January 2008 Archives

I skipped the letter E because I couldn't think of anything to write at the time. In the last couple of weeks, however, we've had pretty frequent power outtages (or, as the Botswana Power Corporation likes to call them "load sharing"). Nothing like power outages to remind you of how much you appreciate Electricity. Like the fact that whenever I get a good supply of ice going in the freezer something inevitably happens to make it all melt. The problem has become so bad that people I know are investing in generator systems and businesses are looking into ways to keep their uniterruptable power supplies going longer.

The issue is that South Africa isn't producing enough electricity for its own needs and so Botswana, who imports electricity from SA, is literally left in the dark. The issue is maybe even worse for South Africa where tourists have been stranded on the top of Table Mountain and the gold and diamond mines have been forced to work at a limited capacity to avoid unpredictable power outages. Not to mention the fact that this will be a problem in the forseeable future which could impact South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup of Soccer.

For a good summary of the issue, read the transcripts of a Carte Blanche investigation discussing the problems with Eskom (the South African power company.) Shows you just how far away we are from getting the problem solved.

We had a great garden in our yard in Molepolole. We started it with the help of a friend’s gardener who dug up the plot and mixed the dirt with chicken manure from the local chicken farm. The mixture of chicken manure and rain water made our garden unstoppable. We grew primarily onion, sweet corn and eggplant. The garden was so out of control that first year that we had two crops of sweet corn and our eggplant produced fruits for almost a year. Brian, of course, was a great garden keeper – always finding something to tinker with to keep it going. Unfortunately we weren’t able to plant our second year because somebody stole our hose pipe and it didn’t rain nearly a much as it did the first year.

Juggling Truths
by Unity Dow

Unity Dow was a human rights activist and lawyer before becoming Botswana’s first female high court judge. She has published a growing number of short, fictional novels with themes related to her professional background and passion for education. In Juggling Truths Dow takes readers back to Mochudi in the mid-1960s and explores the contradictions experienced by a coming of age girl caught between her western-influenced school curriculum and traditional village life. As with other Dow novels, the narrative is not as easy to follow as something like McCall’s #1 Lady’s Detective Agency Series, but her cultural commentary has much more accuracy and depth. At least one of Unity Dow’s growing assortment of novels is a must read for this reason.

I actually read this book early last year but never reviewed it on here. Since we're gearing up for the new trainees to arrive in April and one common question we get is "What should I read before I come?" I thought I'd write a review now.

"Place of Reeds" is an autobiography of sorts chronicling the author's life in Botswana. Davies is a Brit who studied in the U.S. While there she met and fell in love with Ron, a man from Maun, Botswana. She returned to the UK after university and eventually found a way to come to Botswana as a teacher. She ended up staying for 12 years, marrying Ron and having a daughter. In between all that, however, there was plenty of drama. Here's a good synopsis from the publisher's website:

Davies captures a lot of the intricacies to Botswana culture. And, while not a major plot, she does a fascinating job of addressing the early HIV epidemic in Botswana during the 90s. The story is very engaging and the book is hard to put down until you've finished. I very highly recommend "Place of Reeds."

One gift we received before coming to Botswana was a floppy, light-weight Frisbee. Frisbees are great gifts for PCVs. For example, throwing the Frisbee around was a perfect past time for blowing off extra energy with other PCVs or bonding with our host family over a long weekend during pre-service training. After training we played A LOT of Frisbee with the neighborhood kids. Brian would create all kinds of games to earn points. Most of them usually started with being awarded points if you actually CAUGHT the Frisbee but eventually involved getting points if you were the first one to scoop the Frisbee off the ground. I also can't tell you how many times we've played Frisbee on vacation. Especially with our friend Scott. (See collage above: Brian throwing a Frisbee in Cape Town, at Camp Umvuvu and at Planet Baobab.)

At this point the floppy, light-weight Frisbee has been used so much that I had to do a Google search to figure out the official brand (Aerobie Squidgie Disc.) because all the writing has worn off. At one point my friend emily sent me a bunch of promotional, traditional (read: hard) Frisbees that she collected at a union trade show. We gave them to the neighbor kids, but they were thrown off the hardness and still wanted to play with the Aerobie Squidgie Disc. (We're pretty sure the hard Frisbees ended up as plates for their families, which is actually another use we've found for Frisbees. They work great in a pinch as cutting boards or plates. Who knew there were so many uses for a Frisbee?)

