Frustrations with People in Power

I've had an extremely frustrating/rewarding two days. I've been trying to find contacts at local schools where I can distribute my questionnaires to students and teachers, and since I have a contact at the secondary education department, I thought it would be pretty simple to get the names of schools. I was so unbelievably wrong- the director of this department informed me that no school list existed in UP, because there was no need for such a list. I was like, "um, are you kidding me?" and he was like, "that's how it is." he then proceeded to walk away and then drove away as I stood there with my mouth still open in shock. I talked to my contact person at the department immediately after- she informed me, quite condescendingly, that there was no need to do my type of research, that it had been done, but she understood that i wanted to just poke around because I am young and starting my career. I wanted to slap her. twice. and then she looked at me and said, "i think you've become disturbed. it's ok. i will give you the name of 5 principals. ok?" I seriously had to restrain myself from yelling at her. oy.

The whole situation was absurd, especially because that contact person had offered to help me earlier, and was now backing out because she was afraid of being affiliated with anything remotely controversial. Though I understand her fears, at the same time it is rather hypocritical to be working on HIV education, while simultaneously interfering with someone else's work on the same topic. People at the government level have been so unhelpful and I feel like I wasted so much time during my first 2 months here because I was going from one office to another without actually getting anything done. Paper pushing, making baseless statements, wasting money, short sightedness - all of these things are blindingly obvious reasons for the lack of improvement in the HIV situation in UP. I feel like a lot of these people either don't care at all, or if they once cared, they have abandoned their own views for the sake of a job or for the sake of making someone else happy. Instead of acknowledging ideas and possibilities that can benefit their cause, so many of these people are restricting themselves to predetermined plans that have proved ineffective and a waste of money.

I was reading this article in the NYTimes today about John McCain's inability to answer someone's question about his position on using tax money to subsidize condom distribution in Africa. His answer was that he had to check his voting record and with his aides. Now, though I understand there are all sorts of issues in politics with maintaining consistency, and though I don't expect every politician to know about every issues and I realize that relying on political aides is a reality, I am still so bothered by the fact that he didn't have an opinion on this issue. If he can't say with conviction what he thinks, if he is relying on predetermined positions on various topics, than what truth is there to his opinions. There is no truth, and I feel like I need to question the strength of his character for this mistake. Harsh, I know, but I've dealt with ridiculous government officials the past few months, and I feel like there are so many problems that are not being resolved because many of our government officials (India and USA are all I know) do not have the strength to fight for their beliefs. It's frustrating. Again, I realize that my political analysis is at the surface level, and there are many places where it could be critiqued, but I just feel really strongly about the importance of having strong leaders who have a clear idea of what they believe and want to accomplish.

However, referring to some less negative thoughts- I was able to meet with several members of the positive network in the city, and they are amazing people. They have put up with so much stigma and hardship, yet they continue to work towards their goal of educating people and improving the lives of other HIV positive people. I'm really looking forward to collaborating further with this NGO....