Marching in Mongu for AIDS

Our 1st Year nursing students marching to the stadium

Zambia is the epicenter of this worldwide pandemic. We were privileged to be able to spend World AIDS Day in one of the countries where the it has hit..hard. We were very encouraged to see involvement from many faith and community-based organizations in town. The HIV rate continues to rise in Zambia, and with a prevalence rate hovering around 20% in this country there is still so much work to be done.

Candle-Light Vigil

World AIDS Day celebrations in Mongu began on the eve of December 1^st. The churches all organized a candle-light vigil at the big Catholic Church in town. It began with a night mass, lead by different pastors. There were also choirs from the different churches. On an interesting note once the sun went down all the bats decided to come in and fly around the church. Then a huge white owl decided he wanted to support World AIDS Day and hung around for a bit. They handed out candles to all those who came, which probably turned out to be about 500 people! We all light our candles and began our walk outside together. It was magestical. As in usual Zambian style there was lots of singing. You could also hear people chanting ‘Stop AIDS, Keep The Promise!’. We all marched from one area of town to the other. Many of our students and nurses from the hospital came for the gathering. It was quite the social event.

On Monday was the official parade to celebrate World AIDS Day. We brought along 20 first year nursing students and a big huge banner to represent Lewanika School of Nursing. Together, with the other faith and community-based AIDS organizations, we marched from Mongu’s brand new traffic circle all the way to the stadium. All of our students had matching shirts made just for the occasion. We stood out quite a bit because there were not enough shirts for us. Not that we didn’t stand out before just by being the ONLY white people in the parade..but now we really stood out!!

The entire parade made its way to the stadium where we marched in a big circle and all gathered on the field. It felt like we were representing our elementary school on sports day…Jess and I kept on getting in trouble for not marching properly. We just couldn’t keep up with the students! There was even a marching band and baton twirlers that performed. They kept marching, making it look like they were leaving… then they would march back to the center of the field. The announcer had a really hard time getting them off the field. There were speeches, plays, and poetry to express different aspects of HIV/AIDS.

With our students

It has been an eye-opening experience being in Zambia for World AIDS Day. If we can just pick one thing to talk about that has completely shaped our experience here, it is AIDS. You can bet that once we get back home, every year we will be celebrating World AIDS Day.

Jess and Lianne