Banana Season again

Well it’s been that time of year again – another round of sex ed and HIV/AIDS classes across the school, beginning this week with the Grade 11s, and moving onto Grade 9 next week.

Last year I managed to do most of the school, but lots of our Grade 11s are new this year, so Doris asked me if I’d start with them during her guidance lessons.

So, it was off to the National AIDS Council for another round of props on Monday (excuse me, but I’m from Marianville girls school and I need about 50 condoms, if I could please. It’s my birthday today…), and after picking up a boot-load of pamphlets and posters and bumper stickers and of course, rubbers, it was Foodworld next stop – fruit and veg section…

Tuesday was 11W and 11Y, and Thursday (this session was much anticipated, following stories from their friends) was Pia’s class, the 11Ps. Fortunately I have a lot of these girls for my IT classes, so I’ve got to know some of them quite well, and I think that really helped when it came to making them (and me!) feel comfortable. They were all quiet at first (even though the first period was the easy one, translating basic facts about AIDS from pidgin to English) but once we started moving into the sex talks and the condom demonstrations we got a lot of laughs out of it, and girls were certainly paying attention - especially when I pulled out the enormous zucchini I'd brought along with the bananas, and offered it to Mrs Andrew when it was her turn to be part of the condom race!!! Very funny. She was the one I'd been shopping with specially for this purpose, and when I showed her the zucchinis as an alternative, she just laughed and said "one African one!" - not thinking for a second that I'd actually buy it! Wooee, I got in trouble for that one later!!

Question time got better with each class and it was great to see how comfortable they became after an hour or so – big change from the first 15 minutes when they could barely say ‘HIV can be passed on through having sex without using a condom’. For the last class a couple of other teachers sat in on it too (word certainly gets round the staff room that Ms Conolly’s up to her banana tricks again!) and that was great because they were able to offer comments or add extra culturally-relevant information (eg apparently it’s the thing in PNG now for teenage boys to circumcise themselves – so you must always use a fresh razor to do this – never share… urggghhh). And actually, one of the best things about the whole experience this time round was having one of these teachers come up to me afterwards (one who I’ve never quite known where I stand with), put her arm around me and say “You know, I’m just so proud of you for doing this, getting up there and helping them with all that – it’s really important that these girls know this.”

Yup, it is.

Grade 9 next week, and I promise I’ll try for photos this time – preferably with my AVI T-shirt on and posters up all round so I can demonstrate that I’ve been a good little volunteer, doing her bit for HIV awareness in PNG…