Follow-Up

Sorry it's been a while. I've been underwater for the last 3 months, but am up for air now.

One of my students is also a staff person at a French medical NGO. She does addiction counseling and harm reduction with IV drug users and men who have sex with men (as they say here)--in other words, high-risk AIDS populations. She and her boss were interested in hearing about the need that I described in my last blog. The NGO itself cannot take this on, but a group of staff members will, on a volunteer basis, during their holidays. They are also interested in expanding their network of volunteers to do very important work in the most remote, impoverished part of Fairyland where my Christian pastor comes from.

As we work, we create networks of aid and trust, networks that cross ethnic and religious boundaries. This is very exciting in a country like Fairyland, where the regime seeks at every turn to inflame sectarian suspicion so that it can more easily 'divide and rule'. The presence of NGOs with local staff has a huge impact here. People aren't waiting for the regime to make their lives better.