Success

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AIDS Ride was a total success! We biked about 30 km per day through probably the most hilly and mountainous region of the country, and our two teams conducted HIV/AIDS sensibilizations at upwards of 6 villages, high schools, and middle schools per day. I found my niche doing the condom demonstrations on a wooden penis, but we all got to try out all of the aspects of the program: ABCD skits for prevention; talks on transmission of the virus and reasons not to stigmatize or avoid people living with it; discussion of the differences between HIV and AIDS; Q and A; and of course plenty of games involving more wooden penises. It was the first time in Peace Corps that I felt like I was making a direct impression on people, and almost everyone who attended responded positively. The village chiefs would often present us with food, wine, and moonshine as a sign of gratitude, and one man personally gave me two pineapples as cadeaux. Some of the hills were incredibly long and steep, and the roads were rocky, sandy, full of holes, and sometimes downright dangerous, but nobody got hurt and the climbs afforded amazing views of the valleys. And as icing on the cqke I got to spend time with about 12 of my volunteer friends and some awesome Togolese counterparts who helped us with sharing and translating the information in local languages. I liked it so much that I want to plan the ride in my own region next year!

So the week has flown by and now I'm on my way back to my beloved village. Before I go, I want to share a question that one woman asked during Q and A: If an HIV positive woman is pregnant and aborts her fetus and the fetus is thrown in the bushes and a pig comes and eats it and the pig is slaughtered but not well-cooked and then she eats the pork, can she become infected? The answer is a resounding NO. But on a serious note, most of the questons were well-founded and showed a good understanding of the basic facts of HIV/AIDS, which is incredibly reassuring for Togo's future generations. The real problem as I see it is getting people in isolated villages access to adequate health services like free HIV testing so that they can know their status, as well as access to ARVs and nutritional supplements so that those who test positive can live healthy and fulfilling lives and produce HIV-negative children.

So now on to my next project: Gardening. If anyone has access to seeds, particularly carrots, hot peppers, pumpkin, and different types of flowers, they'd really comein handy here. Thanks!

Steve

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