There have been several interesting articles floating around recently that I wanted to discuss here. The first is Monitoring effectiveness of programmes to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission in lower-income countries (pdf) by Elizabeth M Stringer, et al. published in the January 2008 Bulleting of the World Health Organization. The article starts an important discussion on how to measure the effectiveness of PMTCT programs. You may wonder why I emphasized "programs" but it's an important distinction. MTCT interventions work (e.g. short-course AZT, replacement feeding, etc.) The question is how do policy maker evaluate whether the programs implementing those interventions are effective? The authors propose measuring HIV-free survival. Read the full article for more info, I recommend it.

Another recent must read is "Ten myths and one truth about generalised HIV epidemics" (free subscription required) by James D Shelton in the December 1, 2007 edition of The Lancet. I really enjoyed his take on the basic misconceptions about HIV prevention that all highlight the strong need to start addressing concurrent partnerships. You can also download a pdf version of the article here 10MythsLancet07.pdf

Here are some useful resources for future (or current) Peace Corps volunteers. We've found these to be very useful to our work in Botswana, but wished we had known about them much, much sooner. I think a future PCV can get some perspective on the type of work they will be doing and what roles they will play.

• All Together Now! (pdf) - An AIDS Alliance guidebook for working with communities to developed sustainable HIV/AIDS interventions.
• Tools Together Now! (pdf) - This clever handbook has 100 participatory community development tools grouped into categories (e.g., mapping, time analysis, linkages, etc.) with an example of each tool in use. This is designed to be a companion to All Together Now, but it can be used on its own to enhance any community effort to address HIV/AIDS.
• Peace Corps NGO Handbook (pdf) - A training/pratical guidebook for volunteers working with non-government organizations.
• Role of the Volunteer in Development (pdf) - This is a great book for future and current volunteers. It lays out the Peace Corps approach to development and how a volunteer fits into a community's effort at addressing a problem.
• Peer Education for Behavior Change (pdf) - This is the facilitator's guidebook we compiled/wrote to help educate people on HIV/AIDS issues and support one's decision to commit to healthy behaviors.
• On-going Language Learning (pdf) - This manual has good tips for anyone trying to learn a language in an immersed environment.

Botswana is often seen as a success story in the effort against HIV/AIDS. It was the first African country to provide eligible citizens with life-saving antiretroviral treatments. Furthermore, its PMTCT program has reduced perinatal HIV infections from approximately one-third of infants born to HIV+ mothers to less than 5 percent, a rate comparable to the developing world. Voluntary counseling and testing services, male and female condoms, contraceptives, TB treatment, TB preventative therapy, and other supportive services are available at no cost to citizens. Unfortunately, the adult HIV prevalence stands at 25 percent and a lot of factors are pointing to a sustained incidence of HIV infection.

Fully addressing Botswana’s HIV/AIDS problem is multifaceted and resource dependant, but a lot of it comes down to knowledge and behavior. More especially, “building a bridge” between knowledge of HIV/AIDS and one’s sexual behavior behavior. Heather and I have found that tackling this issue in Botswana is tricky. For starters, even in Botswana knowledge of HIV is still something to be desired. According to a major Botswana government study in 2004, one-third of people believe HIV can be transmitted by witchcraft, one-half believe it can be transmitted by mosquito, and nearly one-quarter believe that a healthy-looking person can’t have AIDS. This has serious ramifications for linking HIV knowledge to behaviors. I believe that it’s important for everyone to understand that you get HIV from having unprotected sex (yes, there are other ways, but over 90 percent of infections are through heterosexual sexual intercourse). I don’t like giving people an out (e.g., “I once cared for my uncle who has AIDS and he may have bleed on me.”) because that allows people to evade responsibility for their actions.

