MYAA

It is Month of Youth Against Aids in Botswana so we have been busy with several events in our district. Last weekend, we did a mural project with the PACT/GLOW club at the junior secondary school. First, the students had an art contest to pick a winning drawing. They then took the winning drawing and sketched it on a wall at the school. Finally, on Saturday, the club members took turns painting the mural. It was a fun day of painting, playing Frisbee, and having a group discussion about HIV/AIDS. It started raining in the afternoon, but luckily we were able to get the majority of the painting done.

On Friday, we will be attending an HIV/AIDS event for students at the junior secondary school in Sepopa. This weekend, we will be facilitating a 2 day HIV/AIDS Youth Forum in Gumare for 30 junior secondary students. Next weekend, we are going to have the PACT club members from the junior secondary school help the PACT club members at the primary school paint a mural.

On Thursday and Friday, February 26 and 27th, we held the Child Welfare Networking Forum in Shakawe at the Fishing Lodge. After weeks of preparation, the two days went very well. We had 28 people come, representing S&CD, the DAC office, and 10 NGOs involved with orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) in our district. There were a lot of relevant discussions about how NGOs can work with each other and come together as one voice to advocate for OVCs. This was also an opportunity for S&CD (Social and Community Development office- gov. organization that provides benefits and services to OVCs and their caregivers) to clarify some issues pertaining to its role. The forum ended on a positive note, with all organizations expressing interest in meeting again in the near future, although no specific action plan was created. We are now working on a directory so that the organizations have each others’ information, including focus area and services offered, so it will facilitate referrals in the future.

The Saturday after the forum ended, Botshelo Trust, the NGO I was working with to produce the Child Welfare Networking Forum, sponsored an event called Shakawe Music Festival/Have a Heart for Kids day. At this event, all the NGO’s who came to the networking event had a booth where they provided information about their organization to the public. There was also talent show and traditional dancing, which people enjoyed. Unfortunately, it ended up raining quite a bit and the star act Chris Monto7 ended up backing out at the last minute.

The weather has not been nice for the last week. It has been raining heavily nearly every day. As a result, the roads have been hard to walk on because of all the mud and huge puddles of water. Luckily, the temperature has cooled as a result of the rain.

Sadly, my planned trip to Madagascar next month has to be cancelled due to the riots that have been happening in the capital. Peace Corps could not approve our trip due to safety concerns. I was really looking forward to seeing all the creatures (especially the chameleons and lemurs). We are not sure if we will go somewhere else yet, although we will be ready for a little R&R in the near future  The good news is that Jen P. has booked her flight and will be come visiting us in July, which will be a nice birthday present.

The weather seems to be getting a little cooler now, although it is still hot. Since it is still the rainy season, there are occasional downpours which leave huge puddles of mud. I’ve never seen rain come down as it does here in Botswana. We are still dealing with occasional power outages because of shortages of electricity from Namibia. For example, our electricity was out all day yesterday. Since the water pumps, which also filter the water, run by electricity, we also lose water when the power is out for more than a few hours. When the power goes out during the work week, it is hard to get work done at the Rural Administration Center (RAC) where I work. Luckily, the power outages usually occur on weekends. When they do occur during the week, they usually post signs alerting what times the electricity will be out.

Richard is very proud that vegetables are now starting to grow in our yard. His watermelons are getting quite big and the tomatoes plants have started to sprout. We have also been working on getting a nice garden growing in our front yard. We occasionally have to get our yard cleared because all the weeds grow fast and big during the rainy season. It is nice to see everything green though because during the dry season, everything is brown. I had a happy moment this morning when I walked out and there was a chameleon staring at me in the tree in our backyard.

Work has really picked up for Richard and I. Richard really enjoyed his workshop in Lesotho in which he gained lots of ideas for technology projects aimed at HIV/AIDS. He is hoping to pass these ideas on to our fellow PCVs in Botswana. For instance, using soda cans to give cell phone coverage to places without network. This goes along with a project that uses SMSs (text messages) to remind people to take ARVs.

We have several projects planned for the Month of Youth next month. We are going to do HIV/AIDS mural projects with the primary and junior secondary schools as well as a weekend HIV/AIDS youth forum in Gumare, in which we are going to provide HIV/AIDS education and have the youth come up for strategies for combating HIV/AIDS in the community.

I’ve been going back and forth to Shakawe to help plan a Child Welfare Networking Forum in which all the local NGOs and government offices will meet to strategize on how they can cooperate and work together. The event will finally occur on Thursday and Friday this week, followed by a musical festival on Saturday where all the organizations will have stalls to present their organizations to the public. I’m hoping that after all the work we put into planning, that things work out smoothly.

