The University of British Columbia

May 12 and 13, 2012

I left home at 7:00 am on Saturday to join an early morning game viewing. With two other volunteers we took a cab and went to Mokolodi Nature Reserve about 20 minutes away from where we live in Gaborone. It was a privately owned place and there were no predators as a result all the animals were in piece with each other. Although we were unable to spot the zebras, the giraffes and the hippos, it was fun to look for them as our guide drove us around the reserve, and see the ostriches, kudus, bores, and impalas, a variety of birds in addition to the breath taking view along with the breezy mountain weather.  It was totally worth it which gave me an idea of how spectacular a safari camp could be. I may be making plans for the next weekend for a safari camp.

After finishing the reverse, we stopped over at a coffee shop where we had breakfast and tea (well I had the tea while others preferred the coffee) in a beautiful garden. We then headed to see the Gaborone Dam and the yacht club (http://www.gyc.org.bw/). Yes, the yacht club, in the middle of Gaborone. Entering the yacht club looked a bit suspicious, with a 20 pula entrance fee for weekends and 10 pula for the weekdays since there didn’t seem to be anything worth seeing as a first impression. However, as we walked up the stairs and saw the facility which was hiding behind the trees and over a rock bed, I was very impressed. This place reminded me of Karya in Dikili, Izmir. Very peaceful! People there were getting ready for an Arts Exhibition which I would have loved to see, but we needed to leave before it started.  Nonetheless, we were able to see one artist hanging her artwork over the tree branches. It was quite artsy even the idea of displaying her art on the tree. And her art consisted of jackets and paths made out of very bright coloured big patterns that she claimed that they were for showbiz. And one jacket was offered at around 12000 pula which is around US1600. In retrospect, perhaps it was good that we had to leave there, it saved me some money.

view from the yacht club in Gaborone Dam

Since we had the cab driver to drive us around the whole day, we asked him to take us to the movie set of the No1 Ladies Detective Agency and took some pictures. Although the buildings around the set were still standing but were worn off, they didn’t feel safe enough for us to go inside the rooms so we ended up seeing them from the outside. I was able to visualize Mma. Ramotswe (the detective in the movie and the book series) going into the building slowly but surely with a smile on her face. It was a lot of fun.  Especially that I am in the middle of reading the Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by the same author, Alexander McCall Smith. This was very relateble to me.

We called the day off after another tea in a coffee shop near the mall that is near our place. I then did some grocery shopping and walked home.

Sunday was the first day I slept in till 8ish since I came here. Since I will be heading off to Maun catching an early flight tomorrow morning for another site evaluation for work, I wanted to have an easy day. I ended up connecting with the long term volunteer who was very kind to offer taking us to another place which was a nice restaurant tucked in a well groomed garden where they were also selling gardening tools and beautiful plants. I could not help taking a lot of pictures. All the plants are giant here compared to what I see in Vancouver, like palm trees which definitely strive for dry and sunny weather.

In the afternoon, I took a two-hour-walk around the neighbourhood. I wandered off to the side paths which seemed like shortcuts that would connect you to the main streets and which did. Especially as I was walking through a walkway with all dried bushes both sides, I heard a sound and a quick move of the bushes, which gave me a bit of a heart attack. I looked around and remembered people saying that there were snakes and I am NOT fond of snakes so I freaked out a bit and started walking faster and faster, this was followed by another sudden move of the bushes and I saw it this time. It was a lizard (I am pretty sure there is a fancier name for that size of a lizard)! I must tell you, the lizards here are huge, not cute at all. The ones that I am used to require a person needing a magnifier to see them, about 2 inches in length at most and very slim. These ones are about the size of a cat, very scary! I hope I don’t run into them again.

When I was in the garden of our apartment complex, it was around 3pm and I wanted to stay outside and enjoy the weather a bit more so I went by the pool and sat there and almost finished my book.

Happy Mothers’ Day Everyone! Now that I think about it, this is my first mothers’ day away from my kids whom I missed a ton.

