I went to the free San Francisco Film Society teacher screening of The World According to Sesame Street
at the very cool Bridge Theater on Geary. If you didn't catch it on PBS when it aired last year, you should Netflix immediately. What a great film, especially for educators, who are given opportunities to teach peace and tolerance in their classrooms on a daily basis. Sesame Street is a far reaching neighborhood, it seems. 120 countries have their own, aculturated versions of the show, including Bangladesh, their most recent addition.
Kosovo was an eye-opening segment. Who would have guessed that politics could figure so prominently in the creation of a much-needed children's program. They could fit the Serbians and the Albanians in the same room, yet they couldn't make the tension dissipate no matter what cause they were all united in fighting for...be it the unification of a nation or something as essential as guaranteeing the future of their children.
But for me, the most touching and heartbreaking moments of the film were when they showed the South African version of Sesame Street, with 
their HIV muppet, Kami.
Apparently, for a country like South Africa, which now holds the highest number of known HIV related cases in the world, Kani is a welcome learning tool with which the show can help children understand the very heavy-duty concepts and unpleasant issues of loss, death, and the HIV virus.
However, in the US of A, we trampled the idea of Kani before it even had a chance to explain the benefits of educating a huge mass of children who have no means o
f understanding a sickness that is sweeping through their country.
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