Looking back at my last blog post, when I was looking forward to Thanksgiving and then World AIDS Day, I can't help but laugh a little at my optimism.
Last week, actually within two days of my last blog post, my whole team was stricken with different ailments that left us pretty useless. If I ever had wanted to know what it's like to be sick and sharing a bed with two other sick girls, now I do. I had some digestive-related problems that I will spare you the details about, one of my bedmates had a bacterial infection, and the other had a UTI and malaria at the same time. Fortunately we all had a good sense of humor about it, and we are all back in business now.
But while this was happening other groups were brilliantly implementing our ideas for World AIDS Day, and it was a great success. The Babati community helped create a "patchwork" banner full of phrases about how to help the HIV+ community and fight HIV. We had beautiful banners with HIV facts all around the field. Also, another group helped make a map of the world with stories and photos of HIV+ people on almost every continent. The football matches were extremely well attended, and we got almost 300 people tested just that day. I was only able to go for a little while, but I'm glad it went the way we had hoped.
And it has already come to our last week in Babati! I can't believe how fast things have gone by. This week is all about on-the-fly teachings about HIV and advertising for our last Babati testing date, at the busy bus stand on Thursday. We're also arranging a pool tournament and a dj to go along, so it should be great fun. Then it's closing dinner in Arusha, and off to a week of fun in Zanzibar! More on this to come!
