In SIC we say that "risky behavior" is anything that can potentially lead to the transmission of HIV. So it's a term we kind of throw around a lot. If you've engaged in risky behavior, you need to get tested. If you've engaged in any risky behavior in the last 3 months, you need to get tested in 3 months. Blah blah blah.
But lately, risky behavior has taken on a new meaning. A few weeks ago we hitchhiked. Then I climbed Mt. Meru (let's not talk about what could have happened with a few false steps on those craggy slopes). And this weekend 14 SICer's made the decision to risk our lives once again by bussing to Uganda to raft The Nile, the world's biggest river. It's an SIC tradition. And (so far), everyone has come back in one piece.
Rapids in the Nile range from class 1 to class 6. The highest we did was class 5, which is illegal in most places around the world. But with strict instructions from Canadian and Ugandan guides, heavy life jackets, and gnarly helmets, we felt surprisingly safe during our two day trip.
Each rapid has a name, and strict instructions on how to or not to flip over, surf the wave, stay inside the boat, jump outside the boat, ride the current, avoid the current, etc... I felt like I was going to die, but knew for sure I wasn't going to die. We practiced flipping over, abandoning the raft, paddling of all types. During the low currents, we swam in the mildly warm water and the hotter than hot sun of the river Nile. We were prepared for anything. But honestly, I can't put most of these feelings into words in the few short minutes I have to sit here and describe my weekend's experience.
We left Friday, crossed into Kenya and hit a giraffe with our bus along the way (bus drivers here are INSANE). Then we stopped in Nairobi for a few hours, an incredibly surreal city. Kind of like New York City, everything is in English, with more people selling items on the streets. And more well-dressed drunkards assuming that we all know the scores of the most recent English football games.
From Nairobi into Uganda we were stopped in the middle of the road by a turned over bus. The people were calmly exiting the bus, and as we approached in the slight rain, half-groggy, we realized that this was the same bus company as we were riding, and this bus in front of us could have so easily been us. Instead, we rushed off to try to take another road so we would reach our destination on time. Of course, however, the driver's door wouldn't close after he had jumped out to see what was going on, so I was charged with tying a rope to keep the door shut as we flew in the opposite direction at 80km/hr.
So the bus rides to and from Uganda (destination: Kampala, but we were dropped off in Jinja), were most certainly the most dangerous parts of the journey. Who knew?
Uganda is a beautiful, green country (the Nile - duh!), with beautiful people. Sort of like with climbing Meru, it was just nice to get away for a while. Clearly, we were in Africa. But, even more clear, we sure weren't in Tanzania any more.
Oh yea, I also bungee jumped into the Nile, 145 ft. up, touching the river during my first downward spiral. Nile High Bungee is the only Bungee into the Nile, probably the only in East Africa, and one of the lowest in the world...meaning one of the few where you can touch the water. And it's safe. I mean, a towel and a heavy duty rubber band around the ankles sounds pretty safe, doesn't it? The money is worth the first half second of free fall. Indescribable.
Also, I know pictures have been sporadic, incomplete, and randomly ordered, but I'm doing my best to work with the internet connection to give you a glimpse of my experience. Hopefully it's working out. I promise to have my complete collection online by January.
Back to the village for a short week. Last week, we finished up with the school year with some more frustrations (end of the year festivities are obviously more important than learning about HIV/AIDS), and start with training our Peer Educators and working in the seminar settings next week. I taught a group of over 150 at a subvillage teaching earlier this week, which was AWESOME - Shujaa and I taught 76 men, and Joyce, Nelea and Gaby taught 78 women. We have a testing day in that area tomorrow, so hopefully the number of people at the teaching bodes well for our testing numbers.
The SIC malaria count has reached something like 10, with several teaching partners also getting typhoid, and the chance for amoebas and bacterial infections increasing by the day as the rainy season creeps toward us (it rains almost every day now). But in general my experience remains amazing, there's so much more I want to say, but don't have time to think through...which just gives us more to talk about when I get back. Less than a month until I'm home!
Peace and love,
Devon
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Tanzanian Conversation, in short
News?
Good.
Problems?
Cool.
Things?
Clean.
- - - - - - - -
Habari?
Nzuri.
Mambo.
Poa.
Vipi?
Safi.
I don't know if I've emphasized this before, but greetings are the basis of Tanzanian culture. You greet everyone, on the street, on a hiking trail, in the village, in a restaurant. Sometimes you go so far as to asking how is the family, how is the work...even when you've never seen them before, and may never see them again.
Strangers are going to think I'm really weird when I get back...
Good.
Problems?
Cool.
Things?
Clean.
- - - - - - - -
Habari?
Nzuri.
Mambo.
Poa.
Vipi?
Safi.
I don't know if I've emphasized this before, but greetings are the basis of Tanzanian culture. You greet everyone, on the street, on a hiking trail, in the village, in a restaurant. Sometimes you go so far as to asking how is the family, how is the work...even when you've never seen them before, and may never see them again.
Strangers are going to think I'm really weird when I get back...
From Majengo to Meru to Marurani
Wow, it really feels like I haven't been to a computer in forever. If I miss one thing from home its being able to spend 2 hours a day on the computer/internet...instead of 2 hours per week. Ok, I guess that's not what I miss the most. But you guys should consider yourselves lucky right now, that's for sure.
