Update from Zambia
Muli bwanji, bazanga? (How are you friends?)
Things are well on this side of the globe. The rains are coming slowly and the maize is starting to grow. However, despite the rain, and much to my chagrin, the heat has not started to dissipate.
We’re in the middle of graduation season as it’s the end of the school year and all of our trainers are trying to wrap up their programs before the city shuts down for the holidays. (From Dec 15-Jan 15 it’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything here.) We’ve graduated more than 1,000 youth from the GRS program and deemed them “HIV/AIDS prevention experts” in the past 6 weeks.
At graduation ceremonies, kids have the chance to perform songs, poems, skits incorporating what they’ve learned. I wanted to share 2 poems from recent 8th grade graduates:
POEM 1
We are the cure
We are the cure
(Student 1)
AIDS is a killer disease
You killed my mother
You killed my father
When my mother and father died my uncle took me
I was being beaten I couldn’t stay there
I couldn’t sleep
I was being raped because of AIDS
(Student 2)
AIDS for how long will we fight you
For how long will our tears fall
Oh AIDS
Oh AIDS
Africans were strong and united
Now you’ve put a knife in things
Now things are falling apart
Oh AIDS you are only to blame
(Student 3)
AIDS AIDS
AIDS you killed my mother
AIDS you killed my father
Oh AIDS
Now you want to kill me
That’s what Dr. Kaunda sings…
We shall fight and conquer AIDS
We shall fight and conquer AIDS
In the name of greater freedom
We shall fight and conquer AIDS
***
POEM 2
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this… Why
(Student 1)
Oh yes, oh yes
Why should I have to suffer like this
Just because of the greatest animal called HIV/AIDS
It has taken my parents, my brothers and my sisters away from me
And here I am left alone
Oh yes
I am asking for help from people but no one could help me
My friends laughing at me like I am a mad person
Oh yes, oh yes
Why should I have to suffer like this
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this… Why
(Student 2 pretending to be an old man)
Power lies in you the youths
A long time ago, you the youths used to bury us the old
But now things have changed
Us the old are burying you the youths
Oh what a shame
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this
Tell me why should I have to suffer like this… Why
***
The poems, songs, and skits these young people perform are overwhelming. They talk so candidly about the way that HIV has affected them and all of the suffering it has caused throughout Africa. You can’t hear it as much in these two poems, but in the skits especially, the kids really focus on the fact that people with HIV should not be stigmatized and should be loved and cared for. The people with HIV they are talking about are their parents, their siblings, their family members. No one here is unaffected by HIV. It has infiltrated every family, every compound, every province, the entire nation in one way or another.
Giving these kids a forum to learn about and talk about HIV is giving them hope for the future and a reason to believe they have control over this killer disease.
Like the old man said, the power lies in the youth.
I’ll continue to do my part to help them realize that the power is in them, they just have to find it and harness it for things to change. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the kids here amaze me every day and solidify my belief that they are the key to stopping this deadly disease and enlightening the world that those living with HIV are just as important as the rest of us.
To the kids.
Chabe bwino.