¿Y Entonces...?

My colega told me that we were going to give a charla to the homosexual/transgender population of Jalapa with CEPS about HIV, STDs and overall well-being. I was beyond excited since Nueva Segovia is a rather conservative department and I have not encountered many openly-homosexual people up here. Jalapa, especially, is known for it's machismo and though I was happy to participate in the presentation, I was skeptical of the turnout.

We had about 15 people show up to the presentation (that we held at a bar that doesn't open till later in the night); they were all very friendly and knew they were among friends and could be open, honest and trusted in our environment. The presentation started with a CEPS member going over the basics of STDs. I then started my presentation of different kinds of STDs while the CEPS rep showed pretty graphic photos of what I was talking about. I also discussed HIV, and during all of our presentation, we had representatives from MINSA giving free HIV testing. Of the 15 that participated, only 4 got tested, and they were all, luckily, negative for the illness.


After my part of the presentation, CEPS went on to talk about the importance of condom use, while referring back to what I had previously mentioned. After that brief session, we went on to talk about the difference between "sex" and "gender"..."sex" referring to what separates men and women biologically and "gender" referring to what we are perceived as in society. Given that, we had about 8 volunteers get up and give us a "fashion" show in which they had to walk down the runway three times: the first: as masculine as possible, the second: as feminine as possible, the third: as themselves.



We had a lot of laughter and a ton of fun, and I'm happy to say I gained confianza within the small group that showed and I'm looking forward to working with them more in the future. It was about a 3-hour long presentation, and while the rain was pouring hard outside, the sun was shining and the rainbows were certainly bright in that bar that day!

I have been to the Segovian capitol twice this week.

The first time I went on Sunday for the Peace Corps regional meeting and got to meet some of the fellow volunteers in the department. It is a great group and I am excited to be working with a lot of them in the future and just overall creating new friendships! Some of us stayed the night and went to a local restaurant that has been the local PCV joint for years and they're always welcoming to the newbies like me and my 3 friends from Nica 58. We all had a great time, got to know each other via "2 truths and 1 lie" and talking over the  heavy rain storm while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Overall, a great time!


I went back on Wednesday for a 3-day capacitación (training) that was put on by CEPS: Centro de Estudios y Promoción Social with a focus on PROCOSAN: Programa Comunitaria de Salud y Nutrición. I was going in thinking that I was going to learn more about maternal and child health and seeing as how I received the majority of my training in HIV and adolescent pregnancy prevention, I was looking forward to it!

LONG story short, it wasn't what I expected and after a long 3 days, I am very happy to be back in Jalapa with no new knowledge of anything regarding any health aspects. It was pretty much geared towards the nurses and doctors on how to fill out paperwork when going out on the vaccination trips to the rural communities when dealing with young children and mothers who may not be having adequate nutrition.

One "rose" to the many "thorns" of the week was being able to visit one of my friend from Nica 58's sites, Mozonte. It is a quaint little town with a 90% indigenous population and though I only experienced the town at night, I loved it! What I enjoyed most was that two gringas were able to walk around at night safely. I definitely cannot do that in Jalapa. Maybe it's because my site/population is the largest in all of Nueva Segovia or because I'm super close to the Honduran border, but walking around alone, especially at night, especially as a female is a big no-no. Not even Jalapeña women walk alone at night.

Back to Mozonte! I met my friend's host family, counterparts at the Centro de Salud, and got to help teach her first English class! From what I understand, a RPCV/ex-pat started the class with a few gentlemen in their living room and she is travelling at the moment, so has asked my friend to take over. I could be completely wrong with that assumption, but either way, we got to instill some English wisdom on some Nicas! We read a few opening paragraphs from the novel Sideways (which I realized I want to read now!) and conversed in English (and Spanish, so that she and I could practice our second language, too!). It was a great little class and overall I hope to see more of Mozonte; next time, during the day :)