First and foremost, I want to talk about my service site! I decided to leave my service site at Saartjie Baartman. It has nothing to do with the site itself, but I felt very called to work with children. Therefore, I was placed at Imbasa Primary School! I am assisting in teaching 2 classes of 6th graders English. During the day I work with 2 separate groups of 10 students and I plan lessons, activities, and examples for them. I have taught twice so far and things are going AMAZINGLY! The kids have really taken to me and really enjoy me being there. When I leave, they walk me out and beg me to let them come home with me. I have gotten some crazy questions like "Are you a black American?", "How many children do you have?", "Is Beyonce dead?", "Do you know celebrities?", and soooo much more.
One thing I have been working with at Imbasa is bullying. In particular, one of my students has been getting bullied by others in his class. They call him gay, a prostitute, and say that he sells his body. It really upsets him. I have had to talk to the teacher to discipline the students, and I have sort of taken the bullied boy under my wing. He has really clung to me. I found out that his dad died, so this may explain some of it. Yesterday, he told me he had something to tell me. When he was struggling to talk about it, I asked if he wanted to write it in a note. He wrote the note and told me to read it later. When I opened it on the bus, I started crying. In the note, he revealed to me that he is HIV positive. He also said that his father passed away from HIV, and that he is taking ARVs every day.
I was overwhelmed with emotions. Of course, I was very happy and honored that he felt comfortable enough with me to share such a personal secret. However, I just felt sad. I'm sad because it wasn't his fault. He was born HIV positive. He is paying for something that was from his parents. I'm sad because he is being bullied and dealing with the loss of his father, and he has to deal with all of this. I'm sad because in America, there are medications and drugs that help babies or even cure them of HIV before they were born. The whole situation is just devastating. However, as he says in the letter, he is taking ARVs which is a medication that helps to slow the progression of any symptoms, but they MUST be taken every day. Even a day or two of missing them could make the medication no longer work.
On a lighter note, I had an INCREDIBLE opportunity this weekend. You probably saw it all over my Facebook, but if not...I LED THE CAPE TOWN PRIDE PARADE! I was so excited to be going to Cape Town Pride for so many reasons. First, Cape Town is the only country in Africa where gay marriage is legal. Second, I have gone to Pride in NYC for the last two years so I was excited to continue being an advocate in Africa. Third, this is a really powerful year in Africa because of the recent law in Uganda that criminalizes homosexuality. Fourth, I was excited to be with a bunch of people in my house who have never gone to a Pride Parade before.
As expected, it was a blast. There were signs and banners in support of those struggling in Uganda everywhere. Shannon, one of the girls in my group from California, saw a sign that she liked so she went across the street to see if the woman had any extras. We saw her wave us over, so we went across. The woman with the signs asked "Would you guys like to hold this banner in the parade?". We shouted OF COURSE and it wasn't until a few minutes later when we actually found out that the banner was the LEADING BANNER in the parade! Here is an awesome photo taken by Molly (from our group):
Here are a few other pictures:
As usual, you can click on the pictures to see them larger, or click HERE to see the rest of the Pride Parade album on my Facebook.
Anyway, I think that's it for now! Any questions, comment below :)
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