In other news, I'm coming home, like, really soon. 4 weeks left of the program. less than 5 weeks left in Tanzania. More than 9 weeks down. Can you believe it?
- - - -
The second half of SIC Volunteer Program 3, 2007 is now officially under way. This Monday, all 21 volunteers and 12 teaching partners, in addition to the coordinators and our new Field Officer for the new ward, moved to Nduruma, a relatively urban and relatively green area about an hour out of Arusha. We are divided into 4 villages this time - the smallest group is 6, and the biggest is 10. And guess what? I'm in the group of 10. Going from a group of 5 (the smallest) to a group of 10 (the biggest) has been quite an experience so far. Because of sheer size, we have potential to be extremely productive in our community. However, because of sheer size, we also have the potential an extreme amount of conflict, stepping on each other's feet, and just general frustration. We'll see how it turns out.
My village is called Marurani, and we have the biggest group because our village has the largest population in our area (roughly 2,000 people). The other villages are Nduruma, Mzimuni and MajiMoto (which literally means "Hot Water" - how awesome is that). All 5 of the homestays in my village are pretty close to each other, which is nice, and we are also fairly close to the center of town. Yes, this village actually has something you could call a town center. Weird, I know.
In addition to a change in terrain and weather - it's rained every night so far, hence the green - the people here have a different feel about them. Because Nduruma is closer to town than our last wards, people are more urbanized in their slang, their day to day mentality and, of course, their obsession with alcohol. My village hasn't been too bad, but we've seen more drunk people wandering our villages on an average early afternoon, than I've seen at most college parties. Times are hard, people say, so they drink their sorrows away.
Plus, people are quite religious. We met a man who speaks very good English on our first day in town while wandering the main strip. Laura happened to mention that she hadn't really chosen a faith yet - a perfectly acceptable answer in most Western societies. However, the rest of us lied and said we were Christian, of course. The man began to attack Laura for being undecided. She argued that to be a good person, one does not have to believe in God, or a certain God, and one can be a good person and feel successful in his or her life without necessarily finding God. He wouldn't have it. However, he does believe strongly in HIV education and happily welcomed us into his community. We haven't completely discovered the response to condoms, though. When Shujaa and I attempted to do a condom demonstration for our Baba, he wouldn't even let us take it out of the package.
So I'm living with Shujaa again, but this time sharing a 6x6 bed (we were spoiled with separate rooms last time), in a good size room, in a good size house, electricity at night (run from solar panels), our Baba and Mama who are both really, really young, a few kids, 2 cats, a few dogs, and an uncomfortable number of lizards, frogs and cockroaches. We live pretty close to Laura and Joyce (yep, so far, all from my last village), whose house is practically on a mini-orchard. The variety of fruit available in this village is awesome compared to the constant doses of banana with every meal during the last homestay. We've gotten mango, papaya, avocado, orange, banana, and some Tanzanian fruit I can't remember the name of.
The other three homestays are:
Gaby (UK) & Nelea (TZ)
Alex (UK) & Stefanie (UCLA)
Dustin (U of A) & Jonas (TZ)
So we have 6 volunteers and 4 teaching partners, which is a very comfortable ratio for getting as much done as possible, considering we foreigners can't exactly get along very well with our work without our Tanzanian friends.
In Tanzanian style, we arrived in our village this week to discover that there were exams scheduled for our students during the first 3 days of teaching, a few trench buildings that prevented community leaders to meet with us until Friday, and there were some ultra-important can't miss, more-important-than-HIV/AIDS soccer games (have I ever mentioned how big of a deal soccer is here?). So we didn't actually get that much done this week (and you all know how hard that can be for me). However, on the positive side, we were able to completely immerse ourselves in our community, and we did a few community teachings, including one with 50 village leaders.
Next week, the Tanzanian school year ends. So we have exactly one week to get through most of the curriculum. After that, we request that the kids come back to school on certain days for extra "seminars," but we have no way of knowing if they'll show. It's like saying to you, when you're in 5th grade "So I know we promised you a winter break...but how about if you come back to school every other day instead of just taking the time to play at home. What do you think...?)
- - - - -
Arusha is becoming less and less safe, so we're spending less and less time here. Apparently the holiday season is the worst for crime rates in this area because well...people gotta get their family presents, and stealing is much cheaper than buying. No one from SIC has gotten hurt yet, but we have had some incidents. So to ensure our safety our weekends in town are going to be 24 hours ish.
Last weekend was a 3 day weekend in between villages, so, like any good SIC volunteer, 5 of us decided to climb Mt. Meru (may-roo), the second highest mountain in Tanzania, 5th in Africa, the hardest hike/climb of my life.
Mt. Meru is almost 15,000 ft., which makes it a hefty feat to conquer in 3 days. It's apparently possible to climb it in 2 days, but most climb it in 4. And besides the difficulty of the actually physical exertion, the reason for a longer climb is that as the air gets thinner, we get tired more easily, and the faster we climb, the more of the chance there is for altitude sickness.
