The Morality Plays of HIV Week

In many conservative environments, festivals and performances have developed in which the normal social mores are overturned for a few hours or days. For example, in the middle ages commoners were forbidden by the church to practice the Seven Deadly Sins. Instead, they enjoyed them vicariously by watching their reenactment on the stage in ‘morality’ plays. In some societies, holidays exist where men dress like women and women like men. The festival of Mardi Gras, which marks the beginning of the solemn Lenten season, is characterized in New Orleans by thousands of women flashing their tits to get cheap, plastic beads. And so it was at Canisianum, during the morality plays of HIV/AIDS awareness week.

This past Friday, we had a three-plus hour assembly for HIV/AIDS Week! All 262 children crowded into the main hall, which has a raised stage at one end and long rows of benches for the audience. Towards the back, some students stood or crowded onto a few tables. Teachers were seated on the stage. The Indian nuns and priests were seated in the audience, though most of them snuck out as soon as they could.

At the beginning of the week, Ms. Shanghala (who had a baby two months ago, and looks amazing already) had invited students and classes to prepare something for the assembly. There are very few outlets for creativity at Canisianum: students have no art, music, or drama classes, and few teachers assign projects which engage the students’ creative sides. Once, the principal even chased away a musician who wanted to teach the children and get some of them involved in a band he was creating. Our principal claimed that music would ruin the students. Thus, the HIV/AIDS assembly was a rare chance for students to be creative.

The assembly itself was very much a variety show. Several entire classes performed songs, individual students read speeches and poems, one student danced and another one rapped about HIV. One group of serious-looking “AIDS Soldiers” re-enacted a funeral. At the end of the funeral, they chanted a song to remind students of the ABCs of AIDS prevention: “Abstain, Be Faithful, and Condomise [sic].” When they chanted their verse regarding condoms, the older students cheered loudly. Father Joe made a large “thumbs-down” gesture. The students responded with a hearty thumbs-up.



The highlights of the show were two original dramas performed by students. One, created by grade nine learners, focused on the problem of “Sugar Daddies.” These are older men, often teachers, who give female students food, clothing, and other gifts in exchange for sex. In the drama, two young learners, seduced by sugar daddies with nice cars, spent the night with them when the vehicles mysteriously ran out of gas. Oddly, the girls put up no resistance at all to the older men’s advances. It was no surprise that the girls became pregnant and HIV positive. Upon hearing the news, the girls' mothers threw their arms akimbo over their heads and screamed in Oshiwambo, while the principal gave them a stern lecture. Marius Shangula, one of my learners, imitated our principal to wild screams, mimicking his overflowing belly, frequent hitching up of pants, and bowlegged walk.

The older students presented a far racier drama, set on the campus of fictional "Sodom & Gomorrah" university. The story followed the adventures of a group of students during their first few months at university. There were three ‘naughty’ boys and three equally 'naughty' girls, counterbalanced by two nice girls and one boy. The girls, bewigged, sassy, and sporting tight-fitting clothes with high heels, were a far cry from their normal look.

The bulk of the drama revolved around each of the naughty boys seducing a naughty girl, then hiding behind a large wardrobe on the stage where the couple groaned and shouted in mock ecstasy. Each time a couple went behind the wardrobe, the crowd went wild. During the story, the six naughty boys and girls each formed a couple, so we there were three 'behind the wardrobe' moments. If that wasn't enough, then each couple broke up and hooked up with someone else. In all, six different times couples hid behind the wardrobe, and each time the crowd screamed, clapped, and hooted.

The seductions, sex, and some mocking of the ‘nice’ students took perhaps 25 minutes, leaving only a few moments for the predictable, moralistic ending. All six of the naughty students got HIV, which rapidly progressed to AIDS, and then they all died – within the space of about three minutes. The ‘moral’ at the end was so quick and abrupt that it was comical rather than instructive. The lasting impression was not of the negative effects of casual sex, but of the fun of chasing girls and having sex.


Just like the morality plays of the middle ages, these cloistered students live vicariously through the actors on stage. In their regular lives, students are not allowed to grow out their hair, nor to have boyfriends or girlfriends (though it happens, of course). They have few outlets for creativity, for art, for storytelling. So when HIV/AIDS Awareness Week gave them an opportunity, they leapt at the chance to creatively enact their wildest fantasies. I don’t blame them – if I were in this environment, I would do the same.

It makes me wonder. Wouldn’t it be better if they had a couple periods a week of music, art, dance or drama, rather than 18 periods each week of science? Wouldn’t it be better to acknowledge their desires, not deny them? Wouldn’t it better to teach them how to date responsibly, rather than simply to forbid them? I think those changes would make a much more positive impact on their lives than a salacious, once-a-year AIDS assembly.