19 November 2009

pictures posted on...

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattandlaurabots

17 November 2009

One of the Beautiful CIties of the World.

Having just returned from Cape Town to Molepolole is a lot easier than we anticipated, even though Cape Town was one of the most brilliant places we have ever traveled to.

We started our travels by spending the night in Gabs. We stayed with Sana and her husband, the daughter of our original host mother. They welcomed us as if we were truly family. They gave us a local’s tour to our capital and made sure we made it safely to our bus at 6.00 in the morning.

Boarding the bus to Johannesburg was so exciting. We were so eager to leave Botswana and the desert and finally get back to city living, which we miss so dearly. The bus drove on a small highway the entire way. The landscape of northern South Africa was very similar to that of Botswana- dry, bush and desert. And then all the sudden the landscape changed- it suddenly became what we had not even realized we missed. Huge trees, fields of grass and farms as far you could see. I mean really just even seeing the rolling green hills filled with produce and flowers were enough to enjoy the 5-hour ride.

Joburg or Jozzie, as the locals refer to it, was interesting. The first thing you hear from people around the bus station is to get directly in a taxi because the city center is almost a lawless area. We did as we were told, since we prefer to play it safe and headed straight to a trendy neighborhood called, Melville. Talk about culture shock. Surrounded by cafes, boutiques and white people we literally were walking around speechless for the first ten minutes. Then we spotted the only black people in the area and went directly to them to ask where we were and what we should do. They laughed at our culture shock, we exchanged a few Setswana words and then we begin to feel ready to take on the new atmosphere.

We found a decent café, laid down our bags and begin drinking to celebrate being on vacation and in an anonymous state of being. Matt kept drinking while Annie Rose and I scoped out the scene to shop and find a good place for dinner. By the time we got back Matt had already made friends, of course and we sat down to enjoy the new company and learn more about South Africa. These guys were super nice. They were all journalist so there stories about pre and post Apartheid, were raw and fascinating. They told us about which neighborhoods not to go to, what the change was like, how they see the future of South Africa, and what they find to be irritating since the New South Africa is now more dependent on the international world. It was a great way to spend the afternoon into the evening. On our way out one of the guys gave us his number and told us to call when we were back in town. He offered us his flat and tried to give us R150. We said we do not want your money but we will definitely call when we are back in town. He insisted on giving us the money, because he said we are visitors in his countries and he wanted to take us to our hotel but now he was to drunk. Great start to the trip.

We headed out to the hotel and found out we booked at the wrong place and the wrong night. Oh the joys of travel. We finally managed to get to the hotel and found a guy that was willing to drive us after listening to our sob story. He not only drove us he was willing to stop at the golden arches when he heard us yelling in the back when we spotted them. Oh my god- McDonald’s French fries – the sweet smell and taste. You can take the American out of America but you can’t take the fast food junkie America out of Americans.

Arriving in Cape Town truly reminded us a lot of our year living in Hawaii except instead of small town Lahaina throw a city similar to San Francisco in the middle of a mountain range with a crystal clear blue ocean. Wow, it was truly one of the most beautiful cities we have ever seen.

I would have to say the first day we were little disappointed because we toured the touristy areas. Long Street and the Waterfront. Something you always do and truly have to do but that was not what we were looking for. They were nice and you could see the appeal but we were looking for the up and coming parts of town, where the locals hang out. That night though we got to eat at a proper restaurant, something we had not done in six months and we enjoyed every minute of it. Fresh seafood from the coastline you could see seemed so decadent. God, we did not realize how much we missed fish. We walked in and out of cafes and delis. Delis that had Italian meats hanging, fresh bread and all the things we missed about of NYC delis. We knew from this night on that this trip was going to be about enjoying the food, neighborhoods and views.

We went on the double decker tour bus like any good tourist would do. It was nice to get a grasp of the geography and it was the best way to get around since the neighborhood and sites are spread out and taxis are quite expensive. The tour and it’s commentary was very euro centric which was very disappointing but still the views of the mountains, sea and flora was enough to make it worthwhile. More about the Euro centric view later!

