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From: jbp@edison.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Around the world; Bolt, et.al. question.
Message-ID: <361@edison.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Oct-84 16:36:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: edison.361
Posted: Sun Oct  7 16:36:56 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Oct-84 03:57:07 EDT
References: <1112@ihuxi.UUCP>
Lines: 37

In reference to homosexuality around the world:

   When i got out of college (undergraduate type at least) i joined the
peace corps, partly from lack of interest in joining the real world, partly
from fear of being gay (despite having had a lover and participating fairly
actively in the local student gay group).  I spent the following four years
in Zaire being a high school math teacher.  (By the way, the peace corps, when
i was a member, had a fairly-very high proportion of gay volunteers).

I was told that if the Peace Corps ever found out a volunteer was gay, the
volunteer would be promptly kicked out (about the same fate reserved for
people who had worked for the CIA).  Further, when students brought the
subject up (they had heard about gay people in America on the radio and
wanted to know about it) they stated fairly unequivocally that being gay
was something that never happened in Africa.  Not that it was disapproved of,
it DID NOT HAPPEN!

Well, I know of two instances of American Peace Corps volunteers having gay
lovers (and both were in the same province as me, so who knows what was
happening in the other provinces where i didnt know as many gay people), and
both relationships lasted for a while (at least a year, and perhaps two).
I knew (fairly well) a pair of Zairois lovers, their relationship was quite
well known and accepted in the European expatriate community, but i couldnt
quite figure out how it was dealt with by the Zairois.  Further, it was a
fairly open secret that the priest who was the director of my first school
was living with a boy who was one of my students.

I was more than a little paranoid, and despite what i have been saying, i
think justly so.  So when i arrived in Zaire, i had decided to restrict my
sexual activities to Europeans and Americans (not lack of desire, paranoia),
however i found that it was quite impossible over the long run.  Interestingly
i heard my sexual preference discussed (in swahili) fairly openly, but never
either heard officialy, or casually anything about it.

jefu
(edison!jbp or edison!!putnam)
[ honi soit qui mal y pense! ]