What a spectacle! Thirty Peace Corps volunteers on bikes, lead by armed gendarmes, a motorcade of condom distributors in red vests on motorcydles and an SUV carrying a super speaker blaring American rock tunes.
This follows a long tradition of Peace Corps work in Niger where a volunteer serving as the AIDS coordinator organizes the bike ride in a different region each year, ending on December 1st, World AIDS Day. This year, World Bank and other funds allowed us to hire trained animators and actors for a week, and to travel from the cities of Gaya to Dosso, stopping in 22 villages over 140 kilometers.
Our entrance into a village was an extraordinary break from their day to day routine. Children came running, and men and women took a break from their work to form a circle around us as we danced, distributed condoms and played with the kids. Once a critical mass was achieved, the animators would take the stage by doing skits, condom demonstrations, games with T-shirts and hats as prizes, or small group discussions with men talking to men, women to women.
The message of AIDS transmission, prevention, treatment and testing options was weaved into the presentations along with promotions of girls education and compassion for AIDS victims.
Our roving camp was awoken each morning to the blaring acapella of Queens "Bicycle Race" a song that never grew old and brought us cheerfully out of our short slumber. We went to major truck stops, brothels, tiny villages, large villages and handed condoms to passing drivers on the road. Laughter, exhaustion and lots of dust accompanied us as we danced, sang and pedaled our message to over 5,000 Nigeriens.
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