11/5/07
It is the morning of Monday the 5th and AIDS Ride is scheduled to begin in about an hour and a half (it is now 5:40 in the morning) and I would be excited except for the fact that I am not feeling 100%. My stomach is upset for some reason and I have severe diarrhea.
We left around 9:15, biked to a town on the edge of the route nationale where we could get a car headed north, found one that could accommodate all three of us and our bikes and then waited for an hour and a half for them to find enough passengers to start. The trip was relatively fluid and uneventful with only a couple of brief stops to drop off or squeeze in more passengers. At one of the stops we bought some delicious watermelon – a very yummy treat.
We arrived in Stoubuoa around 2:00 in the afternoon and biked to the volunteer's house. Her name is Joelle and she is a CHAP volunteer who has been in Togo a year. I asked her about internet places, but she said they hadn't been working lately. The one I saw was closed completely. As we were arriving, a van-load of other volunteers arrived and so we met all of the people who we would be biking with – 12 volunteers and three host country nationals. Allision, Kate and I (the two girls from my Stage who came up from plateaux Region with me) went in search of food and found a fufu bar. It was the first time that I had bought fufu – it was pretty good and the whole meal only cost $1.00. It is interesting, though, that I can already tell and appreciate the difference between well pounded and not well pounded fufu. Well pounded fufu is very sticky and smooth. Not well pounded fufu is of a less elastic consistency and sometimes even a little lumpy. This fufu was not particularly well pounded.
In the afternoon we sat around chatting and then had a semi-formal organizational meeting to plan our sensibilizations. The AIDS Ride is funded by an international organization called PSI (Populations Services International) and they also provided us with T-shirts (for ourselves and to hand out) and baseball hats, pens and condoms to hand out as well. We decided that the seasoned volunteers will do the first sensibilization to show us how it is done and then we will be incorporated. This morning we will bike 14 k to the first village where we will do a sensibilization as one big group, but on other days we will split into two and sometimes three groups so as to hit more villages or disperse ourselves throughout the larger towns. I am just going to go with the flow and do whatever is asked of me considering I don't really know how this is done.
In the evening we went to dinner at one of Joelle's work places. The woman who received us owns a bar but she also runs an orphanage for about twenty children from perhaps three to sixteen years of age. I was really impressed by her – she seemed like such a wonderful, loving person – one of those people that just exudes warmth and caring. The children came in to greet us and sang us songs of welcome and danced. It was very well done. I am not feeling well at all right now and so I am not doing justice ot how nice it was – a very good and upbeat start to the week.
We were then fed a meal of an amazing salad and then watchi (a local dish that is a mixture of beans and rice all mashed together) and it was served with a red sauce and soja. It was really good, but just the thought of it is exacerbating my nausea . . .
The other think I wanted to mention, because I have forgotten every other day, is that I have another infected finger. I cut myself with a knife at the beginning of the week and the cut us healed closed but there is a red mass and swelling underneath and it seems to be slowly spreading. It isn't as painful as the last time because it is on the side of my middle finger on my left hand which is less sensitive and used than my thumb, but I am still a little worried about it. I hope it clears up on its own. I definitely don't want to go down to Lome again.
10/6/07
I am in a good mood this morning because I am feeling much much better. All day yesterday I was on the verge of vomiting or pooping in my pants and having terrible terrible stomach cramps. The only time I wasn't in pure agony oddly enough was when I was biking and then I was in sporadic agony. And so I biked the 35k even though I didn't eat anything except a coupld of oranges. We left Sokade around 8:00 in the morning and biked 14 k to a small village. The road was a rocky dirt road with only a couple hills and aside from the tingling numbness in my hands from the bumpiness and the wrenching in my stomach, it was a pleasant ride. The first sensibilization was a group sensibilization at a CEG (high school/middle school). I did not participate – I had just vomited up the salad from the night before after trying to choke down some nasty oral rehydration drink (if you have never had it, it is like drinking sea water). I even put the juice of four limes in it, but it didn't affect the taste at all. And so I sat out and observed. We were under some trees for shade. The students were standing in a big circle around us. First we introduced the topic, HIV/AIDS, and then we established the difference between the two. Someone then asked some true/false questions to feel out the groups' knowledge level and then another person asked for the three modes of transmission (unprotected sex, fresh blood, mother-to-child). Then we did three silent mini-skits to illustrate the ABCs (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms) and asked the students to tell us what was happening in the skits. One of the Togolese counterparts then did a part on condoms – where to buy them (boutiques, hospitals, pharmacies – not the market), how to choose condoms (by looking at the expiration date), how to open and put on and then dispose of condoms. We then took questions and asked questions and handed out T-shirts and pens in reward for good answers which of course boosted participation. All the while the director of the school was walking around wielding a switch and the teachers were standing in the back being disrespectrul and unhelpful. For example, when a kid asked if the whit people hadn't put AIDS in condoms (a common misconception), the teachers stood there muttering, "well, its possible, the white people could have put AIDS in condoms." Great.
