Happy Halloween!

No signs of pumpkins or autumn left here, but I hope that you all are enjoying lots of treats and decorations!
Spent the weekend working on my Mid-Term paper for Global Public Health Communications class. The family’s computer finally got fixed on Friday so Saturday I didn’t have to spend all my money paying to use the computer at the internet cafe.:) Finished up and tried to catch up on my other neglected assignments yesterday.
I had a big struggle trying to buy train tickets to go to Ufa over next weekend because it’s a holiday. But after about 2 hours of waiting in line and 2 attempts I finally got a ticket. The only problem is that I have to leave on Wednesday night instead of Thursday. I really needed that extra day at work, but oh well! Nothing I could do about it. I can’t believe how fast time is going by here!
Worked on statistical analysis and conducted an interview with the director of the Family Services Center. She's great- well organized, sincere, and dynamic. She said that she may not last long in her position though. They are mad at her for not tweeking her statistics to show greater improvements!

snow

Today and yesterday we’ve finally got some nice pretty snow. It’s usually melted by the afternoon and then there is nothing but muddy puddles everywhere. I’ve decided that Russia’s best look is Winter. Even though it’s cold and windy, if I were recommending a time when tourists should come to Russia I would say December or March. It feels more Russian to me when it’s all white and stark. Plus it’s a lot less messy (once the ground freezes that is).
Yesterday we finished (finally) getting all of our questionnaires into excel, cleaned, and then over into SPSS. We did the first analysis and the results are pretty much what we expected. The brief explanation is that overall knowledge and awareness of HIV is pretty good for about 70% of the people that we surveyed. There were certain things that about half of the people were confused about- birth control pills protecting against HIV for example and whether washing after sex would reduce the risk of HIV.
Today we are meeting with the Youth Council all day. They have several programs, which they want to show us. But this is hopefully the last day of program evaluations.
We (Tracey and I) had a planning meeting with Yulia (our boss) yesterday. We feel like we have done enough program observation and evaluation and we really need to focus on finishing the projects that we have felt need to be done and that we are capable of helping with. The first is actually coding and entering more survey data (yeah!) - a longer survey that they have been doing with their clients at the Harm Reduction Center for over a year. As well as the tons of survey data that Yuri Vasilievich has been collecting in his sex-ed program with the tenth graders. They are just too busy with keeping their programs running to monitor and evaluate very often. I think that it’s really important: a) for requesting more funding/ showing successes and b). for knowing how to improve their programs and what behaviors to target. Second we have decided that we need to help them write a grant proposal for an IREX project that they can do here next summer. Probably a city Run for AIDS awareness or something. IREX grants are smallish, not long term enough to fund the expansion of a program, but enough to have a one day city activity. Third, we told Yulia about PSI’s volunteer HIV counselors program in Samara and she wants to start it here, so we are going there next week to look at the program and try to see if there is anything that we can do to help it get started here. We won’t have time to do much with it.
The other big thing that we realized they needed here is a small training exercise that the Family Services Center can use to reduce stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. We have felt like this was a serious need at the orphanage and other clinics where they will be working with HIV positive people like schools and clinics. The Family Services Center seems to be very well organized and uses the few other HIV programs that they have extremely effectively. We’re gathering ideas for the lesson plan off the net and I’m going to have Pasha translate them. There is a lot on this topic for an African context. We can tweek it a little for the Russian context though.

