I have no idea why, but the past couple times I´ve posted the blog site won´t let me creat titles. Aw well.....
A warning about the context of this blog entry. Seeing as several members of my family are avid readers of my blog, I feel it only fair to let you all know ahead of time this is an adult themed entry. But I feel it’s important not to sugar coat any of my experiences here for the weak stomached or sensitive readers. This is my life as a peace corps volunteer and it is crass and uncomfortable at times. These awkward and embarrassing stories are more than just crapping your pants at breakfast (that happened to one of my friends this morning!) or committing mortifying cultural blunders, but also includes afternoons like the one I had today. Plus, these experiences are what make my, and other volunteers adventure, so funny for people to read about back home.
I started sex ed. when I was in the 5th grade. Today, 13 years later, I had to sit through hopefully my last sex ed. class ever. And this was definitely the sex ed to end all sex ed classes. It took every mature bone in my body to sit through this presentation with out screaming and running out of the room. I managed to stay in the tiny, crowded garage for the entirety of the presentation, but not without squealing with disgust, averting my eyes and laughing uncomfortably for the majority of the 4 hour training session.
It all started like any other day. I was walking up the gigantic hill to get the community of Yanocoto, where my languages classes are in Danielle’s house this week. One of the guys who’s married was complaining during this trek. He figured he should be exempt from the responsible sexual behavior lecture we had scheduled for the afternoon, because he was married and didn’t need to be told the correct way to put a condom on. Well, this guy is only 24. We have two retired men in their 50’s and 60’s who have both been married. I said if those guys have to sit through this lecture, then the married folk have to stick it out too.
The first part of the class started with out country director Michael Hirsh (which means it’s a big deal if he’s giving the talk) addressing the dangers of dating a HCN, or host country national. Plainly stated, dating a Peruvian. He talked about all the problems that come from dating a local such as them just seeing us as a green card and meal ticket, to dating someone in you community and having it go so horribly wrong that you have to move out of your site. He told us about some anonymous volunteers in Peru who have had some problems in this area. One nameless person was dating a woman in his community and they broke up, but she announced shortly after that she was pregnant and claimed it was the PCV’s. Testing ended up proving that he was in fact not the father, but the whole drama of the situation is enough to make one’s reputation and work in a community suffer greatly. The moral of the country director’s presentation was, it’s not a bad thing to date a local, but be careful….and don’t get AIDS or pregnant. By the way, our Country Director is marrying a Peruvian woman next weekend. Congratulations Michael.
The doctors followed this lecture with their weekly health presentation. Today’s theme was STD’s . Most of us grew up in the Ryan White era where the prevalence of AIDS and STD’s were pounded into our brains. Condoms are good, check. STD’s are bad, check. What more is there to know? Most of us were feeling like we couldn’t be taught something we hadn’t already learned 5 times over. Wrong wrong wrong! Today, I learned what STD’s actually look like. We had a power point presentation full of pictures of how these bacteria’s and viruses personify themselves on our bodies. There where gasps, shrieks, “oh my gods” and a lot of hands covering eyes. It was gross and down right disturbing. I’m sure the Doctors enjoyed all of our grotesque reactions seeing as they are doctors and have to deal with this stuff on a daily basis. Where as the rest of us like to live our lives pretending that these things don’t actually exist. They warmed us up with the easy stuff first, the bacteria’s, the curable, not so revolting stuff. Stuff like Chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea. The stuff that can be cured with a shot or a pill. We were so shocked to see oozing penises and Chlamydia of the eye (yes it’s possible). But then it got worse when we went from the bacteria’s to the viruses. Dr Jorge even took a picture of our reaction when he first put up the pictures or herpes. I’m pretty sure next to AIDS, herpes would be the last thing I’d choose if I were being tortured to death and had to choose one STD to be infected with (by the way, I‘m glad I don’t have to write this in Spanish because that last sentence has like 3 different types of the subjunctive tenses and would be such a pain to conjugate). The only minor comfort came during the slides of genital and anal warts; that is, knowing that with in a few days I would be getting the HPV vaccine.
It was pretty uncomfortable to sit through all those pictures, especially since my stomach had been bothering me before hand anyway. I really did try to act mature through it all, but it was hard. It was relatively enjoyable though just for the reactions of everyone else. The guys had much bigger reactions than the girls, who mostly sat there quietly with either their eyes wide open or completely shut, and the occasional awkward question. I think I was happy with the honesty and bluntness of the presentation. The moral of the story is that STD’s suck and a lot of people have them. Dr Jorge told us that 2 hours before he gave the presentation one of the male PCV’s called him and told him he just found out he had contracted herpes. Sucks. They said that currently out in the field there are Peruvian PCV’s with every STD (minus the HIV).