T-Shirts for Sale

Considering all of the hub-bub that the t-shirt created, my friend advised me to make use of the cafepress website so everyone who didn't get one, but was wishing I would bring them one, can purchase one.
Here is the web address for the t-shirt shop. I have not added any profit for myself, so you will be getting it at cost from the shop. And they will ship it directly to you.

http://www.cafepress.com/swimfast9726

Race Day

I am mostly going to post pictures of the events... Everything went extremely well all things considered. I awoke to a grey rainy morning first of all- thus we had to change the entire arrangement of the stage set-up. The speakers and sound system had to be under cover instead of where we planned to put them. The banner and balloon hanging people also had to improvise their set-ups within the entry way area of the Cultural House so that they could be under cover. Registration for the race,(recieving their numbers etc.)and race set-up was taken care of by the experienced sports committee and came together very well. Russians are experienced at improvising.
Second thing was that the announcer lady was losing her voice. She still did her part, but it was rough at first.
A lot of good things happened. The turn out was pretty good inspite of the rain. It was mostly youth though so it was VERY lucky that we picked the more young band/local singing group to entertain. Almost everyone stayed around for the whole activity.
The t-shirts became all the more of a hit since the mayor had banned them. Everyone who ran in the race got one (no elementary school kids)at the end of the awards ceremony, as well as all the volunteers. The adults who helped organise the activity were just as excited as the kids to get a shirt. Everyone wanted to see and especially wear "the shirt that the mayor wouldn't allow"... It was quite a hit! Tons of people put theirs on right away and I saw people wearing them in the street throughout the afternoon and evening.
Russians have this saying: "the forbidden fruit is the sweetest" and it definately held true on the race day.

Friday's activities

Things have been going pretty well… The representative from IREX came yesterday to see how our project is going. She just finished her masters last year and began working for IREX in Moscow. She’s pretty down to earth. She just needs to show IREX how we did.
The youth volunteers painted all the banners yesterday- 10 of them to hang along the street. But it’s looking a little cold & rainy this morning. I am afraid that the attendance for the event is going to be low… Maybe the sun will come out soon.
I am having a harder time than usual adjusting to the rhythm here. I keep waking up really early in the morning. I think I am just stressed about the race. It’ll be great when it’s over and I can take a break.
I still am not “registered” in the city yet. We missed doing it right when I got here and then things have just been so busy… I hope that it doesn’t make it harder for me to leave the country. In Russia everyone has to register with the city within a few days so that they can keep track of where you live.
We celebrated Yulia’s birthday yesterday. All of the co-workers from the Medical Association dressed up as gypsies and came to sing to her. I will include some pics here. It was great! I love the way Russian folk music sounds… Then they all drank wine, liquer, and cognac,,, no vodka? So people were all pretty happy-go-lucky at the office all day.