We started planning for the climb about a week ahead of time. Gaby, Jess, Jenna, Dustin and I rented some gear from a safari company, including a gas stove which was RIDICULOUSLY huge...pretty much not carriable. We were kind of taken aback when we got it from the company. Wait. It would take TWO people to carry this. And we're planning to take this up a mountain. So, you see, most people use a company when they climb Meru, and spend a good $400/person doing so. However, we, in volunteer/student style, managed to spend about $250 each by renting our own gear, buying our own permits, and cooking our own food. And it ended up working out. We just rented a few porters to help us with some of our stuff (local villagers who cost a very small amount conisidering how much help they are), including the stove.
Most of us, though, carried our own backpacks. Which I guess is part of the experience. It certainly made our backs sweaty as we first trudged up sunny grasslands with views of zebra, buffalo and giraffes, which were soon followed by torrential rains, and then the next day, below freezing temperatures.
The guidebook says Day 1 is a peaceful winding road up the first third of the mountain. STEEPEST HIKE EVER. Then we stay in a cabin-type complex, which they call a "hut." Of course by this time everything we have with us is soaked because of the rain. So we huddle in our cabin and make our quick noodles and chomp on our peanut butter, raisins, bread, and protein bars (at least we tried to be healthy).
Day 2, the guidebook claims, is much harder. NOT. Much more windy, still tiring, but only a few hours. Some of us are beginning to feel slightly light headed. We decide to rest instead of taking a small hike in the afternoon to "Little Meru," which is one of the mountain's 18 false peaks.
Day 3 begins at 1 a.m. And, of course, seeing my luck in Tanzanian so far, I get pretty extreme altitutude sickness. Similar to when I had malaria in terms of my aches and pains, diziness, nausea... But I decide that I'm already so close to the summit, that I can just grin and bear it. I do pretty well on the way there, which involves hiking completely in the dark, often on walls that are somewhat vertical. We figure that part of the reason they take you at night on the way is so that you don't freak out when you realize that a few missteps and you'll probaby die. By the time we're almost at the top, it's below freezing, it's sunrise (you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro rising over the clouds, with the sun behind it!), but I feel so, so horrible. I feel like my head is going to fall off. But, once again, I take it slowly, and all 5 of us make it to the summit!
By the time we got down the mountain (via a "rescue" vehicle for the bottom 3rd of the hike...thanks to me), got back to Arusha (by the way...we took a TAXI all the way into and away from Arusha National Park, that was quite a sight), and had dinner...it was about 9p.m. So after behing up for 20 hours, my body wasn't too happy. But with a good night's sleep, the sickness was pretty much gone by morning.
I know it sounds like I've been pretty active, but I doubt all the running and climbing means I've lost wait, or gained muscle...because I've consumed more sodas and snickers bars in the last month than I've had in the past 2 years. Yea, and these mediocre ice cream bars with "vanilla" ice cream and chocolate coating. They don't use preservatives or artificial anything here, so we consume a lot of sugar. However, I do avoid it in my nightly tea. They think I'm pretty weird.
UPDATE: [Sunday morning.]
I went to the orphanage again on Saturday morning. The kids remembered me! I took a few pics this time. We only hung out for an hour or so, but it's a nice feeling to know that you're loved by little kids who hardly know you.
Last night we had Thanksgiving Dinner, SIC style at Erica's house (the Volunteer Program Manager). People started cooking mid-afternoon at 3 different staff member's homes. We made hand turkeys as decorations, ordered loads and loads of fried chicken (turkey is kind of hard to get), made mashed potatos, candied yams, stuffing, tomato/cucumber salad, and corn bread muffins. Erica's house was the first time I didn't really feel like I was in Africa for the last 2 months. We just hung out for 5 hours like it was someone's apartment in Westwood, played music from someone's ipod, and drank sodas (and some drank alcohol I suppose), and just chatted. Definitely not the typical Thanksgiving dinner. But it was really, really poa.
- - - - -
Next week we have another long weekend (a 4-day), and a bunch of us are going to Uganda. Which means, once again, I'm not really sure what my Internet situation will be next week.
And the Saturday after that is WORLD AIDS DAY! So get excited.
In other news, I'm coming home, like, really soon. 4 weeks left of the program. less than 5 weeks left in Tanzania. More than 9 weeks down. Can you believe it?
- - - -
The second half of SIC Volunteer Program 3, 2007 is now officially under way. This Monday, all 21 volunteers and 12 teaching partners, in addition to the coordinators and our new Field Officer for the new ward, moved to Nduruma, a relatively urban and relatively green area about an hour out of Arusha. We are divided into 4 villages this time - the smallest group is 6, and the biggest is 10. And guess what? I'm in the group of 10. Going from a group of 5 (the smallest) to a group of 10 (the biggest) has been quite an experience so far. Because of sheer size, we have potential to be extremely productive in our community. However, because of sheer size, we also have the potential an extreme amount of conflict, stepping on each other's feet, and just general frustration. We'll see how it turns out.
My village is called Marurani, and we have the biggest group because our village has the largest population in our area (roughly 2,000 people). The other villages are Nduruma, Mzimuni and MajiMoto (which literally means "Hot Water" - how awesome is that). All 5 of the homestays in my village are pretty close to each other, which is nice, and we are also fairly close to the center of town. Yes, this village actually has something you could call a town center. Weird, I know.