Why Russians don't use their swimming pool

It has nothing to do with the pool itself. It was great. Clean, lane lines, starting blocks, the works. There was just one small problem- getting in the door. Here is the story...
Finished work early, worked on my paper for a few hours decided I could fit in a quick hour of swimming... Walked to the sports complex. Then up to the cashier to pay for my hour. She explains that the next session starts in 20 minutes and I have just enough time to get ready. Hmmm... curious. She doesn't even make me pay, says that first I need to go to the coat room and give the lady my coat. Okay. Walk over to the Coat room and give the lady my coat. Then the coat lady says, "you need to put your boots in a plastic bag and put on your slippers". Great, what slippers? What plastic bag? Can I rent them? Can I buy them somewhere close by? She says I can get some at the shop across the street, Of course I have already checked in my coat with her. But I'm a little frustrated and little amused so I turn on my heel and walk out the front door.
Meanwhile 2 minutes down the road the cashier lady comes running after me, "Girl Girl, where are you going all naked like that?" I respond. She says, "Come back, it's cold. You can't walk around all naked like that". Okay.
So I trudge back behind her into the lobby again. The Cashier says, "it's clean here. You can take off your boots and walk in your socks. Uhuhh okay. SO I take off my boot and the Coat lady says, "no, not here over there on the bench. Here is dirty". Okay... Logically I know that whether I take them off here or there I am going to eventually have to walk through the dirt to give them to her. But I go sit on the bench. The cashier says, "Go sit and wait for the nurse to come check your permission slip."
Now, luckily the bit about "permission slip" was the one thing that my Russian friends had told me about ahead of time and I got one from a doctor that I work with. It says that I don't have any diseases that can be spread in the pool.
While I'm waiting for the nurse to come the lady who is called Administrator comes up to me with an extra pair of slipers. How thoughtful! I thank her, dump my swimming stuff out of its plastic bag and into my purse, and hand off my boots to the Coat lady. Finally the nurse comes, looks at my slip and writes it in her book. She then escorts me into the dressing room. By now I have caused such a stir that everyone knows how clueless I am about this process. The cashier lady has gone ahead and warned everyone down the line that I need special care....
So the nurse hands me off to the locker room attendant and she explains the procedure. "here is a locker. You put your stuff in it. I will watch out for it. Get undressed. Take your suit, cap, and towel into the shower room and wash with soap. Then put your suit and cap on and the nurse will come back around to check you." Okay...
I of course have no soap with me. I did have my make-up wipes. After I got undressed the locker room attendant escorted me to the shower area and asked where my soap was. I showed her my make-up wipe and explain that it has soap already in it. There was a pause... I let her smell it, and she nodded...phew. I took off my make-up, rinsed off, and then the nurse came in. She gave me the okay. Big surprise.
Then the locker room attendant came in to help me with the next step. Yup. Another obstacle on my way to the pool. I had to take off my slippers at the entry to the pool and walk through a little foot pool, leaving my slippers on the other side for when I got out.
At least now I know...

The Orphanage

Today we went to the city's orphanage for young children (under 7 years old). We organized an HIV/AIDS training for them. They have a baby whose mom was HIV+ and apparently there were some issues with the nurses and nannies being afraid to hold that child...
I was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the orphanage. They have a nice new building with cute little kid size bathrooms and nice bunk beds and cribs. They have a big "sports" room and a staff of 70 people for their 40 kids. The kids have classes with preschool teachers during the day.
About 30% or more of them are there because they are handicapped in some way and their families didn't want to take care of them. 40% of the kids are there because social services took them away from their family. (In that case, the Family Center is also working with the parents to try to get them healthier so they will be able to take care of their kids again). Another 25-30% are there because their parents just don't want them. They are usually healthy and will be adopted.
They have 6 mo. of medical "rehab" for all of the kids when they arrive. The Psychologist and doctor work with them to check and improve their mental and physical health. If they are handicapped then they will continue to be regularly watched over by the doctors.
Again, the science of looking at their programs vs. actually seeing the babies there are hard to formulate in my head. We saw one small class of the older children working with their teacher. Then we went to the nursery for the 12-18 mo. babies. There was one large crib in the center of the room with 5 or 6 babies crawling in it. There was one baby in a crib off to the side and there was one baby rolling around in a walker. Several of them had large red scabs or rashes on their heads and some were handicapped. But actually for the most part they appeared pretty healthy and happy. There were two nannies and a nurse on duty, which is great compared to a lot of the other orphange situations that I read about.
Then we went to see the smallest babies, under one year old. There were 4 of them in two big cribs and one having her bottle in the nanny's arms. Only one nanny was in the room with them. She said that 4 others of the babies are sick in the hospital.(That doesn't necessarily mean that it's something serious, just more convenient for them to receive care there).
The next room was a nice big classroom for the 8-10 kids between the ages of 18months and 5 years old. They were all coloring around a round table. They had only one teacher with them. It seemed to me that most of the 70 staff must include visiting instructors and med personnel since there were so few nannies and teachers.

