More from my May Term in Greece, including a couple of my professors and one of my peers.

HIV/AIDS

Swaziland has the world’s highest estimated prevalence rate of HIV-infected adults (26% of people aged 15-49). It’s crazy to think that one in every four or five people I’ve met or interacted with here are HIV positive. Especially since this country/population is so small. People are either affected directly or indirectly. They either have HIV or most likely know a family member or friend who has it. In the US, we have a large population affected by HIV, but in relation to the size of the country, the percentage affected is relatively small. Also, I don’t think many of us know of a friend or family who is open about their HIV status. I’m curious about the types of sex education and HIV/AIDS education individuals receive (if any) here in Swaziland especially since the US focuses mainly on sex education to prevent pregnancy rather than maintaining overall health. In the US, the stigma around HIV is the idea that it’s a “gay disease” when in reality, HIV affects everyone. Here in Swaziland, HIV is a heterosexual issue with multiple factors surrounding it such as a prostitution economy, unfaithful partners, and MSM.

Last feelings about the trip

Johannesburg was chaotic because we were all jet lagged and it was go-go-go all day everyday with not a lot of downtime. It honestly felt like we had been there for a month, and while it was exciting, flying into Swaziland was such a drastic and refreshing change. It was so much greener, cleaner, and quieter than Jo-berg (but also much smaller and I miss the bigger cities if I’m away for too long). Swaziland is chaotic in its own special way. Time is very slow here and people are in no rush to get around or complete tasks - which isn’t necessarily a negative thing because I think us Americans are always running on full drive. If we’re constantly in a rush, we can miss things and forget to slow down. On the other hand, being slow has its disadvantages in the sense that it can affect the work ethic and drive that motivates people to work hard move efficiently from task to task. I think we’re so used to instant gratification that we feel disappointed when things don’t work out or when we see that our project isn’t fully complete. I think we’ve been working for so long that we forgot what the hallway of the hospital looked like when we all walked in on the first day. We get caught up on what hasn’t been completed instead of taking a step back and acknowledging all the incredible progress we’ve made. I think we all did the best we could do with the supplies and funds we came in with.

Velma had a really interesting perspective that I hadn’t considered before: the biomed guys don’t have the drive and passion that we did because they may have been beaten down from not having the resources available to complete their jobs and maintain the conditions of the hospital. It’s certainly been hard working with the biomedical guys but we can’t just do everything by ourselves. We have to work with others to get the job done.

I agreed with what Sydney said about how it’s a much more rewarding job knowing how big a project this was and the lasting impacts it will have. It’s better to have had this challenging experience working with different groups of people and working together to overcome obstacles rather than having all the smaller projects we can walk into and easily complete.

May 21

Today is my last day wearing my crusty and smelly clothes at the hospital! We finished touching up the walls and painted a section of the ceiling. It was such a big improvement from the first time we came in, and I'm so glad we were able to see the progress and finished product. We took a break later that day to visit Cebociso's super modern and forward thinking school at the Royal Science and Technology Park. We learned that Swaziland is very proud of its international relationships (ie. with the US, Republic of China, and India).

I was tired midday and wanted to go back to Bethel Court, but we had the finishing touches to add to the ceilings of the hospital. Finally, we finished painting the ceilings white and our work was done :)

To celebrate, we went out to a Chinese restaurant in the town. Not gonna lie I was skeptical about the Chinese food for dinner, but it was actually pretty bomb and such an entertaining night sitting with Claire, Yamu, Jordan, and Nora. We had won ton soup, hot tea, beef stir fry, rice, special fried rice and tried some of the Chow mein. I left with an especially full stomach but still managed to squeeze in some wine. We ended the night with a game of Yahtzee, which resulted with me being stubborn about the results and chucking pillows at my roommates (out of love of course).

May 22