The HIV/AIDS Taller (p.s. Taller means workshop) I started talking about/planning over a year ago FINALLY happened., and it was a HUGE success!! I'm pretty impressed with myself that I pulled the whole thing off with only one night of stress dreams. There were 10 volunteers from my district that participated, and each volunteer brought several youth from his/her community. A volunteer friend Spencer and I came up with the schedule/activities for the taller, and then we divided the work up among volunteers. Our topics included self esteem, sexual health, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and then we had a presentation from a Paraguayan living with HIV. I was in charge of logistical things such as the pre/post test, the opening ice breaker, the HIV/AIDS portion of the taller, and then the final evaluations. The day before the taller Spencer, Sarah, and I went shopping for the taller. Best Day Ever. We went to the local grocery store, Torito, to stock up on snacks. We must have been a hoot to watch trying to figure out how to feed 30 people over the following day and a half. We finally pulled up at the register with a shopping cart overflowing with juice boxes, cookies, crackers, fruit, toilet paper and soap (we have to promote good hygiene as well!). I was able to talk the cash register lady into allowing us to take the shopping cart to the retreat center to drop off the snacks; however, we didn't even make it outside before the men started being all machista and wouldn't let us continue. As women, we are clearly incapable of pushing a heavy shopping cart. So a truck pulls up and we load everything into the back, and then the three of us climb up front with the driver. We may or may not have ripped a motorcycle seat in our attempt to shut the truck's door. We dropped the food off at the retreat center, finished putting together the informational packets for the youth, and set up the auditorium we would be using at the hospital. Sarah came over that night and we made sweet potato burgers which were BOMB! If I was ever planning on getting married, my future husband would be one lucky man; however, luckily for all men I've decided to save them from having to spend the rest of their life with my crazy ass. Friday night I barely slept. Saturday morning, I gathered my things and left around 7am. I arrived at the retreat center and started registering all the youth as they arrived. The volunteers led all the activities in the morning, we broke for lunch, and then we headed to the hospital for the afternoon portion. We had Oscar give his presentation about living with HIV first because he was in a hurry to get back to the capital, then one of my hospital friends who is an obstetrician/ the STI/HIV/AIDS specialist at the hospital came to help us present about the most common STI's in addition to HIV/AIDS. Then we did a condom demonstration, played some more games and called it a day. Sarah and I stayed to clean up, return the projector I had borrowed, and take everything back to my house. We stayed at my house until about 6:00pm then headed back over to the retreat center. We all had dinner together and then we told the youth they could go out around the city as long as a volunteer was with them, and everyone had to be home by 10:00pm. I went out with a few volunteers and a few youth. We walked around the city, went into some shops, and then stopped for ice cream. Everyone obeyed (thankfully) and returned around 10 pm. We had a few trouble makers that tried to sneak out, but for the most part everyone behaved nicely. In the morning we had breakfast and then we had the youth break into their community groups to come up with work plans. Each group presented. During the presentations I received a text message from my neighbor (the one I always buy chicken from) asking me if I was at home. And I said no why, whats up? (thinking it was really strange that he was messaging me). And he said well your door is open. And I said that's really strange, will you close it for me, and I'll be home within the hour. So we finished up the presentations, handed out certificates to each youth., cleaned up the center, and we all headed out.
**Highlights of the taller: A 32 year old mother of 2/health education teacher in one of the local schools told us this taller was the FIRST time she had ever learned to correctly put on a condom! Wow.
**One of the volunteers that attended texted me the following day saying her youth were already doing charlas in their community with the information they learned! So amazing!
Anyways so Sarah and I walk back to my house and we get here and my door is literally jerry-rigged up to keep it closed. I had a padlock keeping my door locked, and the whole contraption was forced off. I walk in and it looks like a tornado blew through my house. My suitcases were open with contents everywhere and my whole closet was on my floor. I remained surprisingly calm for the situation and started looking around a bit. At first, the only things I noticed were gone were my mattress and my fan, and I saw a yogurt cup just chilling in my closet. The first thought that crossed my mind was Oh, my silly friends playing a prank on me, but then the more I looked around the more I realized was missing, and it wasn't my friends (or at least I hope it wasn't my friends). I was missing everything ranging from my mattress to make up to clothes (they even took clothes out of my dirty clothes hamper) to my external harddrive to my medications. Total possessions stolen amounting to about $1500. They took a little bit of everything. I called Peace Corps and let them know. Then I went to talk to some of my neighbors. None of them saw or heard anything...mainly because none of them were around that night. There was a pilgrimage to one of the nearby campos where most everyone walked the night before. Then I headed to the police station to file a report. The officer took down my information, a list of what was missing, and my phone number. He texted me later calling me beautiful and sending me kisses to inform me the other officers were on their way to my house. Three officers showed up. Two of them were actually asking me questions/writing stuff down while the third was just looking at all of my photos on the wall. One of my friends came by and stayed with me while the police were there, and then he invited me over to his house. We went to his house and immediately started drinking wine in a big group with his family members. Seemed like the most logical thing to do at the time. We drank for a while and then we ended up at this volleyball court that was way too intense for me to handle, and then we wound up at another friends house. I headed home around 8pm to clean up the disaster that was my house and go to bed. I slept on my floor for 2 nights, but now I have a sad mattress that was lent to me by the Hogar. I bought a new fan which didn't work when I got it home, but I exchanged it for a new one so I'm making my way back...slowly. I've basically just been sleeping all day everyday...but I ran out of sleeping pills last night so we'll see if I'm able to sleep tonight.
In other news. I'm still dancing on the hospital dance team that we formed recently. Our first show is this weekend...in my old community. My life is a joke. It's going to be ridiculous. Sarah and I are the only 2 girls who don't have a man partner so we just kind of randomly dance by ourselves and look extra ummm special...and we don't even have matching outfits. It's gonna be interesting.
