Road Trip, part one.

I just returned to Freetown yesterday from one week in the Northern Province. I started in Magburaka, where I helped a friend's local NGO hold a HIV/AIDS "peer animator" training workshop. I was mostly there for show - in Sierra Leone white faces are often seen to add gravitas to any development type effort - but led a few of the facilitations. It brought back many memories of leading various trainings throughout high school and college, and made me appreciate all over again the joys of sexual health education and the empowerment it gives people over their own bodies and personal lives. The condom distribution was a big hit; most of the 30 odd participants came into the district capital, Magburaka, from more rural towns and villages where condoms aren't readily available. One 'Pa' (the only older man in the workshop) took an entire box that he was happy to carry back to his community. All of the participants knew quite a bit about HIV/AIDS and other STIs, and had clearly been trained before, but still had gaps in their knowledge. It was heartening to see their active engagement and ready acceptance of the benefits and drawbacks of condom use. However, it was a somber reminder of the limits of education to realize that the tools (in this case condoms, but c.f. bednets, vaccines, early treatment of health problems, etc.) are not necessarily available in people's communities...