HIV Sensitization

went to my second HIV sensitization today! basically, it is HIV education and awareness in a school. Today we went to a local secondary school, and worked with the equivalent of 7th graders. As students start school here at different times, and may fall behind because of problems with school fees or not passing exams, the age range in a class like this is huge. The age range today was 12 - 18. The majority of the students are were girls, and they seemed to be younger than the guys.

They were so interested to have an mzungu in their classroom. Lots of giggling and talking, and wanting to ask questions. I helped with a little of the question/answer stuff, but mostly it was just watching today, to see how they do these sessions here.

It seemed like a lot of the questions were the same between here and the US. Can I get HIV by sharing a fork with someone who is HIV+? Can I get it from kissing, or holding hands with someone? There are definitely differences, and it is really interesting here, as there is a lot of talk about being faithful to one partner. Seems similar to the US, until you start to look a little deeper. There are a lot of concurrent relationships here, often out of economic need or desire. What that means, is that a woman may have a husband, but also have a long-term boyfriend as well. She may not get enough support from her husband, so she has a boyfriend that helps her with food or gifts of clothes or jewelry or such. And then the husband also has another long-term girlfriend or two, and so on. What this means, is that this creates basically a super-highway for HIV to travel on. Which is a major reason why HIV spread so quickly here and why the prevalence is so high, as compared to the US and other developing countries outside Africa.

It is really interesting when you see commercials on TV that show how this networking looks, and the slogan 'get off the sexual network'. and then you hear radio announcers talking about the sexual network as well. urging people to think about it before they take their 'side-dish' (girlfriend or boyfriend on the side) out for dinner - to think about the consequences.

Even more interesting is to hear people talk about their relationships, and the lack of trust of partners. No one trusts anyone of the opposite sex here. It is amazing. It is expected that your partner is going to cheat. One person even asked me, when I told her that I had never cheated on Jeremy, 'but don't you ever get annoyed with him?' as if that were a valid explanation and reason to cheat. AMAZING! if all it takes for a person to cheat is to be annoyed with someone or mad at someone, I feel sorry for all these people. Life and relationships are not all pretty. It is wonderful when they are, but a rose also has thorns.

Anyways - I am definitely gaining more insight into the epidemic here, and the social context in which this plays out.