World AIDS Day!

The day that I said goodbye to Ariel was a hard one. First, for obvious reasons. Second, because I was also headed back to site that day. I took Ariel to the airport early in the morning, went straight to the Peace Corps Office where I crashed for about an hour, and then it was time to get up and get ready for the wagi to take me back out to site.

I was in such a rush because, through a somewhat annoying but ultimately completely fine turn of events, that was to be the opening night of my World AIDS Day Celebration! And let me tell you, we were set to celebrate AIDS hard! Cookies, Condoms, DJ, dancing, popsicles, (wooden) penises (had to finish it out) – we had it all!

Another volunteer helped me organize the event, but this was the first real, visible thing I did in the village and so it was a big deal for me and them. It wasn’t ideal to have it just after 3 weeks of distraction with Ariel visiting, but it was nice to have some solid distractions lined up for right after she left!

So it was all set to be a tough but awesome event – and it turned out to be exactly that! I landed in Pikin Slee at about 4:00PM and tossed my stuff down in my house. I changed into some nicer clothes, made up a sack of AIDS aides and headed to school. The three day celebration started with a lesson for the students in the Adult Education Program – about 91 (men and) women from the village.

I had organized it so the bulk of presentation was done by the local medical clinic staff and, by lucky coincidence, there were several doctors visiting from the city that also helped out. After they did a short lesson about HIV, AIDS, and all the rest I took over and did a group test to check for learning and understanding. We did that by using the illustrated cards Peace Corps helped to make and asking people to interpret and explain them, which they did brilliantly –it was a very simple set up that worked well to transfer and reinforce information.

And finally, the end on a fun note and make sure people were fully prepared to work with the primary HIV transmission prevention device, we had a condom race! I actually almost ruined it because I had forgot to get bananas to use as part of the race, but I was able to find some at the last minute.

Essentially, we lined up the adults in teams of 10 or so each one had to put a condom on and off the banana and then pass it to the next person in line. Saramaccans are crazy competitive, condoms make hilarious (and slimy) toys, and this was mostly a group of young/middle aged women. So it was a pretty intense and hysterical, race! I couldn’t tell you who won, but, really, don’t we all win when people gain important knowledge and the skills to apply it? And I get to watch a hundred people wrestle with slimy bananas?

The following day, we did the exact same format with the 60-70 kids in the 5^th and 6^th grade. If anything, the kids were less competitive and more shy than the adults, but it still went really well.

The capstone event was a community wide Education/Dance Party the following day. I had partnered with the Museum for them to host it and handle most of the logistics (hell yeah – look at that sustainable delegating and community partner-ing. Count ‘em, three (3!) community partner organizations in one event! The only thing they needed me for was the condoms, and really the Clinic can get them too if they ask in advance. And the cookies/popsicles, but those aren't truly required.) So the Museum hosted the event, we put up flyers all over the village, and the lessons the previous days all served to generate the buzz and hopefully draw people to come.

It’s really hard to know how an event like that is going to go down, especially when you aren’t around for the days right before it. The museum had money to buy food and a plan to organize sound system, etc – but we really just weren’t sure how many people would come. Pikin Slee has over 2000 residents and I bought 400 popsicles. Too many, not enough? Who knows! I also just wasn’t sure how much last minute organization, fire starting (to get people to actually do stuff, come, etc), and fire dampening (who knows what might go wrong) would be needed so I invited plenty of friends. About half a dozen other volunteers that were nearby came to help out as needed. In the end, it was mostly moral support but that is not something to scoff at!

Thanks to all the partners, helpers, and planning the event went really well. The only hitch was that the Museum had not managed to put up a tent to reduce the impact of rain and sun and, of course, it did both (and hard!) that day. Almost no one showed up for almost 45 minutes past our supposed start time because it was raining and storming. After that, it turned into the steamy heat that makes a long walk to the Museum pretty unappealing – and we didn’t have much shade to offer the audience.

But we still got 200+ people in attendance (and maybe more – all the popsicles disappeared, that’s for sure!) and the actual pieces of the Party went great! We started with speeches by local personalities – the village DJ, Edji (my counterpart, Basia, and one of the top guys at the Museum), and of course yours truly Seei Pai! We kept them as short as one can in Saramaccan and launched into a very brief lesson by the Clinic staff.

And then we got to the crown jewel. No, not the popsicles – the dance performance! For this event, we brought in a Womens Group from another village on the river that uses traditional story telling and dance methods to educate about HIV/AIDS. The group actually got their start at an HIV/AIDS education event organized by a Peace Corps Volunteer in their village several years ago. At the end of that event, participants were challenged to summarize what they had learned about HIV/AIDS in skits – and one of them went so well that people kept asking them to do it. First in their own village and now all over the country.

So it was really cool that we could bring them to Pikin Slee and show people a truly local face for the lesson. The play goes over transmission, prevention, and medical treatment but manages to be very funny (and dirty) while covering a serious subject manner and passing on the critical information.

After that, there was nothing more except to pass out popsicles and condoms (not like the bananas and condoms from the race!), shake hands, and buy a beer for the many helping hands that made the day go so well.

It was a great event and everyone was very proud to be part of it and very appreciative. So it was a pretty cool Peace Corps moment. I had a great time, my village had a great time, people learned stuff, and we all got popsicles.

And that’s what I call a good couple of days!