Termites

18 November 2009

Before today, our last two presentations were to very large groups of students: 140 at Meru Primary School, and 175 at Makumbusho Primary School. Although it seems like we could be very efficient presenting to that many people, it was very hard to keep command of the classroom. The classrooms of the government schools (which both of these were) are cinder block rooms with many large windows as the source of light, but there is no glass in the windows, so external noises infiltrate the classrooms very easily making it very hard for the students to hear at times. Even with the outside noise and other distractions (sitting four students to a tiny desk, heat with no air flow, ADD) the children are extremely well behaved and seem to pay great attention while we are presenting and Peter is translating. However, once we finished at both, and started taking questions, they completely lost focus in these large groups. The most frustrating part was the questions that they asked. Many were very simple and were easy concepts that we had just covered during the presentation; many pertained to the ways in which HIV is spread and we thoroughly cover that for a large part of the presentation. I don’t know if my frustration stemmed from the fact that we just covered it and were being redundant when we could be answering other questions, or if that is just the level of knowledge is so elementary because they never talk about reproductive health at all.

These large groups do allow us to convey our message in a very efficient manner, and Whit and I just hope that some of our message sinks in.

We have been looking for apartments the last few days since Basecamp is finally refunding our last 6 weeks worth of room and board. They held out solving our rooming situation just long enough for us to pay for the more expensive, first 6 weeks of our time in the house, but I guess some is better than none in our situation.

Looking for housing here is so frustrating (surprise, surprise…what isn’t). None of the apartment building have an office, and if we find a phone number, we have a horrible time trying to communicate what we are looking for and what services they provide. You really have to know someone who knows someone who might have a spare room available; since Whit and I don’t know too many people yet, we are having a very difficult time. Plus it is going to be our first house on our own as a married couple and we don’t want it to be too horrible...the search continues.

This morning it rained harder than I think I’ve ever seen it rain anywhere. Arusha, and the whole area, has been waiting for the rain since last April, the last rainy season. This intense rain brought out one of the survival foods in the area: TERMITES. They emerged from under ground by the thousands, and the two puppies were completely enthralled with trying to catch them in midair for breakfast. Apparently many people catch them and fry them, but Isaac, our cook, walked out in the rain and grabbed a handful and gobbled them raw. Of course I had to try one (When in Rome…), and there really was no taste, and the crunch that I was expecting was replaced by a very soft texture. The closest I can describe it was a flavorless raison. I could easily survive on tasteless raisons; Whitney couldn’t, but I could. The intense rain along with the plague of flying termites made for a very fascinating morning.

As soon as I started to complain about presenting to too large of a group, Whit and I were blessed with an extremely small group to present to this afternoon. We talked with 9 students and two teachers from a training college (similar to a tech school). I was quite disappointed that the school only brought 9 students, but I guess I’ve learned that nothing is as I would hope or expect it to be over here. The presentation went very well. The students were older with more life experience, and they asked us questions that tested our knowledge at times. We spent over 2 hours with these 11 men (no women came today).

There were a few comments from the group that were great chances for discussion:

- One person asked that if people are on ARVs and become healthy, they will continue to spread the disease, so wouldn’t it be better if they just died?

- One person brought up Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, who denied the connection that HIV causes AIDS. The man wanted to know the real connection between the two. It is amazing how detrimental a few of the African leaders have been to the fight against AIDS in all of Africa. I had no idea that Mbeki had that much influence throughout the whole continent.

- If I were HIV+, how would you talk about me to others or treat me? Why do people always treat HIV+ people badly?

- Many people here believe that if someone is HIV+, they can have a religious leader cast out the virus from their body and they will become negative.

At the end of the presentation, the teacher and the assistant expressed their extreme gratitude for the work we were doing for their school and other schools in Arusha, and they also extended a challenge to us that we needed to also convey our message to the villages (which we will and have tried). He said that people in the urban areas have a good grasp of HIV, but those in the villages are clueless. Based on their questions, I could tell that their level of understanding was not anywhere close to par, and it scares me to think that they are the people who feel knowledgeable about the disease. I extended the challenge back to them that since now they have heard and know more about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health that it was their duty to talk with their friends, family, colleagues, and future children about the things that they weren’t taught growing up.

This presentation was one of the best yet, but it is so hard to think that there were only 11 people there to witness it. There are so many people and so little time, at least with what we are doing in the here and now. Whitney and I are definitely realizing that we want to be involved in policy making that will affect very large populations. I guess you can’t make it to those positions without having done this type of dirty work.

(This is our view of the class at Makumbusho of 175 students. You can see Peter towards the back translating.)

Written by Zach