Botswana – made possible by National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative and distributed by Great Plains Conservation
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 // Blog
It is always humbling and very exciting to embark on a new adventure with my book. Botswana has been on my radar for sometime; the one country in Africa with a population of 1.85 million and an infection rate of 2 out of every 5 people. In fact, Botswana had the highest infection rate in sub-saharan Africa until quite recently. Swaziland has just overtaken it. (Remember that South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV – around 5 million.) Botswana has been a leader in successfully providing ARV’s to its nationals for the past decade. President Lt. Gen. Ian Khama was also one of the first heads of state that endorsed and implemented circumcision of young and old men alike. This is quite revolutionary and forward thinking considering that in Botswana very few men were previously circumcised. The government has also successfully managed to prevent mother-to-child transmission keeping in line with America and Western Europe.
I have had the privilege of visiting Botswana as a tourist a few times. On each occasion, I have always been very impressed with the quality and level of care, both ecologically and personally, within the camps I visited. I stayed in camps within the Forever & Beyond, Wilderness and Great Plains families. All three of these groups and their respective heads are well respected and have a celebrity-like status: Allan Bernstein of the original Conservation Corporation now known as & Beyond Africa; Colin Bell of Wilderness and Dereck & Beverly Joubert of Great Plains. I know each of them personally and hold each and every one of them in high regard and esteem for their respective contribution to the Botswana landscape.
A few months ago I had the good fortune of bumping into Dereck and Beverly at the Starlight Classics yearly event based at the Johannesburg Country Club. They are a formidable team! Winners of no less than 5 Emmy awards amongst others. After the Starlight event, I sent them a copy of my book, HIV & AIDS. In very quick succession they bought, branded and got delivery of 1200 copies. Their vision was to distribute the books, not only to their staff, but to go out and reach the surrounding communities. They found a dynamic Motswana lady called Koketso (Koki) to take this initiative forward. The next step was to get Jane and I to tavel to Motswana to train Koki.
Ros and Jane plotted and planned and finally it all happened. We flew to Kasane and spent some quality time there chatting to the locals and getting a ‘feel’ for their culture. The second night we experienced a huge storm and on day two we started our training sessions. We met some elephants on the road to work, had a flat tyre on our way home but felt exhilarated after doing four training sessions in three different sites covering most of the staff from their two camps Selinda and Zarafa. It was an incredible experience!
Some highlights of the training session included the ‘bubble gum’ activity, the female condom (done by Jane with aplomb – providing good practical tips!) The biggest surprise was the activity around HIV transmission during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The activity highlights the danger of breastfeeding post the recommended 6 months of “Breast is Best ONLY” philosophy. The men and woman present were most intrigued and asked lots of questions about this. It must be noted that the government encourages safer feeding practices and has endorsed a “formula alternative” whereby HIV positive mothers are given a year’s free supply of formula. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends this practice as first option but recognizes that in Africa and in particular rural areas, formula feeding is really difficult given the limited access to clean sterilised water, hence the 6 month breast ONLY feeding rule applying. Breast ONLY means just that “no other liquids or food are given for 6 months” – WHO January 2010, Vol 88. What is apparent is that the nurses or people interacting with mothers are not giving out the this information.
The last evening was dinner served under the stars with some guests at Zarafa. Absolutely stimulating company, great red Pinot Noir by none other than First Sighting and a Panacotta to die for! I applaud the trainees, Koki and the management team of Great Plains for their enthusiasm and vision. I can’t wait to see where this incredible initiative leads them and the communities that they are involved with.