The AIDS training we conducted there was the scariest yet. They were scared to death of getting infected. When we played the game of categorizing different activities into high, little, and no risk- they failed miserably. They were afraid of mosquitoes and tooth brushes. It was funny actually they thought that using someone's toothbrush and taking care of someone with HIV were more dangerous than oral sex!
We were not as prepared as we should have been for the level of fear and stigma that was there. Among students and other hospital personnel we hadn't encountered anything like it. Actually the worst part of the audience were those nurses and doctors present in the meeting. People kept deferring to them and they were more afraid and misinformed than anyone else.
My part of the lesson was a little comparison between their HIV situation here and ours in the US. I also talked on the history and overcoming of HIV discrimination/stigma in the US. Plus gave them some stats about the situation in Russia and Chapaevsk overall. I think that it went okay, but it would have been better if we had focused more on overcoming stigma... Tommorow we have a lesson in the orphanage for older children. We found a cool game about overcoming HIV stigma on the internet that we are planning to try for that group.

Family Health Center

I have just 5 minutes before the internet cafe people go on break.
This week the “expert” from Moscow was visiting. She did the same thing that visiting corporate experts usually do – brought a new program, which means a new system for keeping track of the needle exchanges, new rules for exchange points etc. What a huge pain! They were doing everything according to a certian format this year, which so happens to be the format that the expert brought them last year. Now of course there is a newer better format, and they have to rewrite everyhting from this year into that format!! My poor co-workers., As if they don’t have enough to worry about.
Starting yesterday we began working in the Center for Social and Family Affairs. Basically similar to social services plus several other programs. One of them is the sex ed. /family planning program for school kids (15-16). I need to write more details another time...

Monday- Okay so let's stick to chronological order- where I left off... Yes, the sex ed./family planning prog. for 10th graders. We sat in on the class on thursday. The Ob/gyn who teaches the medical part of the class does a great job. It was not a "lecture" as in the usual Russian format, but more like a discussion between students and doctor. He used several videos- two old cartoons about where babies actually come from and how our bodies develop. He then went on to discuss STIs and STDs and the dangers of them. Each student received a packet with the usual reproductive organ diagrams and brochures.
Then he went into a long discussion about contraception and abortions. This was great because this is one of the health issues that Russia seriously struggles with and this is the right group to target with that information. I think I mentioned that the most common form of contraception here is abortions. One abortion is harmful enough physically, hormonally, and psychologically. 4-5 is a problem that Dr. Yuri was very familiar with and warned them about. Better to use "modern" contraception. They asked some questions about the Rythm method and Withdrawal which I guess are also pretty common methods here. Then another film about teen pregnancy.

Day 2: with Dr. Yuri
Watched film about AIDS stigma, went over quiz on HIV/AIDS that he sent home with them the night before. Talked about the dual effectiveness of condoms- against pregnancy and STDs. He told some really funny stories about the ways that people misuse condoms. The funniest one was about this family that had their second baby and he needed to make a home visit to them. He was standing in the kitchen waiting to talk to them and he saw the clothes line with diapers hanging on it and also condoms!! :) They thought that they were saving money by reusing them!

Contrary to popular belief I did not disappear over the weekend. My friend Pasha was visiting me from Ufa and so I decided not to make him sit in the internet cafe with me. Natasha, my host sister who goes to college in Samara, and I had a lot of fun showing Pasha around the city. We walked along the river, visited the huge outdoor computer game/dvd market, made our own discotecka in Natasha's living room, and laughed so much my face was hurting.
Sunday I found my way to the branch in Samara and enjoyed the meetings thoroughly. I love hearing the sacrament blessing in Russian. I can't really explain why. Just some associations from my mission I guess. Plus now they have all of the hymns in Russian- the whole hymn book! They reserve 15 minutes at the end of sacrament meeting for learning them. That was fun.

Family Needle Exchange Point

Today I went to one of the needle exchange "outposts". I guess I was expecting to find a dirty apartment, smoky, with 3-4 fairly responsible drug addicts manning the exchange. That was all true except for the fact that one of them was 8 mo. pregnant and had a cute little 3 year old daughter as well. I was not prepared to find that it was a "family" affair. I tried to focus on the research questions that the visiting "expert" from Moscow was asking, but I could not discipline myself to take my eyes away from the little girl's big blue ones. I had to fight back tears several times. There is a time for research and reality, but then there must also be humanity. I spent most of my time making faces and playing peek-a-boo with the girl. Good thing that I was not the only one there. I think that I will go back again next week to that outpost and try to interview them then. I'll be more prepared... I'll bring some candy :)
Other than that stats, stats, and more stats. I am preparing an informed consent form that I can bring with me for more formal interviews. Pasha has translated almost all of informal ones that I did during my clinic tours. I need to hand in my mid term research paper by the end of the month. Ahh!!!

