Tongue Tied

One of the things I place a lot of importance on as a Peace Corps volunteer is the ability to speak the local language. Despite what some may think, I am far from fluent in seTswana despite having been here for almost a year. Still, I’m probably one of the volunteers most comfortable speaking seTswana in my group though there are a number of my buddies who have surpassed me in written seTswana at this point. Recently, my efforts at ongoing language learning have diminished as my old tutor got busy with studies and I got busy with work. I also was starting to feel that though I’m no native speaker, I had enough seTswana under my belt and the ability to learn the rest by myself for whatever I would need to do my service. I had in fact shifted gears to try and develop language learning material to help incoming volunteers in their first encounters with the language. However, after the events of today, I’ve realized I’ll probably never have all the seTswana I need to be the best volunteer, but I damn well won’t stop trying now. I’ll still be working on language learning material for beginners, but I’m going to try a new tutor and try to get my tongue churning out new tenses, vocab, and constructs every week.

The reason for this sudden rekindling of the fire inside me was an event that was kind of like being hit in the face by a pile of bricks.

The Pitso (literally, the calling, but means a village meeting called by the chief)

Every once in a while there is a big tribal meeting in the village. The chief, village councilor, elders, and tons of villagers attend to discuss community issues. After meeting with my chief last week, I’d decided to go full steam ahead with the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign termed HELP (HIV Education & Life-skills Project). Yeah, you can’t be in Peace Corps without loads of acronyms. I met with the clinic and got their backing as well. We agreed to meet with the village and lay out our plan to get feedback and suggestions. I worked to prepare a short speech in seTswana as best I could, getting a few words translated by my teachers. I tried to make it short and to the point but perhaps I cut out a bit too much. The day of the meeting, the clinic sent a nurse to come help out. I’d never met her before but she was my saving grace.

I arrived at ten to 10am when the meeting was supposed to start. The chief arrived at about 10am and the nurse arrived around 10:10am. Everyone else arrived over the next hour. We began at a little after 11am. As is typical, there was a hymn sung and a prayer. The nurse and I were introduced and asked to say our bit. I got up, made my little speech. I motivated the fact that we have some problems here in our little village but that we can help change things together. I told them our plans for teaching life skills in the school to empower youth to make smart choices. I talked about our HIV testing drives we hope to start. I talked about our partnership with the clinic to do health education with the community and to distribute condoms to the shops and to the taverns. I talked about how we hope to train Home Based Care workers, ministers, and anyone else interested in how to implement a life skills training program for youth. Though I had my written speech in front of me, I was speaking comfortably, flying through the tough words and even putting in hand gestures and making eye contact. Then I asked if there were any questions. I looked out at blank faces and my heart sunk. Did I pronounce things that terribly?

I introduced the nurse and sat back to try and digest. She gave a talk touching on the issues I’d mentioned. She talked about HIV and how people should use gloves or at least a plastic bag when helping anyone that is bleeding. She talked about TB. She mentioned how the clinic has free testing for both and if you have them you can get meds from the government for free. She also talked about teenage pregnancy saying how we need to talk to our girls more openly. She said we tell the girls not to play with boys but then they just go and have sex with them so we need to start talking about sex and condoms. Then she asked if there were any questions. Maybe it’s a cultural thing or maybe it took time to digest, but there were hands up immediately and I soon found out they heard me loud and clear.

The first question was some technical question about TB that the nurse handled. Then one woman asked a question about what exactly we were going to put in the taverns and shops. When we said condoms, it was like opening pandora’s box. I’d said mesomelana in the speech which is the seTswana word for condom but sometimes English-Tswana is better and when we said di-condomos the room came to life. Soon there was a raging debate going on. On one side were mainly elders and other old men, with several old women nodding approvingly. On the other side were me, the nurse, a few brave younger villagers, and thankfully, the chief. When passions were ignited and the rapid fire seTswana started flying around the room I was struck with the realization of how much more I needed to learn seTswana if I wanted to make a case on any important issue and really convince people. I was very fortunate to have the nurse there answering questions for me. I was uplifted when a woman and a man both stepped up at certain points to wholeheartedly endorse our plans and make an impassioned defense of our position. I was relieved when the chief weighed in and did his best to cool heads and find common ground. But through all of it, I was frustrated that I could not do more myself. Without any of those people, I would have been completely lost.