May 11, 2012

It was a very full day, starting with an hour long drive to Kanye where I, BOCAIP staff member and the local BOCAIP supervisor met with the stakeholders and interviewed them sometimes one-on-one sometimes in groups of 4-5. One of the interviewee’s was a chief who did not necessarily endorse my outfit which included my business trousers. How on earth would I know that I was going to meet a chief and that there would be a rule wearing a skirt when meeting the chief? Ops, I did not know and I was not told either. At one point the staff member who is a very bright lady thought that we could stop over at a clothing store and buy me a skirt before we visit him and I was convinced that this would be the proper way to do it since I did not want to offend anyone, especially a chief who is a well-respected community member! Who am I to walk into his ward with a pair of trousers? But then the local BOCAIP supervisor insisted that it would be OK since this chief was rather modern and that I had fair skin to prove that I was from a different planet and I went along. It was a bit scary since he did not look amused, I can’t tell for sure if it was due to my outfit or if he was carrying an image to look series since he did not speak English except a few words here and there, but that was enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Lesson learned. I am wearing my skirts for my next four site visits despite the fact that they include longer road trips! Better be in a suit and don’t embarrass yourself than be comfortable in your cloths and wish that you are invisible!

For our rather late lunch, the local BOCAIP supervisor took us to a small family owned restaurant and I had Kudu and Dombi (lamb stew and white bread) with a side salad.  The meat came with its bones and fat attached but did not taste heavy at all.  It was cooked in a mild spicy tomato sauce and was very soft. As I was enjoying my lunch, and talking about how some food could make your stomach uneasy, the restaurant owner, a very nice and gentle old lady approached us with a dish in her hands and she wanted us to try it and said that it was a special dish. It looked like cooked dirt in the sense that it was grey/brown and small bits of stuff resembling pebbles – it was not vegetables for sure and didn’t look very appetizing at a first glance to me. But I was determined to try it even if it was a small bite. And I did. When I asked what it was, it turned out to be the animal intestines mixed with other internal organs and sauteed until all cooked. I would rather leave its taste to the reader’s imagination, but it wasn’t something for me. It must have been definitely an acquired taste since other people seemed to enjoy it.

Kanye was a small city spread around a lot of land with a population of almost 100,000 people, with a very dry weather, no running water in the houses, and cattle on the streets. During the interviews, people were referring to the importance of starting a small business and the only mental picture in my mind about small business was from the World Vision’s brochures such as starting with a goat or a pair of chicken and growing from there. And I must admit that when I read those brochures, I was unable to appreciate the potential impact of such interventions since I was unable to envision it. After I see the situation here with my own eyes (e.g., women selling candy, oranges, apples on a small table all day long) and talking with people, it now makes a lot of sense to me and I think every small contribution that people could make do actually have a potential to make a difference for individuals and communities in the micro-level. Having said, education is still the key to have an impact at a macro-level.

May 10, 2012

I walked to the work this morning along with the birds chirping, and people sweeping the leaves on the brownish soil coloured sand in front of their yards with handmade brooms. They do this as a ritual very morning and every evening very patiently. I was astonished seeing the huge termite mounds everywhere on the side of the streets and sometimes attached to the trees. I took a picture of it, here it is:

They are taller and way wider than I am. Yesterday I saw a woman who was on top of the pile and was collecting the dirt (or the termites I am not sure, I could not look that closely) and was eating it. She even had a plastic bag with her to take some home. It was quite a scene. I have been thinking about why these people are so relaxed even when the day ends and they need to go home quickly but yet they walk slowly as if they do not need to go home at all. Through our conversations with the other volunteer, I think we figured it out. It is pretty hot outside and if they walked fast, they would get very sweaty which I sort of experienced last evening when walking back home. Nonetheless, I am enjoying my morning and evening walks.

Every early morning and after sunset, there appears to be a mild coal burning smell in the air. I learned that there is no heating in the houses for a good reason; I still have to find out where this smell is coming from.

