EIL Intercultural Learning

Hi everyone!  Hope you are all well! Nigeria is still a delightful muddle to me:) I feel like a count down has begun today as I was reminded of the date by one of the students in my computer class. Up until now I have been concentrating on the days of the week to forget the return to Ireland. Work is still so interesting!

Once I had got to the volunteer hostel in Cape Town I met lots of other volunteers,and ofcourse the generic volunteer conversation was had, this little almost interview like chat is generally to break the ice and to find out the core details. It goes along the lines of your name, where your from, how long you are here from and then; what project you are working on. Generally, I managed to get by the first 3 parts with no problems, I can say that most of the time, I succesfully managed to tell people my name, nationality and length of stay with absolutely no problems!

I haven’t been very good for posting blogs. Lynda’s are so informative and interesting I sit back and let her do all the work!  I have learned so much from her over the past few months and I am so grateful to EIL for being paired with such a passionate and knowledgeable travel partner.

Just last week, Ciara and I began a HIV & AIDS Certificate. AIDS West (Galway) are facilitating it and a team from the Terrence Higgins Trust are delivering it. It is a three month course and will give me my very first qualification in the area. Like the HIV & AIDS training the GAP participants received from Dtalk last June before we went to Africa, I loved every second of it, I NEVER talk in class but you could not shut me up!!  

When I chat with people about the prevelance of HIV & AIDS in Africa, usually their first response is to suggest that Africans are more promiscuous than Westerners.

I was told about a really good HIV & AIDS website today... www.vir.us. it is a fun website dedicated to teaching about HIV & AIDS.

I took the 'protected' test on www.vir.us, at the moment there are only 7 'protected' people in the whole of Ireland.

Please take a look at the website and take the quiz (and watch the clips!), it only takes a couple of seconds...

I was chatting to a good friend of mine the other day about HIV & AIDS and it occurred to me that if I was HIV+ I would be more worried about telling people of my status than upset about actually discovering that I was infected!! What a wierd thing to say!! But it is true!

I am not afraid of HIV, at all, it is just a virus. A virus that is very manageable. The phrase is, LIVING WITH HIV!! Just like someone lives with a disability or lives with diabetes or lives with some other chronic illness.

HIV is now a chronic illness and not a death sentence, since the introduction of ARVs (HIV medication). These drugs have done for HIV what insulin did for diabetes in the 1950s. The international community must do two things: CREATE WIDER ACCESS TO HIV MEDICATIONS and DISPEL THE STIGMA AROUND HIV & AIDS in order to combat this pandemic.