The Epidemic

So far I have been pretty far removed from the Africa found in Hollywood movies. Botswana, with an annual GDP per capita slightly over US$16,000, is a wealthy country by many standards. That statistic is higher than parts of Eastern Europe, all of Africa outside of South Africa, and many regions in Asia. Some of the university buildings are newer and nicer than those of Johns Hopkins, including the library and Faculty of Business building. Yet, there is something under the surface. It is an almost Hollywood twist, actually.

It's the shark under the Jersey Shore waters in "Jaws". It's HIV/AIDS.

Almost one in four in Botswana is living with HIV/AIDS, and the life expectancy has dropped to around 40 years. There is a public awareness campaign, while many Batswana complain that the disease is still mum's-the-word among the populace.

In his 2008 State of the Nation address, the current president, His Excellency Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama, said:

Through the proactive leadership of my immediate
predecessor, Former President Festus Mogae, we recognised that
we could not afford to ignore the scourge of HIV/AIDS in the blind
hope that it would somehow leave us in peace. Because we turned
away from denial, today there are many amongst us who would
otherwise not be here. We can take comfort in the fact that through
vigorous outreach efforts, today over 110,000 people are now on
ARVs, while we have reduced mother-to-child transmission of the
virus from infected females from about 40% to 4%.

Sir Seretse Khama heads a government that has been tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana with the help of diamond wealth (wisely spent on anti-retroviral drugs) and US foreign aid. One of the more ironic legacies of Bush is that his one success is right here in Botswana, not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Almost single-handedly, Bush increased foreign aid directed at Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis to unprecedented levels. The President Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (or known by its sexier name, PEPFAR) was a 5-year, $15 billion commitment which was subsequently renewed by congress last year.

In order to see both the good (non-profit orphanages), the bad (the number of orphans), and the ugly (the sores on some of the orphans' legs), we began our volunteer work at an orphange in the neighboring village of Tlokweng. The SOS Children's Village there helps children orphaned by the AIDS scourge and does wonderful work. It is a home, a school, and playground for dozens of kids and host to many volunteers like our CIEE group.

Saturday morning we piled into the kombi (an oversized van) and arrived at SOS 'round nine and worked with the children until noon. It is truly exhausting work, as they have boundless energy. I was huffing and puffing, one child climbing on the back, one on the front, and one more needing help with his math homework. My clothes got dirtier in those three hours than the first three weeks in Botswana!

Without a doubt, however, we are all looking forward to going back in two weeks.

I hope to become a bit more serious with this blog. That is, writing more regularly. The next post will be about the food eat and I'll give you a one-word preview: GOAT.

Without further ado, go grab your popcorn and enjoy the feature presentation: a cute picture of Batswana children.