HIV education

Im no expert on HIV/AIDS. I know the basics; and that's about it. The little i do know came from some last minute internet search sessions i did before i left Australia. But it seems that the basics are enough for teaching students about HIV awareness in Tansania.

Our teaching experience starts with a couple of Saturday morning classes with an orphans club and us making it up as we go. The questions they ask us continually suprise me but also remind me why we are here. We thought we were going well; we covered: prevention, modes of transmission, getting tested/medication and stigma. However we were unprepared when presented with myths the students had heared about HIV. Such as "my pastor says he can cure HIV/AIDS with prayer". We take a second to compose ourselves as we explain if the boys pastor could cure HIV/AIDS he'd be a very wealthy man and we wouldn't need doctors and 25 million people in sub-saharan Africa wouldnt be dying of AIDS. We try to stress there is no cure or vaccine for the virus. It becomes a balencing act between trying to scare the hell out of the kids so they will practice safe sex and trying to let them know people who are living positive can maintain a healthy normal life so that the students will be accepting of those infected and not add to the stigma.

The questions start flying and we do ok with some of them such as: " Ive heared that condoms cant really protect you from HIV and there are actually holes in them that lets the virus through, is this true?"
(Obviously we denied this at the time and thought it was a silly rumour the student had heared. However 2 months later, while speaking to some local friends, we find out that the main local brand of condoms, 'Salama', are actually so poorly made that they do in fact have small holes in them. The sick thing is, that the same company who make the condoms, manufacture the ARV's - the HIV medication- and to keep up the demand for the pills, they need people to be infected, so they produce poor quaility condoms. The thing is i'ts hard for local people to get any other brand of condom as they would have to go into the city to buy them and spend 4 times the price. No wonder safe sex is not high on the priority list if you have to spend the cost of a days food on a condom.)

We're slightly appalled when one student tells us about the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign in South Africa where the message is that men who are circumcised cant spread the infection; but when a student tells us they've heared that female circumsition protects girls from the virrus because it means they wo't enjoy sex and therefore wont become a prostitute, we are left speechless. we are totally unprepared to talk about genital mutilation. but this is Africa we remind ourselves. of course these are reasonale questions. so we take a breath and try to calmly explain that genital mutilation will not stop the spread of HIV and will not protect any girl from unwanted sex or from contracting HIV.