In addition to a change in terrain and weather - it's rained every night so far, hence the green - the people here have a different feel about them. Because Nduruma is closer to town than our last wards, people are more urbanized in their slang, their day to day mentality and, of course, their obsession with alcohol. My village hasn't been too bad, but we've seen more drunk people wandering our villages on an average early afternoon, than I've seen at most college parties. Times are hard, people say, so they drink their sorrows away.
Plus, people are quite religious. We met a man who speaks very good English on our first day in town while wandering the main strip. Laura happened to mention that she hadn't really chosen a faith yet - a perfectly acceptable answer in most Western societies. However, the rest of us lied and said we were Christian, of course. The man began to attack Laura for being undecided. She argued that to be a good person, one does not have to believe in God, or a certain God, and one can be a good person and feel successful in his or her life without necessarily finding God. He wouldn't have it. However, he does believe strongly in HIV education and happily welcomed us into his community. We haven't completely discovered the response to condoms, though. When Shujaa and I attempted to do a condom demonstration for our Baba, he wouldn't even let us take it out of the package.
So I'm living with Shujaa again, but this time sharing a 6x6 bed (we were spoiled with separate rooms last time), in a good size room, in a good size house, electricity at night (run from solar panels), our Baba and Mama who are both really, really young, a few kids, 2 cats, a few dogs, and an uncomfortable number of lizards, frogs and cockroaches. We live pretty close to Laura and Joyce (yep, so far, all from my last village), whose house is practically on a mini-orchard. The variety of fruit available in this village is awesome compared to the constant doses of banana with every meal during the last homestay. We've gotten mango, papaya, avocado, orange, banana, and some Tanzanian fruit I can't remember the name of.
The other three homestays are:
Gaby (UK) & Nelea (TZ)
Alex (UK) & Stefanie (UCLA)
Dustin (U of A) & Jonas (TZ)
So we have 6 volunteers and 4 teaching partners, which is a very comfortable ratio for getting as much done as possible, considering we foreigners can't exactly get along very well with our work without our Tanzanian friends.
In Tanzanian style, we arrived in our village this week to discover that there were exams scheduled for our students during the first 3 days of teaching, a few trench buildings that prevented community leaders to meet with us until Friday, and there were some ultra-important can't miss, more-important-than-HIV/AIDS soccer games (have I ever mentioned how big of a deal soccer is here?). So we didn't actually get that much done this week (and you all know how hard that can be for me). However, on the positive side, we were able to completely immerse ourselves in our community, and we did a few community teachings, including one with 50 village leaders.
Next week, the Tanzanian school year ends. So we have exactly one week to get through most of the curriculum. After that, we request that the kids come back to school on certain days for extra "seminars," but we have no way of knowing if they'll show. It's like saying to you, when you're in 5th grade "So I know we promised you a winter break...but how about if you come back to school every other day instead of just taking the time to play at home. What do you think...?)
- - - - -
Arusha is becoming less and less safe, so we're spending less and less time here. Apparently the holiday season is the worst for crime rates in this area because well...people gotta get their family presents, and stealing is much cheaper than buying. No one from SIC has gotten hurt yet, but we have had some incidents. So to ensure our safety our weekends in town are going to be 24 hours ish.
Last weekend was a 3 day weekend in between villages, so, like any good SIC volunteer, 5 of us decided to climb Mt. Meru (may-roo), the second highest mountain in Tanzania, 5th in Africa, the hardest hike/climb of my life.
Mt. Meru is almost 15,000 ft., which makes it a hefty feat to conquer in 3 days. It's apparently possible to climb it in 2 days, but most climb it in 4. And besides the difficulty of the actually physical exertion, the reason for a longer climb is that as the air gets thinner, we get tired more easily, and the faster we climb, the more of the chance there is for altitude sickness.
We started planning for the climb about a week ahead of time. Gaby, Jess, Jenna, Dustin and I rented some gear from a safari company, including a gas stove which was RIDICULOUSLY huge...pretty much not carriable. We were kind of taken aback when we got it from the company. Wait. It would take TWO people to carry this. And we're planning to take this up a mountain. So, you see, most people use a company when they climb Meru, and spend a good $400/person doing so. However, we, in volunteer/student style, managed to spend about $250 each by renting our own gear, buying our own permits, and cooking our own food. And it ended up working out. We just rented a few porters to help us with some of our stuff (local villagers who cost a very small amount conisidering how much help they are), including the stove.
Most of us, though, carried our own backpacks. Which I guess is part of the experience. It certainly made our backs sweaty as we first trudged up sunny grasslands with views of zebra, buffalo and giraffes, which were soon followed by torrential rains, and then the next day, below freezing temperatures.
The guidebook says Day 1 is a peaceful winding road up the first third of the mountain. STEEPEST HIKE EVER. Then we stay in a cabin-type complex, which they call a "hut." Of course by this time everything we have with us is soaked because of the rain. So we huddle in our cabin and make our quick noodles and chomp on our peanut butter, raisins, bread, and protein bars (at least we tried to be healthy).
Day 2, the guidebook claims, is much harder. NOT. Much more windy, still tiring, but only a few hours. Some of us are beginning to feel slightly light headed. We decide to rest instead of taking a small hike in the afternoon to "Little Meru," which is one of the mountain's 18 false peaks.
