The need for longer days

So it is now 13 January and I haven't done anything with my dissertation in two weeks. Do I feel guilty? Absolutely and I can only foresee things getting more difficult. My Mew Year's resolution was to work more efficiently so that I could accomplish what I needed to. I'm am getting more work done, but now I have more work.

In addition to my dissertation write up and teaching introductory anthropology, I'm putting together a photo exhibition for May. My friends Natalina and Ventris, professors at Santa Monica College in California, wrote a grant for a symposium on global citizenship at their university. I met Natalina and Ventris in Mozambique where Natalina and I were both Fulbrighters. The symposium is a series of events over the course of a week that will "focus the college's attention to the multitude of perspectives pertaining to food security, environmental changes (both climate and markets) and HIV/AIDS in Mozambique." There will be panel discussions, ethnic dance performances, the photo essay exhibition, and a food crisis banquet organized by OxFam International.

Natalina and I are both contributing to the photography exhibition - our photos and the photos our informants took of their lives. 500 pictures. 500. Most of them will be coming from my end. Epa! That is way lots of work choosing the topics and the photos to fit these topics, then writing up a blurb. I plan to do some photo groupings to reduce some of the blurbs. :)

The exhibit is titled, From the Bush to the Market: Buffering Food Security and Environmental Changes. When it is finished we hope to have it exhibited elsewhere and perhaps post at least some of the exhibition online. At any rate, I need more time in the day to get everything done.

Todos os Trabalhadores do Mundo

The Ideas of Marx, Engels Live the wall across the street from my apartment announces.
May Day was pretty quiet for a socialist, democratic country. I didn't even realize what day it was until I walked down to the US Public Affairs Office and found it closed. Many of the proletariat were still working - the empregadas, the trash collectors, the MCel card sellers, the tomato and banana vendors, the candy men, the cashew and peanut girls, the building guards...

Sr. Pedro, one of the 3 gentlemen who guards my apartment, laughed when I told him that I had forgotten what day it was. "Everyone around the world celebrates May Day, how could you forget?" When I told him that we didn't celebrate it in the US, he was shocked. "What about the workers? They deserve a day." Considering that he was working today, I wondered that he didn't choke on the irony of his words. I quickly recovered by telling him that we celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday of September.

But you know, it just isn't the same. I know that the Soviet communists usurped the Celtic celebrations of Beltane to turn May 1st into a day for workers and unions. And that fear of communism is why the US doesn't celebrate Labor Day on May 1. (May 1 is officially Loyalty Day in the US.) However, there's something to having solidarity with workers everywhere at least once a year. And I don't say that just because I come from a pro-Union family (teachers, steel workers, railway machinists, etc.)


Are you HIV positive?
My post generated an interesting response from my friend Josh. He wrote to say that,

"The HIV one was particularly striking. However, and I don't want to belittle the seriousness of HIV, Sen. Duane of NYS senate is an openly HIV positive man who is doing quite well. I know he has a whole world of difference in terms of health care availability etc. but the point I guess I want to make is that it is important to recognize the life in the individual, not the virus in them."

In a much more eloquent manner, Josh stated what I was trying to say with my post. HIV status passes through my brain briefly, and may return if I notice that someone is visibly ill, however, it is the life, the skills, the joy, the wisdom, and the love of the people that I interact with here in Mozambique that really matters. And that is what I focus on.

I found his comment to be an appropriate reminder today for focusing on what we can do to make the world a better place - regardless of our HIV status. So, I tip my hat to Josh, and to Todos os Trabalhadores do Mundo.

Are you HIV positive?

Sometimes conversations can be real downers. Yesterday, I had one of those talks with my friends Natalina and Ventris. They are visiting researchers in political science and history from the U.S.. Natalina has been studying Mozambique's informal markets, and grassroots organization for HIV/SIDA support and education. During the course of her market research she kept meeting HIV positive women trying to support their families. This led to her current exploration of the HIV/SIDA crisis in Mozambique. She interviews HIV positive individuals (mainly women), as well as medical staff at hospitals and clinics throughout the country.

We were talking about marriage and living apart from your spouse for long periods for research. Like Chris and I, she and Ventris were apart for a long period when she first came out to Mozambique. So Natalina has a sympathetic ear when it comes to me talking about missing my husband.

I mentioned to her a conversation that I had last weekend with my husband Chris. I told him that he didn't need to ever worry about me cheating on him in the field because (1) I love him very much, but also (2) the first thing I think when I meet someone new here is, "Are you HIV positive?"

I feel horribly guilty admitting this, even though it in no way affects my interaction with a person. The reason I think about their HIV status is because I wonder how long I will be able to interact with them and enjoy our potential friendship. They could get hit by a truck tomorrow (and so could I, given the driving in Maputo), so really, their HIV status doesn't matter. However, I am sensitive to other people's pain. It saddens me thinking about the illness that they will most likely experience in the future if they are HIV positive (or the pain of losing a loved one to the disease). I don't know if that makes any sense, but there it is.

I felt guilty admitting this, but Natalina and I are good friends. We have had many conversations on a lot of strange topics. I felt a little relieved when she said that she often thinks the same thing. But she says that it is worse for her. Working with HIV positive people makes you hyperaware of HIV/SIDA's symptoms. Natalina says the number of people walking around in Maputo with symptoms of HIV, if you know what to look for, is shocking - much higher than the official rate would indicate.

The official rate given by the CDC for Mozambique is around 16%. The real rates are much higher than the official counts. Many people refuse to be tested, and others refuse to admit that they are sick (particularly men). These selfish individuals continue to have unprotected sex (with both spouses and others), thus spreading the virus even further. Serial killing wife after wife after girlfriend. According to a 2006 UN report, the rates for pregnant women ages 15-45 have increased dramatically since 2000 (countrywide 11% in 2000 to 16% in 2004). In Maputo province, the rates for pregnant women rose to 18-27% in 2004. Most of the official statistics are based on HIV rates in pregnant women, since they seek treatment to prevent their unborn children from being HIV positive.

Unofficially, the rate for Maputo Province is probably around 45% - based on observations by medical personnel. That means that every other person I meet is probably HIV positive. Natalina interviewed a public clinic nurse on Ilha de Mocambique (Nampula Province, up north) who says in 10 years (maximum) that the island will be empty of people. Everyone the nurse has tested has been HIV positive, and she has worked around HIV positive people long enough to know the symptoms and diagnose the effects of the virus in the untested.

Many in the aid community and Mozambicanos believe that people up north have lower rates because they are Muslim. Bullshit. Men sleep around. So do some women, although it seems to be more common among men (but who are those men sleeping with?). It doesn't matter whether they are Muslim, Christian, or practice traditional religions. It doesn't matter how faithful a person is if their spouse sleeps around. In many cases here, a woman cannot ask her husband to use a condom for fear of being beaten - even if she knows that she is HIV positive. Women can be kicked out of the family compound when their husband dies from SIDA related complications - blamed for his death and left with nothing. SIDA orphans wander the capital barefoot, begging for a few metacais to buy bread to eat and picking through the garbage to find food and valuable things to resell.

I remember a long time ago in junior high school when AIDS was a new thing. That was a very long 23 years ago.