I can make you undetectable

Hey populace,

I recently returned from the interior of Bahia, out of my room with Alex into my beautiful apartment, as promised, in Barra, with my bedroom to your left. The beach is right across the street, and pictures will be posted of that tomorrow, with all of the pictures I've promised before form Brazil. Basically, I had to spend another night with my host-family before leaving for my apartment in Salvador, which was really awkward and uncomfortable, but only insomuch as I recognized how little we had in common and also how much I had grown from staying with them. There are some things I really value that I realized only in my home-stay because I was not happy. Which kind of reminds me of how Langston Hughes did not write when he was happy. I want to say that that's why I have been blogging, but I haven't been that much, nor have I been writing poetry, nor am I as good as Langston Hughes. So nevermind.

My mom bought me some of my favourite vegetables that I've had in Bahia, though, which was awesome in comparison to pizza, salad, pasta, and mashed potatoes in disguise. The mashed potatoes here are sometimes made with another grain that kind of tastes like butter and tapioca with a few potatoes. It's odd and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Santo Antonio, in general, was really good, mainly because I actually got to see a clinic similar to the one I'd worked at this past summer and think about it for 1.5 weeks. And go to the beach, and think about what I need more to be happy. And that was really important for coming back to an apartment where I cook for myself and run my own appointments for my ISP and basically live on my own. This is the first time I've lived pretty much separate from my family in most ways. I've never actually been in a situation where I needed to do everything for myself, and this is really good for me because I'm realizing, beyond my home-stay teachings, the bare basics of comfort for the Akinyi Aquarius.

I've been making food, starting with going back to vegan, regardless of the fact that it's a little harder than being vegetarian here has been. For those of you who don't know, when I'm outside of the United States, I usually am vegetarian and eat dairy and egg because it's easier and less expensive than being vegan and a lot of the ethical reasons I'm vegan don't apply as much outside of the US (i.e., investment in the dairy industry, mistreatment of chickens, cows, and goats while procuring their products, etc.). But, after Arun died, I tried to think about what was important to my body in terms of how I can better make it an instrument of my mind. And one of those things was being vegan again, because I really enjoy it, even if it means...especially if it means making my own meals. Cooking just feels good, you know? Making what you eat is really satisfying. I've made vegetable curry (coconut milk is really big here), vegetable stir-fry, salad, and my famous, amazing vegan pancakes (this time with bananas, apples, walnuts, rum and love). And pasta. Hey, everything counts.

I've also tried to start doing some exercise again recently, which is easy to do because I can jog by the beach every day. The beach is literally in view from my window. The pictures of the apartment don't lie (in post Her family didn't know she was a gay.). And I'm thinking about trying to swim a little every day, and take advantage of this beach as much as I possibly can. Becuase it's beautiful. And I'm lucky to have it here, especially while, particularly if you're at Brown right now or somewhere else cold and with little sun, you wish you were me. I can't blame you. It's great to be me :-).

I'm probably going to get 4 interviews from pregnant teenagers this week, which I'm really scared about because of my little (though bigger than I give myself credit for) command of Portuguese and the sensitive matter of the interviews. I don't want to make these kids feel like they've done anything wrong, but, at the same time, I'm looking for similarities between HIV and pregnancy in adolescence in order to make a semi-guide for womyn to be more sexually healthy by knowing how to avoid HIV and pregnancy, assuming that they are public health issues. How do you navigate an interview like that without seeming righteous and mighty about what they should not have done? I don't see pregnancy or HIV as morally wrong actions, but I certainly don't think that they are positive. It's a hard line to walk.

I'm going to be going to the market here hopefully by the end of the week, because they have cheap vegetables and exotic fruit :-). It's called Feira de Sao Joaquim, and it's apparently so meat-ridden that, if I wasn't vegan, I'd become it after going. Fun, fun, fun!

