The questions we are asked these days.

Today we administered the questionnaire at Golini Secondary School. That school is a personal favorite of mine. I really like the head master and the guidance teacher. The location of the school (on the edge of a tall ridge overlooking the coastal plane and the ocean) is really hard to beat. There are lots of coconut trees that provide shade and there is a perpetual breeze that is a wonderful respite from the relentless January heat.

Today was the first time that I administered the questionnaire. There are a lot of questions (8 pages worth) and the subject matter is pretty intense. I was a little bit nervous at the thought of standing in front of 40 students and asking them to divulge that sort of information. Writing the questionnaire in the weeks before we came was one thing, but actually reading those questions to a room full of students... wow.

The study is about HIV/AIDS. Our goal is to design an intervention that successfully communicates the life saving information that the current curriculums fail to deliver. If we are going to find out where those curriculums are failing, we need to ask some pretty detailed questions about what students know and what they don't know.

There are lots of reasons why the current efforts are failing (perhaps a topic for an entire blog post in the future). One main reason is simple. This stuff isn't easy to talk about. The classes are mixed gender, mixed age, mixed religion groups of students. Talking openly about sexual behavior in a setting like that can be uncomfortable for the teachers and the students.

Seeing the young, innocent faces of the students in the front row really took us aback the first day. Lindsay and I exchanged glances and I could tell we were both thinking "Gosh, look at these little kids! Should we really be talking about this stuff in front of them?"

We discussed it on the drive home and we had both gone through a similar thought process. We felt like blushing and making excuses at first and then we remembered the stats... the 12 year olds getting AIDS, the 13 year olds getting pregnant. If they are old enough to be facing those issues, they are certainly old enough to be taught about safety and prevention.

So back to the questionnaire:

Our questions are bold and really go after sensitive information. We make a few things very clear to the students so that they feel comfortable answering such questions. We assure them that the questionnaires are anonymous and that their answers will be kept confidential. We also tell them that they are free to ask any questions at all without being afraid or embarrassed.

Some of the questions we get are heartbreaking. In response to the early question "have you ever had sex before?" one little boy (about 12 years old) raised his hand and asked Lindsay if it counts if you have been raped. Wow.

From there, the questions started to get more detailed. It is tricky because we want to be open and answer everything. After all, the end goal is to provide information that empower people to make healthier choices. However, we don't want to give answers that will skew the results of the study and thus cripple the resulting intervention. What we have resorted to doing is holding a question and answer session at the end to address issues that go beyond understanding the questionnaire.

After everyone had finished with the questionnaires this evening, I collected them and then asked if anyone had any questions. Silence. I suggested that perhaps some of the questions had made them wonder about something. More silence. I asked if maybe they have heard conflicting things from friends and teachers. After a little prodding, one boy timidly raised his hand. "Is it true that using condoms can help prevent HIV/AIDS?"

As soon as one question had been asked and I answered it honestly without expressing disapproval or judgement (and perhaps throwing in a bit of a joke to lighten the mood), the floodgates opened.

"Isn't it true that condoms are have microscopic holes that let HIV/AIDS infection through?"

"If you have HIV/AIDS, won't the condom burst?"

"Is there a way to protect yourself from infection if someone you have already had sex with finds out that they are infected?"

"Is it true that if you have AIDS and you have sex with a virgin, you will be cured?"

I have read about misconceptions and false beliefs about HIV/AIDS in Kenya, but to hear questions like that with my own ears really drove something home for me. This isn't just something you read about. This isn't overblown in the news for shock value. These are real questions with easy answers and the information needs to be made available in a format that it will reach the people who need to have it.

The questions just kept coming. A teacher stepped in to tell us that it was 6:30 and that we were already an hour past school closing time. We needed to wrap up so that students could walk home before dark. There were many many more questions and I couldn't just walk away leaving them unanswered. We promised to return next week to continue the discussions.