The workshop on 19.03.11 was the second one we held. This time it was a little more complicated than the first time. A male nurse presented his work with HIV-positive patients right before us. Of course he didn’t just tell us about his experience but also about HIV/AIDS in general. He actually did my presentation for me. This meant I had to cut my speech short, though this time we had to fill about two hours of workshop, which was very difficult because we could only fill around one hour.
Fortunately we had enough condoms to stretch the demonstration of “how to put on a condom correctly”. In addition we played a short game, where all participants stood in a circle, held each other by the hand but not of someone next to one another and then tried to form a circle again. This game actually showed how important communication is, for instants in a relationship, to avoid misunderstandings and to prevent complications no matter how uncomfortable it is, especially concerning HIV/AIDS.
The only thing that bothered me a little, it was kind of intimidating to present in front of an expert, as we were afraid of getting bad feedback because of false information, even though we knew that all of our information are correct.
After we held our presentation and after we showed the AIESEC Message video, we asked the students to each write a message to the kids at the HIV shelter, which could be anything they wanted to say to them. Some wrote just short phrases like “stay strong” or “we love you” and some even quoted songs e.g. Bruno Mars, “you’re amazing just the way you are”. It didn’t matter to me how long or how creative each message was, but every single one was something special and very moving!
Later that day we (me, Carolin and the students) visited a shelter for HIV-positive people. As we arrived I had some mixed feelings. Even though we were the ones teaching about HIV/AIDS, it was our first contact with HIV-positive people.
I knew that nothing would happen and there was no chance of getting infected, though I still asked myself the question “what if?”. It was stuck in my head. What I always had to be aware of, I couldn’t show any fears or second thoughts in front of the students. You shouldn’t sell the product if you don’t believe in it! I did believe in what I taught, though the first reality check isn’t always easy to take.
What was very surprising, we didn’t visited children but adults in their late 30s till 90s. After a french nurse showed us around and told us a lot about the course of the disease we went to talk, communicate and play with the patients. It was very scary to see how the virus and the medication can affect your brain and disable your body. Seeing people who lost their sight, who couldn’t walk and were mentally deranged was very shocking and really pushed our awareness.
But the most incredible feeling was, to see them smiling and laughing when I played and/or talked to them. I could see they were having a good time and it meant the world to them if you touched them by laying your arm around, hugging, shaking hands or even just a high five once in a while. Amazing how much difference such a small gesture makes…