Here are some choice bits from the debate including my inner English monologue:

Old man: “This is teaching our children to have sex!”

What I said in my head: “When did anyone ever need to be taught how to have sex? This is teaching them to make smart choices, realize the consequences of sex, and if they choose to still engage in it, to do so with as much protection as possible.”

What my defenders said (or at least what I think because they too spoke in rapid Setswana): “We are still telling the kids not to have sex. We are just saying, for those who will do it anyways, at least use a condom. We can’t tell them that unless condoms are available.”

Old man: “The condoms are being thrown in the street and small children are playing with them!”

What I said in my head: “Obviously, this means that we need MORE not less sex education so that 1) people who use condoms think of smart ways to dispose of them and 2) so that kids know what the difference between a condom and a balloon is.”

What my buddies said: “That’s why we are talking to you now. You need to go spread this information amongst the community. After using a condom, wrap it in toilet paper and throw it down the toilet. If you don’t have a toilet, dig a small hole and bury it.”

There was a lot more debate but those are the only things I really caught. The chief made a really good speech that, as far as I can tell, was about how we can’t ignore the reality of this disease and we need to talk about it openly. He talked about how it is here and partly comes from the migrant workers and then just spreads as people sleep around. We can’t stop people having sex, but we can educate them to make smart choices and give them condoms if they still choose to have sex. At least I kind of think that’s what he said based on previous conversations I’ve had with him and the bits of the speech I caught.

We didn’t really end with any kind of consensus. The old men seemed to always want to have the last word. I realized even though the chief is the chief, he’s a young chief, so the old guys don’t necessarily fall in line. Age carries huge weight here, which is the main reason I’ve kept my beard and will probably grow it back after you all visit. There is support though and it seems to exist among the younger crowd. Honestly, that’s the crowd I’m after because they are the ones that earn money, move around, and do the real work in the village. I’m not going to change some of the minds that are stuck in their ways although I don’t think all the elders are against me.

After the kgosi and the councilor wrapped things up, me and the nurse were excused to get back to work. As we walked outside one of the more cynical of the old men, who I think smelled a little drunk, came out to talk to us. He was going on about how it’s silly to tell people to wear gloves when the take care of people that are bleeding because what if he’s walking down the road and someone is hurt. The nurse pointed out that there are tons of plastic bags lying around that would work. Finally, I reached into my bag and pulled out the latex gloves I always carry around. It’s as simple as putting a plastic bag in your pocket with your phone every day. Unconvinced he went on to talk about how he never has and never will use a condom (personally, I find it hard to believe this guy is still having sex at his age…but you never know…) The nurse was getting a bit agitated at this point and was like, well, you are going to die then, good bye. Finally though, he addressed me directly asking if I was a doctor. I said no, I am a volunteer from America. Then he went off asking, do you know where AIDS comes from? It comes from America! At this point, I almost went off on the guy but the sister cut in saying, no, AIDS comes from blood, so wear gloves and use a condom (you dumb old bugger). With that she excused us and we walked away.

I guess I’d heard all the stereotypes and myths and misunderstandings before but not all at once. This is also the first time I’ve been involved in such a big (the room was literally overflowing, probably over 100 people) and public discussion about HIV/AIDS in my village. It certainly won’t be the last. I’m just glad I’d taken the chief’s advice to bring someone from the clinic with me. If it had been just me, it would have gone terribly. As it stands I think it was mixed. It was sad to see how deeply entrenched the old guard is and disheartening to face their disapproval. It was great to see the dialogue happening. It was even better to see some people really passionate and informed about working on this cause. On the balance though, I think we things did go well though because at least I’ve got the chief on my side.

So even though 80% of the conversation went over my head, some old women were giggling uncomfortably like school girls, and I’ll probably be known as “condom man” in the village from now on, at least we got people talking about HIV/AIDS and condoms in a public setting.

Life is full of successes and failures. To make them worthwhile one needs to capitalize on the successes and learn from the failures. The conversation has been opened up in my village. For my part I need to go back to seTswana boot camp so that my voice can be heard in that dialogue.