Last Saturday my kids threw another HIV/AIDS concert, this time only for the school. They planned this one almost entirely on their own; in fact they only part I had anything to do with, a short film screening followed by a short discussion, failed when the electricity grid was down (it was down for the entire weekend) and two other portable generators failed on me.
Because of these problems with the generator, the performance started late. First my students had organized a sort of question-and-answer debate about whether single sex schools contributed to a rise in HIV rates. Next they put on a skit about, with boys wrapped on kangas acting as girls. Next came some music, where one student rapped – without any backup or electrical equipment – about the danger of HIV. Next two more students put on a song, sexual, for some relief – then another skit, about why sex education was important. Two students, whose parents resisted sex education for cultural or religious reasons, ended up pregnant and infected with AIDS. Finally they put on another debate about school strikes, and had a short game to explain what FEMA was all about.
After the concert I had dinner with a bunch of the expats who work in the hospital – I told war stories, they told stories about the other faraway countries they had worked in, and we ate a lot of good food. It took me a long time to try to get close to theses other volunteers, and I mostly resisted for ideological reasons; this is Peace Corps, where I should hang out with the locals. I wish now I had tried to spend more time with them from the beginning.
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