I think the sensibilization went ok, but really I was a little embarrassed by our, and I include myself, lack of preparation. It seems strange that so much preparation would go into planning the route, preparing the audience and then literally no preparation goes into the presentation itself – the most important part. Right before the presentation we divvied up parts and people presented them, but I feel like if we are creating such hype around our ride that we should have well put-together, well thought-out, well-organized presentations that we discuss beforehand how to adapt/modify for different audiences.
After the first sensibilization – which ended in a fight for condoms between eight year olds – we biked another 11k down the road to where we would do our afternoon sensibilizations. We had a long break which was painful for me because I had nothing to distract me from my severely cramping stomach and no where to go to the bathroom. I tried drinking a warm Fanta. It didn't help except perhaps by putting some calories in my body and boosting my energy a little.
In the afternoon we separated into two groups. My group stayed in the village we were in and the other group continued 3k down the road. Our afternoon sensibilization was with a primary school and the director, although knowledgeable and on-target in his understanding of HIV/AIDS, largely refused to translate any of our presentation into local language. Our French is far from perfect and the children's French didn't go much beyond "ça va tres bien. Oui. Non." And they answer yes to everything anyway. If you ask if they understand, you get a chorus of "Oui," but if you ask them to repeat what you just said you get blank stares. The sensibilization was like pulling teeth and I am doubtful of what, if any, information the children retained. I am not sure how productive it is to do sensibilizations at primary schools. I think the children are too young and their French levels too undeveloped for them to get anything out of it. It was a frustrating experience. I think if I were to coordinate AIDS Ride, I would not include primary schools in the program or I would limit it to the oldest grades of the primary school.
We biked off to catch up with the other group and then biked another 11k to the town where we would spend the night. When I got off my bike, I actually felt better. Finally, when it was my turn, I took a bucket bath in a urinal that we used as a shower stall. But because it was a urinal and not a shower, the drain wasn't on the floor and so it held dirty water. It was still deliciously wonderful to shower and be clean. Afterwards, I ate some peanuts – the first bit of solid food I had had all day and chatted with the other volunteers about our dream jobs. The village had been paid to prepare us dinner – bean beignets, rice, spaghetti noodles (rice and noodles often go together here) and a sesame sauce. It took a really long time for the dinner to be ready, so I was glad I wasn't hungry. Well, my body was hungry, but I had absolutely not appetite, no desire to eat anything that wasn't a fruit or included oil (which means anything I don't prepare myself). While the others ate, I brushed my teeth and made on final trip to the latrine – a hole in a concrete slab on the ground. I slept all right considering I was sleeping on a hard concrete flor. I love the fleece sleeping bag my Dad left me – my sleeping bag is too hot, but this one is perfect and provides a bit of cushioning.
11/7/07
Today I woke up around 6:00, got ready for the day, packed up my stuff and ate some beanut butter and bread for breakfast. Our sensiblization at the school wasn't until 8:00 in the morning and so I wrote a bit and we went on a search for fruit but came back empty handed. Overall, the sensiblization went well, but during I wrote down some suggestions for improvement. 1). No primary schools – only sdecondary schools; 2). Yes or no rather than true/false at the beginning; 3).Bring along life skills book (French copy) to help with preparation; 4). Plan for one full day of preparation before AIDS Ride; 5). Brainstorm ways to do audience/age appropriate sensibilizations; 6). Prepare for a translator in each village; 7) Invite the general population to attend; 8). Present a coherent, organized information (clear, concise); 9). Schedule brief sessions after sensiblizations to constructively critique and brainstorm ways to improve; 10). Incorporate anti-discrimination component. 11). Incorporate more information on the depistage (HIV test). I write these here mor for me (to have a permanent record of them) than for you. Perhaps if I decide to coordinate AIDS Ride one of the years I am here I can refer to this email =0).
