July 2006 Archives

One project that I am really excited about these days is organizing “young women empowerment clubs” in four different villages in the East Region of our district. There is so much I want to share about this, so I’m sorry in advance that the post will be kind of long (but worth reading!)

So there are a few ideas behind starting the project. The first idea is that HIV prevention needs to be a priority in Botswana. In my opinion programs for treatment, care and support of those already living with HIV and AIDS have become the focus while prevention has moved to the background. There are an estimated 27,000 people living with HIV in my district alone and more than 256,000 people in Botswana. If HIV prevention is not a focus those numbers will continue to increase and it will become impossible for Botswana to continue caring for people living with HIV. This idea of the need for prevention activities was also highlighted recently in a speech by President Festus Mogae where he said Botswana must “avoid a situation in which, as treatment access expands, increase in risky behaviors occur … Without strong and accessible prevention interventions, treatment will continually increase, making the response unsustainable.”

Sometimes when the kids in the neighborhood are playing in our yard I’ll pull out the camera and take a few pictures. They really love the instant gratification of a digital camera and all gather around after the pictures have been taken to see the results.

So last week I was unprepared when Lebo, one of the regulars, says out of the blue, “Where’s your snap?”

I think for a minute and then say, “My snap? My snap’s right here” and then proceed to snap for them.

Then Junior from next door says, “Not your snap, she means your camera.”

Oops.

These pictures taken last week when most of the neighborhood kids were visiting. We ended up having field day with the kids seeing who was the fastest runner. The funniest part was the first race they all took off in opposite directions around the house! Teaching them leap frog was also a big hit.

Back in March I shared my first major success story with two facilities in the District. As you may recall, the facilities were underperforming at the time in terms of educating and testing pregnant women at their first ante-natal care visit. My counterpart and I visited the facilities and identified what we thought was causing the uptake to be so low. I called it a “victory” back then, which was probably a little presumptive because we didn’t know for sure what the outcome would be from our visit. However, it was a big deal just to be able to identify issues and potentially solve them because of the quarterly reports I’ve been writing.

So right now I’m in the middle of writing quarterly reports for the period of April through June. Imagine my outright giddiness when I see these results from one of the facilities we visited back in February: (click on the image for a larger version)

Can you believe that? Basically our visit occurred after the 57.9 percent between October and December 2005. Since then education uptake has increased 62.2 percent and testing uptake 58.0 percent. This facility was our second busiest last year so the more people they can educated and test the better.

As for the other facility we visited, they have had only moderate results. They were also the facility that was less willing to change. I’m thinking that we need to pay another visit to them and see what’s going on. The education uptake has skyrocketed to above 90 percent this quarter, but there has not been a corresponding increase in testing uptake. It’s really frustrating because in March testing uptake was 100 percent but in April it was 60, so I really don’t understand what’s going on there.

I can’t believe what big numbers nerd I’ve become, but it makes me seriously giddy to see these kinds of results. I just had to share.

I think I promised to post pictures of the scarf I knit many many weeks ago and have never gotten around to doing it. Now I have another project to share, the hat I made with yarn ordered online and sent by my mom. (Thanks Mom.) The colors of the hat were even more beautiful than I imagined and I get lots of compliments when I wear it. Anyway, just wanted to share the pictures here.

Brian and I celebrated the four-day President’s Day holiday weekend by traveling north to Planet Baobab with a group of 10 other PCVs. A trip we have been planning and looking forward too since before mid-service training. Planet Baobab is a lodge about 100 kilometers past Nata on the Nata-Maun road where the big allure is doing an overnight rip out onto the Ntwetwe Pan. Ntwetwe Pan together with the Sowa (Sua) and Nxai Pans make up the Makgadikgadi Pans.

Now most of you have probably never heard of a “pan.” But, if I called them the Ntwetwe or Makgaikgadi Salt Flats I’m sure that our friends and family from Utah would know what I am talking about because of the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Makgadikgadi Pans are the largest saltpan complex in the world covering 12,000 sq kilometers. Similar to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the Makgadikgadi Pans are the remnants of a “super lake” that dried up about 10,000 years ago. The remains create the flattest, most desolate on earth you can imagine. During the rainy season the pans fill up with water but it evaporates very quickly once the rains stop coming. There is absolutely nothing for miles and miles and you can literally see the curvature of the earth.

If you have not yet visted the Nata Village Blog you should check it out. The July 10th commentary on a Mmegi article ('Bewitched' HIV/AIDS activist who rose from the dead) is of particular interest and truly "gives you an idea of just how difficult our job is" to stop the spread of HIV and reduce stigma of people living with the virus. I experience on a daily basis how people refuse to recognize the realities of HIV despite the toll it has taken on families and communities.

