Negative-Only Marriages
Just gonna make this a quick post because I hear my pillow calling. Yesterday a young couple came into the VCT for an HIV test because they wanted to get married. Their pastor had told them that he would only marry them if they were both HIV negative. Since the V in VCT stands for voluntary, Hillary asked if they had come of their own free will, or if someone had forced them to come. They gave each other uncomfortable looks while their pastor, who had escorted them to the VCT, sat nearby observing. The couple assured Hillary that it was their idea to come for VCT services, and yes yes just go ahead and release their test results to their pastor. At the time I just rolled my eyes and had some fleeting thought about what a gross violation of privacy it was for a church to have this kind of policy, followed by the usual dismissive thought about how much I hate churches in Kenya.
Today I realized the reason it annoyed me so much is because it perpetuates the stigma against people who are HIV positive. The implication is that someone who is HIV positive isn’t fit to be loved, and therefore isn’t fit to be married. Someone who is HIV positive isn’t capable of being in a healthy relationship or doesn’t deserve to have their emotions and need for companionship acknowledged as legitimate.
With the immense stigma and taboos against AIDS in much of Kenya, especially in rural areas, a church that encourages discrimination through policies like “negative-only” marriages is abusing their power to promote irresponsible agendas of hate, when they should be spreading God’s love through acceptance and compassion and charity towards the weak and vulnerable. After all, like Garth Brooks, Jesus had friends in lowww places.
Instead the usual hypocrisy prevails. Isn’t one of the cornerstones of Christianity to love others unconditionally? Not to judge lest ye be judged, to love thy neighbor as you love thyself? Jesus is not happy about this one.
----------------
10:35pm. Electricity is out on the school compound so I’m once again averting kerosene lamp poisoning by lighting my room with my laptop screen. Today a 4-year-old girl pointed at me as I was coming out of the hoteli where I had lunch, and said, “China! China!” Her mom was standing next to her, beaming.
“No,” I said. “Not China.”
“From where?” her mother said.
“America,” I said. “But no matter where I come from it’s rude to call people those kind of names.”
“I know,” she said. Then why is she just sitting there letting her kid point at strangers and call them racist names? “But the kids don’t know.”
“Yes but you can teach them. She can understand at her age,” I said.
“They just see you and you look just like the people building the road so she calls you a China,” she said.
“But you can’t assume you know something about someone you don’t know,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Pole bas.” Sorry.
I had already had a bad day, so this conversation just left me more irritated than ever. Nevermind that somehow I had managed to point out that the kid’s behavior bothered me without killing her or screaming at her mother. I could only focus on the fact that despite Kenyans acknowledging that they define rudeness the same way I do, they still don’t bother to teach their kids accordingly.
I can walk down a road and have literally twenty kids come tearing out of their huts to stare at me, and then all start chanting, “Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese!” for a solid two minutes, while their parents just stand there grinning, never once thinking that maybe they should correct their kids. Once I summoned the kids over with no intention whatsoever of drop-kicking every one of their snot-covered faces clear across the Ugandan border, and then patiently explaind to them in Kiswahili that I’m not Chinese, and that my name is Justina and next time please remember my name so you can call me Justina when you see me, and the whole time Hillary was translating into Kinandi because most of the kids weren’t school-aged yet so they didn’t understand Kiswahili, and they all nodded and the older ones repeated my name and they skipped away happy that I had greeted them and told them my name…and before I’d taken three steps I heard them chanting: “Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese!”
Today I realized the reason it annoyed me so much is because it perpetuates the stigma against people who are HIV positive. The implication is that someone who is HIV positive isn’t fit to be loved, and therefore isn’t fit to be married. Someone who is HIV positive isn’t capable of being in a healthy relationship or doesn’t deserve to have their emotions and need for companionship acknowledged as legitimate.
With the immense stigma and taboos against AIDS in much of Kenya, especially in rural areas, a church that encourages discrimination through policies like “negative-only” marriages is abusing their power to promote irresponsible agendas of hate, when they should be spreading God’s love through acceptance and compassion and charity towards the weak and vulnerable. After all, like Garth Brooks, Jesus had friends in lowww places.