Nice Weather at least

So much happened today that I should write about. First of all, they had a meeting with the city council a few days ago. The t-shirt was well received etc. But then someone got the mayor all alarmed about the stir that it would cause and that young children would see a cartoon condom picture… etc etc. Basically the same old way of thinking “if you don’t tell them anything about sex then they won’t have it”.
That didn’t work during communist times, it certainly doesn’t work now that sex is advertised on every corner. The whole point of the campaign is to have a little bit of shock value, but to give parents a chance to talk to kids about AIDS, condoms, and sex in the context of their own family values. Russian schools don’t have any kind of a sex-ed program... so the only way kids hear about it is on the street, from their friends, and on tv… Just as most of the research showed in the US, most parents think that they have talked to their kids about sex and that the kids know their feelings on it. But then when they survey the kids, only about half as many kids really did know/remember their parents’ opinions on the subject. Also my previous research showed that kids who knew their parents felt strongly about sex, drugs, etc, are substantially less likely to act against their values.
Anyway, so the mayor didn’t want us to use the t-shirts at all. I had a long talk with my colleagues about it and I felt strongly that we needed to have an AIDS training with the mayor. Everyone else in the council agreed that the t-shirts were needed as part of our prevention efforts… So they arranged another meeting with the mayor, but our team still couldn’t convince him to let the runners wear the shirts. BUT he agreed to let us give them to participants, 18 and older, at the end of the event,(who of course will never wear them on the street where kids would see them). At least that is something. I wore my t-shirt all day today and got a bunch of interested looks from people. I can only hope that other people will actually wear theirs too and be able to explain what they learned about HIV/AIDS transmission from our event.
Very sad for me after so much work. I feel like I got the rug pulled out from under me. I thought that we had city approval.
The other thing that happened was that Yulia and I had a heart to heart talk about her family situation yesterday and… I felt like my life situations seem so much easier than I thought. She has a son who is 3 and her husband is an alcoholic, but hasn’t come to terms with it yet. This is already her second marriage. She kinda rebounded quickly into her current husband’s arms and now wishes that she would have given herself more time to recover. Plus tomorrow is her birthday and she has more than a full time job. She has so many struggles that it makes mine seem puny… She had a little breakdown after work and was just sobbing… It’s really hard to comfort people in a foreign language. I did the best I could… Then I helped her do her shopping and dye her hair for tomorrow. That part was pretty fun of course.
Other typical Russian events have also happened recently… When I arrived their office was flooded. Things had leaked down from the 5th floor over the holiday. Today they had that all cleaned up and the power went out in the building right as we were printing the materials for the volunteer training meeting. So I had to unplug the copier and take it over to another building to print the materials from what we already had done... All that stuff with the city council taking back their approval was going on during this time too. It was nuts.
The pics are of Dennis digging in the window boxes and the training meeting we had with the youth volunteers.

Chapaevsk

I know that I said I would try to write more often this trip. It’s just been a lot busier than I thought it’d be. I have had to get up to speed on this event, what’s already been done etc. Plus, this past weekend was a holiday so everything shut down and I couldn’t get much done.
I have had tons of funny adventures though already… Others not so funny. I had a little trouble with my luggage in Moscow… I got totally scammed by some police and a luggage carrier boy. In the end all I cared about was making sure that I got on the train in time with all my t-shirts…and it worked out. I just had to pay them off ($50). (The picture is of me and some nice police here in Chapaevsk, not the Moscow transport ones).
I am staying with my project manager, Yulia’s, relatives. They’re sweet and love to spoil me with food, like all Russians… I brought some brownie and cookie mixes with me.  I gave some to my old host family and some to my new hosts… Both had problems… My old host family put twice as much butter into the chocolate chip cookies as you’re supposed to…That was partly my fault for not explaining well how big a “stick” of butter is. Then my current hostess tried to make brownie mix and over cooked it so that it burnt… I’m pretty sure that she thought that it wasn’t done because it looked so moist… Or maybe the oven was too hot. Anyway, it’s been fun so far.

These pictures are mostly from the holiday weekend. I spent a lot of time on the town square, where our event is also starting and finishing. Yulia has a 3 year old, Dennis (like “the menace” ), who is a wild ball of energy and I’ll probably post pics of him since he’s very photogenic. I’ll also post some of the festivities and the new foods that I tried this trip. I know everyone likes pictures better.

Moscow AGAIN

Here I am back in Moscow. My train is leaving in a couple of hours. I wandered around for a couple already. It's great to be back. I love this country. I always forget how much until I'm here. Russians are so sweet and helpful (Especially if you are about to pay them a bunch of money). My taxi driver today from the airport was so impressed with my russian speaking skills. He totally went out of his way to make sure that I got to the right place in the vokzal *train station*, got my bags in a "safe" security locker, and got the train ticket that I needed. Lovely people.
I just went to the grocery store and bought my self some lunch, dinner, and breakfast for this afternoon and the train ride. Sometimes they give you food, but I dont want to risk being hungry. I also bought a big bottle of water... I almost forgot about that. I think that I am getting to be so comfortable here that I forgot to worry about the inconveniences...
Will be updating this post as things go on... Am thinking that I will try to post more pictures this trip.