Protea, which are my favorite flowers, discovered during our year in Hawaii, grew wild in Cape Town. Everywhere you looked you saw wild protea bushes in full bloom, it was a dream come true. The botanical gardens were amazing. They were situated on the backside of the mountain. The weather and trees were completely different on this side of the city. I swear every section of Cape Town has it’s own weather pattern.

One day we did a wine tour. It was great to have a 10.00 A.M. buzz and walk around these cute little wine towns laughing and seeking out the next bottle of wine. Mauro you would be proud we are learned a little more about wine and we starting to get it. Three mornings Matt got up at 4.00 A.M. to go fishing. However, every day he had to turn back as the seas we too rough, a condition that happens often when two oceans meet and winds whip wildly around the Cape.

We went up to the top of Table Mountain, the lazy way, cable car, as we had so much to see and time would not permit a five-hour hike. The last days Matt, Annie Rose, Nora (great addition, a Berliner we met in Cape Town and traveled with for the last two days- actually sent a bush note with her to my friend Jason in Berlin, hopefully he gets it) and I traveled by car to the Cape Point. The most southern point in Africa. We got to see penguins in their natural habitat, this was a first for us, pretty cool. It was beautiful. Two oceans meeting, fields of protea, ostrich and a coastline that is unmatched, proved to be a great few days. We stayed in tiny little beach surfing towns and watched the fisherman go out to sea and wasted the days eating delicious seafood and enjoying being on the ocean. Neither good nor bad, for these 7 days we did not even feel like we were in Africa.

We did not get to the District 6 Museum, which was a huge disappointment. When we arrived they had just closed. From my understanding District 6 was a part of town that all races and ethnicity of people lived and settled in before apartheid. When the government enforced apartheid District 6 become illegal, since it was illegal to live or be around people of other races. They demolished the area. So truly in the middle of this large city, there are just fields of grass were this neighborhood once stood. The whites obviously got relocated and the coloreds and blacks were left to fend for them selves. That ultimately meant being resettled to what they called townships.

So the whole time you are in this beautiful city and surrounded by mostly white affluent people, 2 kilometers outside the city there are townships and shanties as far as the eye can see. The townships are how you picture them. Tin houses with no amenities and poverty that is shocking. Life does not seem to have gotten that much better for the blacks and the colored.
Striking up conversations with the whites of South Africa, you must listen very carefully. The way things are worded or phrased shows how very little has changed. They are still part of an older generation that was brain washed to think that people of different races are different and that things have only gotten worse post- apartheid. At one point we actually asked a cab drive what the population of South Africa was and he could not just say the number as a whole. He broke it down by race. He said, “40 million blacks, 7 million whites, and 1 million colored. Oh things were better before.” Matt, Annie Rose and I were shocked in the back of the car and all we could talk about all night was this comment. How in the world did this white minority rule for so long?

The commentary on the tour bus was also very hard to stomach and very shallow. The announcer on the bus was talking about how Africans love soaking up the sun. As this was being said on the beach all you could see were white Africans on the beach and all the Native Africans hiding in the shade of the trees. Driving through the town there was a statue of some Portuguese sailor who first saw Cape Town. The announcer commented on how different life would have been for the Dutch and English (Afrikaners and Boers) if the Portuguese actually landed there first. No mention of the dramatic changes that took place for the 40 million blacks of South Africa when the British and Dutch landed.

With all of this said, our wine tour guide was a colored (South African term for someone of mixed race) and was truly inspiring and brought to life all of the positives that are happening. He could not talk enough about Nelson Mandela and how he managed to save this country from pure chaos. Madiba (as Nelson Mandela is referred) was able to forgive, so too are we, so said the tour guide. He just kept talking about how he has hope for his country and with enough time and after many generations of kids being born knowing that all are equal, South Africa will become a free more just state. He clearly said, that the future is bright; the youth will help correct our mistakes. He had such hope and meeting him, Basil, was a highlight of our trip.

