Wow what a crazy couple of weeks...i don't really know where to begin! We've been teaching like crazy and have also picked up an extra school to teach which is actually next to our village but not officially part of it. We have also started teaching the village football team (thanks to the boys amazing footie skills) along with the schools and farms we had already arranged to teach *phew* This Thursday was our first village-wide testing day...which was an amazing success. We managed to test exactly 199 people! (the ave. for a testing day is around50!) however, it was a day of mixed emotions...it was unbelievable to see people so happy to find they we're HIV negative (198 people were!)..we barely know the effect this can have on people's lives...but it was also incredibly sad to discover the one person who tested positive was a young school girl we had been teaching. Working at the preventative end of HIV often we forget just how life changing and important what we're teaching actually is.

We've also begun to plan for our community day which is on the 13th September...we're aiming for this to be a HUGE event, where people come from villages all around to be tested, learn about HIV and generally have some fun! We're gona have the children we've been teaching perform some drama/raps/songs about HIV. We have also arranged for our HIV positive mother to be the guest speaker at this day :D her insight into living with hiv is invaluable and she has great views on why for her letting everyone know she is HIV positive is the best thing for her life...we try so hard to teach about stigma and how to fight it here in this community - she's out there leading the way already!

Other interesting news (perhaps);

-I have been a bit sick with bacterial infections but am making a fast recovery :)
-Next week we have a long weekend off in which we are going to raft the class4 rapids of the Nile (you may actually hear me screaming in England)

-one of my sisters is waiting to get a HIV test before she will marry her partner so hopefully we can give her that opportunity and make them very happy!
-a fellow volunteer had a painful toe so we took him to the doctor and the doc cut open his toe to find worms inside!
-i have finally mastered showering with the cockroaches so no longer have to kill gods creatures everyday!

Hope all is well in England...will try to reach a computer again soon,

Badaaye...lucy xxx