Day 3 begins at 1 a.m. And, of course, seeing my luck in Tanzanian so far, I get pretty extreme altitutude sickness. Similar to when I had malaria in terms of my aches and pains, diziness, nausea... But I decide that I'm already so close to the summit, that I can just grin and bear it. I do pretty well on the way there, which involves hiking completely in the dark, often on walls that are somewhat vertical. We figure that part of the reason they take you at night on the way is so that you don't freak out when you realize that a few missteps and you'll probaby die. By the time we're almost at the top, it's below freezing, it's sunrise (you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro rising over the clouds, with the sun behind it!), but I feel so, so horrible. I feel like my head is going to fall off. But, once again, I take it slowly, and all 5 of us make it to the summit!
By the time we got down the mountain (via a "rescue" vehicle for the bottom 3rd of the hike...thanks to me), got back to Arusha (by the way...we took a TAXI all the way into and away from Arusha National Park, that was quite a sight), and had dinner...it was about 9p.m. So after behing up for 20 hours, my body wasn't too happy. But with a good night's sleep, the sickness was pretty much gone by morning.
I know it sounds like I've been pretty active, but I doubt all the running and climbing means I've lost wait, or gained muscle...because I've consumed more sodas and snickers bars in the last month than I've had in the past 2 years. Yea, and these mediocre ice cream bars with "vanilla" ice cream and chocolate coating. They don't use preservatives or artificial anything here, so we consume a lot of sugar. However, I do avoid it in my nightly tea. They think I'm pretty weird.
UPDATE: [Sunday morning.]
I went to the orphanage again on Saturday morning. The kids remembered me! I took a few pics this time. We only hung out for an hour or so, but it's a nice feeling to know that you're loved by little kids who hardly know you.
Last night we had Thanksgiving Dinner, SIC style at Erica's house (the Volunteer Program Manager). People started cooking mid-afternoon at 3 different staff member's homes. We made hand turkeys as decorations, ordered loads and loads of fried chicken (turkey is kind of hard to get), made mashed potatos, candied yams, stuffing, tomato/cucumber salad, and corn bread muffins. Erica's house was the first time I didn't really feel like I was in Africa for the last 2 months. We just hung out for 5 hours like it was someone's apartment in Westwood, played music from someone's ipod, and drank sodas (and some drank alcohol I suppose), and just chatted. Definitely not the typical Thanksgiving dinner. But it was really, really poa.
- - - - -
Next week we have another long weekend (a 4-day), and a bunch of us are going to Uganda. Which means, once again, I'm not really sure what my Internet situation will be next week.
And the Saturday after that is WORLD AIDS DAY! So get excited.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
MASWALI??
So I've been trying to take varying approaches to my blog so you guys won't get bored, so here's a new one. I want YOU (yea, the few of you who actually read this....or maybe a lot of you, I don't really know), to ask me questions. What haven't I covered in the blog so far that you're dying to know about?
We start our new villages on Monday, so this is a great chance to delve into anything that you've really been wondering about.
Ok, that's all for now. Don't have time for a full blog update until maybe Sunday, but probably next week. But I look forward to your questions (silly or serious)!
We start our new villages on Monday, so this is a great chance to delve into anything that you've really been wondering about.
Ok, that's all for now. Don't have time for a full blog update until maybe Sunday, but probably next week. But I look forward to your questions (silly or serious)!
Saturday, November 3, 2007
SIC Curriculum, in short
I realize that most of you probably have no idea what the curriculum consists of. We teach different versions of the same information to men vs. women, secondary schools vs. primary schools, Standard 4 vs. Standard 5/6. It all depends. But basically, we cover:
- The numbers, how big of a problem HIV is, and why it's a problem that is difficult to fight
- HIV progression in the body / the Immune System
- Male and Female Reproductive Anatomy, Puberty, Menstrual Cycle, Pregnancy
- The Fluids and the Doors that transmit HIV
Here's a chance to learn, if you didn't know:
FLUIDS (majimaji): blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, and breastmilk
DOORS (milango): open wounds, vagina, anus, tip of the penis
* a fluid and a door must be present for HIV to be transmitted, makes sense?
- The 3 Modes of Transmission:
1. Sexual Transmission; ABK's (preventative meausres), condom demonstrations (male and female) - accounts for 80% of transmission in TZ
2. Mother to Child Transmission; when a mother transmits to her child, how to prevent it, alternatives to breastfeeding for HIV+ mothers - accounts for 19% of transmission in TZ
3. Blood to Blood Transmission; where this commonly occurs, how to sterilize instruments - accounts for 1% of transmission in TZ
- HIV Testing: the process, how to interpret results, when you should get tested
- Living with HIV, healthy life choices
- Caring for someone with HIV, how to protect yourself and the patient
- Combating the HIV pandemic
So, if you have any questions about any of this stuff, I know a pretty good amount by now. So please ask!
