Students enter for World AIDS Day Matombo, 2006
Tino is too busy to call me because he is organizing events for World AIDS Day. There is no doubt that with all the money backing HIV/AIDS prevention education, WAD has come to be the biggest, most widely and lavishly celebrated holiday in the country.
I am very proud that he is spearheading the activities to acknowledge this day for the Tanzanian Farmers' Network (MVIWATA, who he works for) in his area. It is an important day and an opportunity to utilize extra dollars and attention to continue the endless discussion on behavior change that must ensue in order to experience, some degree of changed behavior. Mama Laurie told me about a PBS special AIDS Day report, focusing on Tanzania and Rwanda. I was pleased to see that this report likened the mountainous efforts towards behavior change programs (largely funded by US's PEPFAR, as mentioned in earlier blogs) to similar efforts here in the States. One never has to look far to find reports on obesity in America, the importance of diet and exercise, etc. But behaviors have changed, and smoking is down in America, (largely due to luxury taxes and the inconvenience of smoking being prohibited just about everywhere.) HIV infection rates have stayed under 1%, and I think that condoms have become accepted as what smart and responsible people do. The LA Times even reported that, wow, for the first time in several years, obesity rates have not risen. No, they have just plateaued. Just like someone putting on unhealthy weight might.
If anyone read the blog that I tried to create this time last year, they might remember that I too am guilty of spending lavish amounts of money to put on the event of a lifetime for a three day World AIDS Day extravaganza in my little village of Matombo. That day included HIV testing and counseling, Red Cross coming out and educating the public on the importance and safety of donating blood, the local health clinic making an appearance to inadvertently reiterate just how unhelpful they really are in the face of AIDS or just about anyone's health issues. Farmers groups came to show the projects that they have done on new crops, community groups came to show what resources are available, from Women's Rights Education, to micro-financing, to how to fix to the roads. Schools came and performed, local theater groups and mama's groups strutted their stuff, and it was all wrapped up with the King of Bongo Flava performing a free concert right there on a special stage we built at the primary school. In my front yard.
It was a great show of what money will do, not necessarily what people can do. It was a great show of what village leaders are capable of doing to make a few extra bucks.
What good came out of it? I found out about some amazing things that were going on in my area that I hadn't previously known about, and through this event, established a great working relationship with the amazing people making them happen.
The limelight fell on the area, testing was done, results were high (15% of women, men were below the national average, but the only ones who got tested were young high school students. Not the men who felt they were at risk), and word got out that Matombo, a district of 30+ villages and over 50,000 people living in the mountains on subsistance agriculture, had no services whatsoever to speak of.
I really don't feel so cynical about World AIDS Day, per se, but what frustrated me today was the fact that this is the only news that is available about the entire country. Maybe I need to by watching more Al Jazeera online, but I have had a hell of a time finding news stories in Tanzania. Of course, finding good news stories about news in Tanzania was hard in Tanzania. Newspapers are poorly funded and poorly written.
Then again, so is this blog.
My surrogate son, Saidi, needed me to wire him some emergency money because his three little brother and sisters and himself were unable to return on the train he had bought tickets for. He blamed the pres. Kikwete to selling the railroad to the Indians, and now, instead of picking up people who have tickets, the train was already loaded with all sorts of goods, stuffed to the point the passengers that got on early in the trip where stiffled, and one infant suffocated to death.
I did find in the news that when Kikwete came into power, he transferred more of the ownership of the railroad to the Indian company that was helping to run it. The ownership went to 30% TZ/ 70% Indian Company. There were strikes in Dar because of this. But THAT IS ALL I COULD FIND. Saidi was trapped for a week. Every morning he said he went to try to get on the train but it was already full, and noone would refund his ticket.
These are the kind of stories I like to check out.
These are the kind of stories that need to be covered as well.
It is a funny time to be saying this as most of the time, I am simply overwhelmed with the amount of shit, and follow up stories, and "for more information, check out our website at www..."
And yet, with the same laugh/cry that I am experiencing about my own situation, about my own desperation, I am reminded, once again, how many aspects of the country are so so so far behind where they should and could be.
According to me. And Saidi.
