It had been a very late night and a very early start for us all, the aim was to get everyone on the road at 7am so we could be at the site by 9am. It did not start alarm’s not waking people up. Then when we started to pack up the cars, the at our office wouldn’t let us out the doors with all the boxes and bags without a signed letter, despite the fact that they see us every day…. So everything was stopped while I got my computer out, wrote a letter, checked it would be okay and then dashed back to the office to print it! While that was going on we also found that the minibus driver only had a permit to drive via Pigs Peak which is a takes significantly longer and a far more winding road than the other route, which would mean that most people were going to be even later ….
Anyway we eventually got on the road and could have a couple of hours to relax and then plan what we needed to do when we got to the site. It was promising to see people when we arrived, as there was always the worry that no one was going to turn up! We then had a frantic hour of moving some tents around and setting up tables for the information tent and for distributing the scratch cards and trying to encourage people to write on a Dream Wall which was aiming to capture and create a collage of what peoples hopes and dreams were for Swaziland in relation to the HIV epidemic. There was an entertaining half an hour with the team trying to attach large pieces of cloth between two very old basketball poles and then pin all the smaller pieces of cloth to them. Then even more of an initiative test to work out how we could keep the poles upright without the wind catching the cloth and blowing them over, there was a danger that it was going to become a dream carpet rather than a wall…. Luckily someone thought of tying the poles to the stage and we were sorted minutes before all the guests of honour such as the Minister of Health, one of the Royal Princes arrived, the President of CHAI etc!
Waiting for the Guests of Honour to arrive
The event was very successful with a mix of speeches, entertainment and a quiz the scratch card raffle. It seems that everyone in Swaziland is mad for free branded goods we had a few bandanas and t-shirts which as a helper I had to wear and the number of requests I had for me to give them to people at the end of the event was unreal. However this mania for goods did mean that there was great participation when the Minister of Health did a quiz with questions on HIV with the potential of a free t-shirt if you go the question right!
The popular gospel band Emagawugawu got everyone up dancing, including the Prince (the one in the red traditional dress) and his police protection officers!
The event has generated a lot of energy and the challenge is for the team at CHAI to capitalize on that and move forward the key projects.
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