Impressed

As soon as we opened the gate they began to dance toward us, a blaze of fabrics and colours, throwing flower petals in the air and singing "yi-yi-yi-yi!!" These are the UMATU women of Karatu, loosely translated as "hope and love women living with HIV." We spent the morning observing them in action, and then spent most of the afternoon together, in one of the most interesting and inspiring discussions I have ever been a part of. These women are brave. They have firm hand shakes and broad smiles, and are terrific at asking and answering pointed questions. We wanted to know about life with HIV here, how their husbands are responding etc, and they wanted to know about reasons for homosexuality in Canada. The exchange of ideas that followed included much nervous laughter and clearing of throats as we talked about stigma in our respective cultures, exactly how gays and lesbians achieve sexual pleasure, gay pride in Canada, the church's perspective, and more. The reason I loved the discussion so much is that it was not the typical dynamic of Africans entertaining the white tourists, it was real and gritty cultural exhange, with both sides giving and taking, shifting awkardly in our seats at times.

UMATU was started by two local women in 2005. Because of CPAR's market outreach in Karatu at that time, these women knew they had somewhere to go for information on how to live with their disease. Once armed with information, they began to teach other women, encouraging them to get tested and offering support for those testing positive. Now there are 60 members, some benefitting from small business loans, all taking ARV drugs, all full of life and doing well. Progress!

A word about the Cpar staff here - I am watching them as closely as I am the huts on the side of the road, the flitting birds, the slow-eyed donkeys... Not only is this my first time in Africa, it is my first time with an NGO and the staff have made quite an impression on me. They are so animated in the way that they speak and so focused on what they are working towards I feel a bit pale-spirited and aimless beside them. I do however, feel a bit better about being a tourist after reading a passage in the Graham Greene novel I brought with me from home. He said (and I paraphrase) there are two truths about a place. The first truth belongs to the person whose home is there. The second belongs to the traveller, for it is the traveller that notices what others who have been there too long fail to notice anymore.