I spent almost the whole day working on my program evaluation proposal in the office. Most of the staff members were at a day-long meeting to launch a project, so I felt like I was working from home. I think it is partly because of the fact that the office is actually a small house. In the afternoon, kids of the office secretary came from school to wait for their mommy finish work. I found it pretty neat actually. Anyway, I am done with my program evaluation proposal, discussed it with my supervisor and got her approval and am ready to do my first site visit tomorrow. It is going to be Kanye, a small city, about 80 km south west of Gaborone., where I will be going there with a staff member and interviewing the stakeholders regarding the orphan and vulnerable children program of the BOCAIP to find out about their perceptions and experiences with the program.

May 9^th 2012

Today was my first day at work. My day started with the birds chirping in the early morning, the sun saluted me with grace. Have I mentioned that every day is a sunny day here? If not, let me tell you. One does not need to think about the weather here, I suspect that there may not even be a weather channel. Well, what would the meteorologist say? It is sunny again just like yesterday and the day before and the day before. The mornings have been a bit cool -perhaps somewhere around 15^oC but that did not prevent us having our breakfasts on our patio listening the birds, getting some sun shine and admiring the three dimensional spider web that is on the electric wire which is used to deter people from breaking in. And there is no sign on the electric wires indicating that there is live electric running through these wires.

I spent my whole morning reading the past reports and proposals that were prepared by the BOCAIP organization to familiarize myself with their programs. After a meeting with the BOCAIP’s national coordinator who is a very dedicated and a wise person, I had a clearer idea of what was expected of me. I am expected to develop an evaluation plan for its signature OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) program, develop tools to measure if it is achieving its program’s goals, compare the two models that they are using for program implementation to find out about which model is working better than the other, collect and analyse data, and prepare a report with recommendations. Yes, although I found it a bit ambitious for a 3 week assignment, I liked the challenge. After panicking a short period of time, say about 3 mins since that is as much time as I had to panic, I delved into drafting a plan in the afternoon. I have tomorrow to finish my proposed evaluation plan, get approval and develop tools for the evaluation since I will be heading off to Kanye on Friday to do the first site evaluation accompanied by the program officer.

This is the pace of things that I am used to doing as my work so I am confident that it will get done. The fact that this program aims to support these orphans and vulnerable children who lost their parents to AIDS or they are themselves infected with HIV and they live in poverty and it is difficult for BOCAIP to secure funding breaks my heart and knowing that one every 3-4 people here in Botswana carries HIV, and some are diagnosed with AIDS and are under treatment is pretty alarming. The stigma is a reality that they have to deal with every day. The behavioural change that is needed to prevent HIV transmission is yet to come, and it will sure be through education and a lot of it.

After we knocked off (meaning ending the work for the day), with two other volunteers, after stopping over my place for a brief period, we went to see a movie which was a thought-provoking documentary on an experiment that a high school teacher conducted 40 years ago to teach students about fascism in US and how it went out of control. The audience consisted of people with diversity of age, gender, color and nationality. It was pretty neat to be in such a diverse and intellectual group of people that reminded me of my university years and how strongly opinionated my friends and I were with our political views. We had to leave after the movie since our taxi came but the rest of the group stayed for debriefing.

This is all for tonight.

We went to a film festival at the local school which serves as an after-hours community centre. It has a courtyard with a permanent food truck serving smoothies and salads and other western foods. As we were sitting eating dinner, we were lucky enough to overhear the Botswana Children’s Choir rehearsing in one of the rec rooms attached to the courtyard — all the doors and windows are always open, since it’s 27C; pretty much constantly this time of year. I overheard one of the women at an adjacent table saying that they just returned victorious from a competition, and are getting ready for another one.

Take a listen! (Update: it won’t let me embed a player, sorry – just click on the link and it should open in your browser.)

Botswana Children’s Choir.

