Work

So, what exactly am I doing here? Good question because I'm still figuring out the answer.

Here's what my job is:

I work at a health center (like a mini hospital) in my neighborhood. There are a group of women there, known as activistas, who are almost all HIV positive. They give polestras (which means like lecture). They give 2 polestras during the morning at 7 and 9 about anything from HIV transmission, malaria, or diarreia. There's lots of different topics. I'm supposed to "strengthen" these polestras by maybe creating new ones and/or making the ones they already have better.

There is a mom/child HIV support group that talks about nutrition. I'm supposed to dabble in that somehow.

The activistas make home visits to people in the community and I'm supposed to go with them on those.

During my 1st month I've been just sitting in with the aconselheira, a woman who gives "psychosocial support" to patients. So basically I've just been listening to patients talk about their treatment and how they are preventing from spreading HIV. BUT, this week I finally got to go with an activista into the community on home visits, which, by the way, I can't wait to share that experience with my social work professors/former internship supervisor during college. And, I've been spending more time with the activistas, and on Monday, they want me to give one. We'll see how that goes. So this seems really broad but that can be a good thing because that means there's alot of room for me to do my own thing. And, all the polestras are given in Chengana. So I'm learning that, too. There's also an orphanage in my neighborhood that I'm getting involved in but I'm waiting to get approval to go work there. We'll see where that goes.

I think I'm gonna like it here.