June 2007 Archives

Our trip to the U.S. is going to be here before I know it. Next week is a 3-day work week (thanks to Sir Seretse Khama Day and U.S. Independence Day), and then a five-day work week and we’re off! I have so many things going on at work before we leave too, so I know that the time is going to fly. In preparation for the big trip I’ve started making lists – what to bring from Bots and what to bring back from the U.S. Today I thought I’d share my list of things I’ll bring from Bots to share in the U.S.:

• Crackers: I have two all-time favorite types of crackers here in Bots – Mediterranean Herb Salticrax Crackers and another who’s brand I can’t remember but they’re the Poppy & Sesame flavor. Sooo yummy. I’m bringing them with me simply because I don’t remember if crackers in the U.S. are as yummy as these. All I remember are Triscuits, Wheat Thins and Better Cheddars (which, don’t get me wrong, I loved and can’t wait to have again.) The crackers in Bots are less of a snack cracker and more a cracker you eat with something (I happen to really like tuna, slice of cheese or guacamole.)
• Cadbury Chocolate Bars: Continuing on the food kick, I’ll also be bringing Cadbury Chocolate. Our British friends say Cadbury chocolate is way better than Hershey’s. They’ve even gone so far as to say that Hershey’s tastes like wax compared to Cadbury. Again, I really don’t remember what Hershey’s tastes like anymore! I’m also not much of a plain chocolate fan – give me Snickers! I’m planning to do a taste test between Cadbury and Hershey’s to see if people in the U.S. can taste the difference and which the like best.
• Botshelo Bead necklaces and earrings. These are the jewelry made with recycled magazine paper by the young women in the Kweneng Young Women Empowerment Project. They are so unique and beautiful and I think they’ll make great gifts! I also have a PCV friend who’s ordered a bunch for other friends and family to give as gifts. The girls are hard at work making as many as they can before I leave.
• Pictures. I realized late last year that I had not printed a single picture for the entire time we’d lived in Botwana. So, for my birthday I sent my mom a CD of pictures and she had them all printed and put in an album for me. I have to say that it was one of my most favorite gifts ever! To have all those pictures in one place is such a treasure. Of course I now have even more pictures to print, but fortunately only for the last six months. I can’t wait to share them all and our stories that go with them.

Brian and I are famous (or is it infamous?) among PCVs for our love of board games. Not just any board games, but board games with German origin. Whenever I tell people about our favorite games I usually start out by calling ourselves “game snobs” and end the conversation with “we’re really big nerds.”

The games we love are not your uber-nerdy D&D, Magic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer role-playing games. But they’re close. In fact, to purchase most of our favorite games we’ve usually ended up in game stores where people are holed up in the dark corner drinking 1-liters of Mt. Dew playing D&D, Magic or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Our games are one (tiny) step above that. I'm pretty sure that everyone of our favorites has been "published" by Rio Grande Our favorite games to play in Botswana include:

• Carcassone: I’ll go out on a limb and call this our all-time favorite game. It’s great as a two-player game but we’ve played it so many times together that it’s even more fun to add more people to the mix and mess with your typical strategy.
• Lost Cities: This is strictly a two-player game that seems simple at first, but there is a lot of strategy to it. Wendy and Ken gave us this for Christmas and we've been hooked ever since!
• Bohnanza (aka “the Bean Game”): We take this card game on all our big trips to teach to other PCVs. Again, fun as a two-person game but even better with more players. The game always creates hilarious conversations amongst players trading for beans (especially for those not playing and just overhearing the fun!)
• The Settlers of Catan: We own the two-player, card version of the game and love it. We also own a bunch of expansion sets which is like playing a whole new game. I can’t wait to play to “full” version in the States.

Interesting article i wanted to share

~ heather

New AIDS Cases in Africa Outpace Treatment Gains
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
Published: June 6, 2007
For each sub-Saharan African who was placed on anti-AIDS drugs last year, experts say, five more were newly infected.

I'm trying out this feature from Picasa to embed a slideshow of my pictures. Hope it works, and enjoy the show!

So...we've made the big move to G.C. Ok, it wasn't that big of a move. We don't own that much. And Moleps was only 60 minutes away. But in many ways Moleps is a world away from Gabs. No more taxi rides where the driver swurves (spelling?) around a donkey cart only to barely miss slamming into bull. No more waking up the sound of dozens of heckling chickens in our yard (our compost pile is really a neighborhood chicken feeder). There are certainly things about Moleps I won't miss--the office that is hotter inside than outside in summer and colder inside than outside in winter; the smelly old man coming in from the lands who always happens to sit next to me on the bus, chants of "lekgoa, lekgoa" from children as I pass by on the road--but I will miss my friends, the people I work with, the house, the neighbors' kids and the basketball guys. On my last day in the office Beauty, my former counterpart, told me, "You are a Mokwena. Molepolole will always be your home village." I miss home.

Next week I am headed up to Rwanda to attend the HIV Implementers Conference. The four-day conference is for PEPFAR funded initiatives, a U.S. government effort to address HIV and TB in developing countries, in Africa. I feel privileged to be offered a spot by the Botswana-U.S. delegation and look forward to networking with people and learning from the experiences and research of HIV programmes in other African countries. I submitted abstracts to the conference (REJECTED!), but I can still promote and share the success of the Zebras for Life--Test for Life campaign.

Begin soapbox. I know PEPFAR has plenty of detractors, but Bush did got something right with it. The initiative is broad in its scope to scale up prevention, treatment, care and support for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. PEPFAR is controversial because it has specific allocations set aside for abstinence and "be faithful" interventions as opposed to a heavy emphasis on condom promotion and distribution, which is still funds. People should keep in mind, however, that science and research heavily points to increasing of the age of sexual debut and decreasing the number of sexual partners over one's lifetime (the two are often linked together) as the best way to reduce STI and HIV incidence, and eventually HIV prevalence. I am no evangelical or social conservative, but I strongly support this approach because it continues to receive the backing of scientific research. Compare Uganda to the ineffective efforts in many other southern Africa countries. End soapbox.

So Rwanda...I know what you are thinking. But people are not running around chopping each other's arms off. Kigali, the capital city, is said to be one of the safest cities in Africa. The country has a long way to go to heal, but it seems to be making some progress. Rwanda is famous for its forested, mountainous terrain and being home to the very endangered mountain guerrillas. Unfortunately, I won't get to do any touring (maybe I can check out a few things in Kigali).

During my stay in Rwanda I will be staying at the Mille Collins. That's THE hotel Rwanda. As in Hotel Rwanda. I am excited because it is a very nice hotel. I don't know what to make of being excited by it being THE hotel Rwanda. It's not like its the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, but its still a little eerie to be staying there.

We’re not leaving yet, but in just over a month we’ll be headed to the States for one month of “home leave.” Home leave is a great benefit of serving a third year in Peace Corps – they pay for you to fly to your home of record and stay for one full month and you get to serve for another year. Pretty good arrangement if you ask me.

Peace Corps booked our flights last week, which brings me to the real point of this post – to let anyone who’s interested know that we’ll be arriving in Salt Lake Tuesday, July 17 and departing Friday, August 17. (Guess we’ll be returning on a jet plan too.) We’d love to see as many people as we can – we’ll be taking a road trip to Seattle, possibly San Francisco and likely to Southern Utah – so anyone besides family that wants to get together let us know. :)