Zimbabwean stories of "Best Practice" - SAfAIDS

not risk infecting their wives in the name of culture, stressing that like everything else, culture can bemodified to save lives. When the mixed dialogue was resumed it was noted that women were beginningto show some confidence and were speaking out without fear. Always preceded by highly spirited danceand song, they used the drama episodes to speak strongly against appeasing spirits using female childrenand to brand the night-vigil wife inheritance activities as abusive, emphasising that they needed to bestopped. The women demanded to be consulted whenever discussions about their girl children or themselveswere taking place, stressing that they were capable of taking care of themselves after the husbands diedand condemning those lazy women that needed to be looked after by men.An exciting moment in one of the meetings was when the men and custodians of culture started to relentand opened a discussion about how things could be done differently. In the end, the meeting recommendedthat as compromise, when necessary, animals like cows would be used in place of the girl child forappeasements. On wife inheritance, the community, especially the men and custodians of culture reemphasisedthat this was their culture and they wanted it to continue. However, they agreed to have thetwo people's consent, followed by testing for HIV and to respect women who did not want to be inherited."Sitting there watching andlistening to the women and mentalking or dialoguing together tofind their own solutions, we allhad tears in our eyes. This was abreak through! What wastouching was they were doing itby themselves sorting issues outin their own way and not ours."- Comment from both SAfAIDS andSeke Rural staff involved in the projectFigure 6: A female change agent 'chipangamazano' speaks to menFigure 7: A grandmother dances as she makes a point at a Culture Dialogue Session22