There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where a Klingon* is attending a banquet on the Enterprise. He points at the caviar, and asks what it is. Data answers: “It is the unhatched eggs of a large, scaled fish…” before Troy cuts him off and says “It’s a delicacy. Delicious.”

My co-worker Natefo and I went to The Corner Hut for breakfast this morning. She highly recommended the stew made from large and small cow intestines. Delicious! (Sure I eat tripe at home — but then it’s not called “intestines.”)

My theory (newly developed, coincidentally) is that food tastes best when we forget to think about what it really is. The trick? We must call everything by its name from a language we do not speak, and never our own. Then, it’s romantic! Have some caviar, dear. Some seswaa (“pounded beef”)? Lovely. And donuts (“fried wheat paste”)!

During our orientation, we had a chance to chat with Precious, a Botswana national, who gave us advice about life in her country, including the food. “Everything over there is organic,” she told us, and it is accidentally true: local vegetables are small, and gnarled, and spotty, because there isn’t a lot of water and pesticides are expensive. The tomatoes aren’t polished, the peppers aren’t waxed, and the potatoes aren’t scrubbed and sprayed, because Botswana consumers haven’t been trained to expect artwork-like perfection in their vegetables — they are sensible; they shrug, and cut off the spots.

And there is no “low fat” anything. In a country where many people live on a few dollars a day, and where HIV causes appetite and weight loss, the supermarkets simply don’t bother to stock things that don’t have lots of calories. The closest I could come to my preferred skim milk is 2% — and that’s labelled “low fat,” as a warning, I suspect, rather than a selling point.

Oh, and: I have to admit that I didn’t go and get an HIV test today. I could say that I didn’t have time: I went to a movie directly after work with Gulnur and another WUSC volunteer, Stephanie — but that’s an excuse. To be honest, I didn’t even ask about HIV testing, even though I know they do it where I work. I’ll admit it: I was too nervous. I didn’t know what they’d think. Even though I was sitting in a waiting room full of HIV positive kids who all went through this, in a place that is seeking to make a safe space for those who are HIV-positive, I still found reasons not to do it. If it was that difficult for me to broach the subject — me, from a low-risk area with a low-risk lifestyle, with no real fear of stigma and no stake in the community here — well. Thus, our challenge.

Still: I’m going to try to try, again, tomorrow.

* Yes, yes, it’s Worf’s brother Kurn. Nerds.

May 8th, 2012

Today went by the wind with the orientation and meeting with other volunteers and the central WUSC staff who were all very helpful and knowledgeable giving us great insights into the Botswana life here, do’s and don’ts.

We, as a group, went to a local restaurant to eat authentic Setswana food over lunch and I ordered “koko de Setswana (Botswana style chicken)”.  It was very tasty and was nothing like the chicken I am used to. They said that it was a free range chicken, and definitely had built muscle from all the free roaming around. It came with the bones and the skin on it as a result it kept me quite busy till I get to the meat. Otherwise, the food was almost bland, no overpowering tastes or smells, not spicy or salty at all. Some people did add hot sauce but I ate mine as is.

In the afternoon session, I had a chance to go and meet people at BOCAIP where I will spend the rest of my time working for them.  They also showed me around. The building itself is one story and resembles a house in the middle of a garden consisting of one large living room (i.e., meeting room and reception area), three bedrooms (each is a small office, one of which I will share with a term volunteer, and one of which is called a board room), a small restroom and a kitchen where I will be able to store my food in the fridge and be able to make tea as well. In the garden, there are some add-on offices for the rest of the people working there.

We will have a meeting in the morning to go over the details of my mandate. They told me that they added another city to my list of places to visit and collect data. I will do all these visits with one of their staff members to help her develop skills in program evaluation and that helps with capacity building. And between the conversations, I learned that the distances between these cities and Gaborone are between 2 to 5 hour-long road trips one way each except Maun where I will fly in. So, for me what that translates into is that long trips are waiting for me starting this Friday. On the positive side, lots of sightseeing is the bonus that I will get out of it and for that reason, I can’t wait.

