22 years ago I was born in Groningen, a city in the North of The Netherlands.

During the last year of my studies for social work in Amsterdam I started to think about what to do when I was finished. I decided I didn't want to work straight away and started looking for other possibilities till my friend told me about a small newspaper ad.

This advertisement had Humana's internet address and after I gained some information from their web page I went to an information weekend in Denmark February 1999. October 2000 I joined the school in Juelsminde where I prepared to go to Zimbabwe.

Our team consisted of 9 team members from 7 different countries. I had a great time at the school even though the fundraising part could be quite difficult. April this year (2000) it was time for us to go to Africa! Two of us went to Zambia, on to Angola and the five of us went to Zimbabwe where we would do different projects. I had chosen for HOPE as the AIDS-situation in sub-Saharan Africa is very, very bad and I was looking forward to do teaching about HIV and AIDS. I also wanted to work with the orphans project.

In Zimbabwe I lived together with 4 other solidarity workers (from different schools) and our Zimbabwean extension worker, with her three kids. We lived in Nyava, a small village which is about 60 k North of Harare (the capital of Zimbabwe).

I was surprised how easy it was for me to get used to living without electricity and running water. It gave me even more the feeling of 'being in Africa'.

About one hour from Nyava lies Bindura. Bindura is a small town north of Harare where our HOPE head office is based. Our office had three main services:

• HOPE, with the outreach program, a Positive Living Club and the five elements of HOPE
  
• The VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center) where people can get tested for HIV for a small contribution and receive counseling
  
• TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) a new program which aims to reach as much people as possible about HIV and AIDS and to mobilize them to go for voluntary testing.

I worked under HOPE, which means I mainly focused on teaching. Steve (a Canadian Development Instructor) and I started teaching at Secondary school. We organized workshops for teachers and women in the community. I thought in the local clinic and worked on the orphans program. For the orphans program I visited primary schools, did some fundraising with a colleague and we started income generating projects to secure school fees for the orphans.

Besides this I worked together with our extension worker and spend quite some time with our volunteers who are trained for Home Based Care. With them I visited orphans and clients (infected with HIV). In Nyava area we had about 5 TCE officers, each with their own working area. Each working area covers about 2000 people. Sometimes we would go out in the communities together to do teaching and to mobilize people.

In Zimbabwe it is very difficult to mobilize people for testing. People often don't want to know their status or think AIDS won't happen to them. One time I tried to get about 13 people to go for testing. The car was there to transport them for free, but on the day itself only one client showed up. Zimbabwe has about ten Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centers, but ours in Bindura had absolutely the highest numbers of people coming for testing. (Some centers would have two or three clients a day, whilst our counselors sometimes had to work late two or three nights a week!). This obviously has to with the great effort and enthusiasm from the TCE officers. No wonder they call themselves 'fighters' in the war against AIDS.

Sometimes I would join them for a march or organize special programs at schools with them. It's now October 2000 and about two weeks I came back from Zimbabwe. Saying goodbye was the most difficult thing about my stay in Africa.

The Netherlands