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After spending 6 glorious weeks working with Survivor – Africa and camping in the inspiring Shaba Game Reserve in Central Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa had captured my heart. Prior to my 6 week stint with Survivor in Kenya, I had only traveled to Africa on two occasions: the first, a few friends and I studying abroad in Spain decided to spend a long weekend in Morocco; and the second, four friends and I decided to backpack through the Middle East for 3 weeks after completing our studyi abroad year in Spain…our first taste of the Middle East…Egypt! Anyone who has traveled to Sub-Saharan Africa understands that Africans below the Sahara Desert do not consider anything North of the Sahara as “real” Africa. So, when interacting with local Kenyans in Shaba, I was considered a “green” African visitor. I can understand that state of mind. Sub-Saharan Africa is nothing like North Africa. So indeed, my first landing in Kenya was the true epic journey into the heart of Africa (and definitely not the heart of darkness). The beauty and natural state of Kenya inspired me in such a way that after returning to the United States, I knew in my heart that I would soon have to return to Africa. Three months after my arrival back in the US from Kenya, I was back on another airplane, not to Africa yet, but to Denmark where I would spend four months undergoing intensive training on international development and HIV/AIDS in Africa to prepare me for my upcoming year in Sub-Saharan Africa as an international volunteer. Denmark was wonderful, and the time just flew by. Before I knew it, I was on a plane to Johannesburg where I would then transit onto a long distance bus which would cross the South African border and end its journey in the small capital of Botswana, Gabarone.
I spent a total of six months in Botswana as a project officer. My duties included implementing HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in a refugee camp in Northern Botswana, developing and conducting a national impact assessment, developing after school HIV/AIDS curriculum for primary students, and building the capacity of local organizations to deliver HIV/AIDS awareness creation campaigns. The work was very rewarding, but at times it was overwhelming. I will never forget the first time I was physically confronted with the true face of AIDS. I was on a field visit with a Matswana field officer, Mapula. She took me to a broken down hut where one of her clients suffered from severe opportunistic infections. As we walked into the hut, a feeling of deep sadness and disbelief came over me. A young man of about 22 was laying on a worn out mattress in the corner of the room. His young sister sat at his side, a look of desperation in her eyes. “My brother is dying”, she said to us in Sestwana, the main tribal language of the Matswana. The man laying on the mattress appeared to have aged dramatically, his appearance was not that of a young man. His bones protruded, he had no flesh, just skin covering his skeletal form. He was beyond speech, as he did not have the strength to open his mouth so that words could escape. It was a truly disheartening sight. A human being was wasting away, not just one, 38% of Botswana’s population was infected with HIV during 2002, the year I was a volunteer and a guest in the country. My life was changed forever the day I left that young man laying in the corner of a room in a village hut. My commitment to HIV/AIDS work was solidified on that bright, sunny and warm Botswana morning where the irony of a cloudless day mocked the reality of the nation’s suffering.
Work took me to every corner of Botswana, including the Kalahari desert, the Chobe River, Serowe, and Selebi-Pikwe. Botswana was a wonderful host country, as it is a rare and delightful African nation where corruption is minimal, the streets are clean, and the infrastructure exceptional. In fact, Botswana is such a safe country that my fellow volunteers and I often hitch hiked long distances to get from here to there. I visited wonders like the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Zambia (twice!), I camped out under the Kalahari sky, I slept under the falling stars of one of the largest salt pans in the world, I visited the largest Baobob tree which Livingston used as a post box in the days of his exploration, I floated on hand-carved canoes, or Mokoros in Setswana, in the Okavango Delta, and gazed at hundreds of elephants enjoying the Chobe River. My time in Botswana was absolutely remarkable! And of course, South Africa wasn’t too shabby either.
