Prostitutes, special names, and Zimbabwe

I suppose that the things you never really think about when you depart upon an adventure in a foreign land are the mundane, boring, and routine. There is a lot of that here. I mean what can you really do after 6pm if it is dangerous to go out alone and a lot of the other volunteers are lame?

Today I asked the class what they wanted to debate about and they said prostitution. Prostitution comes up alot here. I don't know how prevalent it really is in Arusha, but my students really fixate on it as a great mystery. The topic they wanted to debate was "Why would someone want to be a prostitute?" I deemed this too simple since I believe that the one word of "poverty" generally sums it up. So we debated, "The government should legalize and regulate prostitution to enforce regular testing of prostitutes and reduce STDs". (yes, this was my own invention) I believe my favorite student response was "One time last month while my neighbor was at nightly prayer his daughter was taken by a lustful man. We had to search all over for her. If prostitution were legal this might not have happened." (This is quite a paraphrase as the original statement took about 10 minutes to convey while I stared at my student dumbfoundedly trying to figure out how prayerhouse and whorehouse could sound so similar, what this had to do with prostitution, and (from the original misinterpretation) why people who went to prayerhouses also went to whorehouses in one long night.

Many of my students have interesting names. Godlisten is the name of one of my male students and while I am sure that this was somehow derived from the most extreme Christian devotion, I can't help but wonder when he came out of the womb if his mother was asking "Why didn't God listen?!", stating "God listened!", or simply hoping that maybe next time God will listen and maybe this will really be here last child. (Sometimes we have talks about how prayer and birth control are very different things). I also have students named Lightness and Chastity, but none really compare with Godlisten. I should also note that Masha's 1 year old son's name is Philanthropy. They call him Philan for short. The intention is nice, but it really does make you groan.

School is canceled tomorrow. The woman who owned the school building Masha rents died of AIDS over the weekend. The funeral is tomorrow in Moshi and the other teachers have to go. Her husband died in 2005 of the same. He cheated on her and brought it back. It is fortunate that she made it so long because one of the 3 children is old enough to take over so they don't have to worry about orphanages or other family having to take them. Most of the AIDS problem seems to come from men going outside of relationships for sex. Women tend to blame this problem on themselves for not satisfying there men sufficiently in a variety of ways. I have to say, the gender issues are beginning to bother me. At first, I was able to sort of suspend my role in the debates and argue both sides better, but I am having difficulty with it now - especially Friday when we debated, "men should discipline their wives like their children." I tell myself that there is no greater progress than improving their ability to talk about these things, but it is hard to watch.

Today the Zimbabwe peace agreement was brokered. I saw Mugabe talking about it on the news. It is amazing to hear him speak and to see how good he sounds when you don't think about what he is actually saying in relation to the immense damage he has done. The best part was when he blamed everything on colonialism. He is still riding that card from the 70's I see. Anything to avoid responsibility.