HIV and AIDS training

This week, because the road to the CoDeC office was still flooded, I volunteered my house as the venue for a 3 day HIV and AIDS training course for 14 CoDeC staff plus a further 5 participants. Organising the chairs, flipchart paper, snacks, drinking water, house cleaning, etc, and having people in my house from 7.00 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. was EXHAUSTING, and I was very glad to get my house back to myself at the end of the course.

A VSO volunteer facilitated the training for us, and highlights included a visit to the centre for Voluntary Confidential Counselling and Testing at the local hospital, where a number of the course participants took HIV tests. Thank goodness all were negative, but I was shocked at how anxious the women were before they got their results; they know and accept the fact that their husbands are unfaithful and irresponsible. We also met the local group of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLHAs) at a pagoda, and many of their stories were very upsetting.