Language is a Barrier!

According to the "Teen Leaders" and the volunteer facilitators, yesterday's Teen Club went well. While I do take other feedback into consideration, I weigh heavily on my own evaluation. Unfortunately, this was quite difficult yesterday. The event was almost entirely in Setswana.

The theme of the event was Personal Safety and Crime Prevention. We had two guest speakers, a Police Officer and a counselor from Childline (an organization that responds to children in crisis situations). Following their presentations, we broke the teens into groups to role-play and discuss specific scenarios. Topics included: theft, sex-exchange (prostitution), rape, drug/alcohol abuse, cell phone predators, and hitch-hiking. I chose these topics because these are what our teens deal with on a regular basis. It's bad enough to be a victim in any one of these situations. But imagine the added implications if you are HIV+!

Unfotunately, it is very common here for teens (as well as men and women) to have multiple partners. And it's not out of the ordinary to hear a conversation like this:

"Who was that guy that dropped you off?"

"My boyfriend!"

"I thought Thumelo is your boyfriend."

"He is! But this guy is too! He provides my transport. Thumelo buys my airtime [cell phone minutes]."

Of course this is problematic. Add the HIV+ component and you begin to understand why 1 and 3 people here are infected with HIV/AIDS.

Yesterday the question was asked, "Why is it common for teens to 'sell themselves' in exchange for material items?"

Sadly, the response was, "Because we live in poverty. How else do we get these things?"

Anyhow, back to my orginal point. At the beginning I popped in on each group to see how things were going. At first, there was a lot of blank faces and awkward silence. But as soon as I asked if they wanted to hear the scenarios in Setswana, everything changed. Fortunately, there were enough local volunteers for each group who could translate. Suddenly, all the kids were participating. I just wish I understood what they were saying!