Another AIDS tour over
The second annual Borgou AIDS education bike tour 2008 rolled to a finish last Monday. This year went extremely well and left next years group with a lot of good ideas to pursue to make it even better! Everyone arrived on Thursday so we could have a short meeting on what exactly this trip would entail and practice with our groups. After a small logistics intro about the route and most importantly – what we’d be eating. We were a group of 20 volunteers and 6 Beninese educators. This year worked a little differently as last year we were obliged to find Bariba translators in each village which slowed the process down considerably and between French and local language there are some things that just don’t translate. Working with an educator who is already familiar with the cultural group makes a HUGE difference and we could see the women’s comprehension and involvement shoot up. In an earlier post, I mentioned that Parakou now has the first Beninese volunteer club, NGO certified. The president, Ibrahim, worked closely with us this year to try and smooth out some kinks. I asked if there were volunteers who spoke Bariba and had done AIDS education; and he said there wouldn’t be a problem. As this is the blanket answer, I was slightly concerned but things worked out great. Ibrahim has a habit of keeping his word so things actually get done! A team of 4 Beninese volunteers in their last few years of school came, along with my homologue David as well as Saka, a guy from my village who helped with a leg of the trip last year. He came to my house and asked if he could come along this time. I wasn’t sure if he was in it for the free tshirts or actually got what we wanted to accomplish. After prying a little deeper, he said that AIDS education is something that is important to communicate effectively to people in villages as they don’t always have the chance to get the public service announcements in the cities. One of the student volunteers didn’t speak Bariba so we brought Saka along to translate for the kids’ group. He was so animated! After a few villages, people settled into a routine and we were on our way, eventually touching 13 communities.
Every village we arrived in, we broke the group down into 5 sections, old men, old women, young men, young women, and kids. I chose to be with the old women again this year. I loved them last year and really feel there is a lot to be communicated and exchanged with them. David was with the old men again. He loves talking with them on the topics of community responsibility and the honor that comes along with having a healthy village. Even though about a week before we did this, another volunteer James and I rode the route and tried to get the villages prepared, along with ordering food, things didn’t always start right away. What usually happened was, we’d roll in, people would see a huge sea of foreigners and start gathering. Then we’d have the public crier go out and beat his drum along with the message that everyone should go to the public meeting place. This worked great everywhere as it’s the accepted method of communication. Once we’d gotten enough people together we’d split up and talk for 40 minutes or so on the paths of transmission, how to prevent contraction, and what to do if someone does have AIDS. There was also time for questions and by far the largest piece of misinformation was that people could get AIDS from mosquito bites. Hopefully at least a few people believed us that that was just malaria and you should still in fact use a mosquito net!
PSI, (population services international) in Cotonou donated a huge packing container of condoms so we distributed those as well. Not sure how effective that is as at my school the professors took all the boxes and said they would give them out in a more orderly manner…though the general consensus was that the professors would just keep them for themselves. There is only so much control we can have and at least someone is being protected. A local water filter-er donated 4 huge bags of individual water sachets so we didn’t have to worry about boiling and filtering for 20 volunteers. This helped immensely as we didn’t have anything more than a chase moto this year because the fire fighters’ ambulance was in repair. The moto was driven by Saka and carried our spare parts and all the condoms.
Speculation for next year is that we’ll change the topic to malaria or awareness or nutrition…something along those lines.
