Update and Thoughts

Last weekend was tourist weekend: Table Mountain, Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope on Sunday. Neat stuff.

This week we are back at GrassRoots Soccer in Khayelitsha. They are training a group of about 20 young adults to present/teach/use their curriculum for HIV/AIDS education and prevention. Interesting in a lot of ways. They do an incredible job of modeling in the training sessions how they want their trainees to teach the kids. Without even knowing almost, the trainees are being taught with the same methods that that are going to use to teach the high school kids (not sure if that makes sense). But you can see how effective a method that is at training these people who have never been teachers to teach in a week. The training works not by telling these guys how they are supposed to teach but by showing them. After they get through this week of training they will have spent 9-5 in the kind of classroom environment that they are supposed to create when they go to schools and communities. Interesting to see in action.

One thing that is discouraging to me however is that the only tool AIDS prevention seems to have is condoms. That is all the education curriculum is based on getting awareness out there about what HIV/AIDS is and how it is spread and then getting people to use condoms. Some of these classes are taught to 12 year olds and they are going to hear the message: "you are probably going to have multiple partners so make sure you always use condoms." It is like culture is too tough of a beast to tame so all we can do is tell them to use condoms. What about someone saying you can sacrifice your little petty desires short term and wait until you find someone you are willing to serve unselfishly for your entire life. And when you do that it is awesome and difficult yes, but so worth it and emotionally fulfilling etc. etc oh and by the way you won't get AIDS either. But culture is too tough of a beast so we give up, give up on 12-year-olds. Seems sad to me. I think they can be different. Maybe I'm naive.

Sorry if that was a little more than you bargained for.

Off to more prevention education sessions and making posters and flip charts. We are getting really artsy.