This morning at the sensiblization, I did the modes of transmission part again. For the second and third sensibilization, we separated into two groups. The first group rode 8k down the road and we, the second group, rode 12k down the road (and since it is already the morning of the 8 th, everything is blurring together). Our second sensiblization was at a primary school and it went really well. They had separated out the older, more advanced students which helps with comprehension and cuts down on the noise and movement of restless little children. There was one little kid, around 8 years old, who had all the answers. Most of the other kids were in their teens. I think he was the director's child. Luckily, only at the first school did the director stubbornly refuse to translate into local language. At the other schools they were more accommodating and either repeated what we said in more understandable French or in local language. They seemed to understand that comprehension of the subject matter in this case is much more important than exercising French language skills. (Interestingly, almost every time we ask whether you can get HIV from a mosquito that bites someone with HIV/AIDS and then bites you, they answer yes. A common misconception. Interesting.
The sensibilization went well and I stopped feeling embarrassed about our lack of preparation because we really have it down now and everyone seems comfortable and confident in their role.
Afterwards, we biked to a bigger town where we would spend the rest of the afternoon. An easy day in terms of biking, but the sensibilization in the afternoon turned out to be quite challenging. There were more than four hundred people of all ages in attendance and it was quite the unruly crowd. Luckily, someone scrounged up a loud speaker, otherwise the whole thing would have been pointless. All I remember about the sensiblization is feeling claustrophobic as the crowd pushed inward and that it dragged on way too long. I had a really small part in the sensibilization – just a small role in the ABC skits (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom – Abstinence, Bonne Fidelite, Condom), but the sensibilization was stressful because it was so huge and out of control. Right afterward, I just left, grabbed my sugar covered and my salty peanuts and headed to the buvette wit ha couple other volunteers. Avoidance is my strategy. There were hundreds of kids surrounding us and leering at us. It was strange and over-whelming. Eventually, the other volunteers joined us and we hid in the buvette which was just a walled-in paillote. We had to cover the windows with pagnes to avoid the children's stares and eliminate the entertainment value of sticking around. We left when we heard that dinner was ready. It was fufu with an unidentifiable, but good sauce and soja (fried tofu). It was yummy, but I could only eat a little bit. Besides oranges, bread and peanut butter, and peanuts, it was the only thing I had eaten all day, but I was afraid to get sick again. Afterwards, we took turns taking showers (bucket baths) in the school director's compound, ate some candy and immersed ourselves in girl talk. The boys and some of the girls were at the buvette.
11/7/07
Yesterday morning my group got an early start because we had an 8:00 a.m. sensiblization in a town around 14k away. The road, for the most part, has been really good with only occasional difficult spots to maneuver – either rocky or sandy. The sensiblization was at a primary school, under a grass paillote, but it was with a small group of the oldest students and it went really, really well. I was happy afterwards because every time I do the modes of transmission and ask the audience to give them to me one by one, I am always told that razors transmit HIV/AIDS. People aren't clear on the fact that it is blood, fresh blood, that can potentially transmit HIV and I thought the children eventually grasped that important detail (and also the fact that mosquitoes can not transmit HIV). The teacher, who translated for us was very helpful and at the end we shouted out the ABCs and sang a song about working together to fight AIDS.
