The Work

Last night I submitted my Truman Annual Report. My annual letter to the Scholarship Foundation, gives me the chance to read last year's letter (written from Turkey) and reflect on what's changed in the past year. I had to write how lucky I feel to be working in the field of international development and HIV/AIDS. I love my job. It's fascinating and fast-paced, challenging and difficult. Everyday I come across complex problems and I'm working with brilliant, innovative people trying to solve them.


Cambodia's HIV epidemic is concentrated in high-risk groups: sex workers, men who have sex with men, and injected drug users, although that population is very small here. (It's quite large in Vietnam, another legacy of the American presence during the Vietnam war.)


I won't get in to all of the details here, but we're trying to program in a way that meets the needs of people whom we identify as members of these high risks groups. That means, on Friday, I spent the afternoon at an MSM transgender drag show. Talk about cultural insights and discovery. My favorite parts were the interpretative dance involving men representing STIs and a solo dance within a giant condom. I also really enjoyed the fashion show, which included some amazing Mariah Carey lipsinging.

The event was sponsored by the OK Condom (advert pictured above.) The OK (now packaged with lube!) is a product of Population Services International, a fantastic development group whose motto "Results not Process" could stand to be replicated in other systems I'm familiar with... PSI uses social marketing for public health interventions, using witty ad campaigns and current technology to encourage condom use, hand washing, partner reduction, etc... But in a way that tries to make these rather stodgy and dry topics hip and relevant.

For more information on concentrated HIV epidemics check out this witty, outspoken blog by Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores.