It has come to an end...

I am officially done with my volunteer program with SIC. We had closing dinner last night and it was so sad saying goodbye to Tanzanian teaching partners and volunteers from the UK and the states. Since I haven't been able to write in a while, I wanted to give you all a report of the last few weeks:

Village Life:
Living in the village was an amazing experience. As the only wazungu (foreigners), we were kind of liuke celebrities in the sense that everyone knew out names. Also, since we taught at all of the schools, we were also greeted on the road by kids in our class. It really took awhile for the adults in the community to warm up to us, but by the end we were greeting everyone and learning about their families.

Teaching:
Teaching the SIC curriculum to student in three schools in the village was highly rewarding. We administer a pre and post test to evaluate our progress and how well the students are grasping the information. Our primary school kids started with a score of 5 out of 10 on the pre-test and ended with an 8 (standards 4 and 5) and an 8.5 (standards 5 and 6). This is remarkable, considering that there are over 200 students, half of which did not show up for every lesson (mostly because of family farm duties, not truancy). Our secondary students started with a score of 6 and ended with a 9 out of 10 average! I have such pride in their progress. We also did a very moving lesson on stigma with our primary students that made them think about how we should be treating others. Students in Tanzania don't get a lot of chances for critical thinking; most of their lessons are simply regurgitation of the material that is presented on the blackboard. Teaching about a topic like stigma was therefore very difficult because they had to draw their own conclusions about what is morally and socially correct. One student stated that most people in the village are religious (either Christian or Muslim, more later on my inability to make people understand that I am neither) and said that they should therefore be treating others as they would wish to be treated as a moral obligation to their religion. This touched me because this student was taking the information presented to him and connecting it with his own life. We also had our student demonstrate skits in which they interacted with HIV positive people and had them decide as a group how they were going to act and whether these people deserved respect.

Peer Educators:
Peer educators are what make SIC stand out from other NGOs. SIC is sustainable. Peer educators are picked from each class as outstanding students and leaders among their peers. They are then trained by us to continue an Anti-AIDS club (primary students) or a club dedicated to more teaching (secondary students, since they are older and can handle their own teachi demonstrations). Our primary school Anti-AIDS club named themselves the Seli T-Saidizi Club, which means T helper Cell (the T-helper cell is one of the immune system cells in our body that signal T-killer cells and B-cells, which make antibodies. T-helper cells are one of the immune system cells that are attacked by HIV). Our secondary school girls named their club the DA YAA Club, which stands for D'alzon Youth Against AIDS Club. Some of their goals for their club is to travel to other schools to educate them about HIV. Peer educators get additional training and support from our field officers, who are Tanzanians that work for SIC and stay in the villages after volunteers leave to continue peer educator work and to provide access to treatment and social support for those who tested positive during our testing sessions.

Community Day:
The culminating activity for the ward in which we work is a community day. Community day provides the community with entertainment from students who perform songs, raps or dramas about HIV awareness, free HIV testing and overall a fun day for both adults and children. Our community day was actually held in the village in which I lived, Mlangarini Juu, so our group took the lead on planning. We had both of our schools perform songs and a poem and our secondary school girls did a drama involving the fight against stigma. We also tested over 200 people and had a great performance from the Salama Brand Condom truck, which came with dancers and comics and handed out free condoms. My favorite moment of the day came when the secondary school girls arrived and immediately swarmed me with hellos and excitement for their performance. Usually they are extremely quiet during their lessons and don't show a lot of emotion. Also, it was really funny when our vounteer programs manager walkked through the vilage, becuase apparently she got lots of "Mambo Rachel!" greetings. All us foreigners look alike and she IS about the same height as me with brown hair so i can see the confusion :)
A significant moment during community day was the speech of an HIV positive person. This was my Mama! Mama Zena agreed to speak to the community about her status to encourage people to get tested and to reduce stigma. Before this day, a few of her friend knew her status (she is open) but the whole village did not and so it was poignant to watch her neighbore listen to her speech about treatment of HIV positive people and about the importance of getting tested. Mama Zena is my true hero.


Patient Visits:
One of the other things that SIC provides for their volunteers is the opportunity to visit with HIV positive people who are working with the local field officer. In Mlangarini ward there is an HIV positive group established with the local government and we were able to visit with this group (my mama Zena is one of the unoffical leaders of this group). TThe mama is visited with is Mama Greta. She was tested positive for HIV in 2003 and lives with her HIV positive husband and her daughter, who is also positive. In Tanzania, all pregnant women are required to have an HIV test before giving birth, but some clinic and hospitals only do this when requested by the patient, so we stress the omportance of individuals knowing this information so they can get tested. Mama Greta was given a test when she was pregnant with her daughter in 2000, but was not told the results of the test (we know it was positive, since her daughter is). Because of this, she did not know her status until she had the test in 2003. She is also talking care of another HIV positive young girl, whose mother died from AIDS. To me, it is a potentially complicated or awkward situtaion, since the mother who died, is the second wife of her husband and therefore the girl is her daughters half-sister. It is amazing to me that she has the stregth for this, especailly considering that her husband is the most likely vector (transmiter) of the virus to both of his wives. She is also different from my experience with Mama Zena, because Mama Greta is not open in her community. Neither her neighbors nor her family knows her status, including her two grown sons. She is afraid of being stigmatized and since she makes her living selling fruit, she is afraid that no one will buy from her if she is open. This is a common feeling among positive people in Tanazania, which is why Mama Zena is such an inspiration to us as a Baloze (leader in the village), as a mother of 8 children and as an HIV positive woman who is not afraid to be open in her community and speak out against stigma.

Kuku Project:
The group of HIV positive people in the ward had a meeting last week and as voilunteers with SIC we presented them with a business initiative to help make their group finally sustainable. A few of the volunteers had extra money that they fundraised and wanted it to go to the HIV positive group. Our coordinators, Sarah and Hanifa came up with the idea of a chicken (kuku) farm. The group was behind the idea and for the last few weeks we have been learning about rbuying, selling and raising chickens. With the extra money to start the project, it will be self sustaining after 7 months and will provide the group with a significant amount of income. This project, which is now going to be initiatedwith other HIV positive groups in other wards in which SIC works, was an ideal goal to helping those who suddenly find themselves with the need for extra money to provide themselves with better nutrition or because maybe they were laid off their jobs because of their status. We started constuction on the kuku coop, the first step in this project, the day before we left the village and it will be finished in one week. It was decided that the coop would be placed in Mama Zena's land as so early morning two days ago, we all helped the worker dig trenches in the ground for it to be constucted in. I can not tell you the emotions that we felt in making a project like thsi a reality in under a month. This will change the lives of the members of the groups significantly. As much as we focus on prevention of HIV transmission, it is great to succeed in helping those that are already infected and it will be remembered as one of my most meaningful experinces in Tanzania.

Can not wait to see you all soon. I will be back in LA the 22nd and would love to see anyone who is in that area. Thanks again to everyone who donated financially to my trip and to those that provided me with emotional and mental support for my endeavors.