Chaguite HIV Fair

December 1 is World AIDS Day, so I had decided to plan a fair in the rural community Chaguite that I frequent. Chaguite is really close to about four other communities, so I thought it an ideal location to involve the people in a fair about HIV/AIDS.

Preparation: For the last month or two, Katty, Keylin, Dania, and I have met once or twice a week to write out charlas and plan the fair. We planned it so that each of them would give one charla, which would also include a few dinamicas or icebreakers/games. I sought out support from the mayor's office for the sound system, the Health Center to do HIV testing, and from a non-government organization called Plan Nicaragua for prizes for the activities. And it magically all worked out! Since our dinamicas were going to involve a total of about 40 people, the prizes that Plan gave me weren't sufficient, so I also bought a bunch of cheap cookies and candies.

El malo: On the day of the fair, I showed up to Chaguite, ready to set up. I went to Katty's house to get the girls so we could get ready. And then she told me that Keylin had gone into Yalaguina and Dania was in a completely different municipality. So it looked like just Katty and I were going to run the fair. Then, the clouds kept getting darker and darker and darker. When it rains, it's definitely difficult to get people out of their houses. After setting everything up, 1pm comes around(the time the Health Center told me they'd be there with the equipment and sound system), and no one is around. 2pm, the official start time of the fair, comes and still nothing. BUT it looked like people were starting to tricke in. And then finally, at around 2:45, the ambulance shows up, along with a large group of women from the neighboring community Esquipulas.  And Keylin came back from Yalaguina. YAY!

Lucha contra VIH y SIDA: Our audience was a mix of young men and women in their twenties or thirties with young children. I was reallye excited to have all the guys there because they are normally a hard-to-reach audience. After getting everything set up, I gave a little introduction and then Katty started with the first charla, explaining what is HIV, AIDS, and the difference, followed by a dinamica showing how HIV attacks the body. Then I continued with a charla about the status of HIV in Nicaragua, and Keylin talked about the "love chain" of HIV and did another dinamica that involved just men. Then, since Dania wasn't there, I talked about how HIV is transmitted and Katty did the dinamica. To close up, we talked about how to prevent the transmission of HIV and while Katty explained the steps to correctly use a condom, Keylin and I did a demonstration. Unfortunately, although we had all the stuff to do the HIV testing, the timing didn't work out and the nurse couldn't. But she has all the equipment in the Health Center to do it, so that's good enough I guess.

Overall, I think it was a big success! I was really scared that I wasn't going to be able to do it, but Nicaragua pulled through for me, just a bit late and not exactly how I planned, como siempre.

Pictures: Katty in front of the school where we did the fair(because it did rain, we moved everything inside). She made this poster herself! I forgot to take pictures during the fair, so while we were just standing around after, I threw up the posters and took a bunch of these. The guys are some of the ones who participated in the fair, and then there's Keylin and Katty with the dildo we used.