World AIDS Day

December 1st was World AIDS Day for the rest of the world. Honduras on the other hand celebrated on December 2nd. Why? Because they decided to change their elections from the middle of November to November 30th, and mandated that no events could take place 24 hours before or after the elections. So…we moved the date, which turned out fine. The HIV Network in Santa Barbara had been (trying to) planning the event for months prior and yet when the day came it seemed as though nothing had been planned and nobody knew who was supposed to do what. Actually, that is how things usually happen but in the end everything works out (I still don’t know how that happens).
We started out with a parade through town and all the organizations of the HIV Network marched as well as 12 taxi drivers with their taxis who have been receiving HIV prevention education through a Red Cross project I am working on.

Then once the parade got to the center of town we had an EXPOSIDA (which consists of big games that kids can play to learn about HIV and win prizes for participating).
The EXPOSIDA went very well and the fact that it was in the middle of town was good because then anybody walking by could participate. At one point I saw a couple of street kids fighting on the ground so I went over and asked one of them if he wanted to play a game. He said no because he didn’t know any of that stuff. I finally convinced him to play with me once and then told him he could play the rest of the games as well and he spent the next few hours playing. It felt very satisfied.