One “Do” that I learned today

Always start with Dumela Ma/Ra (Hello Ma’am/Sir) to initiate a conversation. Otherwise people will think that you are not interested in talking with them and won’t engage in a conversation. I got a chance to experiment with that in a couple of occasions and I can attest that it is true. People’s face light up when you say Dumela Ma/Ra to them and they become very friendly instantly. I like that.

One “Don’t” that I learned today

Never walk alone after it gets dark to avoid any potential trouble. It got dark like black and white between going in and out of the market, one minute there was light the next minute it was dark outside. This happened around 6 pm. If that is the case take a taxi. I don’t want to try this to believe it. I will do what they say, and will take a taxi. To my people at home: don’t worry about me.

and yeah, the TB, for more read Renee’s blog about the details of the orientation.

“Practically everybody who works with immune-compromised populations has it.”

We’re sitting in our orientation, learning all the shocking facts about HIV/AIDS in Botswana from Melissa, HIV and AIDS Specialist and a development manager at WUSC. She tells us all the numbers, scary numbers, emphasizing the fact that incidence rates here for HIV work like a freight-train; they’re additive as the generations pass, so that what looks like a small percentage in the beginning — 2, or 3, or 4% — ends up resulting in a breathtaking 30% prevalence rate in twenty years (which is what it is right now). That’s if, she emphasizes, all of the work we do doesn’t work.

And if it does work, small changes at the beginning can have huge long-term gains. This is Really Good. And Melissa confident that what we’re doing can work, and that it will work.

We’re picked up from our apartment in the morning, and taken to our orientation at the WUSC office, a short drive from our lodgings. It’s a whirlwind day: an in-depth briefing on the socio-cultural and political issues in Botswana from Lock, a professor at the University of Botswana; meeting all the folks who work tirelessly in the WUSC office to make our trip possible; a refresher on all the reporting we’ll be doing; tips about culture and society (tl;dr: Canadians are loud); and, a wonderful traditional lunch at Botswana Craft Centre. Most importantly, a talk about why we’re really here: HIV.

“I think we should tell people before they come, about getting TB here: but it’s not really a big deal,” Melissa says. “You just need to know that if you ever have to take a TB skin test, you’ll likely test positive.”

TB is the most common opportunistic infection that comes along with HIV. Working with immune-compromised populations, like the teens at Baylor where I’ll be, inevitably means exposure to TB — but, Melissa stresses, as long as we’re healthy and don’t get HIV one day ourselves (or need radiation therapy for cancer), the TB cells will be dormant. And if we ever can’t fight them off, well, we’ll just go and get antibiotics.

“It will take two weeks or so, then you’ll be cured.”

She also suggested we go and get tested for HIV ourselves. Botswana has rapid HIV testing — like a pregnancy test, but with a drop of blood. “Even if you know, really know that you’ve never been in an at-risk population or situation, there’s a moment right before they tell you, where you’re terrified,” she says. The truth is this: everybody who lives in Botswana should get tested. Walking down the street, one out of every three people you see has HIV. They need to know, so they can get treated, and not pass it on to their partners. A large part our job is to get people to do this: we should know what we’re asking them to sign up for. It’s easy to understand, intellectually, that getting a result, even a positive one, is better than living in the dark. It’s another thing altogether to really, emotionally, face it square on.

Tomorrow will be my first day in my new workplace, meeting my coworkers, and getting the hang of my job. And I’ll get an HIV test on my way home.

May 5-7th, 2012

After two days of trip, two long flights between Vancouver and London and then London and Johannesburg followed by a short flight to Gaborone, I was welcomed by the WUSC Program Officer at the Gaborone international airport which is the tiniest and the calmest airport I have ever seen especially after the intensity and the crowd in Heathrow, I appreciated the serenity of this airport.  As we were approaching to Johannesburg, I noticed the rising sun; the view was spectacular outside my plane window, the intense layer of red and all the warm colors between the land and the air was breathtaking and looked like a generous never-ending painting with no beginning and no end. As we descended more and more I couldn’t help but look really carefully to the land and around the big paddles of water (i.e., little lakes) in the hopes of seeing a wild animal or two but was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, the landscape was quite interesting, lots of wiggly brown beige roads made out of soil that did not seem to go anywhere in particular. At the airport, I was able to exchange some of my US dollars to Pulas which I found very colourful, happy and definitely well-used. I learned that people use mostly cash here similar to Turkey.