We have also been planning health fairs. This week, we went to Gudigwa, the furthermost village in our district. It involves going to Shakawe, crossing the river by ferry, then driving down an un-tarred, bumpy road for 2.5 hours then returning, all in one day. We tried to go on Thursday, but the ferry wasn’t working because someone forgot to anchor it and it floated away and they were working on retrieving it. Instead, we ended up doing the trip on Friday, leaving at 6AM, getting back at 6:30. We were hoping to do a health fair there in a few weeks, but we will have to wait until next quarter because they want more time to set up their Village Multi-sectoral AIDS Committee (VMSAC). There will, however, be a health fair in Ngarange, also across the river but much closer than Gudigwa, in the first week of March.

There has been a lot of focus on malaria since our district has the highest rate in Botswana. Several organizations, along with our district health team, are doing door to door bednet distribution in our district. I’ve sat in on one of their planning meetings. The plan is having teams go out to the villages in three stages: first to educate and sensitize, second to distribute the bednets, and third to make sure the people are using the nets. Last time I was in Gaborone, I met up with a wonderful and devoted teacher who has started Students Against Malaria groups in Botswana. He invited me to go out with a group of students from Maun two weekends ago to a village called Shorobe. The students formed teams to go house to house to educate families on malaria and ways of prevention. Tommie and I are hoping to start a group the local junior secondary school in Gumare in the next couple of months. I’ve been coordinating with the Health Education Officer for our district to find out where are students will be most useful (which right now looks like working with students at other schools).

Richard and I took our first out-of-country leave since coming to Botswana. Last week, we went to Dahab, which is in the Sinai, in Egypt. We were gone Sunday to Sunday. It is winter in Egypt so it was refreshingly cool. We had a nice week of diving and snorkeling in the Red Sea and camel rides in the desert. We even climbed Mt Sinai- all 3750 “steps” to the top. The reefs of the Red Sea were beautiful and amazing- so many fish and healthy, colorful coral. One of the dive trips we went on involved a 1.5 hour camel ride since the site was inaccessible by vehicle. We also took another camel trek to a canyon and a Bedouin village in a desert oasis. In the evenings, we relaxed and dined in the restaurants by the sea. Since there are so many cats in Dahab, the restaurants give you a water bottle to squirt the cats because they try to the steal the food from your plate. They actually got food from our plates one night because we felt guilty about squirting them. On the way back on Sunday, Richard met his counterpart and a Peace Corps staff member in Johannesburg airport so they could fly to Lesotho for a week long Peace Corps sub-regional meeting on using technology to address HIV/AIDs.

The week and a half before we left for vacation was quite busy. Richard was helping his office prepare for upcoming DMSAC and TAC (Technical Advisory Committee for DMSAC) meetings and several upcoming events, like health fairs and VMSAC formations. We had a veterinarian, from a NGO in Maun that does free vaccinations and spaying/neutering dogs, stay with us for a week. Since the vet did not have an assistant, I helped her prep dogs for surgery and monitor the dogs during the actual surgery. It was quite interesting to be able watch the whole process. The vet was able to sterilize an average of 3-4 females and 2 males a day, which will greatly influence the dog population in Gumare. As a favor, she neutered our cat Mufasa.

The three days before we left for Egypt, I was in Gaborone to be trained for the Peer Support and Diversity Network (PSDN) for Peace Corps volunteers in Botswana. There were 10 of us chosen from within our Bots 7 group to provide peer support for other PCV’s. One of our first responsibilities will be spending a week each with the new group of volunteers coming for pre-service training in April. We are providing on-site support to the new group because pre-service training tends to be a time of stress and a lot of adjustment.

At the end of the month, there will be a 2 day Orphan and Vulnerable Children Stakeholders Networking workshop in Shakawe. I am currently helping a NGO in Shakawe prepare the workshop, which will provide an opportunity for S&CD and NGOs in our district to get to learn more about each other and problem solve, as well as share ideas, successes, and best practices. We are hoping this will lead to greater cooperation and collaboration in the future.

Happy New Year!!! New Year’s Day in Botswana is a big holiday. It is a time to get together with your family, braii (barbeque- since it is summer here and not cold and snowy), eat, and celebrate. New Year’s Eve was actually very uneventful since most of the celebrating is done here on New Year’s Day.

