Rasta Dog

The best part of the whole trip may be Blackie, the dog at the UAACC. He has dreads and they are absolutely fabulous. We've renamed him Rasta Dog.

In other news....

Yesterday ended with some difficult situations in the classroom. It's hard to answer questions like "Well, how do we keep our diets healthy if we don't have enough money for food?". None of us really have the answer to that, and it's hard to try and explain to someone who has seen her friends be miserable because of HIV medication, that they need to take the medicine even though they were feeling well before. We were also asked about herbal medication by Mgare, who is a very well educated doctor, and we also didn't really have an answer for that. Things we can work on for next year.

Once the boys and the girls split up, we learned some interesting things. The women we worked with, which was just two, were extremely confident and both were quite knowledgeable. We had a translator working with us, but even with the language barrier it was quite clear that these two women were very aware of their sexual health, and very confident in refusing a man. On the other side, we learned that most of the men that we are teaching here aren't having sex with women from around here, especially women who have some education here at the UAACC. Unfortunately, with Arusha being only a bus ride away, prostitution is huge here, and many of the men admitted to going into Arusha on Friday nights just for this reason, starting at a very young age. Most of the men had never used a condom, and those that had didn't know how to use them correctly. All of them have heard the ABC methods before, and could talk to us about them. Unfortunately, few are practicing them, and it's hard to think of ways to address these problems, and all the problems underlying prostitution.

After class, the students invited us to go through Isambeni (the village we're staying in) to see where they all live. It ended up being a two hour hike through a very hilly region, which I was not prepared for at all in my flip flops. I think I may have a permanent layer of dirt and grime all over my feet. I did get two hours of Swahili instruction, and am now actually able to have really short conversations with strangers. I've also learned how to say "I like to go to the snake farm" because we all know that this is going to be remarkably useful throughout life. I handed over my head phones at the end of the hike as a thank you. As much as I am interested in learning Swahili, they are interested in talking about many different things, especially our knowledge of American hip hop music which they all know. They are all amazed that William and Mary has 5,000 students at it.

Today was our first testing day. I got to go into Arusha this morning to pick up the people from Angaza, which is the NGO that provides the testing. We got to the village Mag ya chi at about 11. Unfortunately, the clinic was away from the main part of town, and it was hard to attract people. On top of that, the director of the clinic said that they had people in on a daily basis asking to be tested. All in all, we tested 31 people, including 2 members from AIDSTanzania. For the location, it was definitely a success.

At the same time, I was learning that I am no longer suitable for marriage. Two women came up to me, and after exchanging names, they asked if I was married. When I said no, they very solemnly asked how old I was. After replying 19, they both grabbed my hands and very sympathetically offered their apologies. Other girls have been proposed to already on this trip, so maybe I am already out of my prime. Hmph.

Now we can hang out, but tomorrow will be busy planning for next week. We offered to providing training sessions to the student, so that they could go out into the community and do more classes. Every single student signed up, including one of the women who was one of the first to stand up. We weren't really expecting this, and so now we have a lot to plan.

Love you all!