Friday cold but busy

A quick coffee with Anita at Memphis and the cooler weather has sent everyone inside so it is very crushed. 

Saw my lovely Chemist Angela appearing in the Dom Post, she is such a delight and looks after my meds without fail. She is a perfect example of the beauty of friendly personal contact in this tiny city.

Looks like the end of a career for the Russian bombshell Maria Sharapova who shrieked her way into the record books. Russia is the guilty party here, a country which has condoned, nay, encouraged performance enhancing drugs for years when they all won a swathe of gold medals at the Olympics at the cost of many other countries, especially Australia in athletics where Raelene Boyle was denied her much deserved gold crown.

Memphis has quietened down now so after a coffee I am off to the Medical School to witness yet another session of interesting talks and discussions in this symposium on Pasifika Trans people..

This city is ideal for foreign student and it is a shame they so not do more to encourage them. 

The five or so thousand students who are here are all very spoiled with a superb education and a quality environment. We need many more.

The Team from Fiji and Tonga getting ready to present their topic at Uni of Tago Medical School.

Below the line-up of delegates from the Pacific Islands.

First was the report on the recent first Pasifika Conference on the GLBTI Community held in Tonga last year where there were 96 people who attended, with people from Vanuatu, Tonga, PNG, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Tuvaalu, Cook Islands, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.

Five priorities were identified for the lgbti peoples in the Pacific regions, especially for the many unreachable islands.  One major issue was about reproductive health and sexual rights.

Condoms, hiv testing and counselling  importantly were brought up as well as Transgender women and sex workers. Availability of hormones was an important issue and participation of youth under 19 years was not as it should be. Bullying at school still exists both in and out of school so a lot of work needs to be done in this area. Personal security for lgbti people was a high priority. Often sex workers were raped by police when taken for interviewing.

It was demonstrably better to have personal interviews rather than internet discussions. Learning about international human rights is still in its infancy and very few know of the actual world situation.

Majority of activists are trans women and lesbians and it is still a work in progress.

Lgbtqi people in the Pasifika have enormous problems in standing on their own with absolutely no funding at all from government.  Transphobia is rife in the Pacific islands because of colonial sexual intolerance brought about by the missionary education in western Christian ways.

Training is needed for the police to understand and respect the modern international human rights law. Story-telling is something which has to be looked into as it is a long standing effective method in the education of the population in Pacifica Islands.  

Social media and Grindr are being used in various ways as education tools and a man from Grindr, an American, possibly New Yorker, was there in the room to tap into 'social possibilities'. Wow are they 'with it' in cyber-space!

A short video from international human Rights introducing the Pasifikas, with a few of our delegates appearing on screen to great appreciation.

After some more chatting with some friends I was on to the next event of the day, which was the 'Conversation with Writers', in this case Aussie Robert Dessaix taking place in the enormous Embassy Cinema.

The cinema was packed with grey-haired ladies who love reading literature so it had to go very well with the dulcet toned Paul Diamond doing the sycophantic interviewing job perfectly. I spoke briefly to Robert at the end as I was sitting in the front row. He remembered me from Hobart days but not my name of course, and was immediately rushed away to book-signing - such is the price of fame. I was going to invite him for breakfast at the Memphis Belle tomorrow morning and he may have liked it, but I know we would have disagreed on nearly everything so better it didn't happen after all. He hasn't changed at all despite his dying twice on the operating table at St. Vincent's  Hospital in Sydney when he had a near-fatal heart attack and was resuscitated. I sometimes wonder why, as he has no idea whatsoever. So be it, Robert is someone whom I admire who has a great writing and speaking talent, but who possesses a lack of spititual awareness which astounds me. I don't think we would ever be good friends.

Tonight at the HU song it will be nice to meet up with a visiting Eckist from Mexico. Viva has decided to cook and has invited the local Chelas.