Reality

   Work.
    There are over 20 activistas and not all of them have phones and not all speak Portuguese.  Four different activistas work each day; 2 in the hospital and 2 in the community to make home visits.  Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I go into the community with the 2 to make home visits. Wednesdays and Fridays I stay in the health center.
   Home visits. Everything is spoken in Xengana.  These are domestic visits to monitor treatment adherence for patients. Visits are also used as an opportunity to invite people to go to the hospital to take an HIV test. My last home visit I invited a girl who had a baby to take a test. She said she never had. I asked her why and she said she didn't know. We told her it was important because if she was positive she'd need to start treatment to not infect her baby. The next day I was in one of the nurse's offices and she came in and got a test done. We sat together waiting for her result, which was negative. That was a relief.
   There are two palestras (educational lectures) given in the mornings. One at 7 a.m. and one at 9 a.m. to the pregnant mothers in the maternity ward area.  They are given in Xengana. I still am not totally sure about everything that's being said. So how can I really improve them?
   We have a monthly support group called Cha Positivo. It's the last Thursday of every month. Anybody can attend. We talk about a different topic each month. The activistas aren't really fully trained on facilitating this group. In January and February, my counterpart (coworker w/ ICAP) who is the aconselheira (like a counselor) facilitated the group and spoke generally about HIV/AIDS. It's also all spoken in Xengana. But, my counterpart will translate a summary of what's going at some point during the group.  One thing I'm excited about is I'm able to choose some of the topics we discuss.
   ICAP also provides funding to start another support group for HIV positive mothers/pregnant women and their children.  This is supposed to be Wednesdays and Fridays. We're still waiting to actually form a group, so during our home visits we invite people to come to Cha Positivo and to this support group, which is still "under construction".
  I see great potential working here in these different areas. One difficulty I've noticed is communication with the activistas. It's hard to get a hold of them or know whose going to work the next day.  So, last week I told them we were going to start meeting every Friday afternoon to touch bases with what's going on with our progress in work.  My first meeting with them was a success.  I made a contact list with all their names, their phone numbers or number of a neighbor, and which neighborhood they live in.  I'm still lacking a few, but I'll eventually run into them. I also used that time to explain to them that I still don't really know exactly what's being said in the palestras, and how can I help them with them if I don't understand them? I brought a notebook and I told them they were going to help me write down each palestra...an outline, really. In Portuguese. We were able to translate two out of seven before they got tired and we called it a day.
   So, work here is improving and getting better. Slowly, but surely. Small, positive changes in anyway are significant and important.