For
the past couple of weeks I have been in two different villages teaching rural
Maasai about HIV and nutrition, and it’s been totally different from conducting
agricultural training. Talking about sex can be awkward anyway, but when you’re
talking to Maasai women who spit in disgust at the words used to describe our
reproductive organs, the awkwardness gets taken up a few notches.
Sex
is very taboo in Maasai culture. The advice sex-ed teachers give in America
that “you aren’t ready for sex if you can’t talk with your partner about it”
doesn’t fly here, because kids can’t even talk to their own parents about it. The problem is sex is so taboo that it’s silently
killing millions of people each year in the form of AIDS. And it’s not just
silent because people won’t talk about the dangers of unprotected sex, it’s
also silent because people are afraid to know their HIV status (ignorance is
bliss) and they’re afraid to ask their partners to use a condom… the
embarrassment would be far worse than contracting HIV, right?
Unfortunately
embarrassment isn’t the only thing keeping people from using condoms. This week
our female trainees laughed when we mentioned condoms as a form of HIV
prevention because their husbands would surely beat them if they requested to
use one. The other two prevention methods we teach are abstinence and being
faithful, but these suggestions were shot down too – they said they couldn’t
deny their husbands sex and there’s no way their husbands are going to be faithful.
The common denominator of all these responses is gender inequality, which has
an impact in Africa that rivals even HIV.
We
got a lot of weird questions from trainees these past couple of weeks. After
Allie (my fellow volunteer) gave a lecture on gender equality this week as part
of the HIV training, a male trainee asked her how she feels about a man
“booking” his wife during her mother’s pregnancy, i.e. before she is even born.
Apparently this happens sometimes in Maasai culture. We also got questions from
the primary school children we taught like, “What is a vagina?” and “What if
someone never goes through puberty?” Another child asked how many stomachs
women have!
I
think the most shocking thing I heard from the trainees during my time as an
HIV trainer so far happened when I was talking to a class about the importance
of getting tested for HIV. I always explain that knowing you are HIV+ is better
than not knowing because then you can take precaution not to spread it to your
loved ones and you can start treatment which will allow you to live a longer,
healthier life. This week that statement was followed by lots of chitchat among
the trainees, so I asked what they were saying. I was told they were all
disagreeing with me, because they would rather die than live with HIV. Knowing
the trainees felt this way made me think our training up to that point had been
completely ignored, since our purpose is to not only lower HIV rates but to
decrease the stigma that so often accompanies HIV. Although HIV is a terrible
disease which will inevitably progress to AIDS, it is not a death sentence as is commonly believed here. Someone
living with HIV who doesn’t take care of themselves may only live for two years
after contracting the disease, but someone who takes ARVs and maintains a
healthy lifestyle can live for 20+ years before developing AIDS. It’s
incredible to me that this fact doesn’t make a difference to these people. Despite
the knowledge we supplied them with they are still terrified of HIV because of
the stigma and discrimination surrounding it.
Although
my HIV trainings have been frustrating, they have not been without benefit. The
other volunteers and I are all more determined than ever to find solutions to
these problems. This coming week will be my last week camping in the village
and then I will be in Arusha for the last three weeks of my program to complete
my capstone project, which happens to concern the effectiveness of our HIV
trainings.
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| Our classroom in Gilailumbwa |
