Hey all,

This is my first blog so far and I gotta say I love this site. Shelby Knox is seriously the best resource for awesome websites. I am blogging from Costa Rica in a small town called La Cruz. This is my third time coming down to this country and no I've never been on a surf board. I studied abroad here two years ago and did an internship with an organization called World Vision working on the Nicaraguan border handing out information about sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS to truck drivers, sex workers, tourists, police and border patrol. I have a special place in my heart for educating people about condoms and safer sex and find it not to be an uncomfortable subject even while traveling through Central America.

Yesterday the World Aids Day consisted of a march throughout town with children holding balloons that said "Protect yourself against AIDS/HIV, Use a condom," or "Take Care of Yourself, Find the Information." The fire trucks in the town proudly displayed banners that said World Aids Day and police officers marched with a large poster reading "Take care of you and your loved one, protect yourselves!" Personally I feel like I was given the best job of all. Another student who is here now doing a similar internship and I walked throughout the town passing out information in stores, banks, parks, to people on the corners wherever we could find them and talking about ways to prevent AIDS/HIV from happening in their lives. I don't discriminate about who gets the information no matter the age, height, width, married or unmarried. Some people did not want to take the condoms saying that they were married or unfortunately not sexually active at the moment but I push the "friend" card and say I'm sure that you'll know someone who will need one and will thank you for being such a great friend.

I have to say the best experience of the day was going to the Police Station. Now I'm not going to say the police officers here in Costa Rica are all very legit stand up citizens I have heard from some of the sex workers on the border that they do abuse their power at times over these women, in ways that you can imagine. However that being said, they welcomed us with open arms giving us a tour of the Police Station and asking us for more information so they could give it to the next shift of officers. They also joked about needing us to leave our whole box of condoms there and that we didn't have ones big enough for them. As you can see there is a machista side there as well... but its hard not to laugh when they make jokes about that especially when so many people embarassingly take the condoms and shove them into their pockets as fast as they can. I always try to tell people especially the teenagers and adolescents that they have nothing to be embarassed about, these are tools to keep yourself in good health, something that should be normal to have in your possession. I have to say when I see a teenage girl, 15 or 16 years old down here whose already a mom, its hard not to give her the whole box of condoms, not that it is only her responsibility to protect herself from diseases (and frankly protect herself from pregnancy) but I have heard too that especially in Latin America there is a stigma against condom use.

The stigma isn't just about the feeling "not being as good" as "natural" but also about trusting one another. Women have told me that men will becoming offended if they offer the suggestion of using a condom even with the spontaneous sexual adventures. "You don't trust me? You think I'm dirty?" Things like that. I've heard that men who are not circumsized say that with a condom they can barely feel anything. I obviously can't claim that to be true or untrue as I lack the proper means to test that out, however I think its important to address these issues as we try to get more condoms into the community.

Proudest moment of the day: A mom taking the information and condoms and then looking at her young teenage son and telling him to take them too.