0-60 Seconds

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0-60 Seconds

If you are reading this, please do not panic over what I am about to say.

Today, Lindsey, myself and the girls from Washington D.C. were tested for HIV/Aids. It was something that we all requested before we left.

I will have another one just before I leave on September 3rd.

Contrary to what many of you may think, it is pretty much impossible to contract HIV without blood/blood transmission. Even kissing will not be enough unless both individuals had open sores in their mouths.

During my time here, I have taken the utmost precautions towards ensuring that this does not happen.

Needless to say, even though I was 100%!s(MISSING)ure that my test results would be NEGATIVE. Waiting for my blood to run across the testing strip brought my heart rate up from 0 to 60 seconds flat. The results take between 5-15 minutes. During that waiting time, I could not sit down or sit still.

Both Lindsey and I decided to get it done here for the following reasons..

At home, you have to go to your docotor and formally request an HIV/Aids blood test. When you do this, your name and samples get sent to centralized testing facility in Ontario. Your results can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to get back to you. There are several things wrong with this system. First, is that once your name is sent to Ontario you are put on a list for "At risk persons" or a list that has every person's name who has ever requested an HIV exam. Once you are on this list, your name does not come off of it. Whats even worse is that this list is open to general public. So for example, if you were applying to a job your potential employer can look up whether or not you have been tested. In Canada, there has been several cases of discrimination based on this system. Here's another fun fact, once you get tested, if you are asked by an insurance company if you have been tested, regardless of the fact that the test came back negative, your insurance rates can go up!

The only place you can go to have an HIV test done without having your name added to the list is to go to an Anonymous testing site.
I should note that, there is some exceptions to getting tested and not getting your name sent away. But that being said, there are alot of loop holes in that process.

As for my results, they came back NEGATIVE!! WITH FLYING COLOURS.....

"The President"

Yesterday, President Musevini came to Mbale. He is the man who had a huge hand in bringing Uganda to order after Idi Amin was in control. As we were walking down the street, all the school children were let loose from school. The streets were filled with running children. Some were evening doing acrobatics in the street. Full grown adults also swarmed the streets, they were also sitting on top of buildings, dancing and singing. The amount of people running up and down the streets was akin to a mob like atmosphere; though it was absolutely harmless. But unfortunealty, being a mzungu made our lives rather ackward because a whole bunch of children would run up to us to shake our hands, and what not. These kids would make mad dashes across the conjested streets just to meet us. It was so overwhelming. Everyone was excited to see the President, who makes a regional visit, oh say, every few years.

Unfortunealty, however, we did not get to see the President. He came into Mbale later than expected and we did not want to bask in the sunlight anymore than we had to.

We did get to meet a Captain of the Ugandan National Army. He was very happy to shake our hands and ask us how we were doing.

Other than that, there is not much else to report. I would like to add that I am having pizza fixations now. I think I have migrated from the burger to a hot, steamy, cheesy pizza. AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! Still 27 days left to go.

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