February 2008 Archives

I’ve been making a lot of phone calls at work lately trying to follow-up on infant testing results from all 29 districts in Bots. I have a lot of thoughts about making phone calls here, but I’ll keep this to just one that struck me recently: I am extremely patient here waiting for people to pick up the line. Am I the only person who thinks you should pick up the phone in four rings or less? Somehow that got instilled in me growing up - that you let the phone ring four times and then hang up. Consequently I feel like I should pick up the phone in less than four rings. (Side note: This is the reason my cell phone has the traditional Nokia “ring.” If the phone plays a song then I don’t know how many times the phone has rung!)

In Bots the four-rings-or-less rule is out. In fact, you can just plan on somebody picking up AFTER four rings. This is why I usually just let the phone ring until I guess the phone company gives up and there’s just nothing on the line. If I start to get impatient and think of hanging up before the line goes dead somebody will inevitably pick up right as I’m about to hang up. You can also sometimes call, let the phone ring until it’s through and then hit redial and get somebody to pick up. I don’t know why, but there is just no urgency to get to the phone here.

The title of this post comes from my dad who I can vividly remember counting the phone rings out loud when he made phone calls “one ringy dingy … two ringy dingy … three ringy dingy … four ringy dingy …” Maybe that's what created my four-rings-or-less rule?

I saw your original packing list and some of your old posts. Is there anything else you wish you brought with you?

Headlamp: I wish a brought a small headlamp and an extra battery for it (you can by more batteries in Botswana). It’s great for reading in the dark if you don’t have electricity or during power outages. It also functions as a flash light for camping or making late night trips to the pit latrine.

Dress shirts: I brought a lot of polo-type shirts, but they really stretched out through the hand-washing and line-drying process. My dress shirts held up much better and just look sharper. You can always roll up the sleeves and undo a button or two if it gets hot. If it’s cold, you can pull over a sweater.

Old dress clothes: During training sessions you are expected to dress reasonably well (business casual-ish) to demonstrate your professionalism. Unfortunately, I wore out a lot of my clothes initially as PC has you put one of your bags in storage during training. I wish I had kept a lot of my older casual-ish clothes before coming and then worn the same few things over-and-over again. Then at swearing-in you can retire your training uniform and look your best when you go to site. (Please don’t misconstrue this as recommending that you grunge-it-up during training.)

Nurf American football: Who doesn’t enjoy tossing around a football? It’s a great way to revive yourself between sessions. Not to mention you can teach the host fam and neighbor kids a new sport.

Last week I read an interesting article in the New York Times titled "The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors" The article resonated with me because it accurately reflects my "decision" to apply to SEVEN graduate schools. Hind sight being 20-20 I probably should have stuck to four.

The article discusses a new book "Predictably Irrational" by Dr. Dan Ariely a professor at MIT and a study he conducted there with students. In the study students were played a computer game where they were paid cash to look for money behind three doors. As the game progressed doors started disappearing. The point being the they should have ignored the disappearing doors and wasted clicks trying to get those options back.

For me, a quote from Dr. Ariely's article about the study in Management Science sums it up perfectly:

When I was applying for grad schools I wanted to keep my options as open as possible "just in case" one of the programs wanted to give me free money. As I said, hindsight is 20-20. It's easy for me to say that there are school's I'm really not ALL that interested in now that acceptances to schools I REALLY WANT to attend have come in. So, I guess I'm writing this as advice for future PCVs (or anyone else) that is looking to apply for grad school. Think hard about where you want to go to school. Make the tough decision and keep your list down to 3 or 4 schools. Maybe one or two "reaches" and plus some "safeties." Applying for grad school isn't cheap so keeping your list of school's down will save you money, time and energy.

The back-end of our blog has been out-of-commission recently so there is a lot of news to catch up on. Today I'll start with the big news: our friends Scott and Suzie are getting married in August! Yea! They met as PCVs here in Bots. First they were in the same language group in PST and even when they were placed in communities almost 12 hours apart they found a way to make their relationship work. We are so happy for them, and are looking forward to reuniting with other Bots 3ers at their big day in August. Here's to Peace Corps couples :)

Our camera gave up the ghost and died. It was shocking and rather unexpected. One time it worked and the next time we turned it on all we got was lines going through the LCD. (See picture.) We can still view pictures on a memory card, but it won't take any new pictures. Since April 2005 (when I reset the counting system because I wanted to keep track of how many pictures we took in Peace Corps) we took over 9,500 images on the camera. We bought the camera over Thanksgiving in November 2004, so think the camera easily had over 10,000 images oni t. That's a pretty good lifetime for a camera.

The S1 IS was my first digital camera. When we bought it I was giving up a film SLR so I picked the S1 IS because - despite having only 3.2MP, it had a 10x optical zoom with image stabilization. It was smaller than an SLR but still relatively advanced. Also, at the time consumer-level dSLRs (like the Digital Rebel) were relatively new on the market and much more expensive. So I was willing to compromise on megapixels for the ability to zoom in a lot with image stabilization.

Now we are in the market for a new camera. At this point we have decided not to completely replace the S1 IS and instead buy an ultra-compact model that will be 1) cheaper and 2) easier to carry around. The plan for going small (and cheap) is to eventually get a dSLR. After owning a medium/large-sized megazoom I've decided that I'd rather have a cheap small camera that's easy to carry around and an actual BIG camera for taking "real" pics. Right now we're weighing either the Canon Powershot SD1000 or the Sony Cybershot DSC-W80. I'm leaning towards the W80 because it has an image stabilization feature, but I'm a pretty die-hard Canon fan so it's really hard for me to give that up. (Any thoughts from readers on P&S digicams they love?)

