Again, it has been so long since the last time I wrote...this month has been full of amazing activities and I haven't had that much time to sit down and write on my blog. South Africa has been amazingly crazy so far and I'm experiencing a lot. Here are some of the activities that have kept me busy in the last couple of weeks. I joined UCT's branch of TAC - Treatment Action Campaign (www.tac.org.za) - which is an organization that lobbies for equal access to treatment for HIV positive people. It started in 1998 and now it has expanded to the whole country. One of the founders, who is my idol, Zackie Achmat, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I think I wrote a bit about them previously but you can always find out more about TAC and Achmat online. Anyways, the point is that I'm so excited about being part of this because the group of people that I'm working is really good and after all, HIV/AIDS is something that I have always been interested and that I have always been passionate about. Last week we had our first event of the year: a stigma campaign. We based our campaing on a report that was done a couple of years ago at UCT that showed that many students, in spite of their good education and their knowledge about HIV/AIDS, continued to practice unprotected sex. So the campaign was aimed at making students realize that they are vulnerable to the virus as well and that it is not only a virus that affects, for example, "poor, black, rural women".In other words, we wanted to show that HIV/AIDS does not discriminate. Here is a cool picture of the campaign on campus: Last week I decided to go to the Rhodes Memorial which is in the eastern slopes of Table Mountain - i can see it from my house. It is deducated to Cecil Rhodes who was one of the most powerful men that Southern Africa has known. He was prime minister of the Cape at some point and he also founded the Rhodesias (now Zimbabwe and Zambia). It has an amazing view of the so called Cape Flats... This last weekend we spent our time in Langa which is the first established black township in Cape Town. It was established in 1927 and it was crucial to the resistance to apartheid. We stayed there the whole weekend in a homestay and it was an amazing experience. I stayed with Noroyi, a fifty-year-old Xhosa speaking woman that was born in Langa and has lived there her whole life. We had many good conversations and I learned from her. She also fed me like there was no tomorrow. Yoj, I couldn't say no to her delicious food. On Saturday, the 21st, it was Human Rights Day and it coincides with the commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 when 69 protesters were killed by the South African police (most of them shot in the back). They were marching, as part of a broader campaing organized by the Pan Africanist Congrees PAC, agains the unfair pass books when they were attacked by the police. Now, every year the PAC commemorates this event in Langa so we went to that celebration. Since national elections are coming soon (April 22) this was also an oportunity for the PAC to campaign. However, it was also an opportunity for the ANC to campaign. So, guess what, Jacob Zuma, who is most likely to be South Africa's next president, showed up in Langa. We were fortunate (..) to be there and we got to see him from pretty close (some of the girls from the group were so close to him...they even made it to the newspapers!). So it was an amazing experience to see all these political activity first hand! I didn't bring my camara but I'll get some pics soon. Here are instead, some pictures of Langa (just chilling) and "partying" Langa style!:

Yesterday was TB World Day and there was a march to parliament that was organized by the TB/HIV Care Organization and TAC. Instead of going to class (oops) I decided to go to the march and support their efforts. South Africa has one of the highest TB rates in the world and the disease is the leading cause of death in the country. HIV and TB work together. When HIV weakens your immune system, your body can’t fight the TB bacteria so you become very vulnerable to it. Now there are also strains of TB going around that are resistant to the medicines which complicates the issue even further. There is a need to treat everyone with TB (and to make sure they finish their treatment), to protect everyone through infection control, and to make sure that TB does not spread more. It is, after all, a curable infection. The march culminated with the handing over of a memorandum to a representative of the Health Ministry petitioning for better equal pay for health care workers and for better access to treatment, among other things. Here are some of the pictures – very inspiring.