Teenage pregnancy is a problem in South Africa (well it wasn’t such a big problem many years ago when we weren’t “civilised”). Women have become socialised into building careers for themselves, being affirmative in all ways including relationships and so kids are becoming something you have when you are established and have done everything you want to do.

I am a woman who doesn’t really want kids, ever. I think I was born without the maternal gene and so even though I think kids are cute and funny, they are really much smarter than adults, I would rather live on a volcano that have kids.

My predicament arose when I decided to go onto the pill, I got up early one morning to go to the local clinic and get help. Who knew that when you get to the clinic you have to take a number? Who knew that if you actually wanted to get help you’d have to take a number around 5 am.

I arrived at 9 am that morning, got my number at the gate and walked into an inferno. It was hot, stuffy...it was loud, babies were wailing, grannies moaning, people arguing about numbers and I couldn’t tell which queue was going where. Luckily I met somebody I knew who explained that I had to stand in one queue to get my BP and weight taken then get into the next for assistance.

At 1 pm I was in the second queue, when a woman arrived claiming she was in front of me. I hadn’t seen her the whole morning but she said she came to take a number early in the morning and went back home. She estimated that it would be her turn right about now and insisted that I should let her go in before me. NO. If I had let her in, then I’d have to let whoever else came along in, NO. Not after hours and hours of sitting. YES...when she started to tell me about her vomiting and aching side I let her in considering I was there just to pick up pills.

3:30 pm I got hungry, thought of going to get a snack but if I left who knows maybe the queue would move quicker while I was away.

4 pm I went home. No pills. I grabbed a pack of free condoms on the way out, condoms I know will break, then I’ll have to cough up a painful R53 for the morning after pill.

Considering that most people who go to public clinics are the poor and unemployed it’s understandable why the clinics are so full, but it’s not fair that a person who can barely feed herself must now gather the strength to go to a clinic almost daily, hoping that maybe that day they will be helped. If they going to advocate safe sex and responsibility to girls, then they should also be able to provide responsibly. Especially for women who have nothing, at least they should have choices.