Meetings and meetings

Today I attended a weekly staff meeting here at GC. It was a good opportunity to reconnect with everyone in a more structured manner and also explain what I would be doing for the next two months. One of the main activities GC does are these "discussion groups" where staff have regular meetings with groups of people in the community. I've been involved with the design of this program over the years, which has been a huge success and I think will be one of the things I really study. The great thing is how excited people are to have me come participate in their groups - by the end of the day we had a jam-packed schedule for me for the rest of the week. Things are going to get super-busy soon, I think. After the meeting I did an impromptu English class for the staff, which was great fun. They'd like me to do English classes at least once a week and I'm happy to oblige.

Then later in the afternoon Akbar and I attended a meeting at the Mayor's office that was a kind of wrap-up from the national meeting in Surabaya last week. It was interesting to hear about the various plans for moving forward. Compared to years past, the government is really taking an interest in responding to the epidemic and working with the nonprofits - it's very exciting in that regard. Then on the way back to the GC office we stopped by a nonprofit that works with drug users trying to break the addiction. They're getting 90% HIV infection rates amongst this group sometimes - it's just staggering.

Tonight Akbar and I had dinner with Ilmi, who's my academic sponsor for this researcher. Bill and I got to know Ilmi back in 2001 when I was going my postdoc at the Australian National University; Ilmi spent 4 years there doing her PhD in anthropology. She's interested in gender issues and also in starting research on HIV/AIDS, so it's pretty certain we're going to be collaborating into the future, which should be great. It's nice to have local colleagues, and she's wonderful for exchanging ideas.

No pictures today, but I'll be doing various things tomorrow that should be photo-worthy. I keep forgetting to take a picture of the front of the GC office - I'll try to do that tomorrow.