While you can donate money to Nata Village and a support group via the website, I think its most important feature is just seeing and reading about ordinary Batswana. I too wish more villages around the world had blogs to share how everyday life is, well, normal. Too many people think of Africa or other "Third World" countries as places we should direct our collective pity and that the peoples can be saved if we all open up our pocket books and/or convert people to our way of thinking and believing. Yes, more money is needed to combat poverty and eradicate diseases, and certainly direct donations ensure it reaches the people who need it most, but money alone will not solve these problems. Neither will a change in philosophy or house of worship.

What has impressed me most about my Peace Corps experience in Botswana is understanding how we all share many of the same goals, values, fears, setbacks and triumphs in life. In my opinion, sharing in the pain and achievements of people everywhere, regarless of nationality, race, class circumstance, etc., is the most critical and often missed step in making progress around the world.

One of my goals recently is to make more of an effort to record our day-to-day experience here especially through pictures. I think it is the fact that we are more than halfway through our service so last month was our “last June in Molepolole” and I feel like I should document what daily life is like. (By the way, we are seriously considering extending our service for a third year. If we stay though we want to work in Gabs, so either way this is our last time in Moleps.)

So, in line with my goal I tried to take pictures this weekend documenting how we spend a normal weekend. The top left picture is me with kids from the neighborhood in our yard. You can’t really tell, but we are holding up the pictures we just drew on the front porch. Next picture over is Brian doing yard work. He is very meticulous about taking care of the yard, which I totally appreciate. It’s another benefit of being married, because I know that if I were single I would not spend nearly as much time doing yard work. He can always find something that needs to be done. Top right is Fanta hunting in the yard. She loves the weekends because she gets to be outside basically all day. I think she is so funny because she just wanders around from thing to thing doing whatever catches her attention. You have to wonder what she’s thinking!

The middle picture on the left is our refrigerator. I put up new pictures of Katie, Jared and Hailey, but you can see that the front is pretty much covered with pictures of all our nieces and nephews. The drawings in the middle were from Colin and Brittany. Then the middle bottom picture is the chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies I baked. Brian had members of the basketball team over to watch the NCAA final game Marsha sent to him on DVD so I made treats. We also made homemade pita, humus and babaganoush (sp?) to watch the final game of the World Cup with our friends Angus and Ben so it was a busy day of cooking.

The bottom middle picture is the neighbor’s dog, Tiger. Personally I think “Tiger” is a terrible name for a dog so I call her Mama. Mama was visiting the yard, rolling around on our nice lawn and taking a nap. The bottom left picture is the kids again drawing their pictures on the front porch. The little girl in green is Rati (raw-tee) who lives next door. Brian and I both agree that she is pretty much the cutest girl you’ve ever seen. She is really talkative, but it is all in Setswana so it just sounds like “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” and you have ZERO idea what she’s saying. She doesn’t seem to mind though because she just keeps on talking! The other two kids are Lebo from down the street and Junior who is Rati’s cousin.

Okay, so that’s our weekend in a nutshell. Nothing spectacular just piddling around the house and getting things done.

At a basketball game a few weeks ago I noticed that the score keeper was wearing a Che hat and Mandela t-shirt. I have always been intrigued by the appeal of Che Guevara and the Motorcycle Diaries is one of my favorite movies, however, I know that Che is way more myth and man and was largely a failure as a socialist policy maker. Nelson Mandela, on the other hand, is one of my all time heroes who I couldn’t give enough accolades to. But in looking at the score keeper’s attire, I couldn't help thinking that she was missing the image of one of the greatest statesmen’s of the 20th Century—someone whose face should appear on hats and t-shirts everywhere.

July 1st is Sir Seretse Khama Day in Botswana in honor of the nation’s first president. At the time of Botswana’s independence from Great Britain in 1966 it was the poorest country in Africa. In 1967 vast diamond deposits were discovered near Orapa in the central part of the country. With the leadership and vision of Khama, Botswana reinvested its natural resource wealth into public services and became a developmental success story in a region beset by racism, corruption, authoritarianism and violence. Of course, not everything in Botswana was or is perfect (e.g., “minority tribe” issues, disturbingly high HIV/AIDS prevalence, etc.). But Khama’s nonracial politics and ability to build a stable democracy should be recognized and celebrated broadly.

Now we just need to find someone making and selling Khama t-shirts.