On Sunday was a day dedicated to shopping and going to the markets! All the goods and materials there are so beautiful and unique. it's amazing to see how the products reflect on the culture.
Anyway, the last two days we volunteered at a teenage health clinic, Naguru. At Naguru, they teach people about practicing safe sex and how to do that, test for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other common STD's or diseases in Africa, include pills or treatment for diseases, and provide a counseling service. We were able to go into the laboratory and see how they check for each of these diseases/infections. To test for Malaria, each patient puts a tiny amount of blood onto a slide to go under a microscope. A healthy slide should just contain red blood cells and no added structures. A slide that is infected with Malaria will have small reddish/pink dots all around. If there are more dots in the slide, than that patient is severely infected and needs intense treatment, death is a high possibility. (A high number would be 10-30). A slide with not as many dots, 3-9, their treatment is simpler and the chances of surviving are more likely. To test for HIV/AIDS there are two main processes that both are using serums. The first one is a strip with blue on both sides, and two clear, tiny squares in the middle. The serum is placed at one end of the strip and it moves to the squares. If only one square changes colors, then the patient is HIV negative. On the other hand if both the squares change colors than this shows that the patient's antibodies contain HIV. Only when both squares change colors is when the next step occurs. The next test is similar to the other strip but shaped differently. Serum is also placed on this strip, and most of the time the two strips will agree with each other. That is when the patient is confirmed being HIV positive. However, there are times when the two strips don't agree and a tie breaker is used. I was told that in each given day, about 1/10 of the people tested come back HIV positive. Imagine counting every 10 cars in rush hour traffic, one of those cars would carry a person with HIV/AIDS. It's horrible to think that so many people are infected with this disease because of not taking safety precautions. I believe that if the people were more educated in how to not spread HIV/AIDS and protect themselves, then the amount of people would greatly decrease. There was an very odd poster that I've noticed all around Uganda. It says, "Married couples more likely to have HIV." Automatically, i thought that Uganda is posting false signs. I guess being raised in a country where people typically don't sleep around while they're married and in a country where HIV isn't as popular I didn't fully understand this poster. But I soon learned that it\s very common to have more than one partner here. Therefore, it either the husband or wife have HIV/AIS then it's very likely to pass it onto to another person if he/she finds another partner to sleep with. Also, married couples tend to want children and it's know that if the mother of a child has HIV/AIDS than the child will also accumulate the disease. AS you can see, this is a very big issue because if the future generation, the kids, are getting this disease too, then the number of people infected will never decrease. One more interesting thing, is that the Ugandan government has somehow tried to cover their numbers on infected people so that outside nations will see an improvement and want to build more schools, roads, sewers, etc.
So as a group on this trip, we were introduced to another type of volunteering. It wasn't all fun and games the last two days, we did the "dirty" work. What we had to do was separate pills. The staff is so overworked at Naguru that they generally don't have time to do this. However, it was a job that's been needing to get done for over a month. The reason it's so important is because when the staff are handing out pills to the patients, the line is super long, because it takes about 1-2 minutes to separate the pills per bag. Imagine trying to grade school papers every week, but you never get around to it. Then the pile keeps growing and growing, which takes forever to finish grading them all. So, we were happy to help and finish about 3 months worth of pill supply. What we had to do was count out a certain number of pills and place them in a bag. For example, there are a total of 1,000 pills in each container and we would have to pick 30 and then place it in a bag. It's definitely not the best job to be doing but it's one that benefits Naguru in a huge way.
The other main project that we did at Naguru was cleaning off a tent. It was filled with mud, dirt, and trash. It looked like a shirt that someone attempted to tye-dye, but ended up missing to many colors and ending in a dark brown. Or another example of what it looked like was after someone goes ATVing through mud, water, and dust, their entire body is covered with dirt. Anyway, to clean this tent we used some water, buckets, and brushes. It was not an easy thing to do, since all the dirt had been sitting there for probably a month. So, with all of our might and strength we scrubbed the tent. We poured some water on it, scrubbed some more, added some soap, and it looked pretty clean. Out of nowhere the water supply just turned off. This is was the challenging part, when you have to get rid of dirt with no other resources. We used the water supply that was on the tent already and had to go from there. We definitely could have finished the entire thing in a little over an hour, but because of our limited resources, it took 3 hours! It was so difficult, in the heat, washing up against the mud, and trying to rub-a-dub-dub. It really was a challenging task since the brooms kept breaking, the hose kept breaking, and the water continued to not work. But when we used the resources we had, we were able to finish the job!
One thing that I forgot to mention when we were volunteering with PEDN, there were some cases where the girls were left behind and not being treated equally. We were playing a soccer game, and of course as usual the boys were hogging the ball and not passing to the girls. So I took charge and started encouraging the men to pass the girls. The refused, nobody listened, and just ignored me completely. It didn't bother me that they weren't listening, but the fact that the boys thought they had more power over ALL of the girls on the field. Now don't get me wrong, the girls weren't as active but that was mainly because they knew they would never touch the ball. From that, I just got so mad that they the boys thought they were better than the girls. The only thing that sets us apart is our sexuality. Coming from a place were equality is taught and practiced, I literally could not handle watching the girls get thrown around like a dish rag. I then went over to a couple of the girls and ask them if they get treated fairly and equally compared to the boys. They said that it's not fair that the boys get more rights than them. They think that they should all be equal and given the same opportunities. I could tell that the way they said it, was one of the first times they spoke up. It's a harsh subject here because the thought of everyone being the same isn't accepted in all places. To change this, we came into a circle and talked about giving everyone an opportunity to touch the ball. We made a new rule that said for every time a boy touches the boy, a girl also has to touch the ball before another boy can get it. The girls were elated and the guys I think were more shocked. It's little steps like this that are able to make a difference!
The next few days,we're going camping:)
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