The WUSC officer graciously gave me and my colleague, who is also a volunteer and with whom we flew together, a ride to the Motheo apartments that is where we will be staying for the rest of our trip. She also offered to take us to the nearby grocery where I ended up buying some food such as eggs, pasta, milk, cheese, bread and yogurt – not very exciting is it? I need a couple of days to acclimatize my body and adjust to the local germs before I try different tastes. The grocery was in the old mall area and we saw lots of street sellers who were there to sell their homemade food for people who work in the nearby businesses. There were line ups to buy those homemade foods. When I feel brave enough, I am going to try them one day. There was a sense of rush but not the kind of rush one would see in large cities, people were relaxed in general, although I learned that there were only about 200,000 people in Gaborone, it felt like all of them were in this mall at that particular moment. My jetlag might undoubtedly have contributed to this feeling. Oh, did I mention that all is walking distance to our apartment?

The apartment unit is a two story unit, on the main floor there is a full kitchen and a living room area with a TV. Upstairs has two separate bedrooms with private showers in them and a common toilet. It is too bad that internet is not free in this complex. We need to pay P30 per person per day which is equivalent to CAD 4 per day per person.

Tomorrow is my first official day and is the orientation day. I will get a chance to meet with other volunteers and officials and learn more about the local rules and culture. Look forward to it.

The flight into Botswana was punishingly long. Thanks to the distortions of the Mercator projection, we in the west tend to think of Africa as a mid-sized continent hanging by a thread from the bottom of Europe — but this is wrong. Africa? Just enormous: 20% of the land-mass on Earth, enormous. (By comparison our continent, including that vast tundra of ours, is approximately 16%.) Suffice it to say that flying over almost all of it, to reach Johannesburg from London, took a very, very, very long time. Also, the lady in the seat next to me had more than eleven hours worth of elbows to spare, so it felt even longer.

The actual mechanics of the trip are sort of hazy, and can only be recalled as a dreamlike state full of long hallways, uncomfortable seats, and sore shoulders. I contracted a hangnail as soon as I left the house for the airport, which meant that I had five hangnails when we finally deplaned, 31 hours later — airports being, of course, the only places in the world where by law not a single person has a pair of nail clippers.

Then there was Heathrow. Heathrow was terrible. I mean, everybody knows that Heathrow is terrible. When you say “Heathrow” people nod sagely and go “Aaah. Heathrow.” And you think that it can’t be that bad, because after all, at its core it’s just an airport and if you’ve seen one, well.

But let me tell you. Heathrow is hot. Heathrow is loud. Heathrow is confusing, and Heathrow is full of twisty lines and arbitrary directions and long escalators leading to lineups leading to security checks. Heathrow is bright lights and flashing signs and miles of stinky perfume counters. Heathrow is like being stuck in the gaudiest, most crowded mall on the planet, with ten thousand other people who also can’t leave and also don’t know where they’re supposed to go next. None of you has had a shower in ages.

I now measure bad things in units of Heathrow. One Heathrow: Terrible. Two Heathrows? Unbearable. Three Heathrows? Sartre wants your number, because he thinks he might like to write a play about it.

But Heathrow finally ended, and I found myself in the spacious, sunny airport in Johannesburg, waiting to be bussed out to our little Dash 8 to fly the remaining 100kms to Gaborone, where the first thing I saw as we pulled out of the parking lot was two monkeys gleefully ripping apart a watermelon under a hibiscus tree bursting with blooms.

Welcome to Botswana.