Chaotic Success

This past week has been chaotic, frustrating, overwhelming but more than anything, it has been rewarding. My HIV testing raffle program began on Monday, and every day this week brought new challenges and surprise adventures. During an average week in Dangila right around 100 people get tested for HIV at the health center. When I first proposed this raffle system to my supervisor he predicted that with this incentive maybe 150 people would get tested during the week. And while I thought his prediction was low, I decided that I would be happy with any small increase in numbers to show that the project made a difference. Monday morning I was at the health center at 8:30am when it opened ready to usher the crowd to the testing rooms. When I arrived there were already people waiting to be tested and thus began my week of chaotic errands around town. It seemed like every moment was filled with one thing or another, but every time I would check back with the health center staff the number of people tested continued to put a childish grin on my face. The first day alone brought in 163 people to be tested! I prayed that it wasn’t a fluke, and that people continued to flood the health center. At the beginning of the week, I was continuing promotional activities with the anti-AIDS clubs, towards the middle of the week I started organizing the raffle drawing ceremony which was to take place on Friday afternoon, and throughout the whole week I was trying to arrange the health workers’ lunch. You see, each day there were two staff members working the HIV testing room: one lab technician and one counselor. They agreed to work through their hour lunch break for this week and we agreed to bring them lunch to the health center, which they would eat quickly when there was a gap between patients. I took it upon myself to arrange their lunch everyday, which turned into having friends help cook Ethiopian food at my house, meanwhile my propane tank ran out, adding to the chaos.

Last week I was able to visit the flag ceremony at the preparatory school (grades 11-12) for both the morning and afternoon shifts to announce the program, but I wasn’t able to work with the high school (grades 9-10) staff until Tuesday of this week. I met with the new teacher in charge of the anti-AIDS club and he agreed to announce about the program at the flag ceremony, but I knew that if I was to join him that the program would get a lot more attention. Therefore, Tuesday afternoon I showed up to the ceremony, which turned out semi-successful. You see, flag ceremony is all the students lined up in rows according to their homeroom class in a big field facing the flag; over 3,000 students in each grade! They sing the anthem, raise/lower the flag (morning session and afternoon session), and have daily announcements. Tuesday afternoon the loudspeaker used to allow the thousands of students standing in the field to hear us had already been locked up for the day. Some students were able to hear the announcement though and we hoped word would spread. The next morning at 7:30am I walked with Maritu, the helper girl on my compound, to the 9th-graders flag ceremony where we were going to announce it to the other half of the high school. As the students all line up and start gawking at my presence, my teacher-friend, who was going to help me announce, tells me that since it has been raining so heavy lately, after rainy season is suppose to be over, it is ruining the tef crop, so they are about to announce (after my program announcement) that there isn’t going to be school for a week so that the rural kids can help their families with harvesting. Ethiopian version of a snow day! I watched the students all dressed in teal uniforms pile out of the school compound, excited about their week of freedom, and I hoped some of them were heading to the health center. I waited a few hours and then stopped by to bring more raffle tickets and as I rounded the corner to the HIV testing room, the health center compound was overflowing with students! My supervisor was there taking names of people waiting, trying to organize the crowd, and I almost didn’t believe it when he told me he’d written down over 200 names before 10am.

Friday afternoon we planned to start to draw raffle tickets around 3:30pm, so we set up speakers and prepared for the crowd to gather. I would guess over 300 people showed up for the drawing ceremony, and we waited past 3:30pm so that everyone wanting to be tested could get a ticket. When all was said and done 825 people were tested during the five-day raffle program. It was a great drawing ceremony, with an energetic crowd and organized committee helping us record the 144 prize-winning numbers.

I stood up front helping with the drawing and kept finding myself in awe of the crowd of people around me. These people are my Ethiopian family; this place is my home. The prizes were donated, along with many hours of promotional efforts. Getting HIV tested at the health center is always free and although I had to deal with some unhappy workers, whose workload I increased eight-fold, it didn’t cost Dangila a dime. I did a lot of walking around and running errands, but this wasn’t me. It was my idea, but my town’s contributions made this idea come to fruition; My Dangila family members were helping themselves. And that made me so proud to call Dangila home.