We are people too

When I first agreed to teach the Life Skills class, I imagined that it would be a good opportunity to get to know my students better. I wasn’t wrong. Admittedly, in Malawi, I am not a great teacher- in the United States as a student teacher I was enrolled in a rigorous year long internship program in which I worked as a teacher in an inner city high school while attending graduate level courses. I spent hours hunched over my laptop with a coffee, crafting balanced lesson plans that promised measurable results. I made my own interactive power point jeopardy games, printed my own worksheets and even filmed my teaching and analyzed the footage with my peers. Did my students ‘actively engage in dialogic discussion?’ were my objectives met? Am I fooling anyone into believing that I’m a teacher? The car I shared with my brother had a bumper sticker on the back from the school, I knew the baristas at multiple coffee shops by name and I woke up early every morning to make copies. I was a good student, and a passable teacher, but I was insecure about my abilities, and spent a lot of time agonizing when a plan failed, and felt a rush of satisfaction every time things worked out. I graduated from my program with a promise from my professors and mentor teacher that I would probably get a job despite the economy, and that I was capable of teaching anywhere. I put my teaching certificate into a fireproof safe, and joined the Peace Corps instead.

But like I said, in Malawi, I admit that I am not a great teacher. I shirk responsibilities in staff meetings, forget to plan lessons until the last minute, and have even changed the entire trajectory of a lesson midway through, especially while teaching Life Skills, which is why I introduced the question bag. The concept is simple: the students write questions on a slip of paper that they are afraid to ask, and the next period, I answer the questions to the best of my ability. The students seem to like the activity, which is my justification for relying on the method so heavily- it is win/win- I don’t need to plan a lesson, and the students get some things off their chests; still, it feels like the lazy way out.

Sometimes I am baffled at the things my students believe.

“Here is a question: ‘madam, is it true that if a person is infected with the HIV, that they can have intercourse with a baby, and the virus will disappear?’… class, is this true? Can engaging in this activity cure you from HIV?”

The class responds with a random smattering of yeses and a few people mumbling no. Some of the louder students respond by shouting “In fact yes madam”

“Yes what, yes this can cure you?”

A student raises his hand “Yes, madam, we have heard this”

“Class, is there any cure for HIV?”

The class responds with a chorus of “no”

“So how can this be a cure? If there is no cure, how can this be one? Class, remember, there is no cure for HIV. Sexual intercourse with a baby can only spread the disease to an innocent person. Never have sex with a baby.”

A tall student in the back raises his hand. He likes to write rap lyrics on the front of his exercise book, and calls himself a thug, which is confusing to me, as we live in Sub Saharan Africa, but nonetheless, I like him. He is a sweet kid, and always greets me when I go to town. “Madam. If there is no cure for HIV, and you are found to have the disease, can you be like, doing drugs, you know what I’m saying? Snorting cocaine and whatnot, you know what I’m saying?”

I shake my head. “What? Are you asking if you should do drugs because why? Because you have HIV?”

“Yeah, and you’ll be dying anyhow”

“No. Don’t do drugs when you have HIV. Don’t do drugs anyway… Where would you even find cocaine in Malawi? Remember, we learned that people can live with HIV for years so long as they take care of themselves and avoid drinking and doing drugs. Also, remember that some drugs require you to share needles, so you’d need to avoid that anyway”

“Yeah, but madam, you’ll be dying anyhow”

I sigh, I want to move on. “You’ll die faster. You’ll just… you’ll die faster… where can you even get cocaine here?” It is time for another question, so I grab one out of the bag and read it out loud. “What are the negative effects of HIV?” I turn to the class. “Who can help me answer this question?”

The class fidgets, finally, one student raises his hand and murmurs “School dropout”

“Ok…” I say “How can HIV lead to school dropout?” I gesture toward a student who has her hand raised

“Maybe it could be that someone who is positive leaves school because people they find out, and they don’t want them there”

“Yes. We call that HIV stigma. Is it right to treat someone who is positive differently? To make them leave school? If someone has the virus, would you want to shake their hand?”

“No madam” a student offers.

“Why not? Can you get the disease from shaking someone’s hand?”

A student in the back raises his hand, “Madam,” he stands up and smoothes the front of his shirt. He is a good student, but he likes attention, I have dubbed him suzgo, which means problem. “Madam,” he repeats for effect “these people, they are dead people, they are dead people madam.”

His friend the tall thug interjects “can’t we just, you know, remove them, put them somewhere, get rid of them. I hear they did this in Uganda”

I don’t know what to say. What do you do when a fourteen year old suggests genocide as a viable option? “Class, people… when they get HIV, they are still people, right? We still need to treat them as people”

“But madam,” Suzgo interjects “they are dead people, they are dying”

I shake my head “No. People who have HIV can still have lives. Any of us could be hit by a motola tomorrow and be gone, we will all die someday. People with HIV… They are still here. We need to treat them like people.”

At this the class explodes, students everywhere begin arguing with me, with each other, and it is because of this that I am the only person who hears the plaintive murmur of a girl sitting in the front row- a tall girl who smiles and waves at me every time she sees me ride my bike down the dirt road, and who likes to check story books out of the library.

She locks eyes with me and says quietly, “Yes madam, we are still people.”