I just had an amazing conversation with my roommate. I have truly grown to appreciate him and his long-winded tirades. Those are hard to skirt when I'm running out the door late for work, but are quite wonderful after returning from drinks with friends and the world is peaceful once again.
I am addicted to Kippie's blog relating her Peace Corps Botswana experiences. I can't even recall how Chike and I began our Africa/America misconceptions, but I figured it was a perfect time to ask him about what Kippie is going through. I asked him what is the strangest misconception he has heard about Africa. He said that someone once asked him if there were houses in Africa. He says these kinds of questions make him laugh, and it's hard for him to get mad at the ignorance and misconception. I asked him about Kippie's host mother being a teacher and asking Kippie if she was enjoying the stars, then asked if there were stars in America. Chike said there must have been a language barrier. We continued to chat and I realized for the hundredth time that he knows more about American history than I do. We were trying to find the cover of this Newsweek edition from 1988 depicting a mother holding her child, both dead from mustard gas poisoning due to Saddam's regime. How embarrassing that I know nothing and he, from supposedly a "third world country" of Nigeria, knows everything?
I asked him about AIDS and whether he received sex education. He laughed and said his father tried to teach him sex education but both parties were extremely embarrassed. He laughed again and said he can't believe what he saw when he came to America and worked in his uncle's clinic. Fourteen-year-olds having babies. He said he knows of one family back home whose daughters had babies out of wedlock, and they were the laughing stock of the community. teenage pregnancy simply isn't accepted. He couldn't think of one couple who had gotten divorced. Again, it just doesn't happen.
I asked him about AIDS, since I wasn't sure if he received sex education, but AIDS prevention was taboo or something. He said sex education was taught in school, and AIDS prevention was highly preached. They were shown a video on how babies were made, but AIDS--now that was a hot topic. Everyone knew how it was spread by the various modes of contact, blood, bodily fluids, sexual contact, etc. I asked him why it seemed that AIDS was so prevalent in Africa, and there were so many relief efforts there, yet America seems to have an equal or greater epidemic. He agreed, and said it could be based on the survey strategies, and America has more cases than Africa, yet all relief goes to Africa because everyone thinks that's where it is concentrated.
When I asked why everyone thinks it is concentrated in Africa, he said it is very prevalent in South Africa and surrounding countries. He has never been there, but has heard people's beliefs about AIDS. He said some men think that if they have AIDS, they can not give it to a virgin. It just disappears. This leads to many rapes of young women, who in turn get AIDS. Another belief is that if a man is circumcised, he is less likely to pass his AIDS on because it gets trapped in the foreskin. Chike laughs. He is shaking his head, seemingly at the ignorance of a large population of people. The same people that Americans categorize Chike into, asking if they live in houses, and take male babies out into the bush to circumcise them. He laughs again, saying, "What do they think? That we don't have hospitals?"
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