- The numbers, how big of a problem HIV is, and why it's a problem that is difficult to fight
- HIV progression in the body / the Immune System
- Male and Female Reproductive Anatomy, Puberty, Menstrual Cycle, Pregnancy
- The Fluids and the Doors that transmit HIV
Here's a chance to learn, if you didn't know:
FLUIDS (majimaji): blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, and breastmilk
DOORS (milango): open wounds, vagina, anus, tip of the penis
* a fluid and a door must be present for HIV to be transmitted, makes sense?
- The 3 Modes of Transmission:
1. Sexual Transmission; ABK's (preventative meausres), condom demonstrations (male and female) - accounts for 80% of transmission in TZ
2. Mother to Child Transmission; when a mother transmits to her child, how to prevent it, alternatives to breastfeeding for HIV+ mothers - accounts for 19% of transmission in TZ
3. Blood to Blood Transmission; where this commonly occurs, how to sterilize instruments - accounts for 1% of transmission in TZ
- HIV Testing: the process, how to interpret results, when you should get tested
- Living with HIV, healthy life choices
- Caring for someone with HIV, how to protect yourself and the patient
- Combating the HIV pandemic
So, if you have any questions about any of this stuff, I know a pretty good amount by now. So please ask!
This is Tanzania, Man.
When you walk outside in the middle of the day, you can see a few scattered houses, some of brick or cement, and some of mud. Maybe a broken down one made of wood, more than slightly slanted to the right, clearly abandoned years ago. There are a few trees, many with thorns that would gladly live in your arm instead of a branch, but mostly there are tall grasses, open plains, and dirt roads. And by dirt, you mean dust. The dust will decide to kick up every once in a while in a whirlwind you're sure would take a house away. You are so dirty afterwards, you can't see your toes. You hair is a different shade of brown, even gray.. And then it's quiet again, and you can see for miles. Majengo is completely flat. So when the sky decides to give us a gift, we can see 3 types of clouds, dancing as one, across the completely clear sky, unobscured by skyscrapers or even rolling hills. Only in Africa.
* * * *
We had an interesting week. Shujaa started off on the wrong foot, coming back into our village with a sprained knee, a friend in the hospital, and a chipped tooth. The worst was the tooth, which he broke on "chipsi" which is, basically, french fries. Yea, I know. We're not sure how it happened.
MONDAY
Monday was pretty normal. We did our art project with the kids at our other school, reminded them about our community day on tuesday, and continued on our merry way back to our homestays to prepare for Tuesday's community day. We had a scheduled church teaching that nobody showed up to, but, it's normal. This is Tanzania. We all ate dinner together at my house (last week we ate at Jess and Laura's, Thursday we ate at Joyce's...yea, we like each other that much), and while eating dinner we heard a strange announcement over a megaphone (not ours; SIC had given us a broken that we attempted to advertise with earlier in the evening). People in these villages prefer megaphone advertising because people are pretty much all in their houses during dark, so someone is paid to walk around shouting out announcements all over the villages. This announcement stated something like: "Trench building tomorrow. Fine of 5,000 for all men if they do not attend."
TUESDAY
So instead of coming to our community day of Tuesday, the day which the leaders had chosen for us to host the day, the day which we spent so much time planning and preparing for, the men of Majengo listened to their leaders built a trench. And the women stayed home to cook for them upon return. So when, on Tuesday, it well into half way through our community day, featuring art projects for kids, HIV testing, AIDS ribbons, an AIDS ribbon in the ground made of Coca Cola bottle tops and a DJ, and only 10 or 15 people had made an appearance, all we could say was, "This is Tanzania, man. This is Tanzania."
Thankfully, the $100 and countless hours put toward the Majengo Siku ya Jamii wasn't a complete waste. ALL of our students showed up, meaning the teachers made it an official half-day for every Standard 4. 5 and 6 kid in Majengo. And our kids danced, sang and chanted about HIV/AIDS for a good 4 hours in the middle of the village. The sound system was great, and our students gladly took the mic and performed raps, skits, songs and dances that we had asked them to prepare, telling us why it was so important to get tested, how to prevent disease, how to stop stigma, etc... We gave out hundreds of AIDS ribbons and they were SO excited. And at the end of the day they took home their artwork from what we did in class. It was a day these kids would never forget.
41 people got tested, 5 were wazumgu, which means only 36 villagers were tested on Tuesday. But that's 36 people who know their status. And Laura, Jessica and I got tested also. We went through all 3 steps of the process, though most of the counseling was in Swahili (which was ok, since we pretty much knew what they were saying). We got the finger prick, waited for our results, and experienced the elation one feels when he knows his status. And the nervousness one feels, even when you think there's no way no how, for those 20 minutes before the lady says the word "negative." It's scary. But "I KNOW" my status. I wear the wristband. ;-)
At the end of the Community Day, we waited for the final truck to come back so we could return some of the tables we had borrowed from the school. Early in the day, 4 boys were elected to help carry the furniture from the school to the dispensary for us (decently far). We would have done it ourselves, but they were so excited to help, that several jumped out of windows so they could help too. That night, Shujaa went to town to get his tooth fixed, and didn't come back until Thursday. Suffice to say, my Swahili improved again while he was gone.