Soviet Army Re-enactment of some kind- Note the furry hat! 

Wearing the hat I bought for my little bro. Paul 

My Friends- Albina, Liliana, and I in Ufa 

Weekend

This weekend was my host mom, Lydia’s birthday. I bought her some flowers. Actually, Saturday morning I waited to see what kinds of things that her family gave her to make sure that I didn’t buy something that would out do them. They gave her a little cactus and a really ugly little statue. Needless to say, I had a hard time trying to figure out what I should get for her.
We went to the indoor reenok in Samara on Saturday to buy some new boots for my host mom. ( I was glad to see that the ugly statue and plant were not all that she was getting). I bought I warm colorful sweater (Shane, you were right- I am sick of black and white), a colorful scarf, and a nice red hat. :)
I found this great Russian antique store where I bought a bunch of stuff for my brother, some Russian army medals and a cool old furry soviet hat.
Today is the first day of the muddy season. It’s wet, but warm… So far so good. All the Russians keep telling us how lucky we are that it has stayed warm this long. I am really enjoying the weather. I keep anticipating the cold and am relieved every morning when I walk out the door.

Working with Youth

Yesterday we sat in on the city’s Youth Council Meeting, which included representatives from schools, school psychologists, and the town Youth Dept. They discussed the new plan for 2006-2008. In response to the problems facing kids in Chapaevsk- too much free time after school, few activities available, and bad economic circumstances, they are attempting to create a bunch of different clubs. Some will be focused on advocacy and health promotion- mostly against drugs, smoking, and HIV. The rest of the clubs are sports, culture, and leadership focused. I got the feeling that they had a few kids who are really involved and the rest, according to their stats around 500 kids, come occasionally. I admire their efforts. At least they are realistic about the situation facing them.
When they came around to asking me to speak I told them about the situation of youth in the US-that almost all such activities were organized through the school system. I told them about a typical day in high school and how focused we are on competitive sports. I’ve been talking with my colleagues at work about exercise and there is a serious felt need among people here for accessible organized sports and aerobics/dance classes etc. Otherwise the only people who use the sport center are people training to be professionals and a few local football teams.
I feel like I should do something to help them get a more accessible local athletic program organized, but I really don’t have any experience in that area other than swimming. They say that they have enough room in their facilities, just not enough “trainers”. I guess that they don’t make any money and are not willing to coach teams for free. If they could get some teams/ classes started/trained then they could eventually just have the most senior player or team captain be coach. Right? I may be going too far, beyond the root of the problem, into a whole other can of worms.
“REMONT”
Today was an exciting series of events. Typical of Russian life style is the way that they do “remont”—like remodeling only in the Russian case they mean adding another thick layer of paint over top of the 10 others coating the floor already and possibly some wall paper over the cement walls. Our boss Yulia and her colleagues at the Harm Reduction center were just finishing a remont yesterday. We were there as they hung the curtains, again this is typical. There were not enough plastic hooks left on the rod, but to put in more plastic hooks they would have had to go buy more and take the rod down. Instead, they decided to add in some improvised hooks made out of paperclips. I argued against, but not very loudly.
Then we had our lesson on how the needle exchange program works. Two of the clients came in with a plastic bag full of used needles and syringes. We watched as they loaded about 300 clean needles and syringes in to their plastic bags. I forgot to mention that we were wearing medical masks in case of Tuberculosis. Of course I wanted to know why they got to take so many. Apparently they are responsible for 15 other drug users who are squatting in the same place that they are. Most addicts here use the weaker narcotic version of heroin “Hanka”. It’s made from the left-overs of the process that makes heroin. They call them “dirty” drugs. They are a lot weaker and so the users need three or four shots of it to make a “dose” and then they need about 4 doses a day. Also because the drugs are so dirty their veins deteriorate really quickly.
We then had a long discussion about needle exchanges in the US and how they don’t sell syringes at the local pharmacy in the states. Russian like to get shots. The same medicines that we take for streppe throat orally they prefer to get intravenously. We explained how we (Americans in general) hate shots and that influences the drug use situation in the US too. Most people don’t try their first dose as an injection. They try marijuana and then work their way up. And the people who inject heroine are usually the poorest people. Anyone who can afford it prefers to sniff heroine, it’s a bit stronger but at least it’s not a shot.
Meanwhile as we’re having this discussion there is all these loud booms in the background. “Oh that’s just the explosives testing plant.” They said.  Then we try to leave at 3pm and the rest of the staff on the dermatology floor have already gone home and locked us in! It’s never a dull moment.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the jury of narcotics debate set up by high school students. It was in front of a full auditorium. I thought that they did a great job organizing it. And I think that if “social cognitive theory”- learning by the examples of others- works then they may have influenced a lot of their peers opinions and behaviors by taking a stand against drug use and informing their fellow classmates.

