07/12/09

Today was our last day of training--finally! Mozambique is divided into three regions, north, central, and south (me) and tomorrow after the swearing-in ceremony south and north are coming back for one more night with our homestay families, but the central region is staying to fly out of Maputo so tonight was our last night with them. In Mozambique and other countries with similar HIV/AIDS rates, all you hear about is how high the HIV/AIDS rate is. It is 15-22%, depending on your source. But what you rarely hear is that the STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection. This is the newer, more politically correct term dos what used to be called STDs) rate is 79%! And the even scarier thing about that statistic is that having an STI doubles a person's susceptibility to contracting HIV!