oh-em-gee it's november already

Welcome to November. How did that happen?

Week 3.
So, Swahili is a rather hard language, because there are so many words that are very very similar. And usually, the words that you need to use/use often are very similar to words that are quite inappropriate. For example, umelewa (you have been drunk?) vs. umeelewa (you have understood?). Or, in the case of the other night. Boyfriend vs. vagina friend. We were teaching sexual reproduction, so the words were fresh in my head and instead of saying rafiki wanaume I slipped in uke (vagina) instead. And since we were struggling to remember, when it popped into my head I shouted it. Go figure. That made for a very awkward family moment in our living room.

Another awkward, and quite scary moment in my opinion, was when I got locked in the choo. So the choo is a hole in the ground and it's a separate shack from the rest of the house (in terms of the aroma that exudes from it, this is a good thing, trust me). You have a door that you can swing close and I guess I was too zealous in my swinging because I jammed the door shut. Luckily, Gaby was outside talking on the phone, so she saved me from being attacked by all of the cockroaches (who live down in the hole of the choo and will climb up to say hi when they see you come in the door).

Enough of awkward Stefanie (or Stuff, or Evie - my new name for the next village, because even Stuff is hard for people to remember) stories and on to what's been happening in the village.

Our village is very religious. One of the tasks that we are supposed to do is to take a condom survey, in which we talk to the dukas (shops) and ask them if they will sell condoms, and if they won't, would they be willing to? The goal of this is to give them a box free of charge and then, if they get customers asking for it, they will be encouraged to stock it on their own. Anywho, so we go around to all of the dukas in maroroni and all of them pronounce themselves to be "Reborn Again." All of them use the same exact expression and have no interest whatsoever in stocking condoms. Ever. Which presents a problem, because how are we going to teach about the importance of condoms if we cannot even offer them to the people after we leave? Luckily, we found that the dispensary would be willing to stock them, so that's one place, but it's frustrating. I wonder to what extent community attitudes influenced the dukas' decision not to stock condoms - for example, for fear of being ostracized as the duka that sells condoms (and therefore, that implies that you would be all for premarital sex, which it doesn't), they wouldn't want to be the first one to stock them. Community attitudes really influence people's actions here, especially in terms of behavior change. Our biggest challenges are educating people to become more open to condom use as an alternative (not the only) choice to protect against HIV and to reduce the stigma/misconceptions surrounding HIV/AIDS. We had a meeting with the church leaders on monday, and we talked about the fact that we teach about the ABKs (Acha Kabisa - abstinence, Baki Mwaminifu - be faithful and Tumia Kondom - use a condom). Initially, they wanted us to only teach A and B, but later, thankfully, they admitted that there are some "bad apples out there," so teaching about K is equally important.

In terms of misconceptions, a popular one is that the people spreading HIV are the ones who know they are infected and are intentionally spreading it. So they should be separated from everyone else and do not deserve to live. We were teaching at a church this week and one of the women proclaimed that if anyone that she knew got AIDS and died, she would not attend their funeral. And that she wished that ARVs sped up the death of people with AIDS. However, I'm sure she wouldn't have said that if someone within her family had HIV. People here distance themselves from the problem. They don't understand that the majority of the people spreading HIV are not even aware that they have it, and doing it completely unintentionally. If people start realizing that HIV DOES happen to people like them, maybe that will encourage them to make behavior change.

This week we had our first testing day (siku ya upimaji). I am officially HIV - ! To encourage our kids at the secondary school to get tested, we told them that we would be testing right alongside them. It was an amazing turnout. Usually testing days average 30-40 people. We had 92. I feel like this had to do with the fact that we pushed testing the day before when we taught in our secondary school. We talked to them about HIV testing, telling them about the process, and what to expect and the fact that regardless of if you know it our not, HIV is not something that just goes away. By knowing, you can take steps to protect the people you love and also to lengthen your life. But if you don't know, then you can't take these steps. I was so happy to see so many of our students. Not only because this sets them up for a pattern of testing and re-testing throughout their lives, because now they have gone through the process once, but also because they are a high risk group. Because there is only one secondary school in the area, many of our students live a 5-hour walk away from the school, or sometimes even more. In order to get home, some of them will be tempted to exchange sex for transportation or even for food if they live in Maroroni by themselves. The other day, we went to visit some of our students. They lived in this rundown shack, with two rooms. The beds were hard, with a thin thin layer of foam. They used one bed for studying and one for sleeping. There was hardly enough space to move around and they had decorated with empty soap and shampoo and lotion bottles hanging from the ceiling. They had to cook dinner on their own, and only had enough money for a few dried sardines and a tomato. They confessed that they usually go to bed hungry. And then they talked about how if you sleep with a man, he will give you rice for dinner. Rice, something that we will waste by throwing into the air in weddings and something we consider so simply and so cheap, is a luxury item for them. And they would sleep with someone, possibly unprotected, just to get some for their next meal. It was truly depressing.

On a brighter note, we have started a dadas (sisters) group in our village. It was set up in hopes of giving them a support network in which they could confide in one another and have the confidence to voice their opinions (something that women here and NEVER asked to do). We are also trying to provide them with a connection to the nurse in the village, opportunities for future careers (if that is something they want to do) and the starting point to think about behavior change. They are the future of their communities and this community in particular could use some more open-minded people. We have had four meetings so far, in which we have elected a committee. Our meetings consist of the girls teaching a topic for 30-40 minutes (practice in public speaking and confidence) and then a discussion topic that is related to what has just been taught. The last meeting the girls led themselves. They chose the topic of bride price and dowry and ways to eliminate this practice in their community. I was really proud of them. We are going to try to visit them even when we move away to the next village.