You think WHAT, now?!

In a village that doesn’t see very much activity from the “outside world” I am regularly surprised by the things people believe. Some misconceptions, like the idea that white people enjoy the smell of farts and will give you money if you fart next to them, are just hilarious. Others, however, are anything but hilarious. Here are a couple stories of frustrating beliefs I’ve heard from my village recently.

HIV – While preparing to do HIV lessons with students, I gave a pre-test to see what they already knew or thought about HIV and AIDS. For the question “Can you be friends with someone who is HIV positive?” the class unanimously answered “no.” If that weren’t bad enough, one question asked how to prevent the spread of HIV. I got answers saying you couldn’t say hello or make eye contact with someone with HIV and even a couple kids who said that everyone with HIV should be sent out of the village to live in the bush so no one with HIV would be in the village. When it came to give the lesson, I put a LOT of focus on how HIV is transmitted and how that means that you can be friends with an HIV positive person and do the same things they do with their other friends. I tried to point out that someone who finds out they are HIV positive need friends and support even MORE. I could tell afterward that not everyone was convinced but they at least learned the “right” answer to the question. Everyone said that you could be friends with an HIV positive individual and I hope most of them actually believed it. Hopefully that sinks in for the rest of them at some point, too.

Excision – While talking with a male neighbor, the topic of excision came up. “Yeah,” he said, “If a woman is not excised, she can’t do ANYTHING! She can’t walk more than a couple of kilometers at a time, she can’t work in the fields, nothing.”
“Uh…” I responded, “That is absolutely NOT true!”
“Well, here it is. For our women, it’s true.”
“Every single woman in this village is excised. How can you know what a non-excised woman can do or not do if you don’t even know one?!”
“I just know. Our old people told us.” Because the old people know everything, of course.
“I’m not excised and I can do things. I can bike and walk and run far.” I countered.
“Well, yeah, but that’s Americans. African women are different.”
After a few more minutes of this type of arguing and telling him all the dangers and reasons it shouldn’t be done, I realized it was not going anywhere. I left frustrated and also sadly contemplating the fate of his beautiful little daughter.
When I told a fellow PCV about this encounter later, she said encouragingly, “Maybe at least now you’ve put those ideas in his head. He’ll be thinking about it and questioning it now.” I hope she’s right!