Wednesday and Thursday were spent at Blood Collection Training for HIV, or finger pricking. Wednesday was filled with mostly theory, anatomy of the finger, and insight into HIV counseling and how to handle the actual testing portion. It was a bit ridiculous as we had a break at 10 AM for coffee and pastries, a HUGE lunch buffet at 12:30, and then tea time again at 3. I'm so in love with training here.
Thursday was awesome, as we got to practice.. on each other! We used lancets to first prick oranges, and once we started getting bored and awesome at that, we did role plays with a partner and practiced pre-test counseling, and the actual pricking which is just awful. I nearly made Lauren cry, I was so nervous and shakey at it. But I'm feeling pretty confident about actually implementing the pricking, as I know what I'm doing in terms of pre and post-test counseling, and doing the testing will allow me to build a greater rapport with the client and stay with them throughout the whole process, which I'm really looking forward to.
Anyone who has spent about 40 minutes with me also knows that I'm totally into sexual and reproductive health, so the safe sex portion of the training was by far the best. We each got our very own wooden penis (my favourite souvenir thus far) to demonstrate safe condom usage with our clients, and our trainer used volunteers to blow up a condom, wear them as gloves, and pour a glass of water in one, all to demonstrate the strength of them. It was obviously hilarious, and I loved seeing how open and honest everyone was when dealing with sex, it was really refreshing, and no one was embarrassed or nervous to talk about it, which rocked.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Clarens with Dillon and crew for a beer festival, aka cultural experience that I will be recording in my field hours, clearly. We'll probably do some hiking and/or swimming of sorts at a park on Sunday, so it'll be a much needed refreshing/big fun weekend. I'm stoked!
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