The Drought

Okay so the title has nothing to do with the weather, since as scheduled it has been raining practically everyday and the rivers are full and the country has been cloaked in a carpet of green (how flowery, right?). But the drought I am referring to is the lack (a.k.a. drought) of knowledge in the people I have come in contact with in the past few days.
This drought is most apparent in my life skills class. Oh and just a fore warning, this may get a little PG-13, so earmuffs for those with sensitive ears. So today I read, or well attempted to because they sooooo can’t understand my accent and I just gave up and had a student read it (which she did really well, so kudos to her). And the role play was about a girl who had to drop out of high school because she got pregnant, I actually thought I was jumping into such a serious topic really fast, as this was only our second class, however, the students sure did prove me wrong. After the role play was read, it was like the flood gates were thrown open and a rush of questions poured out. And I mean totally simple ones, these kids are kind of like sophomores in high school and they didn’t know what the different systems in the body were. This totally worries me because in the previous class a lot of the kids told me they wanted to be doctors or nurses.
So after a few really general questions, the questions about sex and HIV/AIDS came up, I, being the stereotypical PCV, was like “Yes, I can totally answer these!!” The lack of knowledge these kids have about a disease that is ravishing their poor country, is absolutely unacceptable. They had no idea what it was, how you contract it, what the acronyms stood for, and really any basic information. So this totally confirms what we were taught in training and that is NOBODY here talks about HIV/AIDS and sex. They are so very tight lipped about it.
As it naturally goes the HIV/AIDS questions eventually led to questions about sex and condoms. And I must admit the questions were mainly from the boys and a little pitiful, but helpful for me as a teacher because I didn’t know what kind of details I could go into, and after today, I learned there really is no limit. Now I have debated about what to post, so I will post some of the more mild questions/situations brought up. I think one that gives a good example of the types of questions asked is this. One boy was telling me and the class that he knows people that do not use condoms because they smell bad. I was like okay, generally condoms don’t have a smell unless, of course, the government of Lesotho started making scented condoms, which I doubt. So upon further investigation I learned the reason they were bad smelling was because the men he was talking to were reusing the condoms. (insert my Ewwwwwwww!!!!! Face here) So I had to make it very clear that you should never reuse a condom and there are plenty of places where you can get free condoms, soooo don’t reuse them.
This next situation is quite the dilemma and soooo heartbreaking. So one boy was like, “So I have this friend…” Well judging from that the friend is you, brother. And he had a series of questions, starting with, when you get a girl pregnant how do you solve this problem? And so I said there really is no resolution, but that you have to take responsibility for your actions and help your girlfriend by both loving her and the baby and by providing for her financially. And he was like okay, and then asked how do you prevent HIV/AIDS and pregnancy, and I was like abstinence or by always using condoms. And then he asked if you are HIV positive can you still have a child and I replied, yes but there is always that chance that the child might be HIV positive especially if the mother is positive. Then he asked the real ringer: if you are HIV positive and your wife is negative, how do you have sons? So then I had to explain that there is dilemma both ways, you get your wife pregnant and she could contract HIV and/or your son could get it or you don’t have children and always use a condom. And seeing this kid’s face understand that dilemma was bittersweet because he understood the importance of not spreading HIV but understood that it does suck not to get to have a son.
Okay so that was the downer and this is my last and I think my favorite example, it is so cute and I guess appropriate with Valentine’s Day coming up. One boy stood up and asked “Why is love so important?” And I went into this whole explanation about why it is important to deeply care for your partner before having sex, which basically revolved around the fact that you have to have mutual respect and trust to do an act so significant (at which point we had to look up the meaning of significant because they didn’t know what it means). And then I told them if a girl wants to have sex she is trusting that her boyfriend won’t bail on her if she gets pregnant. I think that made a more important impact than the respect thing, but at least there was an impact made, right?
Oh, okay I lied, this is my favorite question. So while we were talking about condoms, one boy asked how do you put on a condom. So I was like, you know what next week I will come with stuff to do a condom demonstration and tried to give a simple explanation of it. At this point one of the older boys piped in and was like, “don’t worry I’ll show you how.” Awkward……….. And then as I was stepping out of the door to leave the boy who asked how to put on condoms was like “Madam, please wait! Don’t forget to bring the condoms for the demonstration!” So it looks like I will be buying bananas this week.
Well that’s really it for this week if I haven’t totally appalled you with all this sex talk. Have a great week and I miss you all!!