AIDS

AIDS

On the weekend of the 17-18th, another volunteer (Andrea if you were wondering) held an AIDS camp. I think about 15 different volunteers brought three kids each to learn about AIDS and then spread the knowledge through their school through presentations.

The weekend itself wasn’t bad. My three kids came from the local school. I asked the director to recommend three students for the job. Douglas, the director, was great cause not only did he find me three kids but then convinced their parents to let them come. Something I probably wouldn’t of been able to do.

The camp consisted of different people giving presentations, a lot of ice breakers, a small play and conversations. Andrea wisely brought in doctors and health promoters. Especially fun was to see the kids reaction to the condom demonstration. As a side note: I asked Douglas if we should ask the parents if it is ok that the kids see a condom demonstration…he said it was better not to and not to worry. I was, ok.

The only thing that really came up was that there was a lot of down time. That left some of the kids restless, which leads to some foolishness…but nothing to bad. I think it was just mostly kids playing in the itty bitty pool. Then there were the cell phones….who really needs to get a phone call at 4 am?!

Anyhow, it ended right after lunch on Sunday and we headed back. Only, lunch didn’t settle with me well. So, the bus (which we chartered) had to pull over to let me run to store and ask to use the bathroom. It wasn’t too shady of a latrine. But, I think it was a composting latrine since there were to seats in there. I’ll explain a composting latrine another time. Anyway, what I didn’t realize was that my dear friend Abby decided to document the entire thing. She has picture of me running to the bathroom, buy alka seltzer and so on and so forth. How wonderful….

Back to AIDS…

Now I’m at the stage of planning the charlas (charlas = presentations) with the kids. They’ve decided they want to do them solo. So, we’ll form a charla and then everyone will give it to their individual grades. They wind up having to do 2 charlas each. I told them I would be present at all the charlas to lend support and make sure they didn’t forget anything. We’ll be doing this in March.

Finally…I’m doing something!!