World AIDS Day

I’m not sure if you have been reading the news, but today, December 1^st, is World AIDS Day.  According to one news article I read, the intention of World AIDS Day is to raise awareness and money for research and medical care with the intention of eliminating the disease by 2030.  While an admirable goal, I think it will be difficult to obtain.  Here’s why:

When I was in Congo eight months ago one of the men I met told me that Congolese are more concerned about Ebola than AIDS.  Given our current predicament in Africa with Ebola, this seems poetic.  Back in April when I heard this I thought that was rather foolish.  Now, seeing how quickly Ebola spreads and how difficult it is to contain in Africa, where sanitation is grossly lacking, I understand his reasoning.  Nevertheless, I was surprised by his laissez-faire attitude toward the risk of HIV/AIDS.

Another man I met in Congo told me how AIDS was not a problem because, “we use the condom.”  Well, not long after that I learned what that meant.  The government and NGOs in Congo- Congo reportedly has more NGOs and UN Peacekeepers that anywhere else on earth- have launched nationwide campaigns to “condomize.”  That’s right, it’s so important we made it a verb!  While safe sex propaganda is everywhere in Africa it turns out there is a problem with the marketing message.  As someone who teaches Marketing, perhaps we need to be a little more direct.  Olivier went on to explain that in order to please their government, they wear condoms.  But, the whole point of sex is to join together bodily fluids.  So in order to achieve both goals, they wear condoms, but first cut they tip off so that bodily fluids may be exchanged. WHAT THE #&$*?????  Yes, that was my reaction too.

As I was telling my class last week, the good thing is that no one actually dies from AIDS in Africa.  Before I moved to Africa I had to take a physical.  As mandated by the Botswana government, I was required to have a TB test to enter the country.  Without the test I could not become a resident.  Sitting in the doctor’s office in Lubbock my doctor thought this was ludicrous.  “I can’t imagine they care if you bring this into the country, if anything, shouldn’t we be concerned about you being exposed to it while you are there?” she asked.  My doctor couldn’t even remember the last time she had administered the test, and as a result, filled out the form incorrectly. I ended up having to return a second time to get retested. But as I was saying no one in Africa dies from AIDS.  No, not at all.  But TONS of people die from TB.

You know, “The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club?”  Well, it’s kind of the same deal.  We talk endlessly about HIV/AIDS- go to this workshop, get tested, read this brochure, tell your friends.  Yet no one actually has it and no one dies from it.  I can’t tell you how many funerals I have been invited to (in Africa), where someone has died from TB.  Answer: A LOT.   People willingly talk about and show evidence if they DON’T have it, but AIDS patients in Africa are like unicorns, everyone has heard about it, but never actually seen one before.

As I was saying, I think the desire to eradicate AIDS in the next 15 years is admirable.  However, I have little hope that this can be achieved because I think there are a number of cultural barriers which make this a serious challenge.  I should also mention that perhaps the most significant explanation for why I think this will fail is because this is a “preaching to the choir” sort of situation.  In Botswana there is at least one newspaper article every week about HIV/AIDS.  Guess how many newspapers in Botswana ran front page articles about World AIDS Day? Not one.

In case you were interested, here are some of the medical PR campaigns I’ve seen around Africa.  Sleep under a mosquito net to avoid malaria:

Get your Yellow Fever vaccination:

Use a condom:

And this is also related to HIV/AIDS and methods to prevent the transfer of the disease from mother to baby during birth:

Ignorance is Bliss

Throughout my time here in Botswana I have consistently excused what I consider to be foolish tendencies by repeating the phrase, “Ignorance is bliss” to myself.  To take that one step further, the English poet Samuel Butler is famous for saying, “The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.”

Education in Africa, or more specifically in Botswana, has a serious arrogance problem.  And vanity problem.  And pride problem.

I do not claim to be an expert in anything really.  The way I look at it, I still haven’t reached my 10,000 hours of practice, so I’m not even close to expert level.  But I like to think I have some idea what I’m talking about.  However, I am more than willing to admit when I am unsure about something and consult another individual whom I consider to be better versed in a topic than I am.  Sadly, that is not the attitude most people take here.  Here everyone is an expert and everyone knows more than you do.  I think this will be Africa’s, and Botswana’s, undoing.

The way I look at it, I am free labor, so they might as well take advantage of my skill set.  Sometimes they do, but for the most part everyone “knows better” and they don’t want to listen to me. Case in point: I wrote the proposal for a Master’s in Tourism here.  After writing the proposal I had to meet with the Associate Dean, who is the former Head of the Tourism Department.  I told him I was concerned we didn’t have enough interest in the program, and more specifically, there weren’t enough faculty members to staff a Master’s Program.  Right now there are about 100 undergrads, which I’m not sure is large enough to support interest in an MS degree.  But more importantly, there are 6 faculty members, only 1 of which has a Ph.D. (the Associate Dean, who only teaches one class a year).   Of the other 5 faculty members, only 1 has a Master’s.  You can’t have someone with only a Bachelor’s teaching Master’s level courses.  When I pointed these two facts out to him, and suggested the curriculum board might reject the proposal due to lack of resources, he said that was an incorrect assessment and it should be fine.

I’ve seen similar attempts to cut corners with faculty.  There are very few professors here at any level.  Faculty may be hired with a Bachelor’s degree only as a Lecturer.  A Senior Lecturer typically has a MS, and sometimes a Ph.D.  An Associate Professor is generally a Ph.D. and then the highest level is a Full Professor (again, this person should have a Ph.D.).  Recently they began promoting people to Full Professor WITHOUT Ph.D. degrees.  Here is why this is important: Associate and Full Professors teach graduate students.  You can’t teach graduate students if you never received a graduate degree!  It is against every academic principle in the world.

The unfortunate thing about both of these situations is that in the end, the arrogance of the administration here is doing nothing but hurting their own faculty and students.  Faculty members are teaching courses they aren’t prepared to teach.  Students are being mentored by underqualified instructors who are teaching them either bad habits or quite simply, wrong information.  Ultimately, these practices will lead to an even greater gap between students educated in the U.S., Europe and Asia and those who went to university in Africa.  Of course, no one is willing to admit this right now.  It will be another 20 years or more before they realize what a disservice they were doing.  But for now “Ignorance (and Arrogance) is Bliss.”