We did not get to see District 6, Robbins Island, explore enough of the wine country or hike as much as we like. This trip was truly an escape from rural life and a way to be back in the city wondering around aimlessly. So, if anyone is interested in seeing on of the most beautiful cities on the planet, we have much more to see and explore and we would love to join you. Annie Rose is also part of this package deal as she is a great travel companion.

Any good trip or travel experience hopefully causes travelers to reflect upon their own culture and look critically at ourselves in response to the other culture. Matt, Annie Rose and I both walked away from this trip knowing deep in our hearts that we as Americans, with a history of slaughtering the Native Americans, slavery, lack of civil rights for minorities, the suffrage movement and still no equal rights for gays, have very little room to pass judgment. As long as nations are moving forward and civil societies demand change there is still hope. God, we love traveling and learning.

Pictures are posted on Picassa…

Mobilizing

I have always loved the idea of community. All of us live in one whether we acknowledge it or not. This week I have had the opportunity to try and mobilize our community for the Vitamin A and Measles campaign taking place next week (11/16-11/22) here in Botswana. It is a campaign to have all children aged 9 months to 5 years receive a measles vaccination: while those aged 6 months to 5 years an oral dose of Vitamin A countrywide.

The importance of this campaign should not be overlooked. There are some cases of measles in the country and as most of you know, it can spread quite rapidly. Vitamin A is often overlooked in developed countries, because we get enough in our diet; whereas in Botswana, many children have Vitamin A deficiency and need the dose to assist in sight and bone development.

Many public health issues often get overlooked due to the impact of HIV/AIDS. While we are here to work on HIV/AIDS, it has been nice to try and mobilize my community and bring awareness to this particular campaign. The Ministry of Health, after changing the date two times, finally decided to roll it out and gave the districts basically a week to prepare. In knowing this, I decided to start spreading the word.

First, I went to the kgotla to meet the chief, a standard and necessary procedure in Botswana. My intent was to try and get the kgosi to contact the councilman/women (I have never met this person) to drive around with the loud speaker to promote the campaign. Much like they had been doing prior to elections here last month. He was open to the idea and said he would contact the right person. We could reach a large number of people very quickly. I have yet to hear back.

The Ministry finally delivered the posters, brochures, and information for the community. I grabbed as much as I could and set foot. First I went back to the kgotla and hung posters and gave them brochures to pass around. Then I went to the clinic (actually a health post) and plastered posters and flyers there with the head nurse. If you pass the clinic there is no way you wouldn’t know about the campaign. I will be working here during the campaign a few days doing whatever is needed.
Now, I am going door to door talking to people about the campaign, giving them information and explaining the importance when I can. A lot of people only speak Setswana so I do my level best. The reaction is generally really good. Most everyone is very thankful and say they will go, whether they know the importance or not. It has helped that Radio Botswana is promoting it now, hopefully the television news will as well. The radio and/or news is a great means of communication.

It has been good. I hope in the long run I have been able to mobilize the community a little. I will probably never really know if it was effective. I could go back and look at the last Vitamin A campaign and see how many showed comparatively, but it isn’t so much how I did, but how long the lines are at the clinic. All I did was meet more of my community and you should do the same………………..
Dumelang
It has been some time since I have written anything on the blog; sorry to those of you that has been trying to keep up with our lives here in Botswana. For one, can you believe that we have been gone for 6 months already, where has the time gone? Its funny because the days seem very long at times but weeks and then months go by faster than the spiders around our house.
In any case, things are good. Work has been slower than I originally thought because I have been mainly in the office trying to understand everything that takes place at the district level. Now that I understand the ropes and some of the challenges that go along with working on HIV/AIDS in Botswana, I am starting to meander out to some of the nearby clinics in hopes of gaining a further understanding to clinic level successes and complexities. I have gained the trust with some people, which is quite a challenge in itself, but now I am hoping to combine the office knowledge gained with on the ground clinical issues and try and implement some things in the community. All too often, many activities are planned and talked about regularly but are simply not implemented for a number of reasons. My main goal for now is to get people to start talking opening about the disease (which includes talking about the very taboo subject of SEX) and recognize the importance of prevention.

