Camp Hope 2010

He was led in by his aunt on Sunday morning with tears pouring down his face.  It looked like he was being sent to a horrible place and yet O.T. was coming to Camp Hope.  At 10 years old, he had never spent a night away from his aunt and now was going to be away for 4 nights in a row.  Not knowing what to expect he was sad and scared, asking to be taken home.  One of our Setswana speaking doctors and a social work student spent over an hour walking around with him until he warmed up.  After a few hours he was marching with the orange group singing the team cheer.  By the end of camp he was asking if he could come back next year!

Camp Hope is a camp that is hosted every year (for the past 6 years) for children who attend our clinic. I wrote about it last year as well (see Aug'09), but this year I knew the children a lot better after taking care of them in clinic for the last year and I was able to spend more time at the camp.  Once again I was reminded of the extreme burden that HIV places on these children's lives.  Most of the children are at least single orphans (having lost one parent) and many are double orphans (having lost both).  Our clinic has over 2,000 children and we can only take 50 children at camp each year.  So we restrict it to children ages 10-12 years and try to invite those who have more complex issues (poor adherence to medications, lack of social support, psychological problems, etc).  It is always hard to choose who should be able to go because really they should all get the chance.

We try to make camp completely about having fun.  The children are all given their medications twice (or in some cases more often) a day.  They all get to see that everyone at the camp is taking medications and they are not alone, but otherwise we don't mention HIV.  There were different activities each day arts and crafts (they each made hope dolls, decorated and dressed in style as above and below), dance, exploring feeling and emotions, sports, cooking and nutrition, and character development and each of the 6 color teams rotated through the activities getting a chance to try each one out. 

We took a trip to Mokolodi, the game reserve and educational center, which is only 20 mins from the city and yet the vast majority of the children have never been there to see some of the animals that bring tourists flocking to their country each year. 

 We also had Camp Hope Olympics which involved everything from sack races to trying to eat donuts tied to stings with your hands tied behind your backs.  

 I played the role of camp doctor, face painter (see some of my handy work below - and yes the face painting was all done by camper request, not sure why she wanted a giant US flag on her face, but ask and you shall receive when at camp), human jungle gym, arts and crafts helper, and I dispensed plenty of hugs!  It was a great week and a chance for everyone to just have fun and be a kid. 

At the end of camp on Thursday morning the caregivers were all invited for a slide show of photos from the week and the children performed the song and accompanying dance that had been our theme song for the week.  R Kelly's "I'm the greatest."  Watching 50 HIV positive children dance and sing "I made it, I'm the world's greatest" brought tears to my eyes. (If you don't know the song you can find it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyaNlZaVOpc, I can't post the video of the kids dancing because not all of them have photo consent, but take my word for it when I tell you it was incredibly moving) At the end of the presentation, a caregiver of one of the 11 yr old boys came up to me and thanked me for inviting T.S. (her nephew) to camp.  She said "when I dropped him off on Sunday he was really shy and now I see that he has made friends and he is up there dancing, it is so amazing."

Each camper received a certificate of participation or graduation depending on their age and if they will be eligible to come back to camp next year.  They were all so thrilled.

We would really like to offer camp twice a year (April and August - to coincide with the local school vacations). But we have to raise the money to be able to do that, so if you are reading this and you (or anyone else you know) wants to donate please click on the button on the sidebar "donate now" and mark your donation for Camp Hope or contact me ;)

Nigeria

The first week of August Gelane, Andres (2 other PAC doctors) and I went to Nigeria with Hospitals for Humanity (a US based NGO which conducts medical missions in Nigeria and Haiti).  It was an eye opening experience.  Nigeria is the largest country in Africa with over 150 million people, quite a contrast to Botswana with only 1.8 million.  We were in Lagos and working primarily with the community of Makoko (a water based community where people live in the water in raised "houses."  We stayed in a hotel and security was very tight.

Security at the hotel was a bit different than what we are used to back home in Bots (our security guard in Botswana carries a cattle prod).  Armed guards came with us each morning in our van, though I think a lot of that was to make us feel better since we did not witness any altercations of any kind.