In Molepolole, Heather and I sought out any opportunity to educate, and train other to educate, on HIV, AIDS and STIs. We wanted to help people understand that their actions have consequences and that there are strategies to reduce or eliminate your risk of HIV exposure. Our first challenge in leading sessions and training others was the lack of quality HIV/AIDS educational manuals available locally—unnerving considering Botswana’s HIV/AIDS situation. Also, the plethora of government services resulted in many HIV education outlines being nothing more than definitions of acronyms (e.g., IPT, HAART, PMTCT, etc.) and stating the objectives of national programmes. While somewhat important, that’s unlikely to lead to behavior change. The other problem we encountered was that the HIV training manuals produced by Peace Corps were either too vague or not conceptualized for situation in Botswana.

So we set out to write/compile an HIV/AIDS lesson book of own following behavior change theory and the advice of philosopher John Dewey:

The guidebook now in use helps engage participants in discussions and activities that apply knowledge and relate it to behavioral strategies. Anne from Bots2 provided some original artwork and updated/revised a few illustrations. Take a look at the guidebook. Let us know what you think.

Peer_Education_for_Behavior_Change.pdf

Botsblog.org is officially up and working and even has a new look! It took some tweaking (I upgraded to Movable Type 4.01) and I lost some hair updating our templates, but everything is working as it should be. The most exciting thing is that comments finally work again, so go ahead and leave us a comment!

And just in case you missed the links to the right, you can subscribe to botsblog.org by email or to receive updates in your RSS reader. More content to come soon, we promise!

Southwest Township (Soweto)
Staying at Lebo's Backpackers in Soweto is must for anyone passing through Jo-burg. Despite the population density, Soweto has the vibe of village life. I felt much safer in Soweto than in Jo-burg and found that people were very friendly and talkative. Lebo, the backpacker's owner/manager, lived with his relatives in Botswana while his parents were in exile for their activism against aparthied in the 1980s. His takes on South African history and Soweto life were very interesting.

Photo (clockwise starting in the upper lefthand corner): Mural on Lebo's outside wall; me Shaq-attacking the hoop; at a shabeen drinking shake-shake; view of Orlando West in Soweto; Nelson Mandela's former house; Lebo's courtyard; on a bike tour with Charlemagne through Soweto.

Animals Everywhere
Kruger National Park in South Africa was awesome. I've heard complaints from people that it is too zoo-like. But I don't really think that is true. Yes, the camp sites are surrounded by electric fencing and developed much like a national park in the states. And yes, there are paved (and unpaved) roads that run through the park. But going on game drives through Kruger wasn't much different than in Khutse/CKGR in Botswana, expept that you see WAAAAAY more game in Kruger.

Photos: Most of these are from Kruger. One or two is from St. Lucia or Mlilwane

Mountain Kingdom
The countryside in Swaziland looks more like The Sound of Music than The Gods Must Be Crazy. We stayed at Sonzela's Int'l Backpacker in the Mlilwane Wildlife Park outside of Mbabane. Sonzela's is definetely THE place to stay if you are traveling through Swaziland. It's peaceful and senic, but there's lots to do. The backpacker has a pool, pool and ping pong tables, bar area, braii spot and big kitchen. You can also book activities outside the park through the front desk or arrange for non-affiliated adventure operators to pick you up at the gate. If you're low on funds, you can hike and bike your guts out on the trails that run through the santuary (there are no predators, buffalos, elephants, or rhinos--so it's safe).

Photo: On a bike ride through the Mlilwane Wildlife Reserve in Swaziland.

Mildly Amusing Road Signs
South Africa and Swaziland have a lot of midly amusing, interesting and confusing signage. My favorite was one in South Africa that read, BEWARE YOU ARE ENTERING A HI-JACKING ZONE, but Heather wouldn't pull over so I could take a picture of it.

Photo: I guess these don't need much explanation--expect for one. Is it just me, or doesn't that look like it is saying, BEWARE OF NAZIS TRYING TO TIP OVER YOUR CAR.

The Beach
It was great to hit the beach at St. Lucia and Durban. Antsey's Beach Backpacker on the Bluff just outside of Durban is an awesome place to stay. The surf is a little too rocky in spots and pretty rough for swimming (perfect for boogie boards and surfing though). I cut up my feet pretty bad swimming out to retreave a frisbee that was sucked up by the undertow.

Photo: View of the Indian Ocean from Antsey's.