Posted By Sika on September 24, 2008
The weekend before last, Cory arranged a football and netball tournament and HIV/AIDS thingamajig. A few health volunteers deigned to show up* even though Cor is a lowly education volunteer. It was interesting, although most of the educational bits came in Chichewa and so we spent a great deal of time trying to figure out if they were saying condoms aren’t 100% effective but we should use them or therefore we shouldn’t use them. Well, until the Catholic Bishop started talking. Efficacy wasn’t really his concern.
Near the end of the event we separated the players into 7 groups s o the each of the 7 of us could chat with a smaller group of youth. My group insisted that they all got tested for HIV every 3 months, which I called bodza on until I found out they were the barracks team. I think there is mandatory testing in the army, so maybe they weren’t lying. One of the barracks guys was asking about ARVs (anti-retrovirals) and said if I thought they actually work, because after all, you die when god’s decided it’s your time. And nothing you can do can change that.
I asked this guy if he knew James, because I often tell James how stupid that idea is when he’s insisting that he doesn’t need seat belts or to be sober when he’s driving. I told the barracks footballer that god wants you to treat your body right and that when god has given you something as precious as your body, something that’s supposed to be a temple like your body, to desecrate it is a crime against god from which he will not protect you.** I thought it was a pretty good argument, although I don’t think the footballer agreed with me.
*I was late by an hour, and would have been later except that Mr. Sadi saw me walking out of Matawale and offered me a lift while he was taking his kids for a Saturday drive. I don’t know why I worried—this is Malawi after all, and the event didn’t start till I had been at Box 2 (the Catholic school) for at least another hour.
**I don’t know if it counts as a skill that I can now get properly riled up on behalf of a god whose existence I’m ambiguous about. A couple of months ago a Malawian guy at work was telling me how he wants to return to Scotland and he met a Malawian woman there who was willing to pay his airfare. I asked him what his wife and kids thought about this plan, and he said they’d just know that he went to Scotland to make money. I got really angry (taking it way too personally) and asked him about the vows he made before god. The thing is that I like this guy and I expect the Malawian men I like to be less stereotypically Malawian men. He said some bullshit about how culturally Malawians are allowed to take second wives. I pointed out that first wives are told about second wives. When first wives aren’t told, it’s just cheating. I was thinking, I don’t believe in god, but you do, so dishonoring those vows is dishonoring your relationship with god. Yeah, um, so god is now part of my argument repertoire, but only for people who invoke him first.
Categories: Malawi, Peace Corps
Tags: HIV/AIDS, netball, X football
I don’t know if it counts as a skill that I can now get properly riled up on behalf of a god whose existence I’m ambiguous about.
When a person claims certain beliefs regarding said god, especially when those beliefs are the foundation of his or her moral code, and then ignores them, that’s what we in the Modern Religion industry refer to as hypocrisy. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with gettin’ riled up about that.
And I like your precious-gift theory. Works for me. You should tell them the story about the man in the flood.
See, once there was this guy, and he saw on TV that there was a flood warning for his area. A really bad one. So he started praying to God to save him.
As the flood waters began to rise and were just splashing along the ground, along came a jeep. “Hey!” called the driver. “There’s a flood! We need to get out of here! C’mon, I’ll give you a lift.”
“No thank you,” said the first guy. “I put faith in God to save me.”
Then the waters rose higher, and he had to move up to the top floor of his house. He was watching out the window when a boat came along. “Hey!” called the boat driver. “C’mon, I’ll give you a lift.”
“No thank you,” said the first guy again. “I put faith in God to save me.”
Finally the waters rose so high that he had to climb out onto his roof. He was clinging to the chimney, shivering in the rain, when a helicopter came along. “C’mon!” the pilot yelled through his bullhorn. “I’ll give you a lift.”
“No thank you,” said the first guy again. “I put faith in God to save me.”
Finally the flood waters rose so high that he was swept away and drowned. In Heaven, he stomped up to the throne of God. “Hey, God! What’s up? I prayed and prayed. I believed in you! And you let me drown!”
“Look here, mister,” said God, “I sent a Jeep, a boat, and a helicopter. What more do you want?”
(Okay, it’s not exactly about the same thing. But I’ll take any excuse I can to tell that story.)