Can you cure AIDS with cows? Or cholera with alcohol?
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 05/Dec/2010 08:47, 34 days ago
The first girl with her parents: note that as agood Cameroonian daughter she's taken hershoes off to speak to her fatherWednesday 1stJanuary was the International Day for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, and we helped the top class at one of my schools to prepare a series of sketches and quizzes for the rest of the school.In a series of three sketches we followed the fortune of a number of village girls and the local charlatan, played with great verve by a tiny boy who was at least a head shorter than all the girls he tried to seduce with his very direct chat up lines such as“Ma cherie, tu es belle, tu veux visiter ma maison?” These, I can confirm from personal experience, are an exact copy of those used by the majority of Cameroonian men.The first girl he targeted fell instantly for his charms, but soon after fell ill and had to go to the hospital. In a particularly nice touch the Doctor only spoke French, but the villager parents only spoke Fulfulde, a local language, and all interaction between the parents and the doctor had to be translated by the Doctor’s translator, doubtless a very real reflection of what happens when you visit the doctor in Cameroon.Visiting the doctor (and his translator)The Doctor announced, after a short examination and a blood test (a syringe with berry juice inside) that the girl had a disease that condemned her to death and he couldn’t cure her. Her villager father, deciding that this was a call for a bribe, offered him several cows, but even this didn’t work. Accompanied by much histrionic weeping from all the actors the daughter died and was hauled off the stage.In the second sketch a conservative father was convinced by his friend (who fancied his daughter) to let the girl leave the house to go and hang out in the market. Of course no sooner had the girl left the house than the charlatan pounced. She too soon fell victim to a fatal illness.By the third sketch the village gossips (housewives with handbags!) had got their claws into the charlatan, and the news spread through the village that he was infected with HIV. The next time he swaggered up to a group of girls to seduce them back to his house they rejected him at once, and the play ended with him weeping and bemoaning his misfortunes before joining the rest of the cast to sing a song about the dangers of HIV/AIDS.A tragic end...In general the students responded really well to the play, and understood the message“No unprotected sex!”, “Just say no!”. On the other hand one little girl, when asked what she’d understood, explained that “If you marry a young man you will get AIDS and die”. We also had a quiz that revealed how much misdirected stigma there is against people with HIV; a large numberof the children thought that touching someone with HIV or drinking from the same water pump could cause infection.In the meantime cholera continues in Maga, but my friend assures me that if I drink plenty of alcohol I will build up a resistance.