AIDS / Sex education in digo schools (lindsay)

This Thursday Melissa, Anne (two missionaries here; one American, one Kenyan) and I will introduce a curriculum called “True Love Waits” into one of the Digo populated secondary schools in Diani. It’s a course that advocates for abstinence from sex until marriage. It also contains sex education and information about sexually transmitted diseases. It was designed by someone from Uganda, so it is more forthright than the American version that I had in my Christian junior high school. This is needed here where many people have HIV/AIDS and don’t realize the implications of sleeping with multiple partners throughout the course of their lives.

Melissa, Anne, and I met today to plan and prepare our presentation for Thursday. Melissa was explaining that the statistics on the HIV/AIDS rate here in Kenya are difficult to gather. The Kenyan government and the public try to hide the severity of the epidemic. Some people say that 1 in 10 Digo people are infected with HIV/AIDS, but others say the actual rate is close to 1 in 4. The figures are difficult to gather because there is such a social stigma associated with the disease. People do not want to get tested because they don’t want anyone to discover that they are HIV/AIDS positive. Additionally, because the Digo people are a separate entity in many ways from the greater part of Kenyan society, I expect that conducting research on their specific demographic would not be of much interest to the Kenyan government or public.

As I consider the HIV/AIDS epidemic among the Digo people—especially as we stand on the brink of establishing our first development project—I am reminded more than ever that Culture is integrated. Each social issue is impossible to understand in isolation from the many different types of causes that compromise that issue. This same principle applies to solutions. For years I thought that if anti-retrovirals were made available to infected populations, the HIV/AIDS problem would be greatly improved. Here I am experiencing quite a different reality. I was shocked to find out that anti-retrovirals are actually free and widely available here to anyone who is infected. Melissa was explaining to me that she has a good friend who is HIV/AIDS positive, but this friend refuses to take the anti-retrovirals because of the shame associated with admitting that she is infected.

Another common problem with HIV/AIDS treatment here is that if people do take the anti-retrovirals, they stop taking them once they start to feel better. This exacerbates the situation because their bodies will then build a resistance to the anti-retrovirals.

This situation illustrates that need is more than just material. The need here is holistic. The solutions must also be examined and implemented from a holistic perspective. As we seek God for how we can love people here in a practical way, we need His guidance to understand and discern this holistic nature of the issues here.

Truly helping people takes time, patience, humility, respect, objectivity (or at least recognizing our biases and limitations) and ultimately, love. I find the process of analyzing the different factors that contribute to social outcomes absolutely fascinating. If there wasn’t such a need for work to be done, I could spend a life time just studying the Digo culture and trying to understand how all the different elements of society, religion, and culture tie together to produce outcomes. But I feel that too many anthropologists get caught in the rat race of academia that they do not apply their intelligence and knowledge.

Sadly, I think that it is too easy for me to do this as a Christian, too. I decided early on in undergraduate school that I didn’t want to be an armchair anthropologist. Even more importantly, I am learning that I don’t want to be an armchair Christian. What is the use of my knowledge is I don’t apply it to good use? What is the use of my faith, if I do not practice it by showing people love in a tangible way? Of course, I am here in Kenya, surrounded by need and inspiring people. I want to keep this conviction long after I return home from this month. It has only been a week, but I am learning so much.