My host sisters and I in Samara at the drama theatre. 

Welcome back to Russia! This is the old Soviet Union Market called "����" 

My host mom and sister making pelmeni. 

These are some of my work colleagues at the picnic we had a week ago 

Fish anyone? 

Finally some pictures! This is the market- the indoor one obviously. Don't you love their outfits! 

Lesson Plan

Yesterday was another calm research day. We spent lot of time entering the data from our questionnaires. Then we taught another class at the pedagogical university. This one was mostly boys around age 17-18 all in the computer programming specialty. A tough crowd.

Our lesson plan is something like this:
1.Have them fill out questionnaires
2.Play game- identifying which of these (X activities all written on cards)will put you at risk for HIV/AIDS—Then discuss correct answers
3.Discuss 4 fluids by which you can spread HIV
4.Examine the situation in their town. Have them guess how many people here have HIV.
5.Tell the story of the nice girl who got HIV- - Talk about how important it is to protect yourself even in steady relationships.
6.Discuss Condom negotiation skills.

I’m not sure if it’s obvious to everyone else, but this is a lesson more from a woman’s perspective and is much easier to teach girls. The guys in our group yesterday were a little crazy to try to talk to, but well-informed and asked some good questions- like if you don’t have a condom which kind of sex is least likely to transmit HIV - oral, anal, or vaginal?

I would never have thought that this is the kind of thing that I of all people would be teaching, but it is critical that they know about HIV & condoms to protect themselves so that we can stop the spread of HIV from high risk IV drug using populations over into the general population. Just like in the US’s early years dealing with HIV it was considered a “homosexual” disease, here it’s considered to be just IV drug user’s problem. The scary thing is that so few people here use condoms or can afford them. If it is carried over into the general population it will spread almost as fast as in Africa among young people.

Ufa

Thursday is rather a blur... I got my backpack together before I went to work. Got on the train and was asleep in my sleeping bag liner within 20 minutes. I have got this night train riding down to a science. I was so nervous and excited to get there.

Quick note: For those new friends since my mission- I spent 18 months as a missionary for the LDS church. I volunteered in Ufa for 10 of those 18 months. So I have really close relationships with the people there.

Pasha met me at the train station and from then on it was a non stop stream of conversation and greetings for almost the whole weekend. Church on sunday was the best! Only a few people knew that I was coming and everyone else had basicly the same reaction- 2 seconds of stunned recognition and then hugging and crying and laughing. It was the sweetest sort of reunion. I thought that most people would have forgotten who I was. Everyone remembered me and was so happy to see me and wanted to invite me over for dinner. Without being cliche, I have to say that is what the CK will be like. It was really like going home to my "family". The emotions I felt being there again were so strong. Even the memories of places and associated events came back so vividly that I cried several times.
I felt that real joy of seeing people you love and have tried to help, happy and that they have continued to do well.
I met up with several of my old english students and we went to a cafe and "guliated" together. People gave me presents and flowers. I felt like a returning hero or something.
The only sad part was that I couldn't stay longer. I managed to have several good one on one chats with my friends, but of course I wished that I could have had more time. I will try to get back there for at least one more weekend before I leave Russia.

Questionnaires

Tonight I am leaving for Ufa!!!!!!! I will not be back until early monday morning.

