Everyone Loves a Parade
Here in Arua where there are few forms of entertainment, church, speeches and boda crashes. One of the biggest ones is a parade. I have enclosed pictures of the parade that the women of Nacowlwa (national community of women living with aides) where Tom works, was in. The pictures are from the Worlds Aids Day and the most recent one was a community sensitization parade. The stigma of aides is so bad in many places here in Africa. Men blame the wives, of which they may have 4, of sleeping around and contracting the virus. Men won't get tested, it is the woman who has it not him and somehow he won't get it? A women gets tested when she comes to the Dr for prenatal checks but not allowed to go on the anti retrovirals because other people will know if they are taking medication that they have aides and the stigma is too high. The wives and baby are forbidden to go to HIV clinics and if they go to the clinic or are seen at the aids clinics the husband will put them out of the house with her children. If a baby is started on ARV's from birth the chances of them having the virus passed on to them is much less. They stay on the medication for a year and if they test neg they go off the meds and considered HIV free. But, they have to be started within 72 hours of birth and many baby's are born in the village and never get the chance to come to the hospital unless something happens during birth. It is a sadness how some of the culture and some parts of the society have trapped women in a cycle of poverty, injustice and ignorance.
But this parade is people, mostly women, gathering with there children to announce their HIV status and show others how they too, can join the group. Learn ways of living with the disease and be supported by other women. And friendships are developed with in the children So they have a parade with the marching band (that you hire for ~100US)from town that plays music for all the parades and they have many here. All the participants gather in the open area of the district office buildings so the district officers giving speeches don't have to travel anywhere just walk out the door to address the newest paraders. Ugandans love speeches and everyone gives one when there is a parade. So, the parade is suppose to be at 10. Having a time, I was told at my last nurses meeting, is a formality for the agenda and only a guideline. So by 10 enough people have come to town and milled around the district offices so the officer comes out and starts the speeches which last about 1-11/2 hour and then you line up and the band gets tuned up (they know 3 or 4 songs) and the parade starts on the one busy street in town where all the traffic between Congo, Sudan and Uganda go and all the buses run and all the 40 cars in Arua go. Everything gets held up or traffic tries to go around the mass of humanity. Now this would be special if it didn't happen so often. When the kindergartners graduated they marched, Catholics and Protestants march separately on separate days, when the Muslims started school or graduated (I couldn't tell because the uniform didn't change) they marched, when it was Independence Day they marched. It is kinda like a form of announcement to have a parade. So, now that you have some background, here are some pictures.
