Real Stories from the field – I spent my time away from the village with other sport volunteers within my host organization SCORE , and then sport volunteers from around the world – we’ve all got our funny, odd, real stories – heres a few.
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South African volunteer living in a rural community in the north west province – host Mother was nice and friendly, except for her fanatic religious beliefs. Apparently there was some electrical problem, and he was being shocked 5 times a day – but host mom said it was only “spirit coming within you” – when there was no food in the house, people taking furniture away from the house for payment, and the only response being that “god will find food for us” –the volunteer was asked to write a letter pleading to a Nigerian priest (no relation to host mom) for 50,000$. I’ll be seeing this guy next month, I wonder if the Nigerian priest came through.
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Canadian volunteer in Namibia had no water for two weeks, but fortunately had 9 small local children that follow him around all day and night, and call him daddy. He also lives with one of the last semi nomatic people in the world - The Himba, wikipedia anyone?
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Norweigan volunteer in South Africa, some children in her area apparently had never seen a white person before…and started throwing rocks at her.
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Norweigans are smart ones – one sport volunteer thought she’d tan for a short time in Zambian sun, ended up with 2nd degree burns and blisters over her entire body. This same volunteer was smuggled out of the country before she was supposed to go to jail for not figuring out her visa in time.
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Radio remains popular in Zambia, and one lucky volunteer has her own radio show promoting sport and spinning her tunes to the locals
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Another lucky volunteer is on their way to buying their own horse for transport – the community doesn’t have electricity, but does have soul
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At the HIV/AIDS training in Namibia – there were the Canadians, and sport volunteers living in their own community. Coming from outside, HIV in Canada is a grain of rice compared to what lies in Africa. The Canadian volunteers including myself have had few if any personal relation to the disease, but an outstanding optimism -> “We’re gonna cure AIDS! Yah volunteering WOO! GO Canada eh!!”. The sport volunteers coming from carribean, and around southern Africa had a real reason to want the training – most if not all had very close relationships, husbands, mothers, brothers, cousins, siblings lost because of AIDS.
On that note – i’ll share with you some facts that surprised me about HIV/AIDS
- Women have a 1 in 1000 chance of receiving HIV during one unprotected sexual act with an infected man
- Men have a 1 in 4000 chance of receiving HIV during one unprotected sexual act with an infected woman (previously I thought it was more like 70-80% chance, maybe you did too? There’s a reason the media doesn’t spout this fact)
- I may have the exact figure wrong – but in eastern and southern Africa, of those infected with HIV –an estimated 76% are women.
- A well known and reputable scientist states a theory that HIV isn’t a recent trend at all, but has been around for most of modern human existence.
- During the World Aids Conferences in Toronto, each country showed off what they were doing in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. South Africa, with one of the highest prevalence in the world, had its Health Minister show off its goodies. She put together a big table of beetroots and garlic, what some south African traditional healers use to fight HIV. Great.
