Untukmu Para Pengunjung

I'm in a training this week with Ignite Africa. It's about finding a new way to talk about HIV/AIDS and it's really interesting. In Zimbabwe, it seems that most people are tired of hearing about HIV and yet there are still lots of misconceptions and so education needs to continue - but perhaps in a different way. Yesterday we spent most of the day talking about sex. The really strongly held beliefs here that I struggle with are: a) "sure a woman is equal - she can even be the president of a country; but not in the home. At home, a woman can never be equal. It's not Christian" (this might be related to the high price of lobola that men pay to "buy" their wives) and b) "men need to go out and have girlfriends outside of marriage, but a woman should remain pure."

An awkward moment yesterday was being put into groups. The officer John shares an office with was in my group. Our topic was: "common mistakes made before, during and after sex" and they wanted specifics. Things like "not knowing the movements" and "not assessing climax time" were some of the more "tame" ones. There were some young girls in our group with honest questions, and they were asking us (as married people) to give the details. It was just awkward. I view my sex life as private/intimate! Oh well. We need to learn to talk about sex if we're going to address HIV!