HIV-AIDS Week in Chinendega

We just returned from HIV-AIDS week in Managua and Chinendega (a department near the Honduran border where there is a higher incidence of HIV). It was a good time but it was exhausting. We stayed in Managua the first night and had presentations from different NGOs that work with irradicating discrimination or working with youth on the topic of HIV. We talked about different ways to share this information with the community and how to present it to different age groups. That night we stayed in a training center and there were ants crawling all over us all night. Kory woke up with a puffy eyelid because of a mosquito bite. Kory reports it to be his worst night yet in nicaragua. The next day we rode the comfortable peace corps bus the 2 1/2 hours to hot Chinendega. We went to a couple towns and did some learning sessions and then we went to the ocean. We swam and swam! It was fabulous! Unfortunatley for you all, we were having too much fun to take any pictures. We slept in a hotel that night after having pizza for dinner.. dang. it doesnt get any better than that! The next day our group gave charlas on HIV at a health center, schools (7th and 8th grades) and at a nicaraguan navel base to a bunch of marines! Now that was funny! We have this icebreaker where you write down words like penis, or vagina and get them to write all the slang words for it that they know. We do this becuase they are so embarrased to talk about stuff like this and we have to get them to if we are going to have any real discussion about HIV. Anyway, they were still embarrased. But they loosened up a bit by the end when they were all puting condomes on plantains!