If There Were 10 of Me

Oh man! I'm at a point today where I am starting to doubt my topic choice, not because I'm not interested, but because I'm so interested. I just want to know about everything. For someone that came to BYU without thinking about AIDS from one day to the next, I have certainly come to care about this problem a lot. I still want to know what prevents HIV positive women from being able to eat enough and well enough, but I also want to know how they feel about contraceptives (if they feel the use of them is stigmatized, how accessible they are etc) and about how children fare in the battle against AIDS. I feel like a lot of people focus on children because of their vulnerable status. There is a lot of research available about them, why they are malnourished, how and why they get infected, how it effects their later life etc. This is such a broad topic, and there is so much to know about. I really wish I could spend more time on it.

That being said, it makes me excited to go to South Africa, because even though my focus will be on AIDS and nutrition, I may still be able to discuss some of the other topics with the people that I interact with, depending on how sensitive of a topic they consider those things to be. I know a lot of places have big problems openly and frankly discussing reproductive health and concerns such as using condoms. From what I have heard about South Africa, I imagine this will likely be the case.

After the article I read for today about what the government has done to counteract the AIDS epidemic, I think it would be interesting to talk to people about how well they feel the government has handled the crisis. The author of the article I read thought it has been handled pretty poorly, but I think that perspective was coming from an American with perhaps little or no experience of South Africa. For a South African that may have little or no experience of anything besides their home country, and nothing to compare their government against, have the actions the government has taken felt sufficient, or do they still think there needs to be greater progress? It would be interesting to find out if South Africans feel that the locus of control surrounding AIDS is internal, or external. Do they look to their own actions for improvement, or expect the government to solve their problems for them? So many questions!! I could make 10 bazillion projects out of this. Too bad I actually can't.