Greetings from Arusha!

This week flew by which must mean I'm getting used to living in the village. I almost don't even notice that I'm always covered in dust. :) Katie, that spa day sounds amazing right about now! Doubt we're on GoogleEarth, but if anyone's curious we're in Kikwe ward, Karange village, SE of Arusha.

Our NGO's policy is to give a box of free condoms to any duka not currently selling them with hopes that they'll see what great profits they make and start ordering more boxes. It helps that we're simulataneously doing AIDS ed in villages. A bit of a capitalist approach to public health, but I'm told that this is the best option as giving out free condoms to the villagers would not be a "sustainable" project - that dreaded word again. I'm not entirely sold on the approach but it's something. We also tend to bend the rules when needed...

We have community teachings and testings scheduled in multiple subvillages for the next couple weeks, which I'm excited about! Our testing day is one the same day as a mandatory village meeting - all 3 subvillages have to come - and we've been given 30 min on the agenda to teach. After the meeting we'll teach and test for several more hours. We hiked "not far" (ie 1 hr 15 min) to farthest subvillage to meet w/ subvillage leader about teaching and testing there also. 5 10-cell leaders were also there, each of whom are responsible for 10 households. 3 of them were women! They all promised to attend and publicize our events, which was very encouraging. The subvillage leader's "office" is a large tree that a table and chairs are placed under when needed. He doesn't have a phone, which makes life interesting.

We also do as many impromptu teachings as possible - the mayor's "office" building has 2 pool tables that people congregate around in the afternoon, which sometimes turns into us playing pool/teaching AIDS education. You should see the reaction when we pull out the anatomically correct models and condoms! Once you've given that lesson to high school classes, secondary teachers, and village gov't leaders, nothing phases you. There is no correlation between age and the ridiculousness of questions asked, by the way. But we're clearly teaching material no one else has covered, so we don't really mind the giggles and inappropriate comments because we also get so many legitimate questions, the answers to which will make a huge difference in someone's life. We've also heard every myth re HIV you've ever heard, and a few that were new even to me. The students are great though and really willing to open up to us and ask the difficult questions. The introduction of the Swali (question) box has inspired a few less than appropriate inquires about Wazungu, ahem, preferences, which I choose to ignore, but for the most part, they're asking very inteligent questions and seem excited about the peer education program.

Apparently there's a problem in TZ with people murdering albinos, sometimes due to general stigma, other times because of a belief that their body parts contain various powers. It's a nation-wide problem, tragically.

The primary school group is helping their students paint a mural. Our secondary group is organizing a peer educator club that will continue the education once we leave the village. If the people we test next week are HIV+, we connect them with our full time staff of community health workers, help them get registered w/ the govt and get their CD4 count tested to see if they qualify for free ARV's. (In the US, you can get them right away; here, only if you're CD4 cell count is below 200, when you have full blown AIDS). SIC also gives transporation stipends for all doctor's visits.

Next weekend I'll join one of the CHW's on patient visits, which I'm looking forward to. We also get to take them to the market afterward to purchase whatever they need for the home.

The village has, I think, a total of 3 generators, one of which we can rent to charge our cell phones. The only TV I've seen is at the mayor's house, which isn't used because his personal generator broke ages ago. The weekends in the small city of Arusha can be a bit overwhelming after Karange, and I'm sure coming back to the US will be complete sensory overload. Everyone loves the fact that I have a radio though - my homestay is usually crowded in the evenings - thanks, Tom! The BBC broadcasts are our window to the rest of the world.

Looking forward to getting election results soon...I'm hopeful... do what you can...

Miss you all!
Natalie