The most interesting thing that happened at the clinic back in Santo Antonio de Jesus was the reason for this title. During one appointment, I shadowed Veronica, the pharmacist, as she discussed HIV and other STIs with a young man who had had inconclusive test results for HIV. This young man, in his early twenties, wanted to donate blood, but had had three HIV tests beforehand, one inconclusive, one positive, and one negative. He had also had unprotected sex with most of his sexual partners for the past year, giving the excuse, when prompted by Veronica, that he either “trusted [his] partner” or “did not have the time” at parties to get condoms. He was unaware, as many patients were who I had seen in appointments, that unprotected sex could spread so many STIs, and did not understand what HIV was. Veronica explained that, since his tests were inconclusive, he would have a final confirmatory one done at the clinic that would be more accurate than the others he had taken, but that there was a chance that he was positive, especially considering the unprotected sex he had had. With this in mind, she told him that he could not die from HIV, and that people could live a long, happy, and healthy life before they have AIDS, which is a chronic disease—and not a death sentence—that results from HIV. As the young man dropped his head in his arms and began to cry, she assured him, “I am a pharmacist, and I have more than twenty medicines for when you get AIDS that can keep you alive. I can make you undetectable.”
What does it mean to assure somebody that you can make them undetectable? A modern-day superwomyn, with only a couple of repetitive forms in hand and a pharmacy, can make someone “normal” again, make their disease seemingly disappear, with the only side effects being from the medicines they will have to take. No one deserves to hold their head in their hands and wait, wondering whether they will ever be normal again, and I guess, in a way, when you're undetectable, you're "normal" again. Being undetectable is when your viral load of HIV is undetectable and, therefore, looks the same as that of someone without HIV and AIDS. But isn't it negative that, in order to be normal, you have to be unrecognizable?

Everybody should be happy every moment of their lives that they can be recognized for more than what they have to hide. Because I can assure you, the people I work with in clinics are the same as we are, except for the fact that they might be on ARVs and occasionally feel like their lives were ruined because of some stupid mistakes.

It made me cry when he got negative test results. Because I really didn't want to be him and I knew that that was wrong.

Her family didn't know she was a gay.

Hey populace,

So, a lot has happened since last updated, as always. First and foremost, see that dingy hotel to your left? Well, it's got wireless internet down the hall from my room, pushy men who watch soccer and steal seat cushions from the lounge when they're drunk, and televisions with badly-dubbed Xena the Warrior Princess. And I call it home here in the interior of Bahia, in Santo Antonio de Jesus. And I like the very queer waitresses at the Lua Cheia (Full Moon) Restaurant, and the fact that pizza is your only vegetarian option besides salad if you go out at night. Because I got it like that.

I had been wondering what "Village Study" meant in the series of my trainwreck program, and have now realized that, to my academic director's benefit, it is the first time here that I have learned something from scheduled activities or classes. They have set all of the students up to observe/intern at certain health centers semi-concerning their independent projects, and I have thusly been assigned to work at the CTA, a health center in this city which works specifically, in my corridor, with HIV/AIDS, Syphilis, Hepatitus B and C, and, occasionally, HPV. The center essentially gives out lab test results (but only after they wait 30 days in order to send and get back the results from 3 hour-away Salvador, because smaller cities don't deserve laboritories with testing capacity...except with Syphilis [?]), offers a psychologist for counseling regarding test results and social support with the aforementioned medical conditions, has a doctor/gynecologist that can do examinations, and rapid HIV testing along with a considerable concern for lunches lasting from 12pm to 2:30pm. I have sat in on everything from Hepatitus B notifications to the state to mentally disturbed HIV patients who harass nurses to negative Syphilis results to HIV/Hepatitus tests following medical accidents in nearby hospitals. And seen viral loads galore with near-minimal ethics. And been tested and given drugs essentially udner-the-table by angry doctors who storm around and won't do physical examinations on patients because of a lack of air-conditioning. And it's pretty insane.
Along with seeing gruesome pictures of STIs in a teach-in for nurses and hearing doctors say that "womyn have never sexually transmitted HIV to other womyn in the history of the world...and AIDS is arbitrarily defined by viral load and is more of a social term than anything else because our definition of AIDS is 100 points higher in viral load than anywhere else in the world" [350 vs. 200-250], I've just been having a dandy time picking out all the problems with not identifying peoples' sexual identities past the past 12 months of their sexual activity, identifying marijuana as a drug on par with heroin and crack, and having limitations on the amount of condoms one can receive for free per month. I've been learning juicy stuff.
And the nurse I work with answers the phone consistently during appointments for 5 minutes just to say that she doesn't have time to talk on the phone because she has appointments. The universal health system (SUS-Sistema Unico de Saude) is kind of like an idea people thought up on Sesame Street.