Tuesday was a rather boring day since we were just preparing questionaires all day. Our boss read over it and asked us if we would mind expanding it from just focusing on women of reproductive ages to include a few other groups, for comparison purposes. We agreed and yesterday we spend 2 hours surveying all the young guys who came in for their required pre-army blood test. Russian men are all required to serve 2 years in the army. They got their blood drawn for an AIDS/STI testing right after filling out our survey. They have a lot of metals in their blood. It looks like it is much darker than ours. Maybe I am just over-damatizing though, because the only blood that I have seen drawn at home is my own. 32 guys filled out our questionaire that morning. We will probably shoot for 75-100 before the end of next week.
In the afternoon we had an office picnic. We went out to Lake Smthg and sat at some very rusty picnic tables. The men made a fire and roasted sausages, which we had with salads and bread. Pretty tasty. It was followed by watermelon and some toasts to our health and company. The site was actually really pretty aside from the garbage laying here and there. I also didn't particulary enjoying the many persistant wasps, mosquitoes, and 3 small black snakes that we saw. But we listened to music and told funny stories, compared swear words, and then it was about time to go home.
Mosquito report- The Tuesday night I decided that I would sleep better with the blanket over my head, but I couldn't get to sleep. I tried to think of something less hot to make my "bed net" out of. Came to the conclusion that my silk bathrobe was the best option. I draped it over my head. I could still hear the mosquitoes buzing angrily around, but was able to fall asleep. By the time I woke up in the morning of course I had pulled the silk bed net off my face and had 2 new mosquito bites there and several on my left ankle which also must have been sticking out. Last night I decided it was time to bring chemicals to battle against the mosquitoes. I told my host mom that I couldn't stand it any more. We went to local kiosk and bought something that looked remarkably similar to a glade plug-in. I asked her if it was safe for people and she said it was. By then I didn't care too much anyway. They were not buzzing around when I went to bed and I was able to fall asleep. But there are still a few in the room right now, so I am not sure what the plugin does, but at least I don't have to worry about it for the next few days.

First HIV/AIDS interviews

Today was the first day of our more specific work outline. We will be working at the women's hospital this week. There they have one of the cleanest facilities that we have seen so far. (I suggested that it was probably because it is run by women and for women :) We toured the birthing facilities. There were three birthing rooms, 2 of those were occupied by women already in labor. They were laying on beds waiting until they would be moved to the birthing table which was in the same room. The third birthing room is reserved for people who are "unknown". That is those who haven't had any appointments prior to their labor. A lot of them are drug addicts, many HIV positive.
The Doctors here don't really understand the difference between Masters in Public Health and a Doctor. So they led us into the rooms as if we knew exactly what goes on during labors ( I have read about it, seen it on tv, but watching the real thing was a lot different!) They don't have very many "one time use" equipment or biohazard containers. They just put everything in the Autoclave and then throw the "clean" needles etc. etc. in the regular garbage and the tools back on the shelf.
We then proceded down the hall to see the women with their babies. Thay have two in each room- pairs of mothers and babies that is. I at first thought that that was pretty cool that the new moms get to be close to their babies all the time they are recovering (3-5 days here). But my host mom explained that it can also be hard because the moms are trying to recover and take care of their babies. And one baby crying wakes up the other etc. Some people have private rooms, but those cost money. Otherwise births are totally free. I think that the government pays for them all because they are trying to increase the country's birth rate.
We went through the abortion rooms on a different floor. One was just being cleaned after a surgery. Abortions were the only kind of contraception used during Soviet times so many women here have had 4 or 5 abortions. They remain the most frequently used birth control method in Russia, 2 abortions for every live birth. People say that this is because of the cost of oral contraceptives and condoms. People can't afford them or at least not on a regular basis and abortions are free.
The most absorbing moment of my day was an interview with an HIV positive girl who just married her boyfiend and is 5 months pregnant. She was clearly a sweet well educated girl. Her boyfriend tried drugs a few times in High School before she met him. She got HIV from him and found out three years ago. I thought she must have found out when they did her required pregnancy HIV test. But actually HIV tests are "required" for almost every medical procedure here. We asked each other questions... To her we explained that she was misinformed about the chances of her baby being born with HIV. At the clinic in Samara where she goes to get her medecines they told her that her baby would have an 80% chance of getting HIV! It's actually more like the opposite. As I mentioned before so far all of the babies born in Chapaevsk to mothers who followed their ARV treatment regiments have all tested negative. THere is only about a 5-9% chance that her baby will be born with HIV. She was obviously really relieved to learn that her baby would probably be normal and healthy. She is taking the Russian generic medecine called "Timizite". It is thought to have more side effects than AZT, but apparently is a pretty close copy. It's not recognized, by the government either for copyright reasons so I don't really understand why they were using it at the clinics.
The awful sad part of the interview was the recognition that although pregnant women are given free ARV treatments once they give birth and get their final treatments they no longer qualify for free drugs and have to stop treatment. My understanding is that this is a sure fire way to create resistent strains of HIV. It also means that she will have a harder time pushing back the change over to full on AIDS. I wish that I was rich enough to have said that I would pay for her treatment... But I guess I have to be content with trying to influence policy and make sure that other girls are more careful than she.