WEDNESDAY
With our planned teaching schedule, we were pretty much screwed with Shujaa out of commission. So Upendo, our field officer, met me at Engatani school and I taught the Engatani Peer Educators, while Joyce, Laura and Jessica worked with the Majengo PE's. This week we worked on our PE's public speaking skills. The school year ends on November 23 in this area, so they have final exams starting next week, and then there is a 2 month break. So, really we couldn't delve into the PE curriculum. Instead, over the course of the week with our PE's we forced each of our kids, between 8-14 years old, to come up to the classroom multiple times and in essence talk about themselves while we sat in the classroom like students. And then we talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each speaker. We also did a few teambuilding excercises (human knot, trust circle, ya know...), a game about stigma, and attempted to have a discussion about the concept of peer pressure.
PE's are awesome to work with because we choose the most out-going and smartest kids in each class, we put them together in a seminar-like setting, and get to pretty much teach them whatever we want. It's like teaching the gifted kids at a large public school. These kids actually care about fighting HIV in their communities, educating others, and staying HIV-free themselves. They are perfect role models for their peers.
But the best part of the day was my journey to Engatani. About 20 minutes into an hour-long walk, a Masai man riding a bicycle in full Masai robe attire (a more common sight than you think) asked if I needed a ride. So I hopped on back and he took me down the rocky road to the school. He was also on his cell phone for about 10 minutes of the time.
THURSDAY
Imagine walking into a teachers office, sitting down, and suddenly noticing out of the corner of your eye that 3 young boys are hanging from the top of the windows so that their feet don't touch the ground. They are clearly in pain, but it's such a hilarious sight that it's painful both not to laugh and not to cry.
Today late-comers walked around like frogs in lines, hands on each others shoulders, while being whipped. They also apparently hung on window sills (at least a few of them). This is Tanzania, man.
At the end of teaching on Thursday, our last day at Majengo school, the teachers asked if we could take a picture of them. So we did. We printed the picture in town on Friday, and we'll swing by on Tuesday to drop it off...but Thursday was pretty much the last day we were going to see most of these kids. And after Tuesday, the last day we would see all of them. The last day we would see Shujaa. The last day we could answer their questions. It's just weird to know that you've (hopefully) made an impact on their lives, but will never, ever see them again.
But I also had an epiphany this week. Many of the kids, when we had them draw their pictures of what they want to be when they grow up, drew teachers. And at first I thought, "that's so awesome that their teachers are such good role models that these kids already want to be teachers." But I realized that this was completely wrong. Out of the dozen times we've been to these schools, we've seen a teacher in a classroom maybe 3 or 4 times We've seen lessons written on the chalkboard maybe once or twice. We've seen teachers asleep, smoking, socializing in the common area, or just hanging around more times than I can count. On Monday, one of the teachers at Engatani likened his job to being a prisoner in a prison.
So when those kids wrote that they wanted to be teachers, it was because of us. We are role models for these kids. We work together from different backgrounds to fight a common cause, and we're damn good teachers in the classroom and out. If I thought I was a great teacher 4 weeks ago, I was kidding myself. I'm so much better now. And I'll be so much better by the end of the this program. It's just awesome to have kids look at us in front of the classroom, yell out our names from across the fields and from the doorsteps of their homes, and know that they are inspired by us, just like we are inspired by them.
FRIDAY
We finished up at Engatani early in the morning. SIC said they couldn't pick us up until late in the afternoon...so we walked to a sort of "main" road, and...we hitch hiked to Arusha. Jessica and I flagged down the cars, and after getting rejected 3 or 4 times, we actually got a ride. Yep, we rode in the back of a pickup truck for almost two hours, while random people (including a nicely dressed man in a briefcase) hopped in and out along the way.
This is Tanzania.
* * * *
We had an interesting week. Shujaa started off on the wrong foot, coming back into our village with a sprained knee, a friend in the hospital, and a chipped tooth. The worst was the tooth, which he broke on "chipsi" which is, basically, french fries. Yea, I know. We're not sure how it happened.
MONDAY
Monday was pretty normal. We did our art project with the kids at our other school, reminded them about our community day on tuesday, and continued on our merry way back to our homestays to prepare for Tuesday's community day. We had a scheduled church teaching that nobody showed up to, but, it's normal. This is Tanzania. We all ate dinner together at my house (last week we ate at Jess and Laura's, Thursday we ate at Joyce's...yea, we like each other that much), and while eating dinner we heard a strange announcement over a megaphone (not ours; SIC had given us a broken that we attempted to advertise with earlier in the evening). People in these villages prefer megaphone advertising because people are pretty much all in their houses during dark, so someone is paid to walk around shouting out announcements all over the villages. This announcement stated something like: "Trench building tomorrow. Fine of 5,000 for all men if they do not attend."
TUESDAY
So instead of coming to our community day of Tuesday, the day which the leaders had chosen for us to host the day, the day which we spent so much time planning and preparing for, the men of Majengo listened to their leaders built a trench. And the women stayed home to cook for them upon return. So when, on Tuesday, it well into half way through our community day, featuring art projects for kids, HIV testing, AIDS ribbons, an AIDS ribbon in the ground made of Coca Cola bottle tops and a DJ, and only 10 or 15 people had made an appearance, all we could say was, "This is Tanzania, man. This is Tanzania."
