One Wife, Two Wives, Three Wives, Four!!!

So Macha is a mission town…set up by missionaries. And they have a lot of conservative rules…no alcohol, no tobacco, no shorts, long skirts for women, men and women sit apart at church. The list goes on and on. But the missionaries forgot one rule….one that would have reduced the HIV so it wouldn’t be 40% of the population……how about take ONE and only ONE wife!?! Yup its true…I’m living in a polygamous town. And not just a little bit, the majority of the people are polygamous. Most men have two to three wives but can have up to ten wives! Someone asked me yesterday if there was polygamy in the US. He was shocked when I told him it was illegal and you got arrested. Then he asked if it was common. So I told him no, they put it on tv when it happens. He was shocked, laughed, and started telling other people. Haha! So here is my favorite patient story about it:

On my first day I had a 65 year old man with prostate cancer. The only treatment here is orchiectomy (aka remove the whole prostate). Side effect: you’re impotent. So the doctors asked me what I recommended, and then said “oh yay he has two wives”. So I told him that he would then have two unhappy wives. They laughed for quite a long time about that.