Back in Moscow

So I've said goodbye to all my friends in Chapaevsk. I was surprised that I managed to get so attached after only being there for 2 months. I was teaching my host sister how to swim. She cried while I was packing and when I said goodbye to her. Too bad that her and her older sister don't get along too well.
We finished up most of our projects for Chapaevsk and I think that they will finish with the Narcotics users questionnaire analyses by December because they actually need them for another project. :) On our last day they gave us lots of presents, as is typical of Russians. :) Between the presents they gave me and the presents I bought for everyone else, I've had to buy and extra little bag to carry along with my big back pack. So much for "traveling light"!
Our hotel in Moscow is pretty nice. Will get used to being spoiled american gradually this trip as I go west from Russia through Eastern Europe to France and then back home.
Hope everyone wanted something from Russia for Christmas because that's what your all getting!!!! I
In response to Shane's comment: I think that I will keep using this webpage for awhile even after I get home. I am hoping to be back in Russia for the follow-up grant project in Chapaevsk over the Summer,,,if I get the grant of course. No time to write more details. Just, I'm so happy I came!!Grateful that I was able to contribute some useful work in Chapaevsk, and of course, as stressed out about the next projects in my "to do" pile as ever :) Life is good. I love being busy.

Meetings in Samara

We did finally get to go to Samara yesterday. We had a pretty succesful trip. First, we went to the City AIDS Center. There we met with the Samara regional director and explained what we had learned in Chapaevsk. I mentioned the HIV positive pregnant girl that had been misinformed by them and questioned their counseling program. The director was not totally defensive, but definately misrepresented a lot of things that are happening in the region. I asked some questions about the AIDS treatment programs because I know that the pregnant girl was only getting the generic Russian version of AZT. He told us that they use the timizite to treat pregnant girls and it’s really just for PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission). Then he went on to show us all the expensive brand name pharmaceuticals that are available for ”free” on the tab of the government to treat patient who are experiencing symptoms of AIDS. That was not what we heard about the medications at all. We heard that they were beyond the price reach of any russian (7000$/year) and that you couldn’t get them for free. But according to the regional director there are 100 people getting free treatment. (I bet the whole $7000, that more than half of them have a connection with the director or his secretary). None of those people are from Chapaevsk. They are all from Tolliati or Samara, where there are 10,000 and 9500 HIV infectected people respectively. So we don’t have enough hiv infected people in Chapaevsk to qualify for any of the people from here to get treatment.
As far as networking though I think that it was a good meeting. I got the director’s email address and he invited me to come and do a behavioral change program research study at my earliest convenience  His big prevention thing is that awareness is good, but they are looking for the “secret” of successfully changing behaviors... I almost laughed at him when he said that...”Yes Mr director, you and every other public health specialist for the last 75 years.”
Afterwords we ate some bananas on the bus as we rode to the PSI (Population Services International) office. The first thing I noticed was how much space they have! Our office here is two small rooms for like 8 people and theirs was the whole floor of a podezd for like 12 people. Plus they have tons of brochures and cool stuff to hand out at their training meetings. They were doing a social marketing program with the "favorite" condoms for the last 4 years. But now that program is getting wrapped-up and they are moving on to a more anti-drug, abstinence, prevention education approach. Of course anyone who knows that PSI is a subset of USAID could deductively reason that our current administrations' views on things have of course effected the design of this new program for the next four years. I'm sad that the condom promotion program got closed before it made it out to Chapaevsk because they could really use that kind of program here.
After work I had a quick dinner and then ran to the pool with my host sister. I was teaching a swimming lesson to her and my co-worker Dima. They were both fast learners and it was rewarding to see them make such quick progress. We'll try to go again before I leave for moscow on friday night.