The title says it all. I'm sad we're leaving Rajasthan! With the nice showers, great mattresses, AC computer lab, and yummy food (not to mention some kind of non-veg EVERY NIGHT), it's going to be very hard re-acquainting ourselves with Bapu Nature Cure Hospital and Yogashram (see week 1 posts for details). Yes, Bapu has its charm, with its mice, lizards and gigantic cockroaches (we saw flying roaches here too, to be fair). But there's no protein connection, and the computers at the nearest internet cafes (non-AC, fly-infested according to Sej) are twenty years back in comparison.
Anyway, today we compiled a presentation for Dr. Goyal in our hours-long goodbye session. First, we showed him what we did every day this week (all the public health stuff I've blogged about recently). Then, each of us had picked a country to research its HIV/AIDS situation. Most of us picked the countries we live in, our the countries our parents came from. Sophia, Sej and I are all Indians living in the US, so the two of them picked India, and I chose Cuba (I love Spanish-speaking countries, and Cuba's HIV/AIDS history is intriguing). Other countries included Russia, Korea, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. I don't know if Dr. Goyal appreciated our work, but it was interesting to do the research because it seems that now, we know more about the situation in India than in any other country (including our own!). So it was informative.
Cuba's history is interesting. There is a very low prevalence of HIV there...about 0.06% compared to 1.6% for the Caribbean in general. Why is it so much lower in Cuba? Cubans are known for their sexual promiscuity and high MSM population (70% of women were infected by bisexual men!). It's lower in Cuba in part because of its isolation during the Cold War. At that time, sexual tourism in countries like Guyana and Haiti was taking off, exposing those nations to the infection. Cuba did not experience that. Also, the country was extremely quick to respond. In 1986, the government mandated that all blood donors be screened. In 1987, that mandate spread to the entire population. This was years before other countries would follow suit, partly because Cuba was more efficiently able to mobilize its people. It then started the sanitoriums where positive people were ripped from their families and quarantined for years. Forced quarantining ended in 1999, but many people chose to stay at the sanitoriums. Too many years had passed, and too much had changed. They had created a new family.
Another country that was interesting to me was Canada. Jazmin did a great job with her presentation, and her analysis of social norms related to HIV among Canadians was excellent. She found a survey that showed that 25% of Canadians would feel uncomfortable sharing a workplace with a positive person. 25% would also feel uncomfortable if a positive child went to school with their own child. Job discrimination is such a huge issue when it comes to PLWHA. When educated people act this way, what can we expect from the uneducated? I realized relatively early in life that one of the biggest chasms for humans to face (and hopefully, cross) is that between theory and practice. In theory, we all know how HIV is spread, how to protect ourselves, and how to be just. But in practice, we let fear and bias rule. More on this tomorrow...this is an issue that must be tackled.
After our presentations, we wanted to watch a Hindi movie (more of that cultural immersion!) but it was sold out...apparently you can't just decide to go to a movie a couple hours before the showing here in India. There are just too many people! It rained and rained today, so we didn't want to go to another open market like Bapu Bazaar. So we ended up going shopping at an indoor mall, where we did some more bargaining and I walked away with more of those beautiful purses to give away as gifts.
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