The Weekend

Another exciting morning... Today I woke up early to type my homework on my host families newly de-virused computer. And instead of getting my assignment done I spent not less than 40 minutes trying to figure out how to get the keyboard to write with american letters. It's a miracle that I figured it out at all!
Now lets rewind. This weekend I went to Samara (the big city around here). My host family spent teh morning helping me find a decently priced cell phone that will work here. Electronics in Russia, I discovered, are about 2-3 times as expensive as at home in the states. I compared prises on several things. I was looking rather long and hard at the laptops wishing that I had brought mine so that I could bypass the whole set of my computer problems. I bought a simpler version of my voice recorder, the old cassette tape kind so that I can send the tapes by mail to Pasha to translate and transcribe then send back over email... This is dangerous because of certain responsibilities which I will be placing on the Russian postal system.
I also got an older version of the Nokia cell phone that I was using at home for about 50$. It seems to work pretty well. In Russia you don't sign a contract w/ verison or anything. You just buy a sim card with a certain number of minutes on it and if you go over they charge you higher fees on your credit card.
We spend the afternoon driving around and visiting the sites. We went to several parks and memorial statues as well as the administration buildings etc. Overall Samara has a substantial amount of new buildings, both businesses and apartments. It looks fairly good compared to Ufa. My host family told me that Ufa is a poor city and that things are cheaper there because the business don't have to pay government taxes or are subsidized... Speaking of which, I got my train tickets so that I can go back to visit some of my old friends this weekend. I am pretty excited to get back there to see familiar faces and sites from my mission.
Saturday night Katya and I stayed at natasha's and the parents went home. Russian's have their beds hidden in the funniest places. I was standing there wondering who was going to get the couch, or if the couch somehow pulled out into a big bed that we could all fit on or??? if I was going to sleep in one of the armchairs.... when Katya took the seat cushion off the armchair and pulled on this tab that was sticking out. She just kept pulling and out came a 6 foot long trundle type bed! Rather narrow, but very impressive. I then did the same to my armchair and Natasha took the couch. I really need to get some of those chairs! Anyone ever seen them in the states?
The other interesting thing about Natasha's one room apartment was that it was in a 160 year old building with the traditional high Russian ceilings and a community bathroom and kitchen that all of the other room owners shared. The bathroom was rather typical - dirty, no tp, a few tiles where your feet are suppose to go... But hanging on the wall were several wooden toilet seats... I am guessing that this is an important public health finding... So families with old people or children too small to squat over the toilet have their own toilet seats that they put on as needed and then take off when they are done and hang on the wall. What will they think of next!
Sunday morning we went out to go site seeing again. I knew that there was a church somewhere in Samara, but had no idea where... And could not look it up on the internet. I was hoping to run into some missionaries on Saturday and ask them, but I never saw any... We went to the city's museum for a few a few hours in the morning and then wandered around more park all of the rest of the day.... Had an ice cream break- which btw, that whole story "we used to be able to get ice cream for 10 cents" is still the reality in russia. Not the plain stuff either, chocolate coated with nuts!
On the bus ride back to Natasha’s house I spotted two guys wearing black suits and walking with an older couple. We passed them and it happened to be our stop, thank goodness because I wouldn’t have had time to explain otherwise! I got off the bus and told my host sisters that I saw some people I knew and was going to run in X direction and that they should catch up with me…. By then they were way down the road. I really think that running in boots on my mission is what gave me knee problems in the first place and here I go doing it again! I was totally wheezing by the time I caught up with them. But happily they were who I thought they were, and I found out the time & address of the church between my town and Samara as well as the elders’ number in case I need to get more information. I can’t explain how unreal it felt to be standing in Russia talking to missionaries and not being one myself. I still feel a little guilty in my day to day work here too… like I should be doing something else more important… I know it’s ridiculous, but I am just starting to relax.