After a couple of abortive attempts this week and last, Hev and I appeared on local radio today. Genesis is friends with a journalism student by the name of Elvis, who is involved in student programming on the local CRTV (Cameroon Radio and TV) station.
We went up this morning, and he interviewed us on a half-hour slot called Social forum about the HIV/Aids problem here in Cameroon - live on air!
Afterward, we went to the Chief of Programs office, a very pleasant man who's full name I didn't get, but his first name was Robert. 'Call me Bob' he said.
I thought we were going to have a general chat about the station and what we're doing. There's an awful lot of affable chatting that goes on, much like in England, I suppose, only more polite. Bob had other ideas though. After a brief chat, he asked us if we could do a half-hour slot with him for tomorrow afternoon, which, being Saturday is kind of a prime time slot, in local radio terms.
We could come in and do it live, or we could record it now, which would we prefer? Wanting to keep the live radio appearances to a minimum, and also wanting to get it done and dusted so we could have the weekend off, we decided to do it then and there. So basically, we did the whole thing again, saying a bit about who we were and why we're here, and discussing the issues to do with Aids in Cameroon.
One of the the things we discussed is that many people here are skeptical about Aids. I mentioned in a previous post that many people are ignoring the problem. What I didn't realise then is that many people don't believe that AIDS exists at all. They think it's all scare stories to make them be good boys and girls and wait until they're married.
Though it stunned me at first, I'm beginning to see how people can think this. Aids isn't a visible disease, you can't tell someone has Aids just by looking at them. Also, no-one dies of Aids. Aids ruins your immune system until you die of something else. So I can see how this belief comes about, false and dangerous though it is...
They seem to want us to go back again and talk to them at CRTV. I'm going up on Wednesday to talk about Computers or new media, or the internet, (or something), so we'll see how that goes...
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