Secrets and Sex

Last year, right after the last day of high school and before the day I graduated, I had one day off with which to do anything. My one close friend, Brittany, and I planned a trip to Bloomsburg University. After over four hours of driving blasting E.S. Posthumus and various songs from the Angels and Demons soundtrack, we arrived in this tiny Pennsylvania town, parked, and began to hike up numerous hills and through various buildings. You are probably wondering why we chose to come here, of all places, during what is normally a big celebration day. Basically, this convoluted trip was for the sole purpose of reading other people’s secrets.

Post Secret is a website that receives copious amounts of postcards daily. Regular people write their darkest secrets on creatively made postcards, send them to a man named Frank, and every Sunday, new postcards are posted online for public consumption. There are also numerous exhibits all over the United States. After visiting one of the smaller ones, I’d advise trying to see one in a bigger city; nonetheless, there is a reason why we all have an affinity for the unknown and concealed. We love secrets. We relish finding out when other people’s secrets are worse than ours, and we are comforted when someone shares our own secrets. What’s more is the therapy of being able to say a secret out loud. It doesn’t have to even be attached to your identity; it just has to be in the open.

Basically, this same concept is central to my project idea. My project is simply building locked boxes where students can submit questions or any other communication anonymously. The key is given to a male and female teacher that have already gone through the Education for Life training provided by Kitovu Mobile (this training covers everything from sex education to how to counsel children who have experienced trauma.) At the end of each week, the teachers check the box, read through submissions, answer questions, and then post submissions and answers for children to read. Simplistic, yes?

Here is my thought process: from day one, everyone has said ignorance is one of the major factors in trauma and contracting HIV. These kids just don’t have access to accurate information. The next thing I noticed from going to the field and visiting other schools is that children are petrified to ask questions. Furthermore, it just isn’t something people seem to do here if they are confused. At the workshops I observed with Kitovu Mobile, whenever one of the children got up the nerve to ask or answer something, he’d stand up hunched over, put his chin to his chest, mutter something unintelligible, and then quickly sit back down before he was done. Questions say so much about the people we are. They point to our confidence, what we do, what we want, what interest us, and what scares us. So if we remove the identity attached to a question, we can remove what sometimes constrains people from seeking needed information.

The video attached to this post is of one of the schools that is piloting my project. The students are primary five (ages 10-12) and they are singing a song as an energizer during the Education for Life workshop on STIs and HIV. My project is becoming a part of the Education for Life series and will continue even after the Kitovu Mobile facilitators move on to a new sub-county.

For those of you who know me, it probably isn’t a huge surprise that I am working with secrets, privacy, and anonymity. However, this isn’t the only thing that really interests me here. I mentioned before that I was looking into Afri-pads. These are reusable pads made here in Uganda that empower adolescent females to continue to be mobile during their periods. It also encourages better sanitation than that which is commonly practiced in some of the villages. I like this initiative mainly because the gender inequalities here are enough to make my blood boil on a daily basis. In the Western world, we sometimes scoff at the idea of feminism and female empowerment. Been there, done that. (I know I talked about this before in an earlier blog post but I have more to rant about.)

Everyday at work, I take field notes. They consist of a description of my observations, what the children contribute in workshops, and my reflections (which can sometimes be philosophical or extremely lacking in intelligence.) I am attaching part of my notes from this week (they are from the same school and class as the video); I believe more people need to be aware of what my notes contain.

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HIV/AIDS (Slim)
Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (Kawuka)
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Ndwadde)

The difference between the two was explained. HIV is the virus that causes the condition of AIDS. After this, children were asked to list how HIV was spread.
1. Sexual intercourse (okuegadanga) - 84%
2. Exchanging sharp objects (okuwanyisiganya ebintuebisala)
3. Accidents (obubenje)
4. Blood transfusions (okusibuakoomusayi)
5. Mother to child (okuvakumuzadde)

One boy asked: if an infected person gets injured but a HIV negative person is not injured, would the uninfected person become infected?

Another boy asked: if a HIV negative person is cut and a HIV positive person comes in contact with his blood, will the negative person become infected?

A third boy asked: if share my toothbrush with a HIV positive person, will I get infected?

When asked the age that children start “playing sex” the kids said for girls (abawala) is 7 years old and for boys (abalenzi) is 11 years old. Next, the children were asked what gifts boys can give to girls to persuade them to have sex:
• Sweets ~ 50/100 /= (about 2.5 or 5 cents)
• Pancakes ~ 100 /= (5 cents)
• Ssente (money) ~ 500 /= (25 cents)
• Chapatti ~ 1000 /= (50 cents)
• Soda ~ 600 /= (30 cents)
• Obudengo (cake) ~ 500 /= (25 cents)
• Obujati (bread) ~ 500 /= (25 cents)
• Cake ~ 1000 /= (50 cents)
• Dindanzi (cake) ~ 200 /= (10 cents)
When asked what girls can do to persuade boys to have sex:
• Bawndiika obubalauwa (love letters)
• Babayimbira (love songs)
• Okwambala min (wearing mini skirts)
• Obuwowo (perfume)
• Okwambala mpale (wearing tight clothes)
• Bapapaza (walking style)

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I converted the price values next to what boys can give girls into American currency. I’m not going to ruminate on that because it is something you can do yourself. Instead, let’s look into the difference between what boys give girls and vice versa. Everything a boy gives a girl has a price value attached. However, nothing that girls give boys has a price value. Furthermore, half the time they aren’t even giving anything. Their mere presence seems to be enough to tempt boys into sex. In the end, it seems that is up to a female to refrain from sexual activity and in turn prevent males from engaging in it as well. I don’t believe this conclusion is unfounded. When asked how to avoid sex and contracting HIV, answers range from: don’t accept gifts from boys to wear modest clothing. Not once has it been suggested that boys stop paying for sex through gifts.

This belief that it is a female’s responsibility to control sexual activity is hardly singular to this culture. In my own up-bring, I was instructed in catechism to carefully choose my clothing not only because of the way risqué outfits reflected upon my virtue, but also because of the temptation it could provide for males. In a book I read about a month ago, Nine Parts of Desire, authoress Geraldine Brooks comes to the same conclusion as I during her immersion in the Islamic culture:

“Almighty God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one to men,” said Ali, the husband of Muhammad’s beloved daughter Fatima and the founder of Shiite Islam. At my Catholic school, we were taught the reverse: girls, the less sexually active gender, had to guard their behavior because boys, driven crazy by lust, weren’t capable of guarding theirs. In either culture, women somehow managed to get the wrong end of the stick. Women bear the brunt of fending off social disorder in the Catholic tradition because they aren’t considered sexually active, and in the Muslim tradition because they are. (39-40)

This is a universal. Why is it that women are forced to carry not only their own honor but also the honor of men?

A big thank you to anyone who actually managed to read down to this point. (Especially if you are male and not my father.) Here is the deal: we don’t really live with gender asymmetry daily in the Western world. At least not to the point that it is yelling in front of your face. But I am the only person in a room of over 130 people with a look of horror on my face as children say girls are paid less than the equivalent of 10 cents for sex and boys willingly offer such incentives. Is it just the cultural background I am from screaming this is a massive problem?