faith's boyfriend arrived. He looked exhausted. He had just taken a six-hour bus ride from Lusaka, the capital. They stayed and talked for 20 minutes and left. Jacob and Mercy also got ready to leave. It was 10:30 p.m., the night was just beginning in Livingstone, and the couple wanted some time alone.

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com. Dominic Chavez can be reached at domchavez@globe.com