Knowing our site placements almost makes it more difficult to continue with these never ending training days. Now that the end is in sight I just want to get into my new village and start establishing relationships and getting a feel for what I will be doing for the next two years. Today was just a total blur and I had no desire to pay attention to the few training sessions we had. My attention was quickly grabbed during the “STIs; Alcohol and Understanding and Avoiding HIV Infection” session.
Dr. Shava raced through slides about safe sex in a sarcastic, matter-of-fact manner. I always appreciate Dr. Shava’s presentations because he is honest and to the point, refusing to dwell on a topic when it is unnecessary. After the slides concluded, Dr. Shava braced the class by announcing that we would be watching a depressing video about five Peace Corps volunteers who contracted HIV during their service. The video was slightly outdated and it was difficult to connect with the volunteers who were placed in different parts of the world without the overall emphasis on HIV health work like the Botswana program. At the end of this sad video, Dr. Shava says, “If you’re life depends on it... and you must have sex... use a condom.” The manner in which he relayed this information sent the class into a fit of laughter. This perfectly sums up the aura and concentration of both trainees and facilitators throughout the day. And to make things even more exciting and riveting, we had to sit through another two hour session on administration policies before the day was done.
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