Ernie: Hey, Big Bird, everyone should know that it's okay to cry!
Big Bird: Yeah, Ernie, and we should have universal health system too! With testing and stuff!
Ernie: Good idea! Let's learn about the number 3!

And then they turned Cookie Monster into some freak who likes to eat apples, and I still looked weird when I had a good cry in public, and Brazil's health system was a dramatic social divide between the poor and rich, North and South, and substandard and expected, idyllic care systems. And so it goes, Vonnegut cried.

At night, I stay with an amazing queer girl from Smith named Alex, and we watch The L Word every night and occasionally grab a beer and run it like it's 'sposed ta go in the interior. Which is kind of like living in a slightly gayer version of Michigan for 2 weeks. But I digress.

I want to show you all my apartment (SNAZZY), which is here: http://www.bahia-online.net/newyork602.htm. Check it out. I'm gonna be staying in Bedroom 2. And yes, I know, it's beautiful and you hate me. Go ahead. Hater.

The hardest part of staying here was Halloween, because Halloween in Brazil is kind of like Carnaval in the United States: uncelebrated. Except by kids, who, according to the nice assitant here, "...love it because they get to wear things and get candy." Which is sad, because I do too. So, Alex and I dressed up (I was a hippy, and she was straight), bought 2 things of M&M minies and 2 serenatas (chocolate/doce de leite goodness), drew pictures of monsters and scary things, and watched Pulp Fiction on my bootleg version on my computer and got shwastey-face. And it was kind of like Halloween. Because we drew pictures of strangely-proportioned witches and caldrons and pumpkins and monsters. And Alex was straight, which was scary.
So I hope someone out there enjoyed Halloween for me and actually had a costume (I was going to follow my usual suit of being a republican whore and be Lula in drag, but I figured that progress is progress and I don't want to get myself shot in the interior of Brazil. Or a slightly gayer version of Michigan), like I enjoy pinhas for you.

I miss pinhas.

Also, credit to this post title goes to Alex, who, in describing the awful plot of The L Word (or, I'm gay, rich, and confused in Los Angeles), said "uh" in such a way to talk about the character Jenny, as "a gay".
Tip to readers: If you say "a gay" in front of me, I'll punch you in the face. Unless you're talking about I'm gay, rich, and confused in Los Angeles.

If we could paint more colours on our walls

Hey populace,

I've been wanting to write this past week, but thought it would not be appropriate without mentioning someone who profoundly touched my life, steered it in a direction I'm forever grateful of, and is one of the only people I have ever truly respected.
Things slipped in to place quite suddenly because of him.

A really close friend of mine, Arun Stewart, died in a freak accident last Friday, the 30th. He was going to a party in Beijing, China (he was studying abroad) on an apartment rooftop, and he lost his footing and slipped and fell and died. Just like that. One instant, there. Another instant, I'm sure he was dead without a pulse or form.
And at first it really upset me because that's a stupid way to die. He was going to a party, for G-d's sake. And he had done rooftop parties a thousand times before, to what he'd told me if I remember right. And he lived almost right across the hall from me my freshmyn year at Brown, and taught me what music was, and made me think about so many things (as I made him think about a lot of stuff too, and generally called him out). He was just an amazing guy, and he was a really good friend of mine, which he may never know. I even tried to (and maybe, possibly had some lovely part in) set him up with one of my other close friends at brown. But I talk about him all the time, even here in Brazil. And he was really important to me at brown.
So I was really upset about it, and couldn't make sense of it. I've never had a close friend die before. I could always hear him banging out on his bass guitar and making awful music with his friends, and he basically introduced me to smoking and thinking, and showed me some of the most beautiful lyrics I've ever heard. He would sit me down in his room at Brown and show me songs that he just knew I would love, and we'd talk about it, and eat lunch, and not once, at any point, did I feel pressured to say something around him, or be his friend. He was one of the most accepting people I've ever had the privilege to be around, which is hard for me to admit, because I'm tough to impress at times. But he genuinely impressed me with the amount of things he taught me and made me think about and showed me.
He loved rap music, and one of the songs he showed me was an amazing song called "Don't Ever Fucking Question That". And it, especially after I heard, made me realize a lot of things about myself through his influence.