Thankfully, the $100 and countless hours put toward the Majengo Siku ya Jamii wasn't a complete waste. ALL of our students showed up, meaning the teachers made it an official half-day for every Standard 4. 5 and 6 kid in Majengo. And our kids danced, sang and chanted about HIV/AIDS for a good 4 hours in the middle of the village. The sound system was great, and our students gladly took the mic and performed raps, skits, songs and dances that we had asked them to prepare, telling us why it was so important to get tested, how to prevent disease, how to stop stigma, etc... We gave out hundreds of AIDS ribbons and they were SO excited. And at the end of the day they took home their artwork from what we did in class. It was a day these kids would never forget.
41 people got tested, 5 were wazumgu, which means only 36 villagers were tested on Tuesday. But that's 36 people who know their status. And Laura, Jessica and I got tested also. We went through all 3 steps of the process, though most of the counseling was in Swahili (which was ok, since we pretty much knew what they were saying). We got the finger prick, waited for our results, and experienced the elation one feels when he knows his status. And the nervousness one feels, even when you think there's no way no how, for those 20 minutes before the lady says the word "negative." It's scary. But "I KNOW" my status. I wear the wristband. ;-)
At the end of the Community Day, we waited for the final truck to come back so we could return some of the tables we had borrowed from the school. Early in the day, 4 boys were elected to help carry the furniture from the school to the dispensary for us (decently far). We would have done it ourselves, but they were so excited to help, that several jumped out of windows so they could help too. That night, Shujaa went to town to get his tooth fixed, and didn't come back until Thursday. Suffice to say, my Swahili improved again while he was gone.
WEDNESDAY
With our planned teaching schedule, we were pretty much screwed with Shujaa out of commission. So Upendo, our field officer, met me at Engatani school and I taught the Engatani Peer Educators, while Joyce, Laura and Jessica worked with the Majengo PE's. This week we worked on our PE's public speaking skills. The school year ends on November 23 in this area, so they have final exams starting next week, and then there is a 2 month break. So, really we couldn't delve into the PE curriculum. Instead, over the course of the week with our PE's we forced each of our kids, between 8-14 years old, to come up to the classroom multiple times and in essence talk about themselves while we sat in the classroom like students. And then we talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each speaker. We also did a few teambuilding excercises (human knot, trust circle, ya know...), a game about stigma, and attempted to have a discussion about the concept of peer pressure.
PE's are awesome to work with because we choose the most out-going and smartest kids in each class, we put them together in a seminar-like setting, and get to pretty much teach them whatever we want. It's like teaching the gifted kids at a large public school. These kids actually care about fighting HIV in their communities, educating others, and staying HIV-free themselves. They are perfect role models for their peers.
But the best part of the day was my journey to Engatani. About 20 minutes into an hour-long walk, a Masai man riding a bicycle in full Masai robe attire (a more common sight than you think) asked if I needed a ride. So I hopped on back and he took me down the rocky road to the school. He was also on his cell phone for about 10 minutes of the time.
THURSDAY
Imagine walking into a teachers office, sitting down, and suddenly noticing out of the corner of your eye that 3 young boys are hanging from the top of the windows so that their feet don't touch the ground. They are clearly in pain, but it's such a hilarious sight that it's painful both not to laugh and not to cry.
Today late-comers walked around like frogs in lines, hands on each others shoulders, while being whipped. They also apparently hung on window sills (at least a few of them). This is Tanzania, man.
At the end of teaching on Thursday, our last day at Majengo school, the teachers asked if we could take a picture of them. So we did. We printed the picture in town on Friday, and we'll swing by on Tuesday to drop it off...but Thursday was pretty much the last day we were going to see most of these kids. And after Tuesday, the last day we would see all of them. The last day we would see Shujaa. The last day we could answer their questions. It's just weird to know that you've (hopefully) made an impact on their lives, but will never, ever see them again.
But I also had an epiphany this week. Many of the kids, when we had them draw their pictures of what they want to be when they grow up, drew teachers. And at first I thought, "that's so awesome that their teachers are such good role models that these kids already want to be teachers." But I realized that this was completely wrong. Out of the dozen times we've been to these schools, we've seen a teacher in a classroom maybe 3 or 4 times We've seen lessons written on the chalkboard maybe once or twice. We've seen teachers asleep, smoking, socializing in the common area, or just hanging around more times than I can count. On Monday, one of the teachers at Engatani likened his job to being a prisoner in a prison.
So when those kids wrote that they wanted to be teachers, it was because of us. We are role models for these kids. We work together from different backgrounds to fight a common cause, and we're damn good teachers in the classroom and out. If I thought I was a great teacher 4 weeks ago, I was kidding myself. I'm so much better now. And I'll be so much better by the end of the this program. It's just awesome to have kids look at us in front of the classroom, yell out our names from across the fields and from the doorsteps of their homes, and know that they are inspired by us, just like we are inspired by them.
FRIDAY
We finished up at Engatani early in the morning. SIC said they couldn't pick us up until late in the afternoon...so we walked to a sort of "main" road, and...we hitch hiked to Arusha. Jessica and I flagged down the cars, and after getting rejected 3 or 4 times, we actually got a ride. Yep, we rode in the back of a pickup truck for almost two hours, while random people (including a nicely dressed man in a briefcase) hopped in and out along the way.
This is Tanzania.
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