PEPFAR IST

In case you're not following the acronyms, PEPFAR IST stands for Presidential Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief In Service Training. I just spent a week in Kumasi learning about HIV/AIDS statistics and also discussing current and future projects.

Most of the week was repetitive but on a few occasions, we broke into groups of Ghanaians/Americans and asked each other "gender role," questions. I learned that many Ghanaians believe that HIV/AIDS and homosexuality were "imported," to Ghana just as drugs and other unwanted things had been. Members of different tribes discussed how gender roles differ. In you're a Dagomba male, you have all power in the family and women and children defer to you. In all tribes, if something bad happens (say something is spilled or broken) and a man has occurred it to happen, all in the room will still blame the smallest child in the room. Males inherit from males amongst Dagombas while in the Akan (Ashanti) tribe, the earnings of a man's children go to the husband of that man's sisters. It's not uncommon for a man to push his nieces and nephews into work earlier in life so that the trickle up will start sooner.

Women talked about a phenomenon in secondary school (high school) in which older girls take younger girls under their wing and give hands on lessons of how to pleasure themselves and how to pleasure men. Until the conversation started, none of the women had considered that these actions could be considered to be homosexual. The difficult topic of "what is sex?" came up and we weren't able to clear it up. A Dagomba chief told us that according to Islam, sex doesn't take place until semen is present. After that point, a man must wash before doing anything else. This man considers masturbation sex while others only consider sexual intercourse. Since we were discussing STIs and HIV/AIDS in particular, we tried to focus on the risks involved in any particular activity.

Other sessions involved bickering about fashion and other things. Some men talked about how hard it is to control themselves when women dress in a certain way. Women obviously were upset by these comments and the conversation took a bad turn. I tried to talk about how in a society in which gender roles are as they are in Ghana, while it's not inappropriate for women to dress provocatively, it may not be smart to do so since men in "power roles," feel that it's OK to respond in such a way. I said that it's never appropriate for a man to assault or rape a woman and that their dress is not an invitation but I couldn't get my words out before being interrupted and talked over by a volunteer with strong beliefs. I was trying to agree with her and give Ghanaian men a chance to hear her argument from another mouth and from a man but unfortunately I couldn't finish. Such topics are always tricky since one can never know the history of each person in the room. With 20+ representatives from each gender, it's likely that at least one victim and one aggressor sat in the room but one can never know.

All around, the information provided was great and it was nice to see volunteers (some of whom I hadn't seen since November) but the time spent also showed how many differences there are not only between American and Ghanaian cultures but also within Ghana.

I'm on my way back to site. One year ago today, I met all of my fellow volunteers in Philadelphia for some pre-service training. As many volunteers suggested would happen, some days go painfully slowly but the weeks, months and years fly by.

Love to all
Ira