Two Weeks Conducting HIV Education in the Agoro IDP Camp

Africa is so beautiful. I was absolutely amazed every day I was in Agoro. The Agoro IDP camp lies at the foothills of the mountains of Sudan. The view was astounding. When it wasn't raining, the sky was deep blue with white clouds. The sunrises and sunsets were incredible. If this location was in the USA, it would be filled with condos and million dollar homes. However, it was filled with mud huts and extremely impoverished people.


Here is a sunset. This picture is good, but it still doesn't capture how beautiful it was.



This was our HIV/AIDS education team (minus me). Logan, the program director is on the left. Drew, a Canadian intern who is applying to medical school is next. Then there is Alex our amazing translator who worked non-stop for 14 days, and on the far side is Doris. She is the woman who didn't want to stay in a dirt hut and it turns out that after a couple days Logan had to fire her because she didn't want to help.

We conducted so many activities I don't know if I can do them justice here. Every day Alex and I would spend the morning playing a cassette tape of testimonies of people living with HIV (in Luo, the local language), giving a small lecture about HIV/AIDS and then answering people's questions. Around lunch, Drew, Logan and Alex would go to police and military bases and teach about HIV and give out condoms. In the afternoon we would show videos about HIV/AIDS or keeping girls in school. We would get 600+ people for each video showing. After the video showing would would play sports with the youth and then teach about HIV/AIDS in the halftime break. At night we would go out and teach people who were drinking about HIV and how to use condoms. We did other activities as well, but you get the idea.


I really like this picture. This girl is probably only 6 or 7, but she is carrying her little brother or sister on her back while she goes to help her parents work. The little shell/gourd thing is to protect the baby from the sun and the rain.



This is one the traditional musical instrument that they youth played in church and that the choir sings with at funerals. It sounds very interesting.