MOKHOTLONG, Lesotho, Oct 24 (AFP) - Sejeng Leotla, a young shepherd in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, fears his flock being stolen but is even more scared of AIDS, which has led life expectancy in the country to plummet from 52 to 35 in less than four years.
"I didn't touch a girl in two years. When I'm feeling restive, I run in the mountains and kick the rocks," the handsome 21-year-old said.
Leotla was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of seven -- like many young men in this poor southern African state -- and his rudimentary home has no electricity or running water.
Lesotho, among the world's poorest countries, has a per capita income of 590 dollars a year and the world's third highest HIV/AIDS rate with a 29 percent infection rate for those aged between 15 and 49.
Life expectancy, which stood at 60 in 1991, fell to 52 in 2001 and is presently only 35 years, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The UN agency is launching a new campaign on Tuesday in New York, targeting Lesotho and several other countries, to step up the fight against the disease.
The new drive, Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS, is aimed at preventing "youths from joining the ranks of the HIV-positive, stopping mother-to-child transmission, ... and protecting AIDS orphans," Bertrand Desmoulins, the UNICEF representative in Lesotho said.
Leotla only recently learnt to read and write at Libibing, a sleepy hamlet about 30 minutes' drive from Mokhotlong, in the north of the mountainous country referred to as the "Roof of Africa."
There he and other shepherds benefit from a UNICEF-supported programme, where they are taught literacy skills and AIDS awareness.
"I tell others what I have learnt and pass on the skills to those in the fields," he said.
Seated around him, several others recite ways to prevent the disease.
"Pay attention to wounds," says one. "Respect yourself and observe abstinence," says another. 'Another way is to avoid multiple partners," chimes in another.
However, despite the awareness campaigns -- including a huge AIDS ribbon designed with painted rocks placed on the mountainside -- there is often little knowledge and a tendency to shy away from mentioning condoms.
But one shepherd pulls out a bunch of contraceptives from his pocket and declares: "I took part in a workshop and got these. I am going to distribute them," he says to laughter.
Tseiso Phakisi, one of the traditional leaders of Mokhotlong, said there was a change in mindset about condoms.
"People now know that one should not make love without a condom. But there was a very late response."
Ignorance has already taken its toll. In the nearby hamlet of Pahameng, home to about 400 people, there are four cemeteries already.
Nineteen-year-old Mase Thabathaba Laklaku, lost her mother to the disease in 2000, but said she does not "know why my mother died."
Her father "now has tuberculosis," she said, without mentioning the word AIDS a single time.
AIDS spread rapidly in the 1990's in Lesotho through a migrant workforce of some 100,000 men who came back after stints in South Africa's gold and platinum mines.
Many miners picked up the disease from prostitutes in the concrete mining compounds, passing it on to their partners upon their return a year or two later.
"The problem here (in Lesotho) is (also) that everybody sleeps with everybody like you would use a mobile phone," says Motsoanku Mefane, hospital chief nurse at Mafeteng, about 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of the capital.
Thabang Mokheti, 38, is one of these miners, who is now a patient at Mafeteng.
"I had a test five years ago. They told me that I was positive, but I didn't take it seriously. I was feeling OK and I had a lot of sex without a condom," he says.
"Now, I feel cold all the time," he adds as he shudders in his two jerseys, while outside the mercury hovers around 30 degrees Celcius.
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