FWIW - several of my in-laws own either the S2 IS or S3 IS and really like them. On subsequent models Canon immediately upped the number of megapixels, increased the LCD size and even upped the optical zoom. If I were in the market for a megazoom camera again I'd definitely be getting the latest model.

In Setswana "ee" literally means "yes." (Use your best Canadian accent.) It's "ee" for yes and "nnya" for no. However, "ee" has taken on a much more universal use. It's almost like "uh" or "um" because it's can be used at any time. For example, you can end sentences with "ee?" as in "don't you agree?" Many volunteers have remarked that they're going to miss using "ee" once they return to the U.S. or how they're going to have to give it up to keep from being laughed at. It's just one of those phrases that makes life in Botswana what it is.

E, of course, also stands for ELEPHANT. I don't have much to say about them except they're huge but graceful and kind of funny looking at the same time. I think my favorite elephant encounter was on the boat cruise in Kasane where we saw a big heard come to the waterfront to drink in the evening. The baby elephants played in the water while the adults looked out for them. Also, even though it was scary (and traumatizing) at the time, it was pretty cool when we were charged by one at Elephant Sands for Christmas 2005. The scariest elephant encounter, however, was in Kruger park where you're driving a tiny car that they could easily crush in a single blow. Seriously, one wrong move and you could be flat. Now that's scary.

The most recent report to Congress from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief noted the success of Zebras4Life at linking men to HIV testing. The photo of Zebras defender Khumo "Shoes" Motlhabane, catured at an event in Pandamatanga, along with with caption at left appeared in the Care section of the full report. The numbers, however, are out of date and have been vastly exceeded in the past few months. But hey, it's pretty cool to get mentioned as success story in the global effort against HIV/AIDS. The commitment from Tebelopele staff and counsellors, the American Embassy and CDC in Botswana, the Zebras/BFA, and the Botswana government cannot be understated.
In my personal opinion, the Bush administration deserves a lot of credit for committing $15 billion over five years for global efforts to address HIV/AIDS. Some of the early controversies have been blown way out of proportion by pundits and special interest groups, such as the 'A' provision and "underfunding" during the first few years. That being said, I hope in the near future that PEPFAR places more emphasis on deploying skilled personal to help build capacity, increases its commitment to prevention programming, funds the whole package of family planning when culturally appropriate, and improves the quality and effectiveness of interventions.

Links: Fourth Annual PEPFAR Report | About PEPFAR | The Zebras & BFA

This weekend Brian and I have tickets to see Freshly Ground play at the Grand Palm. I'm thinking of it as an early Valentine's Day treat. Freshly Ground is a South African group with a great, but totally indescribable sound. Afro-fusion is what I think people call it. They performed in Gaborone about a year ago and I heard they put on a great performance. I'm super excited because we've got great seats just four rows back and right in the center of stage. I will definitely post a review of the concert next week, but in the meantime enjoy this YouTube clip of their music video for "Doo Be Doo"

Mascom Premier League leading scorer and national soccer team star Pontsho Moloi spoke about the Zebras' HIV testing campaign in an interview with The Voice on Friday. The article is titled, Captaining the Chiefs.

The best part about the article is that Pontsho was speaking from his own experience and beliefs that relate HIV testing to family planning. In Botswana, many men have the habit of testing through their partners (i.e., assuming their HIV status is the same as their partners). They will wait until after their wife or girlfriend falls pregnant and receives antenatal care, where HIV testing uptake is over 80 percent, to assume their HIV status. This is problematic for a number of a number of reasons (e.g., implications for parinatal transmission as PMTCT is not 100 percent full proof, possibility of discordancy within the couple, potential for gender-based violence, etc.). That is why it is important for men to know their status conclusively and on their own merits.

An excerpt from Pontsho's interview:

THE VOICE: You are also an ambassador in the ‘Zebras4life test4life’ initiative. Can you shed more light on it?

PONTSHO: That is an initiative for every Motswana male; every male supporter of the Zebras is encouraged through this programme to test and know their HIV status. Those who test with Tebelopele, are given a blue wristband, like the one I am wearing (shows off his two blue wrist bands). We were targeted to spearhead the campaign because statistics showed that most men were not coming forward to test for HIV and therefore did not know their status. So we are tasked with going around the country, addressing public gatherings and encouraging men to test.

THE VOICE: How has the reaction been so far?

PONTSHO: I have been to Maun with Tshepho ‘Talk Talk’ Motlhabankwe. I am told the number of men who tested was quite amazing after we addressed them. It is a face to face scenario with us and the fans ask any type of questions. Some take advice and test and of course some only want to know about the Zebras.

THE VOICE: Have you been tested and have you spoken to your younger brother Dirang about it?

PONTSHO: You can’t ask me if I have been tested. How would I have the blue wristband if I had not? I have, of course, talked to Dirang about testing even though he doesn’t take me seriously.

THE VOICE: I'm told you have a baby. Did you test after making her or before?

PONTSHO: I went for HIV tests with my girlfriend and we decided to make a baby knowing our status. It is not a good idea to make indirect tests by impregnating somebody. You can never know unless you test the right way.

If only there were more athletes like Pontsho...

Image: Pontsho Moloi trading card.