I spent this last week in Springfield, IL at the statewide HIV/STD conference. While Springfield is NOT very exciting, the conference itself was interesting. I attended sessions on the general HIV/AIDS/STD epidemic, prevention, HIV/AIDS in the media, HIV education in corrections settings, and prevention of HIV/STDs in youth.
I also got to attend a town meeting about implementing rapid HIV testing in Illinois. Current HIV tests require about 2 weeks for results since they need to be sent to a laboratory for analysis. However, a new test can give results in 20 minutes. The problem is that the test gives three results: negative, preliminary positive, and inconclusive. In Illinois it is illegal to give a "preliminary positive" report, only a confirmed positive. This basically renders the test useless since for a confirmation it will still need to be sent to a lab, taking two weeks. The Illinois law was written based on tests that were not as accurate as this new test. It may seem obvious that the law needs changed so that we can do rapid tests, but there is actually a lot of other things that need to be considered. For example, right now people have an initial counseling appointment, and then have two weeks to go home and think about the consequences and problems of a positive HIV diagnosis. Then they come back in for another counseling appointment where they find out the actual results. With a 20 minute test, the person has much less time to come to grips with what it means to be HIV positive before they actually find out the bad news. Another problem may be the lack of confidentiality if the administration of the tests aren't carefully controlled. For example, in Illinois, knowingly transmitting HIV is against the law (that's another interesting debate that seems obvious until you really start looking at some of the consequences). What if someone gets picked up for prostitution and without their permission an HIV test is given. It is possible that HIV status would be known before the person is tried. Might have some interesting implications...
Another neat thing I learned at the conference was the difference between the climate in the city and the climate "downstate" (i.e. everywhere but Chicagoland). Up here the city government is pretty cooperative with folks in the HIV/AIDS field because it is such a HUGE epidemic (Chicago is one of the worst hit areas in the country). Downstate, however, conservative politics wins out over public health since the problem isn't as severe. Downstate workers have a really hard time doing their job (the old you can't mention condoms arguments, etc.) let alone getting help from the rest of the local government (most downstate services seem to be provided by the local health department).
Well I better get home to make dinner for the housemates...bye!
This has been such an awesome week. Everytime I looked up someone gave me work to do. I've summarized evaluations, entered survey results, copied, filed, checked files, proposed things to add to our database (some are going to be done!), gone to meetings, and get this... did research on Geographic Information Systems for the head of our department! I guess that there is a possibility AFC may start trying to map our clients to congressional districts and other geography type things! VERY EXCITING! I have practically bounced home I've been so happy at work. I love having lots of stuff to do!
Our LVC city coordinator came for the "fall evaluation" this morning. Basically it was a directed gab session with me and Norma, my supervisor. We got to talk about what was going well, and things we wanted to change. It was fun just to be able to look back and realize how much I really have learned in two months. Basically the only problem I have had has been the lack of work on occasions. There really isn't much that can be done about it since work just naturally comes in spurts. I think downtimes will happen less frequently as I am here longer since others on the floor are starting to ask me to help with stuff. Other than that it was basically just a time to talk about how wonderful everything is.
I think it is going to be a quiet weekend at the house since Leah, my roomie and our most extrovert member, will probably be visiting her brother :) Don't know what everyone else's plans are as of yet. I know we have a meeting Sunday to talk about our community covenant (we really did try to do it earlier but something always comes up - we have to present it next week at the retreat so we HAVE to do it Sunday). I'll probably spend my weekend doing chore type stuff. I know I need to do laundry, which is not fun when you have to go to a laundry mat. Our local place is usually hot, loud, and crowded. Sigh, gotta love simplicity. A more fun chore is a trip to find some embroidery floss. I am almost finished with my "roots for my routes" quilt. I am going to embroider some appropriate quotes on the side borders and then quilt them. After that I just have to put the binding around the edges and it is done!! I've already go an idea for my next quilt :)
Eek, some more work just arrived by e-mail so I better get to it before I head home...
A moment for education and thought...
Current epidemiology of HIV/AIDS
National HIV/AIDS policy issues
A thought from Dr. ML King: "A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an ediface which produces beggars needs restructuring."in "A Time to Break Silence" republished in King ML. A testament of Hope, JM Washington Ed. San Francisco: Harper 1986, pg 241
You know you are in the midwest when you leave for a weekend retreat and are in short sleves enjoying sun and 70 degree weather and then come back to wake up Monday morning to snow and a prediction that the "high" will be in the 20s.
Retreat was a fun and relaxing weekend. We went to Ferryville, Wisconsin which is on the border with Iowa. It is in the area of Wisconsin that had not been completely squished by a glacier, so the area had a lot of rolling hills. I also got to see the Mississippi river on the drive up which was really cool. Our retreat was during the first weekend of deer season, so we weren't able to do a lot of hiking. Looked like several of the hunters succeeded since we had to pass many grotesque (at least to city people) deer carcases tied to the back of pickups. I hope they actually eat the deer and weren't just out for "trophies".
While at retreat we got a chance to hang out with the other midwest LVCers and find out how everything is going for them. It was neat to hear about the different neighborhoods and placements. We also had workshops on various social justice issues, and lots of small group discussions.
Each LVC house also presented their community covenant. Our house (named after Carter Heyward, an Episcopal priest who can often be found challenging her denomination to think more openly and boldly) decided to make curtains. We felt that something trully representative of our community ideals would be both practical and beautiful. Our windows (while beautiful) are not very energy efficient. In the summer we noticed that the apartment heats up very fast because of the intense sunlight. Now that it is getting cold we are beginning to get some pretty cold drafts. When the idea of curtains came up, we thought of a bunch of other symbolism that made them seem especially appropriate. In some ways they separate our community from the outside, but it is also when they are drawn back that we can see out into our world. Many of our experiences this year have come from looking out our windows (we've seen drug deals, women crying over sick children, people fighting, a Mexican independence day celebration, changing seasons, and much more). We also realized very quickly in our planning that some other symbols of our community were well represented in the curtains. We had 5 very different visions of what the curtains would look like. We now face the challenge of trying to turn 5 visions into one beautiful reality. Curtains are also going to take a long time and a lot of planning and care to complete, just like the growth of our community. Should be interesting to see what we come up with.
Believe it or not, we were not the only community to decide on curtains. One of the Twin cities houses is also going to make curtains, but their ideas and reasons for doing them seem much different than ours. Some of the other covenants included prayer flags with community ideals, a marriage of "cheese wedges", a clock with a growing plant, a beauty pageant with the community's ideals as the finalists, and a descriptive theatrical/dance presentation of ideals. All of them seemed really well thought out and fun to be a part of.
Well, I better go see if there is work for me to do since I have been gone a couple of days...
Current letter December letters October letters