HIV/AIDS "If You Focus On the Problem You Can't See the Solution"

I have just returned from the PEPFAR (President’s emergency plan for AIDS Relief) conference in the Mbeya region of Africa, mandatory for all volunteers and our Tanzanian counterparts. The trip over all was a lot of fun to meet up with fellow volunteers and hear how their experience has been going. PEPFAR is using its resources in education and supplying care to those living with HIV/AIDS with counseling and medication for free to those that have tested positive. As far as the conference dealing with PEPFAR it was great to have a forum of discussion with Tanzanian counterparts but it was hard to feel big responsibilities to help with such a wearisome problem, mixed emotions, and many unanswered questions.

For starters the HIV/AIDS epidemic is very trying matter for Tanzania with a country as a whole at about 7% with 1.3 million estimated Tanzanians affected, and this is data from 2005 which to date is expected to be much more prevalent. I had a chance to visit another volunteer’s site where his village had a 30% prevalence of HIV/AIDS. So I am 100% on board with doing what I can while I am here to help out. Many of the funds are being dumped into education. 99% of the population knows about HIV/AIDS, but only about 22% of the at risk population is using condoms, and the vast majority is contracting HIV from sex. Then once they have tested positive for HIV they get free medical attention that would not be available without PEPFAR funds. We had a chance to sit and talk with some Tanzanians that are living with the disease and that was a priceless experience, so very grateful for the medication and a chance to share their experience. So a long story short, Tanzanians are very aware of the disease and how it can be prevented but are not changing their behaviors. So the question I couldn’t keep asking is how can you make the next step and change their behaviors? That’s the billion dollar question…

I have been living in country for 5 months now and have witnessed a country engulfed with poverty, but understand I am still not fully aware of the complexity of the situation. What I do know is 90% of the population are farmers and rely on the weather and God’s will to survive and see the next day. Many go uneducated and get dropped out of the education systems just to return back to being farmers. In a world where water is a luxury; free instant pleasures are priceless! Trying to stop that and tell them they need to wear a condom so they don’t contract a disease that with kill them in a couple of years if untreated and treated for FREE can give you another 10 years, the problem doesn’t conceptualize them to change their behaviors. The answer I see more beneficial is giving more people a positive future to invest their behaviors in. So is dumping all this money $15 million into education and being a broken recorded best directed or better directed in development projects? Could Bush’s PEPFAR and his visiting Africa a big publicity stunt for him and the U.S.? Could they believe that development is the solution but know if resources are directed there it would create a country/continent that would require more precious natural resources and be a threat? I don’t want to imply any of this as facts or even my own opinion but these are the questions that I couldn’t get out of my mind and stressed over. What I know is that I am a teacher and I believe in education so, while here I will continue to be the broken record until a better solution is presented (please feel free to comment I would love to hear opinions/facts/stories).

I am still really enjoying my students and have been impressed with what they come to the classroom with, meager means but a lot of motivation and brilliance. I wish there was more that I could give them, I find my self asking many questions in a Socratic way unrelated to mathematics to get them to talk more about their country and culture. At the end of the day they are the future and the ones who have to make the changes and own the responsibilities of this country.