An Interesting Class to Start Back With (17 December)

I started back into programs today, and must admit, it was an interesting group and location. The class was only about 29-25 minutes from the farm in the village of Koyonzo. As usual, the location for the training was a church and most of the attendees were members of a youth group as well as the mother of the organizers. The one difference, for me at least, was that this was the first time in an Anglican church. This was the church that Reuben had to leave because he refused quit talking about condoms, but more on that later.

We follow the ABC’s of HIV prevention through sexual means. This means that you 1) abstain, or 2) be faithful to another partner who is also not infected, or 3) use condoms correctly and consistently. Because so many of our groups are quite religious we do discuss how this all plays into their beliefs and teachings of their respective denominations. This can be a problem for people who are Anglican or Catholic. Therefore, we pose the question as to whether or not they know a member of their congregation who has either become pregnant prior to marriage and/or has committed adultery. The answer is invariably “Yes.” So, we maintain that despite religious beliefs, people are human and are not infallible. Because of infallibility it is important to stress the A and the B, but equally important to discuss the C if they want to see a reduction of HIV in their community. I think I am getting good at putting these points back to the class so that they can come to their respective conclusions. However, because the class is not faith based, we require that people being certified must be willing to discuss condoms.

So, back to my first day restarting the program. It was actually the third day for this group and that meant condom demonstration. This is done with wooden penis models complement of the Red Cross and has always been done at the location of the class. However, once we got to that part of the class, we were told that we were not allowed to do the condom demonstration inside the church but would have to go outside. Now, this was a little frustrating, but I adjusted to it and figured we were still doing the demonstration and doing it out on the lawn was respecting the sanctity of the church.

The demonstration begins with us showing the correct way to put a condom on and then the participants must do it as well. We had 5 students who left and would not participate. This had never happened in the 2 years that Mary, our translator, had been doing the class. It was a bit disturbing and so we had to come back to the farm and discuss it with Reuben. It came down to the fact that if they would not do the demonstration then we could not give them certificates.

Thursday began with an hour long discussion and questioning of what we should do and what the class thought we should do. We explained our need to know that if we certified someone for completing the course and they then did General HIV/AIDS Awareness classes in their community that condoms would be part of the discussion. It was not a fun talk and I ended up being the heavy. After about an hour, the group leader apologized and said that they would indeed discuss condoms.

It is irritating to see the power of the church and the denial in which it operates. Everyone knew a church member who had died from HIV. One of the class members, we found out later, was orphaned by HIV. A UNICEF documentary was filmed across the road from the church. The live and breath HIV/AIDS everyday yet the church dictates that they can not talk about or use condoms. If people were doing what the Bible says then there would be no need for condoms, but that is not the case.