Bike and PEPFAR (3/4/2006)

Today two week long tasks were finished. The one most important to my personal well being is that my bike is finally fixed. The second is important to the comunity's well being is the PEPFAR training is finished. My bicycle allows me to exercise, travel, and relieve stress simultaneously. However, PEPFAR trained my counterpart and me how to educate the community about HIV/AIDS prevention testing and treatment.

I got the part for fixing my bicycle on Monday and went home that night to fix the bike. I wanted to do this as soon as possible becauseI wanted to know that the bike was fixed before the Peace Corps driver/bike mechanic left. As it turns out my bike tool was not really meant to remove the crank shaft. The allen key that was the right size broke because too much torque was required to loosen the screw. Thus deflated I returned to PEPFAR the next day. It was not until Thursday that I was able to get a ride to bring my bike into the city to get fixed and by the time we returned all the bike repair places were closed. So Friday came and we found the repair shop open. Now my bike is fixed and barring any mishaps I should be able to ride for a while.

During PEPFAR we did several activities that teach about HIV. One particicularly memorable one is about demonstrates how AIDS affects the body by destroying the white blood cells. There is one person who represents the body who is protected by other people who represent white blood cells. There are also people armed with paperballs representing diseases and finally one person representing HIV. First the body is healthy and so when the diseases attack there is few direct hits. Then the HIV virus comes and removes some of the white blood cells. The results of this acted out are always memorable. When done in class the first round rarely hit and the second round the person nearly lost their glasses due to a direct hit. When we reused the skit for the primary school later in the week the kids all laughed as the body was bombarded by paper in the first round and only a couple were blocked but in the second all were hits.
So be safe, ride if you can.
T.
PS. One US dollar is about 1100 shillings.