We left feeling good and with lots of energy and biked another10k or so to a village where we were supposed to do three, but ended up doing two sensibilizations. Ours was very large again, but much more well behaved than the day before and also a very good sensiblization. Sometimes we play a game to illustrate the role of the immune system in the body. It is an elephant and lions game, but for this sensiblization, we tried to modify the analogy a little and tailor it to Togo and so we used a chick and hawk analogy. The mother chickens protect the chick like the healthy immune system protects the body and the hawks (which represent opportunistic infections like tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, etc.) try to attack the chick (which represents the human body). The hawks can't get to the chick because of the protective barrier formed by the mother hens. Then HIV attacks the immune system and eliminates some of the hens and now the hawks can easily attack the chick. That is the idea, anyway, and it would have worked well except the hawks attacked with a little to much vigor and got to the chick the first time. Note to self: choose big children to protect the chick and slightly smaller children or of the same size as hawks.
The whole sensibilization went well, though, and we left feeling satisfied and good about the message we had presented. Afterwards we rested at a bar. I bought 24 oranges (to share of course) for 200 cFA (around 40 cents) and some koliko (ignam fries) for lunch and then just sat around and chatted wit hthe volunteers who weren't sleeping. Around 1:30, we set off on another 10k or so ride for a third sensiblization at a dispensaire. When we arrived, there was no one there and so I climbed a tree and rested in it. It was lovely. Our sensiblization started about half an hour late wit ha small and assorted audience. Like our two previous sensiblizations, it went really well until the very end when someone asked a confusing question about whether or not it were possible for a woman and her child to die of AIDS and for her husband to test HIV negative. We answered no and then rethought the question and that it could technically be possible considering that HIVE is not transmitted every single time. Then again, perhaps the woman had cheated on her husband. Who knows. It is hard when they ask questions like that, that obviously stem from a real-life situation. It was still a good sensibilization over all. We biked another 6k or so to a large town called Cambole where one of the SED volunteers from my stage is posted.
We were able to shower and stay at her house and dinner was planned for us at a bar in town only I didn't eat because I started feeling sick to my stomach again. I drank a grapefruit soda and pooped all night long. Literally. I got up five times to go to the latrine and each time stayed on it for about twenty minutes. Even though I was in pain, I was thankful for a close, clean latrine – always have to look on the bright side.
11/8/07
This morning, I woke up feeling a tiny bit better, but I still haven't eaten anything except some bread, bananas, oranges and I just ate some chocolate because I need energy from the next stretch of biking. We have already biked 30k today and it is only 2:00. This morning, a smaller group of us (because the group was divided into three) rode to a village that had been talked-up to me as the cutest village in Togo or at least in Centrale Region and so of course I had to see it and compare it ot my own. I still think my village is cuter, but this one was greener and the people were definitely more animated (lots of clapping and smiling). They were very welcoming and pleased to see us. Again, it was an assorted audience under a tree. This time I helped out with the sketches and ABCs – it went well, but again we came across the same major misconceptions: AIDS comes from razors and can also be transmitted by mosquitoes. The village (it one of the new NRM – Natural Resource Management – stagiares posts and she joined us last night in Cambole and accompanied us to her village – they are on post visit this week) made us sign their guest book and offered us tchouk. Then we biked a grueling 25k to our lunch stop. The good – it was mostly paved, but it was constantly up and down hills at the hottest part of the day and I was pooped, not to mention feeling a little nauseous, when we finally arrived.
In five minutes we are going to bike to our next sensiblization, but it is only about 4k away.
When we arrived at the school, the professor was surprised to see us – I think they had forgotten we were coming and so we had to wait a little while as they prepared for us. Our audience ended up being a combination of the older primary school students and townspeople who trickled in throughout the presentation. Like all the others, it went reasonably well and we left in high spirits happy to have finished our last small group (we had dubbed ourselves Team Awesome) sensiblization. We biked another 6k to Tchamba where two volunteers are posted and stayed the night in their houses. I was able to eat a little rice and peanut sauce for dinner and do a little laundry because I was completely out of clean underwear.