Instead the usual hypocrisy prevails. Isn’t one of the cornerstones of Christianity to love others unconditionally? Not to judge lest ye be judged, to love thy neighbor as you love thyself? Jesus is not happy about this one.
----------------
10:35pm. Electricity is out on the school compound so I’m once again averting kerosene lamp poisoning by lighting my room with my laptop screen. Today a 4-year-old girl pointed at me as I was coming out of the hoteli where I had lunch, and said, “China! China!” Her mom was standing next to her, beaming.
“No,” I said. “Not China.”
“From where?” her mother said.
“America,” I said. “But no matter where I come from it’s rude to call people those kind of names.”
“I know,” she said. Then why is she just sitting there letting her kid point at strangers and call them racist names? “But the kids don’t know.”
“Yes but you can teach them. She can understand at her age,” I said.
“They just see you and you look just like the people building the road so she calls you a China,” she said.
“But you can’t assume you know something about someone you don’t know,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Pole bas.” Sorry.
I had already had a bad day, so this conversation just left me more irritated than ever. Nevermind that somehow I had managed to point out that the kid’s behavior bothered me without killing her or screaming at her mother. I could only focus on the fact that despite Kenyans acknowledging that they define rudeness the same way I do, they still don’t bother to teach their kids accordingly.
I can walk down a road and have literally twenty kids come tearing out of their huts to stare at me, and then all start chanting, “Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese!” for a solid two minutes, while their parents just stand there grinning, never once thinking that maybe they should correct their kids. Once I summoned the kids over with no intention whatsoever of drop-kicking every one of their snot-covered faces clear across the Ugandan border, and then patiently explaind to them in Kiswahili that I’m not Chinese, and that my name is Justina and next time please remember my name so you can call me Justina when you see me, and the whole time Hillary was translating into Kinandi because most of the kids weren’t school-aged yet so they didn’t understand Kiswahili, and they all nodded and the older ones repeated my name and they skipped away happy that I had greeted them and told them my name…and before I’d taken three steps I heard them chanting: “Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese! Chinese!”
posted by Justina at 12:07 AM
4 Comments:
Justina, I just came across your blog yesterday and have read all your entries with some interest. I am puzzled and intrigued by the blog world in general, and reading your blog has helped me see more clearly why this is so.
To give you some back ground, I am a Kenyan woman, living in Nairobi, working for a women's rights organization. Coincidentally I know a bit about the EGG-B civic education workshop or meeting you seem to have attended. Small world eh?
I went to university in the US and tend to travel quite a bit around the world. For work-related purposes. The reason I am saying this is so that I have a background to the things I want to share with you.
Having been born and brought up in Kenya, both in the village and the city, I have a clear sense of your context right now as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Having spent time in and with Americans I also have a sense of your experience as an American in the said context. Of course you have also so eloquently told your readers about it.
For instance, it is very clear that your being mistaken for a Chinese person clearly gets your goat (or chicken?) So does being constantly asked for money, food, help etc. I understand your frustration fully.
As a freshman in college I was asked whether(amongst other things):
1. I was Nelson Mandela's daughter
2. I lived in a tree and rode on elephants
3. I knew a guy named Kwame from Africa
4. I swam to the US
As you would imagine, these made me furious and I'm sure you understand why.
I also learned that my opinion as an African didn't matter much since I was an African who had fled apparent squalor and desperation to come to the great US of A. I fought with questions like "So why don't you go back to Africa, why did you come here?", when I was close to tears defending the dignity of my home and people. Poverty has opened Africans up to ridicule, persistent questioning, sceptism and shredding. Why are there little children running around with snotty noses wearing only old dirty t shirts - because there are. Are we working on it? Some of us are going to work on it until we die. We are not all greedy, corrupt creatures - many of us are fighting really hard for our people to live in dignity.