Since it was a 4 day weekend because of the New Year’s holiday, we decided to go on a mokoro (dug-out canoe) trip through Back to the Bridge Backpackers in Maun. It was a lot of fun, as we got to camp overnight on an island in the Okavango Delta and do bush-walks. We were able to see giraffe, elephant, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck, hippos, all kinds of great birds, etc. Plus, I’ve always wanted to try riding in a mokoro, which is made from a large tree and is a traditional form of transport in the delta’s waterways.

Our Christmas was also very nice- quiet and relaxing. We had a PCV friend come visit us. We took a couple day trips around the area, including a boat ride in Shakawe, where saw lots of hippos, crocs, and birds, a visit to a crocodile farm, and a boat ride in Sepopa. There was a huge storm on Christmas Eve so we didn’t have power that night. We also lost power for most of Boxing Day and the day after. Our neighborhood was quite empty Christmas weekend through New Year’s weekend because everyone went home to their home villages to visit family.

The last two weeks of December were very quiet in the office since many of our co-workers took their annual leave and the schools were out for the month. Now that it is a New Year, we have started planning for the months to come. We are going to try to do a health fair in Gudigwa (a remote village on the other side of the delta from us), another Sexual Health celebration in either Gumare or Seronga, a regional GLOW camp, a fish-a-thon for PLWHAs (people living with HIV/AIDS), and an orphan stakeholders workshop. We will also be taking a week vacation at the end of January for a little R&R and diving in the Red Sea. When we get back from vacation, Richard is going to Lesotho for a sub-regional Peace Corps meeting on how to use informational and technology to address HIV/AIDs.

I can’t believe Xmas is a week away. I admit it is kind of refreshing not to have to fight for a parking space at the mall, brave hordes of people who do their shopping last minute like me, and listen to the same Xmas songs over and over everywhere you go. I do however miss the light spectacle that is New Jersey at Xmas time. We will have a few PCVs visiting us over the holiday so we may go camping nearby our village for a day or two.

Since the rains have come, there have been substantial changes in the environment. Everything has turned green. I was away last week for GLOW camp and when I returned our yard was green. Well, all the weeds that sprouted now cover most of the sand. Millipedes are still everywhere you go but now they are getting bigger and bigger. I’ve been lucky enough to find two more chameleons. Fortunately, we haven’t seen any snakes yet. Actually, the only Setswana words Richard knows are the words for all the poisonous snakes in our area.

Last week was GLOW CAMP (GIRLS and GUYS LEADING OUR WORLD) in Gaborone. I went with four junior secondary girls and a teacher from Okavango JSS in Gumare. After weeks of struggling, we got a government vehicle to transport us at the last minute. The vehicle picked us up at 6am on Saturday(4th) and we were on our way. Unfortunately we got stuck in Ghanzi for five hours because they had to fill the government fuel pumps, which temporarily stopped working after they were filled. Unfortunately, you can only fill government vehicles at government filling stations so we had to wait for someone to get the pumps working again. We did not end up getting to Gaborone until almost 10pm.

The week at camp went really well. There were seven girls delegations and seven boys delegations. Each delegation contained a Peace Corps Volunteer, a local leader, and 4 boys/girls aged 12-17. The delegations came from all over Botswana although I believe our Gumare delegation came from the furthest point. The goal of the camp was to create adolescent leaders who can educate their peers on HIV and gender based violence, as well as address gender inequalities. The Peace Corps volunteers and local leaders facilitated the different sessions. My local leader and I facilitated sessions on Our Bodies (focusing on reproductive health) and on HIV and STI’s. Other sessions at the camp included leadership; love, sex, and dating; friendship; communication; peer pressure; human rights; decision making; and etc... There were also activities like a scavenger hunt, a talent competition, a dance off, a mock protest, a debate, movie night, etc.. I was able to do a craft session where I taught girls how to make beads from magazine pages. A few of the girls really got into it and started making necklaces and bracelets. On the last day of camp, everyone got to meet Unity Dow, a well known Botswana writer and first female justice of the high court. Unity Dow hosted our GLOW camp group at her home, where the boys and girls where able to meet professionals who provided advice and guidance on success. In the afternoon, the boys and girls participated in a mock trial in one of the courtrooms in Lobatse.

I must say by the time I left on Sunday (14th) I was exhausted because our days lasted from 5:45am to 10:00pm. I did get a half day off on Thursday when I roamed the malls in Gaborone and chowed done on good food. I am looking forward to working with the girls from Gumare when school resumes in January. Eventually, we would like to have a regional camp in Okavango so we can create GLOW clubs in other Junior Secondary Schools in the district.