About my project - I fell in love with it!

Dear all,

I am working on TCE (Total Control of Epidemic) in Maputo, and I am very glad and thankfull to be here!

My first month was a mix of feelings, discoveries and some not good reactions of my body; especially because of the food (I went 2 times to the clinic because of that, with a stomach ache, vomit, etc). I think it`s because I was not used to some of the spices, ingredients or food; and even the way they prepare the food (in some cases) is not that clean. Hygiene is a serious problem here. In Mozambique they don`t have a good system for collecting and treating trash. There are only 3 trucks for the whole Maputo and suburbs near by.

About my project, I just fell in love with it! And now I am doing very fine here! But in the start, I worried about how I could be useful to the people here. Now I know! In the first month I visited my area of action (10 communities), to identify the problems and the difficulties for the field officers, and then make a plan to try how to support them and the community. The results of this investigation was that I created a recycling workshop called "ReciclArte" a mix of recycling and art.

My intention was to reuse trash, stimulate the creativity of those involved, environment of socialization. The second idea was that I created a womens club called "Clube das Mámás". Here, the women of the community can discuss and think together about many subjects of the female world, like: family, beauty, culture, and even more polemic topics like domestic violence against women (it happens a lot!).

For TCE, it was a chance for the field officer to get closer to the people, not just by working with them, but socializing and interacting and then, win their trust to talk and learn easier about HIV/AIDS.

One other result, and for me the "most dangerous" one. I noticed that the field officers were not prepared to answer simple questions about their work, such as: What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?" or "What does AIDS mean?". I knew it when I made a test for them, and the result was a disaster; they are 50 in total, I made 5 questions and none of them got the score 5. Just one person got 4 and most of them got between 0 and 2. I was very worried about the result, because the mission of the field officer is to transmit the correct information to the population, and how could they do that when they didn't know the correct answers!

What I tried to do was to figure out a way for them to get the primary information, and then work hard to learn the other ones. One method is: Class, test and correction. Every Friday (when we have a troop meeting) I gave (and still do) them a class with various subjects of their work in the fields; and in the next week I give a test about the class; and the other week we correct together and I answer their questions. I can tell you that is working good till now!

It has been an amazing and unforgettable experience for me to be in Africa. I am learning day by day to respect the people more and more, no matter who they are. Black, white or yellow; big or small; Muslim, Catholic or Protestant; everybody are human beings!

We love, we cry, we suffer, we bleed, we laugh... We are equal! But most of us don`t it see that way. And that`s why our world is as it is. Now, I `ll carry the responsibility to discover the truth and, maybe some people don`t understand, i`ll not give up to spread this all. And now I know that my mission to make a better world has just started. I`d like to say thank you very much for those who helped me to be here!

God bless you all,

Narah Teixeira

Development Intructor