  

Each morning our van was escorted by the traffic cops (Lastma) this was mostly to help us get through the unbelievable stand-still traffic.  These guys were pros, riding motorcycles while looking backwards and weaving in and out of traffic to clear the way for us.

We were working with the local state government which organizes medical missions throughout Lagos.  So we got the chance to work with several Nigerian doctors (mostly those who had recently finished medical school and hadn't yet done a residency).  But they were very good at their jobs. Our "clinic" for the week was the local primary school.  We had no place for labs or other tests, only our clinical judgments were used! Each day the patients waited under tents until their number was called.  Over the course of the week we saw around 10,000 patients (between the eye screen, mobile dental truck, and medical doctors)!

Wonder what the school looked like before the renovation, scary thought.













 

One day the door to our classroom was locked and no one could find the key so one of the workers removed a pane of class and helped one of the children who was waiting to be seen climb through and come around to open the door

Gelane was a local TV celebrity as she was interviewed by the local news crews who came to report on the medical mission being carried out

Gelane and an adorable baby!

The best slogan ever!  It was on all their porta-potties and their truck which carted them around the city.

Learning the Nigerian dance steps at the BBQ following the week long mission.  My teacher (one of the local doctors) then asked me to teach her the traditional American dance, but I was not really sure what that was.  I explained that we don't really have one, do we?

Five children sharing the one drink which was left over after the BBQ.  No complaining or pushing occurred they all just shared it and were so happy to have it.

The whole Hospitals for Humanity group, mostly from the US, but there was a Nigerian doctor and nurse from the Northern part of the country where missions have been conducted before.

After the mission with the Lagos State Department of Health was over, we went to the water community where most of the people we had worked with during the week came from.  There were heavy rains that day (the only day it really rained was of course the one we were planning to spend on the water, despite the weather people saying >80% chance of rain for every day of the week!) The roads around the dock area were flooded.  Most people just drove right on through it, though it did cause problems for at least one car we witnessed.
The water community was like nothing I have ever seen.  Here is a video (I hope) of the trip back from the "school" where we saw patients.  I put school in quotes because it was a sorry excuse for a school, everything was broken, it was incredibly dark and every time people walked on the second floor dust flew on those of us seeing patients on the first floor, not a good place to learn...

There are so many more photos so here is the slideshow of the best 240 of them, including a few more videos ;)

A busy Saturday

 

 On July 31st our Teen Club covered grief and bereavement for the younger teens.  We had 80 teens split into 10 groups.  After asking them to act out a few feelings as a pictionary type game we moved on to the main activity.  Drawing picture boards of the saddest thing that had happened to them.  We began by drawing the time when they were last happy before and after the event.  Then the worst part of the event and then they filled in the boxes in the middle to tell the rest of the story.  More than half of them drew stories of a parent, aunt, or someone close to them who had died. One girl drew about her brother committing suicide which had happened only a few weeks before.  She became very emotional, luckily we had counselors on hand and we were able to refer her to the psychologist to be seen the following Monday.  Many drew about car accidents or other accidents. It was a very intense activity.  I think for many it was one of the few opportunities they have to be open and honest about their feelings as Botswana culture is very private when it comes to emotions.  Children are encouraged to keep quiet and not really encouraged to share how they are feeling.  In the end a teen leader summarized the activity by saying "we all have challenges and each one makes us stronger."

That afternoon, I went to my first Botswana wedding (one of the nurses at our clinic married his finance who has just returned from getting her MBA in the UK).  At Botswana weddings, the entire village is invited, as well as family and friends who live elsewhere.  Botswana weddings last all day and people come and go throughout the event.  The actual marriage often takes place earlier in the day with just the couple and the family, so everyone else only comes for the party.
For the first few hours people ate and talked, we missed a lot of that thanks to teen club.  Then the couple and bridal party began to dance for everyone.  They had choreographed dances and all the guests stood around and watched. 

 The couple changed outfits at least 4 times.  From the white dress to the suit to a traditional blue outfit and finally Indian style saris.  Apparently all couples change clothes, but the number and type of outfits are dependent on the couple's preferences. 

There was also a hired group of traditional dancers

And of course there was plenty of shake shake (the traditional sorghum and maize beer brewed locally).

Plenty of cute children were present