Wow has it really been a month since my last post? Yikes time is flying....
Well the end of February brought another excellent teen club. We started the day off with two inspirational speakers, one is a judge in Botswana (one of the first female judges) and the other a radio DJ. Interesting combination, but they both talked about leadership and what makes a good leader. Both had great messages about having good self esetem and the confindence you can do things because you can't be a good leader without beliving in yourself first. The teens were very responsive to the messages and asked some good questions. Then we took the older teens (16-19 years) to the pool. Seeing as Botswana is a land locked country that is largely a desert, there are very few opportunities for the kids to learn to swim. Only about half were interested in trying (all in the shallow pool at the Univeristy of Botswana) and the other half played group games with water balloons. It was a lot of fun and since it was really hot outside, everyone was happy to get wet!
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| Bloemfontein from the air |
The first week in March I went to Bloemfontein, South Africa to conduct a basic Pediatric HIV training. There were 31 health professionals at the training, mostly nurses, from all over the Free State (one of the provinces in South Africa which Bloemfontein is the capital of). We taught them about pediatric HIV management. Many are already taking care of HIV positive patients but some of the nuances of managing children with HIV (like disclosing their status to them) were new to them. The training was a week long and well received. There was not much to do in Bloemfontein during the hours we were not conducting the training so I spent a lot of time at the "waterfront" mall. The water is a man-made pond with a water fountain (or "water mountain" as my boss's 2 year old son calls it) in it, but at least there were some decent restaurants.
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| The "water mountain" at Waterfront Mall |
Last week I was back in Gaborone working at the clinic. On Tuesday night we celebrated International Women's Day by attending an event to raise money for an organization set up to fight abuse against women. Unfortunately most of the speakers were not very motivating, just talked about themselves. But there were a few performances including one by Shanti-Lo (a stunningly talented transgender singer) who is becoming very popular in Botswana despite the country's conservative nature. Hopefully the fact that they chose him to be the closing act is a sign of the possibility that there is improving equality and openness in the society as a whole, slowly but still....
