Road Kill, Research, and the Rumor Mill

I know I have been a terrible blogger over the last couple of months and I’m hoping to make up for it over the next few weeks! Mea culpa to all my loyal readers!! Quite a bit has happened over the last couple of months. I managed to go on a pony trek and nearly got myself killed in the process, I have trekked around many very remote villages and nearly got myself killed a few times, and I have logged many frequent mini-bus taxi miles and have nearly got myself killed many times (you may notice a theme developing here!!!). Needless to say I have a much deeper appreciation of life on a daily basis (e.g. “Wow, this mini-bus is going mach three and that beautiful donkey is going to become road kill.”) ;-)

Lesotho is teaching me patience and I’m so used to “Lesotho Standard Time” now that I’m shocked if people show up less than a half an hour late. I think I will be in for a rude awakening when I get back to the USA aka the land of “let’s show up 10 minutes before the meeting officially starts”!!!

On a more serious note my research is going well, if painfully slow at times. Logistics is probably the biggest issue. Getting to some of the more remote villages particularly in the mountainous Mapoteng area is a crapshoot at best. Add to the equation some peculiar village chiefs (one chief I swear has early stage Alzheimer’s) and the weather (one day hot as Hades and the next day the monsoon season where one needs a personal ark and two of every animal!) and you have a research timetable from hell. Of course, I’m an impatient lekoa (strange sunburned non-South African white person) and I enjoy stressing (as many of you are well aware of) so it’s a beautiful recipe for frustration. Patience, patience, patience, and a good sense of humor are key to working here.

We (the Wellness Centre staff, my research assistant, and me) have managed to do quite a bit of HIV/AIDS education and awareness, voluntary counseling and testing, and antiretroviral promotion while in the villages. In most cases it’s the first time many of the people in the villages have had an open forum to safely ask questions about HIV/AIDS, treatment, and counseling and testing questions, not to mention have the opportunity to test. Some of the most difficult groups to get at are the young men and women and they are often the hardest hit. It’s heartbreaking to go into villages, conduct my research, and then discover afterwards that of the 11 people we tested 5 were HIV positive and all of them were in their mid-twenties.

The rumor mill/conspiracy command central is also alive and well here in Lesotho and often presents a huge obstacle to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care. I remember encountering this in Ghana with other health related issues and thinking that rumors had to the bane of the health system in Ghana, but it seems to be a phenomenon that holds equally true in Lesotho. The latest here is that nurses are in cahoots with the Lesotho Funeral Services (a major player in the funeral industry here) and are killing off patients with blue and pink pills (Guess what color the HIV ARV pills are….yep folks, blue and pink!!!). *Sigh*