equipo de salud

I've never really been all that great at these summing up "in conclusion" type of reflections. Nothing I say will fully articulate everything I learned from my experience, but I can at least give you the gist.

First. A practical lesson. Safe sex. Really really important. Of course we all know that. We've always know that since we took sex ed in middle school. We know what the consequences are. And yet, that's not really how we work in college. Most of the girls i know these days seem to be on birth control. We think that makes us safe because we can't get pregnant. We don't think about STDs. They aren't the kind of thing anyone in college really likes to think about. But they are a reality. Sure sometimes a little penecillin can patch things up for you. But what a terrible price to pay for a stupid decision. And as long as your in denial and being unsafe, you can really mess things up for a lot of people. I mean, girls it's not that hard to request that when you get back from a formal that your man suits up with a rubber. And also, even if you are in a monogomous relationship, partners testing provides a kind of security that the line "but baby i'm clean!" does.

Second. Chueca is more than Madrid's gay barrio. It's a different world. When you leave Gran Via and enter Chueca, there are no signs to let you know that you've arrived, but you'll know. Same sex couples start holding hands and kissing affectionately. Men as tall as our basketball team come out in drag. People pass and you're not sure what gender they were. But no one (NO ONE) stares. You can be whatever you want here. Or whoever you are (or i suppose want to be). This is the only place that some people feel comfortable being themselves. As progressive or liberal we think we are sometimes (and Spain is a lot more liberal in matters of LGBT than we are in the states) still making it so that people feel like they can't be themselves in the cities in which they live. Being someone who is gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered is still hard for people in today's day and age. Forget legality for a second, it's hard to just walk down the street with your partner who you love when people stare at you. So for a semester, these people let me into their barrio where they all feel at home. And I realized that I wasn't being a visitor in Chueca. I was just being a part of it. I can be as straight as the day is long or I can be ellen degeneres and it doesn't matter. I am the norm there. Because there isn't a norm. That was really rambling, but I just realized that this whole group of people always have their guards up until they get to Chueca where they can finally just relax and be themselves. I got to understand some of that duality.

Third. I'm still struggling with measuring service in terms of some kind of progress. I'm not sure if that's the way it should be measured or not. I'm not saying i need to feel like i built something. But i don't know, I don't want to leave and feel like I didn't leave at least something of me or what I did there. How do you measure usefulness? Or progress? Or success?

Four. I had so much fun. I don't want to sound ridiculous, but it was seriously the high point of every week. My friends and I made a sort of ritual out of it because we loved it so much. We wrote poems about our experience. We dedicated whole facebook albums to it. That's how we met most of our Madrileno friends. I kid you not. And to Claire, who asked me if people were receptive to us, the answer is definitely yes. Some people knew us by sight (and our bright yellow bookbags with Fundacion Triangulo on them). Others just were pleasantly surprised when we got there. (some were a little too excited and took handfuls of condoms and lube and no pamphlets and rused out the door). And there were those who merely politely declined, but i can't think of a single time that we were there that people were really suspicious or disapproving of what we were doing. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that we were in Chueca.

Anyway, this service is what ended up being the cherry on my Madrid semester. I wouldn't have predicted that, but it was incredible. Simply incredible.

-April Edwards, December 2006