Massive VCT event in Kawale

Man oh man, this is definitely one of those times when I wished that I had updated this guy a couple of weeks ago. So many amazing things have happened since the last time I wrote an entry and I definitely have no idea where to begin. I’ve been thinking about the best way to attack all of the events that have unfolded recently and I’ve decided to do my best to write about each interesting episode in several installments over the next week or so.

I think the first thing that I want to discuss is the half-day VCT event that we hosted this past Saturday (March 20^th) in the Kawale district of Lilongwe. The event itself was absolutely positively the most successful testing tournament that Rachel and I organized since we arrived in Lilongwe. We spent a lot of time planning this event, almost double the amount of time we spent planning all of the other VCT events combined because for some crazy reason we decided to invite four different secondary schools instead of one or two. Our thinking was that if we invited four separate schools, we would sensitize four completely different areas to the joys of a VCT event. We also figured that if we invited four different schools, we would have community members from four different districts in attendance. In the end, this wacky thinking proved to be pretty accurate because in the end we managed to test 483 people in less than 5 hours! Our previous high for a half-day VCT event was 330 people so we were really happy with the final results. The most striking thing about this event was that we managed to test 483 people while still managing to stick to our strict budget of around 300 dollars.

Testing 483 people while only spending 300 bucks is insane and almost completely unheard of in the world of HIV testing in this area. To put things into perspective for you I’ll compare our event to the massive testing event that GRS co-hosted with a couple of months ago. At this event 615 people were tested, which was a record for testing turnout in the history of HIV testing in Malawi, but at the same time this incredibly high budget came with a price tag of over 800 dollars. In addition, the huge turnout was almost definitely a result of the big celebrities in attendance, celebrities like Mafunyeta who is undoubtedly one of the biggest musicians in Southern Africa right now. At our event, we spent 500 bucks less, didn’t have any major celebrities, and did it in 5 hours instead of 10. Pretty mind blowing when you think about it.

Normally I include VCT related posts with the best thing that happened during the day and the worst thing as well. This time I’m going to finish with a story that almost fits into both categories:

At the beginning of the day I met this kid that I had worked with at our previous VCT event in Kawale. When I saw him I talked to him for a little while, asked him how things were going, and then asked him if he was going to test. He kept saying that he didn’t want to test because he was scared. This is a pretty standard response to the question of testing so I didn’t let it stop me and kept persisting and told him that he should test because I’m sure everything would turn out well. After a couple of hours of seeing him around and constantly asking him, he finally got tested. Minutes after he got tested, and before he had gotten his result, he came running up to me saying that he had gotten tested and that everything was ok. He was so excited and pumped that he started telling everyone. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes later I learned from one of our counselors that he had actually tested positive but that they hadn’t told him yet because they couldn’t find him. As soon as I heard the news this huge wave of sadness came over me. I felt like the whole situation was my fault and couldn’t help but feel responsible for all the sadness that he would feel when he learned his positive result. The whole situation rocked my world and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all night.

After thinking about it for so long and talking to a couple of people I realized that it was actually a good thing because now he knew his status and could get treatment and ultimately have a much better shot at living a long, healthy life. Needless to say the whole event made the HIV/AIDS issue even more real for me but I think my final conclusion is that we did a good thing by helping him learn his status. The bottom line is that he has HIV/AIDS, and that he needs to do something to address the virus if he wants to be happier in the long run.

All right, that’s enough from me for today. I’m going to write something about Teen Club in my next entry in a couple of days so stay tuned! Hope everyone is healthy and happy.