Community Outreach, Testing & Counseling

11 March
Photo Description: All from Community outreach day- Zach & Festus giving HIV/AIDS information talk, Sam giving test results and counseling, Mary giving children Vitamin A supplements & de-worming meds
“That is Africa.” You hear this statement a lot from whites and Africans alike. For example, as the reason why someone arrives 2 hours later than expected; why 21 people are crammed into the taxi when the legal limit is 14; why pedestrians (even the very old and the very well dressed) walk in the gutter whenever they hear or see a vehicle coming and why you find out just a few minutes before that you are to teach a class of 60. It’s fly by the seat of your pants to the highest degree I’ve ever experienced- probably good for someone who normally stands firmly on the prepared, planned and punctual grounds. Our day on Tuesday was another example of TIA. We were doing community outreach- staff going into a very rural community, giving a presentation about HIV/AIDS, information about ARV’s and then HIV testing followed by counseling to those tested. We piled in the hospital ambulance (4x4 pickup truck- I couldn’t help wonder what would happen if the ambulance was needed back at the hospital) and set out down the main road, then onto a smaller dirt lane and then onto what I would call footpaths (I think the locals would too as they certainly looked impressed to see a truck in places only a moped or bicycle would venture.) We passed by small homes and gardens, grazing cattle and a tea plantation. We were forced to stop when we arrived at the shore of Lake Victoria. Everyone got out and went down to the lake shore- no one seemed concerned that we hadn’t passed by anything that would qualify as a village. After much maneuvering on the footpath, the ambulance got turned around and we headed back the way we came, finally stopping at a group of huts. There were one or two people around so Zach and I took a walk to see some of the area. When we returned a ½ hour later some benches were set up under a tree and Festus had started his talk about HIV/AIDS. Slowly, although imperceptibly, word got out and by the end of the ½ hour talk there were 25 people or so. As testing began more people arrived and in the end we had administersed over 60 tests and had to stop because we ran out of needles. The talk is very basic, explaining how the virus works in your body, how it is transmitted (and not trsmitted) and how ARV’s work. A key component, I believe, is the talk done by Sam a 30ish healthy looking man who has been living with HIV since he was 1992. He stresses that HIV is not a death sentence and if you follow the protocols for taking ARV’s and a healthy diet you can continue living, working and being happy.
People waited on the benches for their test results and I could only imagine the sense of apprehension they were feeling- some people whooped and hollered in joy when they got negative results (although Festus does warn that you should get re-tested after 1 month as if the virus has recently been introduced to your body it won’t show up in this test) and other faces were expressionless. One man I recognized from our earlier misguided foray to the Lake- he was a youngish, handsome guy with a wife and two small children who directed us back to the village. He shared a laugh with us after he made some comments in Lugandan about the Muzungu to which Zach replied in Lugandan. After he got his results from Sam his reaction was unreadable, but a few minutes later he returned to the Sam and spoke with him for a few more minutes. Without bidding his friends good bye, he started walking back toward home alone. We had close to 60 people test negative and 5 test positive. Despite the upbeat message from Sam, I could only think of a positive test result as a promise of a long, hard, painful road ahead- as if life in rural Uganda is not difficult enough. In theory ARV’s are made available for free, but how would these people get to Ntenjeru once a month to receive the drugs? We drove over an hour to get to this community and Festus noted that this was “close by.” And sometimes people do make the long, expensive trek into a village to get drugs only to be told the clinic or hospital is out of them. Come back. I wondered how this man would tell his wife. Or if he’d tell his wife- if he would take measures to protect her or if it was already too late for her and their children.