International AIDS Day preparation

The week before last I spent loads to time reading documents I picked up in Almaty. The stuff that interested me most was the info about HIV/AIDS and the projected future trends. With International AIDS day coming up on the first of December I have begun to concentrate quite a lot of my efforts on this area and hopefully it will make a positive impact. Somehow I got manoeuvred into running a drug awareness seminar – not my strong point at the best of times and without an interpreter nigh on impossible. Anyway spoke to Jena who had a game with M and Ms where they are all in a bag and you go round the group and people can try the M and Ms but if they get a brown one they are dead. Something to highlight how you can never know the effects of drugs and you may take them and take them and then suddenly one duff batch will have nasty side effects. Anyway so we held this seminar and all went well and I though nothing of it. But over the following two days people have been asking me loads of questions and advise because it seems to have gone down quite a storm – the participatory and interactive approach to teaching. So apart from being very pleasing for me it has meant that when I went to talk about my ideas of International AIDS day they have been given the green light and I will (fingers crossed) get all the support I need which is a result. I feel I just had a ‘tipping point’ (mum sent me a book all about the tipping point which I am reading at the moment).



First day which was subzero has arrived and I am now bracing myself for winter. New coat working wonders but had to unzip it the other day because I was too hot. Wardrobe changing to the things that I have brought here – the coats, shoes, jeans and jumpers so starting to look more local as the days go by. No longer wearing gel in my hair – doesn’t work with hats however hard I try – so back to a side parting like a 12 year old. Ice on the inside of the windows in the morning which is crazy but not cold fortunately.



Would love to write more but need to get to the market and raid all the fruit that they have – selection really reduced and almost only imported stuff and prices rocketed but not much you can do about it. Trying lots of dried fruits and even found one that tastes a little like marmite.