World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day. Peace Corps encourages all of its’ volunteers to do some type of activity on this day to raise awareness. This year, our volunteer health committee wanted all the volunteers across the country to do a mural. Although I’ve never done anything like this before, it sounded easy enough and fun so I decided to give it a shot.

The idea behind the mural is that people will pledge to live a better and healthier life, and then once they pledge this, they will put their handprint on the wall. Because I live in a city, Althea (my site mate) and I decided to target the youth of Orodara rather than everyone. So, we went around to all five of the middle and high schools here, and explained to each class the project. Most volunteers only have one school in their town, so this was a little more work than expected. We ended up inviting about 2000 students, but I assume that more than half of them probably didn’t actually understand what the two crazy white women were trying to explain, so I wasn’t expecting a large turnout.

A week before the kids came, we went to our local health center to ask if we could have a wall there for the mural. The director was incredibly easy to work with, and although I’ve lived here for a year and a half, I was surprised by his willingness to let us do whatever we wanted. He never once asked what we were actually doing a mural of. He just gave us a wall and said, “Go ahead and paint”. Easy enough.

The first step was painting the wall white. This was probably the easiest step of the project. Althea and I showed up at the health center with two rollers and a tub of white paint. Neither one of us really had any idea what we were doing or had ever painted anything before, but hell, it’s Africa. Not only was there a huge crack in the middle of the wall which made things challenging, but my soon, my paintbrush was covered in cobwebs and dust from the corners of the room. Before I knew it, not only we were covered in paint from head to toe, but so was the floor, the desks and the benches in the room. Then, the director came in. I thought he was going to be mad that there was paint everywhere, but instead he said, “Great job! You are like professional painters!” Hah! I couldn’t believe it.

A few days later, we went back to paint the title of the mural, which read, “World AIDS Day 2011”. We also painted the pledge and an AIDS ribbon. The pledge was as follows (except in French):

I promise to live a healthier life. I promise to protect myself against
AIDS and other STI’s. I promise, as well, to protect others. I will
work to eliminate the stigma of HIV/AIDS, so others who are HIV positive
will be able to live with us in peace. Also,I will pass along information
about HIV/AIDS so that everyone in my community can remain in good health.

December 1st conveniently fell on a Thursday, which was helpful because students don’t have class on Thursday afternoons. We told of all the students to come to the health center between 2pm and 6pm to made the pledge and put their handprint on the wall. On that day, I prepared some questions and answers that I put on the wall, some general information, and I dug out my sex kit Peace Corps provides including a wooden penis and vagina. I set everything up so that the kids would have something to look at, and so that we looked prepared haha.

Because I was expecting a very low turnout, I even told my students I would give them bonus points on the next test if they came. So, 2:00 rolls around and there’s no one, then 2:30, still no one. We thought we were going to have to put our own handprints on the wall, and make up initials so the project didn’t look like a total dud. Finally, one student shows up, and we were so excited. Then, a little bit after 3:00, the masses came. They all came at once and in large groups that totally overwhelmed us because we were expecting no one haha. Needless to say, this got a little bit out of control with tons of middle school kids running around with paint on their hand. Not to mention, a lot of inappropriate action was going on by boys involving my wooden penis and vagina… thanks Peace Corps haha. But by 4:30, there was hardly any space left on the wall! We couldn’t fit many more handprints on the wall. More than 200 kids showed up!



The director of the health center was incredibly impressed with the project and really excited about talking to the kids about the pledge. He took them in groups and explained each line to make sure they truly understood what was going on, and then gave out condoms at the end of the presentation (this was by far the students’ favorite part).



Each time I attempt a project here, I have low expectations. I think that people won’t understand or won’t show up. When in fact, each time I have the opposite problem, too many people come that I’m unprepared to deal with such a huge crowd. I guess that’s a good problem to have.