11/9/07 and 11/10/07
Yesterday we woke up early as usual. The group that spent the night at Silas' house joined us at Tami's house around 7:30 and we ate breakfast and talked about our sensiblization. I volunteered to do the modes of transmission part again. A little before 9:00 we biked over to the gare (the taxi station) where our sensibilization was to take place. Our Country Director arrived a few minutes later, but we didn't start until around 9:30 because we didn't have much of an audience even though we had pavilions and chairs and a sound system blaring music. As I expected, however, once we started talking a crowd formed. The sensibilization went well except for an old crazy man who got a little excited when we started doing the condom demonstration and began to unzip his pants. I was mortified. Luckily some bystanders removed him from center-stage before he could whip his penis out right in front of us. Another little complication was the suggestion from a male member of the audience that fidelity is only for the women because, well, it is only problematic when women sleep around, but men are still allowed to have sex with women who are not their wives when they are traveling or when they are on the prowl for a second, third, fourth wife. Right. Joelle, one of the volunteers, stomped on that idea pretty quickly and said that fidelity doesn't work unless both the man and woman are faithful to each other. We also had an unplanned performance by a man in a wheel chair who rapped a song about AIDS in three different local languages. The sensibilization went well and the audience was a little more knowledgeable on the subject so for the most part it moved along quickly and smoothly and for the first time I got member of the audience who told me that blood (rather than razors and/or syringes) can transmit HIV.
Afterwards we packed up the van with our bikes and bags and drove to Sokode. The first thing I did upon arrival in Sokode (after helping to unpack the van of course) was go to internet to send off the emails I had meant to send last weekend. I got an unexpected opportunity to chat with Jorge which was nice. I spent two hours at internet and then went back to the maison where I helped cook dinner. I made the guacamole while others made tortillas, refried beans, a cheese sauce, etc. The dinner was very good, but I could only eat a little. I find that lately I get physically hungry, but I have very little appetite and eating mostly makes me feel nauseous and have to run to the bathroom with explosive diarrhea. Oh, I forgot to mention that the reason we were going to so much trouble to make a nice dinner was to welcome the four new volunteers that have been posted in the Centrale Region – three girls and a boy; three NRM volunteers and one GEE volunteer. Anyway, most everyone was drinking and a dance party (and a silly game of spin the IPod) followed dinner. I, of course, abstained (A; Abstinence!) from all the wildness, but I observed and was amused. I got super sleepy around 8:00, but I couldn't go to bed because I was going to sleep on the floor in the common room. By 10:00 I felt like I was trying to pull an all nighter. Finally they ran out of steam and everyone went to bed.
This morning Allison (the other girl from my stage and from Plateau Region) and I packed up, ate banana and peanut butter sandwiches and headed out. We got really lucky because we stopped an almost empty mini-van bush taxi immediately after reaching the Route Nationale and rode all the way to Atakpame without too many stops and without ever being too squished. All in all it was a relatively pleasant ride until the very end when a smelly man got in the van and wouldn't stop turning around in his seat and staring at us. We were dropped off near the maison, which was fortunate because we were both on the verge of peeing (or worse) in our pants.
All the new stagiares (I think there are seven or nine of them) posted in Plateau Region were in the maison, but I was happiest to see Alicia and Nori, two CHAP volunteers from my stage that I haven't seen since before standfast.
Right now I am not feeling very well stomach wise, but I am going to try to type up my emails and help out with the cooking preparations for dinner which promises to be a nice picnic-y style dinner. Yay. I only hope I can eat.
I helped out with cutting up fruit for the fruit salad and then I chatted with the new stagiares and with my stage mates as I waited for dinner to be ready. Dinner was amazing – pasta salad, green salad, hot dogs, soja, fruit salad, cookies and ice cream – and I ate a lot even though I thought I might regret it later. For some reason, though, they wait to have the house meeting while we are eating and when everyone is already starting to get a little drunk and so of course it is a little disorderly and unruly. At one point, as we continue to discuss the possibility of buying a generator to tide us over during the frequent power outages, one of the very drunk volunteers took a one hundred dollar bill out of his pocket (who carries $100 around in his pocket?) and said that he would give that towards the generator if we could just stop talking about it and get it done. It was a good point, but still kind of ridiculous.
After dinner everyone, except me, was planning to go dancing and when they finally left I got a bit of alone time – the television and I. I put the movie Marie Antoinette in the dvd player and fell asleep on the couch (there were no free beds anyway) before it was finished. The others trickled back and I was vaguely aware of the fact that they watched two movies and didn't go to bed until 2:00 in the morning – late by any standard, but extraordinarily late for Togo.
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