We all tend to view cultures outside ours as odd, repulsive, annoying, funny. This is human nature. With all due respect, I have found that many Americans take this a little too far. With the sarcastic humour,(isn't that like so funny ha ha) constant ridiculing of African youth mimicking what they see on TV (mainly American content), as if the reason for this is not blatantly clear. Damn African youth can't they see how stupid they are? Gee, so funny.
These African women, can't they see they are slaves? Why can't they just say what is on their minds? Like us.
Why can't they just be normal? Like us. Asking many questions, patronizing, looking down, comparing.
I'm sorry I've lost my temper. I will come back when I calm down.
I look forward to your future entries.
Yes, you're right. And I'm right.
All the opinions I express are tainted by my cultural perspective, which I have realized I can't break out of, no matter how hard I try.
But none of my opinions, however offensive they may be to you (and I acknowledge that they are offensive), in any way imply that I think Kenyans are somehow stupid or inferior because kids have snot running down their noses or that many women accept their unequal status in society because it's the culture they have been brought up with, or because of a sense of disempowerment, or because they feel that it's perfectly fair.
My cultural perspective does, however, make me think that gender equality and empowerment of women would make Kenya flourish economically, culturally, politically...it does not mean I consider these things American inventions, or that by extension a culture that has these things has "converted" to the American way.
Things I say here are my deepest frustrations with living in a culture so different from my own. It makes me question everything I believe in, everything I think is right or wrong (like screaming what I consider racist names at strangers simply because their skin color is different - in an objective sense, is it rudeness or is it reaching out?), it makes me angry that I can't get beyond my anger, DESPITE the fact that I DO understand, to some degree, why people do the things they do. I KNOW that it's culture, that my culture and my values aren't right above any other, and yet I still feel angry and offended and frustrated when my cultural values are inadvertently violated.
And that's one of the hardest things about living in another culture, as you probably know--reconciling ugly feelings that you know you shouldn't feel because you GET why people do or say things, but you still feel all these things as if you DON'T get it.
Thanks for your comment and I hope you will continue to read.
Anonymous,
I really appreciate your comment. It has brightened my day, because even though we are all expressing frustrations and ugly issues that are arising out of cultural exchange and working in development, and even though it's some hard stuff to talk about without getting worked up, I'm seeing that we share some very deep values.
I don't have time to really get into it because the posta is about to close, so I will come back some other time. For now let me say that I'm seeing that all three of us here are suffering from the same mistake - using the extreme stupidity of some to feel wronged by the entire body of people (though i'll give all three of us some credit by saying that none of us has gone straight to passing judgment on all and saying that all Americans/Kenyans are racist/mean/rude/etc).
Okay I have to run but I'd love to chat with you more, and defend Justina more too, because she gives a very well-rounded picture and admits her own biases readily. I'm pretty sure she's never accused the women of being willing slaves, or said that the solution to Kenya's problems is to be more American... I think you're reading that because she IS frustrated and her moral values happen to be American, and also because of your own experiences with Americans who've said awful and ignorant things about Kenya and Africans in general.
Anyway, I think Justina has a degree of humility and insight that has helped me through some of my roughest days, and I really cherish that. I hope that we can all come back to the table and discuss more, because this is a great learning tool for all of us. I hope we can all get along and work through the ways we've been hurt to understand each other better. :) Thanks again for your comment.
Love,
jenly
justina and jenly, first of all thank you for responding. I appreciate it. I am now calmer and will clarify what I meant. The things i said in my comment do not apply directly to you Justina (as Jenly seems to think - and no Jenly I don't think you need to defend Justina, at least not to me), they are thoughts, reflections, frustrations. I was not attacking Justina and do not intend to do so.
I have no personal problem with you Justina at all. I know you are frustrated and I see why. In fact I think you, Justina have hit the nail on the head in saying that the frustration really lies in not being able to rid ourselves of the anger. That truly is frustrating. On that we are definitely agreed. I'll leave it at that for now and keep reading.
Post a Comment
<< Home