Sahana Prasad

The first dispatches are by Sahana Prasad and Michael Williams. Sahana is in her second year and will be entering programs in public policy in women’s health and reproductive justice and Michael is a DAAS honors student with a minor in urban studies entering his final year.

Enjoy, Nesha Z. Haniff

There is Nothing Else in the World I Would Rather Be Doing

http://youtu.be/TwRmwPkp2VA

If I am to be entirely honest, I must concede that I came on this trip not knowing quite what to expect. I knew, of course, what I would be doing -teaching a primarily verbal, culturally contextual HIV/AIDS prevention methodology geared specifically towards low-literate communities. Beyond that, however, everything was rather fuzzy – and perhaps it was better that way, because there is truly no way I could have anticipated the unbelievably grounding experiences I have had just within the first week.

One of the first organizations we worked with while in Johannesburg was LoveLife, a group funded by the South African government that focuses primarily on HIV/AIDS prevention in youth. Among the group of people we worked with were Groundbreakers, peer educators between the ages of 18 and 25 who did field work educating communities about prevention, as well as some adults – program organizers, educators, and the like. I was particularly taken with an extraordinary woman by the name of Zola, who had been working with LoveLife for quite some time, and had been involved in HIV prevention work for even longer. From the outset, it was evident to me that Zola was invested in the material, and that she had made a genuine connection with the module that we teach. She was incredibly conscious of the way in which the material being presented would connect to and impact the audience, very intent on engaging them in discussion. Her commitment to this workshop and the process it took was at times overwhelming, in the best possible way.

By far the most valuable part of working with Zola for me was watching her translate the teaching module into Zulu, her mother tongue. While she already had an excellent grasp on the module when she had presented in English, watching her teach in her own language was extraordinary. She was nervous at first, but her self-assurance grew steadily as she spoke. As soon as she started, I could tell exactly how passionate she was, how connected to the material, how deeply and fully she believed in its importance, and how invested she was in teaching. Her face lit up in a way that it had not before, as though she had been suddenly liberated from the burden of an uncomfortable language, and now had the full freedom to articulate everything exactly the way she wanted. Though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, just listening to her speak, the colour and cadence of her voice, and the passion and conviction with which she spoke, was truly and entirely moving.

At one point in my interview with her, which is enclosed within this dispatch, Zola mentioned to me how humbled she was by the fact that we, as foreigners, had traveled so far to do this work, when she felt as though there were so many better things we could be doing. I told her, with the kind of honesty that I generally reserve only for my mother, that there is nothing else in the world I would rather be doing.

-Sahana Prasad, POA Team Member 2012