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My current topic in Biology is Health and Immunity. I’ve spent the last two weeks teaching the students about various diseases. I even sent them around the campus to interview the staff about diseases they have had so that they could do some “research” and produce a graph of the information.

Today, we focused on HIV/AIDS. The girls used their text books to find out the meaning of HIV and AIDS, to explain the differences between the two terms, to learn about the modes of transmission, how to avoid infection, etc. Finally we got to the part about how to protect oneself from infection during sexual intercourse. Surprisingly the text book has step by step instructions of how to use a condom properly. I had decided the night before to take the bait and do a demonstration in class using the box of condoms VSO gives all its volunteers. I’ve never actually done the condom demo before. Usually health and physical education teachers tackle that when they discuss contraception. Last night, my housemate and I (another Tanzanian teacher) had a good laugh over what I was going to use as the “mboo” (penis) in my demonstration. The obvious choice would be a banana, but alas, the local bananas are quite small, about a third the size of the ones we can get in Canada. I ended up settling on a bottle of chilli sauce. Hot stuff indeed!

Well, you should have seen their faces today. I don’t think any of the students expected me to actually show them how to use a condom. I passed them out so that every student could see one and then proceeded to do my demo. They were laughing awkwardly and straining to see as they gathered round. When I finished and took it off the bottle I asked if anyone wanted to touch it. They squealed and collectively recoiled like it had actually been used. It was hilarious. I don’t think they’ll ever look at a bottle of chilli sauce the same way again but I hope it got the point across.

Cheers,

Marike

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