Last day at the Dome

Published on 2011-04-11 by Sille Jansen

As we were walking to the Dome today I had two simple goals for this last day of the conference (when tired, set simple goals):

1) Get nice coffee from the Mall next to the dome – good coffee is essential on days like these.
2) Get all 50 paper dolls that we've brought decorated.

As to the first goal, it was realatively easy to achieve. By this fourth day of the conference we know that the Mall next to the Dome opens at 10.00AM exactly and that Columbus Coffee sells take-away cafe latte and cappuccino's. Getting coffee is not risk free. To get to Columbus Coffee, you have to pass the Easter section of the Mall. It is a jungle out there. There is a giant Easter egg made off little stuffed animals, all yellow ducklings. I don't know if you've ever seen about 1000 little yellow stuffed animals stuck together in the shape of a giant Easter egg, but it is quite fascinating. Every time I pass I have to look. And look. And look.

Having managed the coffee, there is goal number two: Getting the dolls decorated. I must say, the dolls are very pretty and rather popular– and quite a few participants want to take one home for their kids. So before lunch, the 50th doll was decorated, with this text: 'I want female condoms that are pink and smell good!'. Ok, so maybe it was me who filled out this doll – but we did manage to get all of them decorated by different people and had people from 25 different countries writing on the dolls! From Uzbekistan to Nigeria, from Iran to the Seychelles, from Afghanistan to Canada. It is truly amazing.

Quite a few Lebanese people also visited the female condom booth. Most of them had never seen a female condom before. The ones who did know about it told us that the FC2 (a specific type of female condom, see www.condoms4all.org for the different types) is available at big pharmacies but costs about 12 dollars a piece. 12 dollars! A piece! We must make female condoms cheaply available if we want women in Lebanon and all over the world to have access to them. To show the global demand for female condoms and the demand for more variety and competition we will display the dolls we have now and many more that we are gathering the coming months at the United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS this summer.

Next is evaluation and follow up – about which I will not blog as it basically means typing emails and it is not so interesting to type blogs about typing emails. But first some time to relax and enjoy the city of Byblos tomorrow!

 

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