1 in 22

This week has been very up and down. When it was hard, it was really difficult and challenging, but when it was great, it was truly wonderful. I am really beginning to feel at home at AAS-C. My colleagues are such wonderful people and we've had the opportunity to connect as challenges have presented themselves in the work place. At my office, there are eight of us who work for AAS-C and eight who work for Wake County Human Services. On Friday, our Client Services quarterly report was due. Now, I remember those days at OSLCD when you couldn't talk to anyone in the office because the quarterly report was due. I remember how my favorite ladies could be found slaving over their computers for hours trying to meet their deadlines. So when I found out we had to write a quarterly report, oh man did I have an idea what was coming. Luckily, my part was easy, but putting all of our numbers and ideas together was pretty difficult and hectic. Not to mention - this is the very first quarterly report the department has ever had to write and we just found out about it about one week before it was due. It was really amazing to watch us all come together to help Ms. Jeanette get it done. I helped her crunch the numbers while Charla helped her type up the positives and negatives of the quarter. Even though we stayed at work one night until 7pm, it felt so nice to know that we all have each other's backs especially when it is most needed.

After our staff meeting on Wednesday, I got a phone call at work from Javier who works in the Prevention department specifically with Latinos. Friday was National Latino AIDS Awareness day and his prevention team was holding a free testing event in Durham out of a mobile health van. He knew how energetic I was and asked if I wanted to join them to do outreach and get people to come and get tested. I jumped at the opportunity and got the appropriate approval at the office. We all know how much I love events like this. As the prevention team from El Centro Hispano, who Javier collaborates with on these kinds of projects, pulled up and began talking to each other, I realized I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I cannot speak Spanish. When I do think I can speak Spanish, I suddenly start speaking Italian again. For example, there was a little boy with one of the staff members and I asked him "Come ti chiami?" He just stared at me. It took me at least 45 seconds before I realized that I had asked him what his name was in ITALIAN. Needless to say, it was an interesting evening as I went with the outreach team door to door in the apartment complexes in the area. Luckily, not everyone in the community spoke Spanish, so I had my chance to convince people to come get tested, too. While I was flagging down cars, I saw two young African-American girls walking down the street so I ran over to talk to them. They are probably about 19 years old. Both were really excited about getting tested and even brought a friend when they came back. It felt good to know that I helped in some way, especially when the latest statistic says 1 in 22 African-Americans will become infected with HIV at some point in their lives. 1 in 22. That number terrifies me, so I'm glad that I got a couple of young ladies to get tested, even if they had been tested before. I had so much fun that evening, running around screaming "Free Condoms. Free HIV Tests." I was in my element, aside from the whole Spanish speaking thing.

The North Carolina State Fair is apparently a big deal, so a few of us decided we couldn't miss out on it. Now, none of us have ever been to a state fair. County fairs, yes. The Big E, yes. Church fairs, yes. But a state fair, especially in a big state like North Carolina - we had no idea what to expect and boy were we shocked and amazed. When we arrived on Saturday evening around 4:30pm, there were huge lines to buy tickets just to get in. The traffic just to get near the fairgrounds was insane! Upon entering the giant place, I was immediately overwhelmed by how many people there were. To put it simply, there were probably more than 30,000 people. The fairgrounds are at least 5x bigger than the Big E, for those of you from New England. There are two separate sections of rides and games and food vendors everywhere! I think I got run over by a stroller maybe 4 times and walked into people on numerous occasions. At one point, I saw a 5 year old boy wandering around and I said, to no one in particular, "Who's kid is this?" Luckily his dad was standing right next to me. Two hours at the fair was more than enough. In the big expo center, they were having a cow show...like a dog show, except with huge cows. I never thought that cows could be truly domesticated and yesterday I realized that they can't be. The cows did not want to follow the lead of their showers. It was kind of entertaining especially because the showers were all like 12 and under trying to guide these huge cows. We also got to see North Carolina's largest pumpkin - weighing more than 800 pounds. Now that was cool. And of course what fair would be complete without a Sham-Wow presentation. As always, I wanted to buy those Sham-Wows more than anything at the fair. But instead, I settled for some fried dough. It was quite an experience at the good ole North Carolina State Fair. I'm pretty sure words do it no justice.

While I'm finding my place here in Raleigh, I'm finding time to explore the culture, and let me tell you - between the testing event on Friday and the state fair yesterday, North Carolina is not quite what I expected it to be.