Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Monday in Palmar

Monday in Palmar

The Nun, nurse, doctor and I drove the ambulance/van to the market and set up a tent to test people for AIDS. The nun and I chatted up passing people: guys on bikes, guys hauling chickens, married couples out to buy cilantro and potatoes and did our very best to encourage them to sign their name and climb into our ambulance/van and let the nurse take their blood. I felt a little bit like a cult member but rather than tracts about spaceships, I was trying to get people to find out if they were infected with a very real, devastating and fatal virus. AIDS is a really scary thing and people weren’t too eager to talk about it much less hop in our van and give us their blood. The nun was pretty amazing. She was really assertive and managed to get quite a few people to get tested, at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about her tactics but her motives were so obviously good that I think people got tested because they really respect her and her opinion. I on the other hand did my own thing, which was smiling a lot. This tactic works wonders with the men. In fact there was one guy who wasn’t going to get tested but he took the test and actually came back and bought me a yogurt afterwards. In all we got 20 something people to get tested that morning and maybe it’s not a lot but it felt good and I know the nun was happy and I was too.
The afternoon was four hours in the quail pen cleaning out months of quail poop and feathers, at one point I even rocked the machete ( it serves well as a tool to scrape off quail poop) and best of all I am pretty much over my fear of fowl. I still don’t really like holding birds of any kind and while I will most likely never own a chicken farm, I am okay with it.
Now after a long, cold and soapy shower I am so very aware that my life here is indeed a strange and amazing life. And I am very blessed to be able to encourage people to value their health and happy to clean up quail poop ( once in awhile anyway).