Teaching Life Skills

The Ministry of Magic, whoops, I mean Education, in Lesotho has in recent years put a push on teaching Life Skills in the schools. Topics include HIV education, self-esteem building, communication skills, career guidance, gender equality education, etc. (very important stuff that these students might not otherwise get at home).

Some schools have it as a class once or twice a week, or, if they are like my school, they’ve ignored that “suggestion” and it’s not taught (or it is taught as part of other classes, not as a separate class itself). In relation to this, and possibly a driving factor as to why it is not emphasized at some schools, is the cultural awkwardness around subjects like puberty and sex. They are NOT talked about. Words like penis and vagina in Sesotho are VERY VERY taboo (it’s ok to say them in English, though), and the Basotho try by all means to avoid their Sesotho names (for instance, in Sesotho a penis might be called a lizard or snake and a woman’s vagina is called her “Lesotho”, which, in itself, is interesting).

Last Friday I convinced two science teachers to let me combine their classes and teach them (just for 2 morning lessons, which they happily relinquished). I split up the girls and boys and had a male teacher go with the boys and myself and Erica, my neighboring volunteer, took the girls. We did a few activities, a condom demonstration and talked about some myths and misconceptions about pregnancy and periods, but once we got the ball rolling we mostly answered their questions. We had two “Question Cans” floating around the room so the girls could write down questions anonymously as they thought of them. We collected the cans with the slips of paper and tried our best to explain and answer their thoughts. The session went really well and we’re hoping to do it again soon!

Here are some of the very telling questions they asked (I’ve changed some of their English phrasing, but tried to leave most of it as they wrote it):

-Maybe a girl has menstruated and she finished after two days and she let another two days to pass, after that she makes sex. Is she going to be pregnant?

-What will happen if you will not make sex all in your life? Am I going to suffer? (likewise: If I am a virgin girl, is it true that I will become ill?)

-What will happen when a woman does not have a baby at all?

-If a girl is menstruating and she makes sex with boy, but that boy uses a condom, is it true when they said that the blood will go into her vagina or what will happen with the girl?

-What about if during menstruation I suffer from period pains, after some months I do sex without a condom, I am going to be pregnant?

-We as girls we have a time that we menstruate but sometimes one or more months can skip you without being pregnant even when you test, so what makes that sort of sick to happen?

-What shall happen if I have sex without condom but I am using contraceptives?

-What about if I kiss my boyfriend, tongue kiss, I will be affected by AIDS or HIV?

-What about if I kiss someone for 20 minutes, I will be affected by HIV/AIDS or not?

-What if I can use a female condom two or six times, will I be pregnant?

-When a girl and a boy make intercourse, a girl will know that she is pregnant how? Does a girl hear when the sperm are in her vagina?

-How does the sperm cause HIV/AIDS?

-Other girls have pain when they menstruate, what causes this?

-What makes people to have menstruation twice in one month?

-If I have sex without a condom but the next day I menstruate, what will happen?