February was a crazy month

Actually, the definition of a crazy month. I think if I try really hard I can count how many hours I slept.

A week of translating for the eye campaign, a few days later the epic eyeglass express, the molienda every night, and the wrap up/graduation party of my first computer class (look at em, aren’t they cute?). Sidenote: we started with 8 and finished with 3. I pity the fool who tries to show up to Gringo Gabe's computer class 15 minutes late...



And to cap it off, a kickass AIDS workshop at Lauren’s site.

The AIDS event was just as you’d expect. Lauren convinced 8 of us to come to Juayua and give an AIDS charla to local youth and a group of health promoters. (Hey, wanna come and chill out for a few days in a ridiculously beautiful coffee town? Um... yeah!) Anyway, health promotors are sort of like traveling nurses in charge of rural communities. They work out of their community's local public health clinic, called a Unidad de Salud.

So basically the idea was that we were enlightening kids and health professionals about AIDS and the ways it's transmitted so they can then enlighten their communities. Cool. Got it? It's kind of PC in a nutshell. Anyone else picture Austin Powers in a nutshell? O...kay, moving on...

Here are a few photos of rockstar PCVs gettin' it done



Namitha and Emily... with their award-winning smiles



Dr. Rolando Cedillos, the country's leading AIDS expert, along with his world-famous stick figure sex drawings. We pretty much invited him just to see them again. Ok kidding. He's a kickass presenter and an all-around awesome guy. Fact. He also pulls off the nearly impossible, educating adults on a pretty touchy subject and making them laugh about it.











Maria's testimonial of her personal struggle with AIDS. Very powerful.



Here's Will wrapping it up. Basically reiterating that it's each person's responsibility to educate others and keep spreading the message. Sidenote: pay no attention to the little girl in the background fleeing the building like it's on fire. Billy gave a great speech in kickass spanish. Living in Spain and exploring the world generally does that.



In general, it was a huge success. But there was a moment that I just can’t forget. Kind of sums up a lot of our frustrations here.

As an ice breaker activity, we led a true or false game where we read off statements and people moved to either side of the room depending on whether or not they agreed with the statement. So for example, if I said kit kats are the greatest candy on earth and you disagreed with that because you're a rational human being and c’mon they’re good but clearly sour patch kids are way better, or reese’s cups, or even milky ways. Anyway, sidetracked for a sec. The idea was that you moved to the side you agreed with. Got it.

Well one of the statements was "prayer can cure AIDS" which I would call a no brainer along the lines of can mosquitos give you AIDS. Yet 30 of the health promoters moved to the true side leaving about 10 people on the false side. 3 of which were PCVs. And when I cleared up what I meant, two more crossed over. Arg. These are health promoters! This country’s first line of defense. These are the people educating the people who don’t get an education. Double arg.

Anyway, it was a kickass time. I love it up there. And we even managed to blow off some steam afterwards at the waterfalls...