all right, so i have my internship!

actually, when i started i was assigned to the museo de textiles, oaxaca. this textile museum was paid for by one of the wealthiest men in mexico and is gorrrrrgeous. it’s free to the public and its objective is to display and preserve the cultural textiles of the seven indigenous groups with long histories here in oaxaca. our volunteer work here was gluing and sewing protective covering over the ganchos (hangers) for the textiles, and later working with native dyes (such as a tiny insect that they crush for its red pigment, bug by bug) and teaching workshops to children about these practices. it was really cool… but not at all what i came here to do. if i was an art major maybe, but hanging out with mostly my english speaking friends making crafty stuff and occasionally talking to a spanish speaking trendy museum employee was not the practice i was looking for. so after one day there on monday, i was feeling pretty discouraged, but i decided i would try to find something else on my own. and i did! i went around asking for opportunities and i found a great one. and i started working there yesterday.

the name of my organization is CON UNIDAD: la prevencion y atencion al SIDA (WITH UNITY: prevention and treatment of AIDS). it is a government funded organization with many programs to promote the sexual health of oaxacans and stop the spread of AIDS here. on the first floor there is a clinic where they administer AIDS testing and have nurses, doctors, psychologists, and social workers available when someone is identified as AIDS positive. on the second floor, where i work, they have a many-faceted sexual education office. their programs include presentations about sexual health and the truth about AIDS, how it is contracted, myths, and how to protect yourself from contracting it. the presentations (platicas) vary as they target many different populations: immigrants and mobile populations, youth, women, men who have sex with other men, and sex workers (if you follow certain health guidelines and have regular health certifications from a doctor, prostitution is legal here). they even do education for health professionals and cosmeticians/stylists, which i think is a fantastic idea. they clarify many of the myths about AIDS (such as ‘i can get it by shaking someone’s hand or cutting their hair’), teach them how to be safe in their professions so as not to exchange any fluids with clients (safety with their syringes, scissors, etc), and make sure they have accurate information about AIDS so that when they are chatting with their customers, they can be agents of peer education and encourage people to be proactive about their sexual heatlh. CON UNIDAD also has a radio show and a SIDA hotline to answer people’s questions.

these organizations are very very important in the united states too, but here there is even less education, more sexual openness, and more machismo – the word describing partiarchy and the dominance of men over women. women here don’t have as strong of a voice as they do in the US, so even though there can sometimes be a stigma back at home regarding a woman insisting upon the use of a condom, it is very strong here. if the man doesn’t like using condoms, the woman obeys. also there is an idea between monogamous partners and spouses that if the woman wants to use a condom, the man assumes that she is being unfaithful. yet many of the men are unfaithful and infect their partners. their work is very important here because it does not target value decisions about sex necessarily, but it equips people with the information to make wise choices regarding their health (which usually guides them toward more of a conservative lifestyle), and encourages women to be empowered to have control over their own bodies.

yesterday, after hearing a few of the platicas to get familiarized with the vocabulary (trust me – we never had a unit on this in class), i got to help one of the new girls, brenda, edit a powerpoint presentation about sexual abuse that she will give at a women’s shelter at the end of the month. this is what i really wanted to focus on there because of my limited experience with this topic through ARCh’s vigils (vigilias) for victims of abuse. the language barrier is difficult, especially since i am not comfortable with much of this new vocabulary, but we were able to talk through a lot of the presentation and it was a good experience.

so now with this new assignment, my final paper/project at the end of this trip will be a comparison between AIDS and sexual health knowledge in milwaukee vs. oaxaca, and the approaches and prevalence of organizations in each location. CON UNIDAD is such a perfect fit because i offered to do office work there or whatever they needed, and they insist upon spending time directly talking to me and teaching me about what they do instead, so it’s all language and cultural learning time. it’s funny too because they ask me what some of their education words are in english, so i got to teach them how to say ‘the virus is found in pre-ejaculatory fluid’ yesterday. it’s even funnier with the mexican accent.

i’m a little overwhelmed but excited to learn more each day. and i guarantee you that i was the only person in the world yesterday that learned how to instruct people in the correct and safe use of male and female condoms in their second language.

internship pictures:

amor y abrazos,

kate