"Enough to hold you to the brightest of lights, to place you dangerously close to that sun, enough to acknowledge the flaws you can't ignore and recognize the cause of what's done is done, more than enough to put my name behind my ideals,
and neglect my logic twice daily..." - Don't Ever Fucking Question That, by Atmosphere


What I took away from him was that life is too short to be bothered. By yourself and the limitations you impose on yourself and your dreams, by people around you who bring you down in your own glory, by your surroundings which are nothing but crafted by G-d. You can't be bothered, and you should always put into your body, do with your body, and relate with your body what drives your wildest dreams. Because you can "dream a little dream or you can live a little dream, [and] I'd rather live it, 'cause dreamers always chase but never get it" ("No Regrets", by Aesop Rock).
And I wanted to ask G-d all of these questions. Like, what happens to people when they die? And who's in charge of the universe when all of the bodies have to get swept away from peoples' memories, like crime scenes, no fingerprints but only memorial services, no suspects but only receptions and songs that remind you of conversations you had a long time ago. I don't have many answers, only guesses.
But I also wanted to tell everyone exactly how much they meant to me from now on.

So, I'm sorry if I haven't kept in touch with some of you as much as I should have. The reality is, I thrive on good conversation and quiet magnificence in company, and I get anxious about planning it, or forgetful, and don't get around to that e-mail, or that phone call at times. But I really appreciate my family and my friends. And I'm truly and sincerely dedicated to fixing that from now on. So please, know that if you fall into one of those two categories, I really do love you and care about you. I spoke about Arun so much while I was here, and I had not even really spoken to him more than a paragraph in the past year we were at Brown together before he went abroad. But my friend Amina even told me once that he must have been important to [me], wasn't he? And he very surely was. He gave me a hug the last time I remember seeing him, out of nowhere, without saying anything, and I almost started crying. It meant the world to me. And imagine, if I spoke about him a lot and didn't even talk to him a lot, those of you who are close enough to me to care about what I'm doing here, I surely think about often. There's just too little love that I've given out over my short time in this world in order to expect what I receive, and Arun was the brightest of lights, and I have spent most of my time agonizing over the things I haven't done and the flaws I carry, while I lack the reflection of what I could do in that same time to help what I love the most.

I love the people who help me in my life, of which there are many.
And I love the right to love, and the right to be happy, and the right to live without worrying about what you need.
I really love the world that we live in, and all of its capabilities for truth, and compassion, and care, and we shouldn't ever, ever fucking question what the world has to offer us and what we can do in it.

I love you, Arun. Rest in peace with everything you've ever been and will become in the future of our universe.


If only I could paint more colours on my walls to make a better picture of everything you meant to me. You just can never paint acceptance, you feel it. You never were a sentence to me, not one lyric you showed me, not one sentence you gave me, not one caution you proved to me, never once did you stop giving me ideas to use, and mangle, and put back together as if they were my own.
You lived more in 21 years than I have lived through every powerful person I know, every piece of logic I try to prove, you recurred in my poems more than you did at my shows, and you were every colour I can think of.
I never expected to cry after someone died after my mother, because she meant the world to me. And maybe it still wasn't the same. Maybe I cried with her because she wouldn't be there for me, to care for me, to do what mothers should do and be around for their daughters. With only messages on the internet as proof for you being gone, I cried for who you are and what an absence of every colour you ever spoke that I felt when you left this physical world. You were more intelligent than I wanted you to be, and more persistent of a person with your voice than I could ever hope to be, so thank G-d that instead of sentences, I have ideas, and instead of colours, I have memories of what you sounded like when you lived around me. I'll try to paint wherever I go with the dreams I'll live, instead of wonder what it could have been like to dream more.