"Will you take my sister?"........"No."

Hey guys!
Today was my first set of classes. The first was a class at the UMATI Yuoth Centre teaching an Internediate Computer Class. By Intermediate, I mean that so far all that they know how to do with a computer is use Microsoft Word.

When asking the eleven 20-25 year-olds what they wanted to learn about next on the computer, they replied "Microsoft Excel." I said, "does anyone know what the function of Microsoft Excel is?" they replied "no." For the next hour I taught them them what excel was, what it was used for, terms of microsoft excel, and how to navigate around the page all without having a computer. I admit, with the language barrier and this fact put together, I'm not sure how much got across to them, but at elast one person understood; at the end he stood up and re-explained what I had just taught in about 5 minutes. Thursday it happens again.

Tyler and I then headed to a Post Secondary School English Club. The day before Tyler had typed out part of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and made 30 copies of it, or in total 300 pages. When we began teaching (the materiel was supposed to be about good governance, human rights, and the upcoming Zanzibar elections) we realized that many people could not understand us, so there went our lesson plan. However, at the end of this class where we spoke of the elections and what they hoped to learn in the class, there was a lot of positive response from the students since they requested that we double the amount of english sessions to twice a week.

Today a man came up to me at our office and said "take and marry my sister." After a long pause, and me asking him again if he meant what he really meant, I said no. He laughed and walked away. These things happen every day now, I am getting used to happy spontaneous people.

Last night we made some local friends at the nearby Mombassa Supermarket, and we have so far bumped into each other three times in one day. The final time we met, he asked us "Is there anywhere around here to get tested for HIV/AIDS? I have not been tested for a very long time, and it is important that everyone get tested every few months." We told him our partner organization conducted tests, so we went with him and his friend to the center to get tested; the results for both, thankfully, were negative. It goes to show that the message here is spreading, and that people are not only aware of HIV/AIDS, but that people know that there is somewhere for them to go for help.

The three of us have a lecture tomorrow about HIV/AIDS, so we are now looking up additional information to what we already know about the virus on the internet. Along with our partner organization ZANGOC, we are covering stigma, violence, long term effects and prevention.
Tyler is craving a burger for dinner, so we are heading to an American restaurant next.

Kwaheri! Evan