Incidents were kept to a minimum. Last year, due to the terrain of the backroads, there were at least 13 flat tires. This time around, we stuck to the standard red dirt road and only had 2 or 3 flats but two major wipe-out pile-ups but they were only surface wounds and people picked themselves up nicely. In all we talked with around 2,500 men, women, and children. Two of the towns, Guinagourou and Péréré, we only talked to the CEGs (secondary schools). Once we’d wrangled the kids into quasi-groups, they calmed down enough to listen and participate. This was one of the cooler aspects of the ride. These kids are at the age of discovery and have the chance to be pro-active about their lives. We are also seeing the emergence of the women’s equality movement here and it was really encouraging to see teenage girls explain how to use a condom and say she would refuse a relationship with someone who refused to use one. Who can say the reality of those situations but at least the seed is planted. A really awesome project has stemmed out of the Peace Corps bike tour. The Corps des Volontaires Beninoise has decided to tackle a tour of their own. This August, they are planning on biking from Parakou to Cotonou, a 7 hour drive in a taxi (on a good day) over a span of two weeks. The best part about this is they will roll in to Cotonou (hopefully) the same day the new trainees swear-in AND Peace Corps Benin is celebrating its 40th anniversary in country. This is a great representation of the impact we’ve made on the communities here and the passing of the torch to the people who will actually make a difference in Benin - the Beninese!
Every village we arrived in, we broke the group down into 5 sections, old men, old women, young men, young women, and kids. I chose to be with the old women again this year. I loved them last year and really feel there is a lot to be communicated and exchanged with them. David was with the old men again. He loves talking with them on the topics of community responsibility and the honor that comes along with having a healthy village. Even though about a week before we did this, another volunteer James and I rode the route and tried to get the villages prepared, along with ordering food, things didn’t always start right away. What usually happened was, we’d roll in, people would see a huge sea of foreigners and start gathering. Then we’d have the public crier go out and beat his drum along with the message that everyone should go to the public meeting place. This worked great everywhere as it’s the accepted method of communication. Once we’d gotten enough people together we’d split up and talk for 40 minutes or so on the paths of transmission, how to prevent contraction, and what to do if someone does have AIDS. There was also time for questions and by far the largest piece of misinformation was that people could get AIDS from mosquito bites. Hopefully at least a few people believed us that that was just malaria and you should still in fact use a mosquito net!
PSI, (population services international) in Cotonou donated a huge packing container of condoms so we distributed those as well. Not sure how effective that is as at my school the professors took all the boxes and said they would give them out in a more orderly manner…though the general consensus was that the professors would just keep them for themselves. There is only so much control we can have and at least someone is being protected. A local water filter-er donated 4 huge bags of individual water sachets so we didn’t have to worry about boiling and filtering for 20 volunteers. This helped immensely as we didn’t have anything more than a chase moto this year because the fire fighters’ ambulance was in repair. The moto was driven by Saka and carried our spare parts and all the condoms.
Speculation for next year is that we’ll change the topic to malaria or awareness or nutrition…something along those lines.
Incidents were kept to a minimum. Last year, due to the terrain of the backroads, there were at least 13 flat tires. This time around, we stuck to the standard red dirt road and only had 2 or 3 flats but two major wipe-out pile-ups but they were only surface wounds and people picked themselves up nicely. In all we talked with around 2,500 men, women, and children. Two of the towns, Guinagourou and Péréré, we only talked to the CEGs (secondary schools). Once we’d wrangled the kids into quasi-groups, they calmed down enough to listen and participate. This was one of the cooler aspects of the ride. These kids are at the age of discovery and have the chance to be pro-active about their lives. We are also seeing the emergence of the women’s equality movement here and it was really encouraging to see teenage girls explain how to use a condom and say she would refuse a relationship with someone who refused to use one. Who can say the reality of those situations but at least the seed is planted. A really awesome project has stemmed out of the Peace Corps bike tour. The Corps des Volontaires Beninoise has decided to tackle a tour of their own. This August, they are planning on biking from Parakou to Cotonou, a 7 hour drive in a taxi (on a good day) over a span of two weeks. The best part about this is they will roll in to Cotonou (hopefully) the same day the new trainees swear-in AND Peace Corps Benin is celebrating its 40th anniversary in country. This is a great representation of the impact we’ve made on the communities here and the passing of the torch to the people who will actually make a difference in Benin - the Beninese!
posted by Rachael at 11:25 AM
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