World AIDS Day

Yesterday was World AIDS Day. I feel like a bad volunteer because I wasn’t able to organize anything due to lack of funds and time to plan. I did, however, go to the district’s World AIDS Day celebration with the nurse from the clinic I work with and some of the PLWHAs (People Living with HIV/AIDS) in their support group.

We were supposed to meet at the district hospital at 7:30AM and we left at 10:30AM (this is Kenya for you). I’m used to waiting and I can’t be that mad because I spent most of the waiting time making faces at the cutest baby ever. We filled up a bus with people who work at the district hospital and a bunch of community-based organizations and PLWHAs and went to a high school where they were hosting the event.

One thing, which will be a repetitive theme for this blog entry is how frustrated I get with how hierarchical Kenya can be. There were benches and chairs set up under the trees for everyone to sit under. Then, facing those people there were tents with more comfortable chairs and tables with tablecloths for the “important” people to sit at. Since I’m white, I usually get put in that section of meetings/seminars/events which makes me uncomfortable. But, because there were some important politicians from the area, people didn’t seem to be staring at me much, which was a nice change. Maybe I’ll have to travel to events the DC (District Commissioner?) goes to in the future. In between our tents and the trees where everyone else was sitting was a grassy area where people performed.

I felt bad when they brought out sodas for all of us in the tented area and all the rest of the people there were facing us and not getting soda. The event started out great. PLWHAs, orphans, youth group members, and other community-based organizations performed skits, songs, poems, and there was even a guy who rapped. They included themes like wife-inheritance, the importance of getting tested and knowing your HIV status, and medicine vs. remedies from witch doctors. It was very impressive.

After the performances, though, came speeches. Every Kenyan event has speeches, which usually make the events run longer than necessary. Pretty much everyone in the “important people” section got up and talked. Problem is, not many of them actually talked about HIV/AIDS they just talked about their position in their jobs and then introduced everyone they work with. People ended up leaving before it was over because they were hungry. Then it started raining so we all left as it was pretty much wrapping up. I was just so frustrated that the “speeches” took up as much time as the performances, which were the actual important part of the whole day. I will plan something better for next year I’ve decided.

I realized as I was sitting to write this, that I haven’t written very much information about my community or related to HIV/AIDS, which is a huge problem where I am. I forgot the exact percentage but the HIV/AIDS prevalence in Kenya as a country is between 7 and 8%, which is considered very high. The prevalence rate in my district is 18%. The rate among the members of the 9 community groups my organization works with is 34%!!!

When I ask people in my area what their biggest obstacle in lowering the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is, they tell me wife-inheritance. This is a Luo cultural practice where if a woman’s husband dies she can be “inherited” by a husband’s relative, usually a brother. In Luo culture men can have more than one wife, so if that woman is infected with HIV she can pass it to her new husband and then he can pass it to his other wives etc. Changing cultural practices or behaviors is very difficult. It’s just frustrating that people know what the problems are and have the information about safe sex, yet they don’t change. I’m sure it will take a long time to change wife-inheritance, but that isn’t even the complete problem; people just need to be smart and practice safe sex. There are a few women I’ve met who are HIV positive and widows and have refused to remarry. Slowly by slowly, things will change. I hope.