Black Tuesday

everyday teaches you something here. the other day I learned not to leave your stuff out for others to take from, today I learned the driving is exactly as bad as it seems, and pedestrians never have the right of way.

this morning, some of us were gathered around the dalla stand about to go our separate ways. one of the volunteers needed to cross the road, but as she step out, and car swerved around a parked dalla and ran over her foot. she was taken away to the hospital with one of the GSC staff who happened to be there too. thank god. I don't know her status as of now, but I can imagine she broke her foot. I can't imagine hobbling around on crutches here, she might go home. then, as were were driving home from day camp today, we passed by a traffic jam, a group of people were huddled around a man who was thrown from his bicycle, he was laying in a pool of his own blood not responding. there is no such thing as calling 911 here, there are no amublences for miles and miles and miles. finally, right as we were approaching our stop we saw a dalla off-roaded. it had driven into a ditch, and the ditches are so expansive here that the dalla was nearly parallel with the ground. scary.

Even more so now, everyone needs to watch where they're going and be extra careful of traffic. this all happened about 20 mintues ago, I'm still a little shaken at seeing that guy dead on the road.

its hard to continue on with a normal blog after that. but theres a lot more going on here...

day camp started today (yesterday was a prep day). all volunteers are divided into 3 schools. Within each school, 2 volunteers are assigned to teach together, there are 3 separate classrooms per school. Then each pair of volunteers is assigned a counterpart (Tanzanian-born translator, who also went through the training with us last week). I guess I feel my work at the day camp is a little frustrating, because everything is translated twice. we speak in English, then the counterpart translates it into Swahili for the students (14-17 years old) and then their responses are translated back into English for us to understand. the whole process is really tedious, and as a teacher, I have no idea how my information is being translated to the kids, or where I would need to interject or clarify. I know the camp is suposed to give them general information about HIV/AIDS, anatomy, and life skills to make decisions and "say no" but they are also expected to pass this info on to fellow students, family members, and friends. if they don't understand it well engough to educate others, isn't our work more or less futile? wouldn't GSC be better off training the counterparts more completely to be able to give these day camp sessons by themselves. for me, as a pre-nursing student, I know a lot about the logistics of the virus and the anatomy of people, that I want to share so much, but everything is lost in translation. I feel bad.

on a brighter side, I think we really stand as role models to these kids. we play games with them, and get them to be creative and participatory. I see the kids watching me and what I do, and when I smile at them, they return the smile 100 times bigger. I don't think they get paid a lot of individual attention, and ideas are put to the side, but my partner and I really work to give each kid a chance to ask questions and participate. that is what keeps me going. the responses that the kids really want to learn this. as I said in an earlier entry, they are not taught about this, and sex and anatomy is taboo here, leading to tons of practices that are both unsafe, and risky in regards to HIV and other diseases. these kids are all going through puberty, they deserve the right to know what's happening to their bodies is normal. somtimes I just ache for these kids, and the lack of opportunities available. it is not fair.

I'm looking forward to going home after this (I haven't been home since 6:50 this morning and its 5 right now) taking a bucket bath, eating some rice and beans and just reading for the rest of the night. today was rough.