The vast majority of aid money that has come pouring into Botswana has been allocated for treatment alone, which is great because people are living much longer. On a side note, I could not imagine working in a country that still does not provide ARVs to their citizen, mostly due to American pharmaceutical patent laws. It would be truly devastating to see people die on a daily basis, knowing that there is a medicine out there to help people survive longer. Working in Botswana would almost be unbearable if their where no ARVs. In the 90s weekends were filled with funerals and it is truly unbelievable there still countries out there that have to just accept this fate. In fact, Botswana supplies anyone positive with a CD4 count less than 250 free ARV’s, the first country in the world to do so. This is possible because of the limited number of Batswana (population 1.7 million). Moreover, in focusing all efforts on treatment, prevention measures have been forgotten until now. The government has new priorities and has established prevention as the key to success.

More to come on specific projects as they develop but things are slowly getting into the pipeline and hopefully we can make a difference with a select few. Changing one’s behavior in any country takes ample time, and in a country with rich cultural traditions like Botswana, it will take a whole generation.

Speaking of generations, there is a whole sub-set of the population, children, growing up with no parents because of the impact HIV/AIDS has had on Botswana. Most of these children end up with one relative or another and generally, because they are orphaned, are not treated equally amongst the family. The government does offer some assistance with food baskets (they are lucky if they get the food) but overall, these 10 year olds are not loved and care for themselves and their younger siblings if they have any. Imagine collecting water, hand-washing clothes, cooking if you have food, and caring for yourself at 10 years old. There is no time to play make believe house, like so many of us enjoyed as children. Furthermore, many have no clothes or shoes; therefore can’t go to school, which compounds the problem. It really hit home a few weeks ago when our neighbor invited us over to see her house. Here’s the reality and her story.

Her name is Ellen, a stocky 10 year old, with a shaved head and a beautiful voice. She always comes by the house collecting water and we have gotten quite close with her. At first she was shy and just curious about us, saying dumela and asking for the occasional sweet or lemon growing on the tree. As she became more comfortable we started asking more and more questions to figure out her story because some days she would go to school, some days not. We would see her one-day then she would be gone for weeks at a time. Basically a sweet, innocent little girl but you could tell she was strong beyond her years and there was something more to her short life. It is evident if you could see her biceps and thighs from collecting water a few times a day. Three five-gallon jugs at a time in a wheelbarrow, truly amazing.

She lives on a family compound directly next to us. We still do not know who’s compound it is as she says her mom is gone at the lands and hasn’t returned since august and her dad is apparently in Gaborone. I think it is a cousin’s compound, fit with one house and one roundavol (traditional thatched round house). She doesn’t stay inside the house with everyone, she stays in the roundie by herself. It consists on a foam mattress and a few boxes. The people that stay in the house rarely give her food so she scrapes what she can get and hopefully goes to school to get a meal there. I asked her how she eats and all she can say is “ they spend the money on alcohol!”

One day last week she came by while I was watering my garden, damn it’s tough to have a hose out while this little girl carts water back home, but there is fortunately water on our compound. She came by like she does everyday but this time something was obviously wrong, no smile, no singing at the top her lungs and no Dumela. She had a fat lip because someone on the compound beat her for who knows what.

You probably get the story but in any case, this circumstance is all too familiar in Botswana. Many of the children are being helped but too many are not or the efforts fall short. We are trying to get her assistance from the government and have found a used pair of shoes from Laura’s school that are a bit too big but hopefully it will allow her to go to school freely where she can continue to learn and grow and simply eat. She was so delighted today when I gave her the shoes; hopefully this will allow her to go to school everyday and not care for the counsin’s new born while she is out at the local shabeen (compounds that sell traditional beer).

Ellen is resilient, like many children in Botswana and Africa as a whole. Most days she has a wide smile and can sing with the best of them. You always know when she is around because she belts local songs out as loud as the radio next door. While many Botswana lack compassion for the destitutes, they are perhaps the one’s that can change Botswana once and for all. A country free of HIV, a generation with the knowledge and skills to eliminate such a disease means the next generation, their kids, will have someone to put food on the table and someone to tuck them in at night.