Student Compositions about HIV

(This is a post I wrote quite a while ago but never put up. Better late than never.)

For a test grade at the end of their unit on HIV/AIDS, I assigned my English students a composition. They had to write about someone they know who has been affected by HIV/AIDS in some way. Yesterday evening I sat down to begin grading. I was sorting the papers alphabetically but stopped when I saw one of my favorite students and decided to read that one first. I read it once through and put it down. My head was spinning and I got up. I took a deep breath and when I let it out there were tears in my eyes. How was I going to get through these?

I decided to take a bath and noticed we were nearly out of water. I went outside to see if it was running and accidentally locked myself out of the house. Valerie was gone and there was no one to let me back in so I started walking. It was a half moon but it was enough to light up the clouds and illuminate the rutted dirt road around campus. I was afraid someone would see me wandering aimlessly and looking up at the sky. I felt lost and dizzy, like the ground was about to give way beneath me, but made it back to the house. I paused at the garden to watch the moonlight reflect off the moist green leaves then sat on the porch, letting the mosquitoes bite me, crying quietly until Valerie returned with the keys.

Moments like that I am faced with the reality that young people are dying early because of ignorance. When I first walked into the classroom all I saw was a sea of faces. Now there are names and voices and stories… individuals. I can’t think in percentages anymore, I think in individuals. You can’t be objective when you look into someone’s eyes. It’s so real, this epidemic. And it’s not fair. Young people live and make mistakes. But why must so many promising lives be cut short?

Follow up:
As I was reading the above mentioned compositions, I felt frustrated and angry not only at the reality of HIV in my community but also at the audacity of my students. There were so many copied or plagiarized compositions that I had to offer a make-up composition because too many received automatic zeros. To me, that reduces the legitimacy of everyone else’s stories. It becomes hard for me to know who was writing from the heart and who was inaccurately copying from an HIV education pamphlet in English. Was my first student telling the truth about his status or did he want a good grade? When I handed it back to him I mentioned that I appreciated his story and was available to talk.

Regardless about what they decided to write, I know that all of my students are somehow affected by HIV. A friend, a relative, a neighbor… they must know someone whose life has changed dramatically as a result of the disease. I also know that the odds are high that at least a few of them are infected themselves. I wish they would take this reality seriously. It’s a scary thing to have to live with, especially as a teenager, but ignorance can not be an excuse for needless suffering.