I am a Busy Bee!!

I just recently organized an AIDS conference at the district to educate my community health agents. The conference went really well and all the health agents learned a lot. One funny thing that happened during conference was when the facilitators divided the health agents into groups to talk about different things and then to share their findings with the rest of the group. For example, one group discussed all of the modes of transmission while another group discussed methods of prevention. My job was to be supervisor of the group who was discussing modes of transmission. The health agents got the most obvious modes of transmission e.g blood and unprotected sex but they still were missing a lot of information. For example, I mentioned that there was more than one way to have sex and that each sexual act posed a risk of infecting ones partner. I was in a group of all married women and they were like, “Really? There is more than one way have to sex?” I was like, “Sure, there is anal, vaginal, and oral sex.” The women looked so confused. They had never learned about these sorts of acts. Sex in Burkina is kind of like “Wham, bam, and thank you Madame.” They then proceeded to ask me to explain each sexual act to them. I happily explained each one. So at the end of explaining these we then started to make a poster of all the modes of transmission. They women wrote out the modes of transmission on the poster but then I noticed that they wrote unprotected sex and the three types of sex as being two different categories/things. I mentioned that it may be a good idea to combine the two since anal, oral, and vaginal sex were considered sex and if done unprotected they could leave to contracting HIV. The women responded, “No, they are not. They are two different things. Those things are not sex.” It took me a good five minutes to explain to them that they were one and the same thing. Another interesting thing that happened during the conference was when the facilitators were explaining not only the types of sex that could transmit the virus but between whom e.g. man/woman, man/man, and woman/woman. A couple started giggling and the men shook their heads in disbelief and said that that would never happen (homosexuality). The facilitator got a big smile and happily explained that homosexuality does happen that they should know about it. Instances like these make me happy I was able to give the health agents the opportunity to attend a conference on HIV/AIDS. Even though these individuals are health board members and community health agents a lot of them are ignorant on health topics such as AIDS. Lots of the health agents and health board members are locals who have not received their high school diplomas and have not received formal training. These individuals help out during vaccination campaigns or do basic sensibilizations on family planning, malaria, and AIDS.
I am also in the process of planning an International Women’s Day complete with a soccer match between the women and girls, a raffle, and a theatre troop presentation and sensibilization on family planning. So this last month I have been selling tickets for the International Women’s Day raffle. I sold just over 700 tickets at 5 cents each. Whatever I make in profit the health board will match it. Everyone is so excited for International Women’s Day because of the raffle. Every time I leave my house to go to the market or the hospital I have people asking me when the raffle is again.
Everyone approaches me to buy tickets. I feel like the most popular person in the village; it’s great! Lots of times when I am walking women will come out of their family compound to flag me down to buy tickets. Once they approach me other family members/neighbors see me they start to come to. One time I was on the road so long selling tickets that they brought me a stool saying it would probably be awhile so I might as well get comfortable. Initially, since it is International Women’s Day Ganga only wanted to sell tickets to women since that was what the last volunteer at my site did. I told him no that I was going to open it up to everyone because of the family planning skit the theatre troop would be performing. I do not know why but district insists on only educating women on health topics (no men). While this may empower women, they are not the ones ultimately making the decisions for the household e.g. whether one can buy soap, contraception, and mosquito nets etc. So I told him that the incentive to come to the event would be to see if they are able to win the prize. And if they are going to come we might as well sensibilize as many people as we can, especially the men. Therefore, I was
going to open of the raffle to the men.
I just also attended a latrine building workshop at another volunteer’s site. It went really and I was able to bring my counterpart so that he could learn about the importance of practicing good hygiene and how to build latrines. At the end of the workshop each volunteer received materials to go back to their sites to build their own latrines. Very happy about that! In the next couple of months I want to really focus on good hygiene/sanitation and the importance of using latrines. The majority of the people know that latrines prevent infections/illnesses but they do not use them. Granted the only people in village who have latrines are the functionaires(teachers and clinics workers that are not from the village) but there are latrines at the maternity, clinic, and church. However, people do not use these latrines. I will see a person squat right beside the latrines and urinate and/or defecate and not go in the latrine. It is mind boggling! Since I have arrived here I have made it my life’s mission to find out why they do this but I am no closer to the truth. Anywhooo…back to the latrine formation. One interesting thing that happened at the latrine formation was that there was a man in the volunteer’s village who was chained to a tree. Apparently, he was “not all there” and one day started cutting up all of his clothes and walking around in a loin cloth. The village thought he would be a danger to others so there solution was to chain him to the tree. During the time that the man is chained to the tree (4 months) the village prays for him to get better. After his confinement is over if the village still thinks he is not all with it they will chain him up again. This has caused the volunteer to be incredibly distressed to the point that she has cried several times because the “prisoner” has not committed any crime yet, they just think he might. His legs have also swelled due to lack of circulation from the chains. But he is cared for; they have built a hanger for him so the sun does not beat down on him and people do bring him food. Because mental health institutions/facilities do not really exist here and/or if they do exist I do not think the families have the means to send their relatives to them, the village’s solution is to chain them up.