7/15/09 from Megan

Today Tannen and I went to visit the women's craft group in Murundu with Hilda. There are about 15 women using strips cut from plastic bags to crochet handbags - they're very well designed, and I was impressed by the ingenuity of their hook-making. They file down pieces of thick gauge wire that they can find lying around, and then cut a notch in the end to form a hook. They learned the bag technique from Villages of Hope, a non-profit down south that we visited back in February. There's a national craft fair that they plan to take their bags and beaded jewelry to later in the year.

I should also mention that we went to Twatasha clinic yesterday with the musketeers. The head of the clinic is a wonderful Catholic nun who trained as a nurse in Germany (I gather that she must be fluent in at least 4 languages), and she took a good chunk of time out of her morning to show us how an HIV test is conducted. Of course, she needed a volunteer, so Tannen and I decided that this would be a good time to experience first-hand exactly what we are always recommending that our kids do. So we got tested. It was a little bit scary - there's always this thing lurking in the back of your head saying, but what if... I have hugged kids with sores, what if one of them was positive... I have been working in a country with a 1 in 6 infection rate, what if I got a cut that I never noticed and somehow exchanged blood with someone... The scenarios you construct in your head don't even make sense, but when it comes to waiting for that little tester strip to tell you whether you need to be on some serious drugs for the rest of your life, it's amazing what you come up with.

I am happy to report that we're both HIV negative, though I can't say much for our pain tolerance, since we both yelped pathetically when pricked in the finger. I have a new appreciation for the relief of that moment when a tiny little strip of paper tells you that you have nothing to fear - and exactly how much we are asking of these kids who might have much more reason to be afraid of a positive result.

In the afternoons, we've been at Butondo High School, which is in the midst of exams for the 12th graders. It was a little bit crazy getting organized the first day, but both yesterday and today went well. This year's format is much more interactive than we've done in the past, and the kids are really getting into it. We've had them brainstorming projects to raise HIV awareness in their communities, and they'll be presenting them tomorrow. One group went to visit a local hospital today (and one kid got his hand x-rayed, just for fun), and another went to visit a basic school (for grades 1-8) to talk about HIV. I'm impressed by how quick they are at taking the initiative and doing things, with just a little motivation from us.

Now time for more endabas, the never-ending meetings which haunt our every waking moment. It's going to be all kinds of crazy when everyone else arrives on Friday and Saturday...

Love to you all,
Megan