Out of Africa...with a BANG!

After our internships ended, David, Tamar, and I decided to stay in Africa for a few extra days to travel. We left on Friday and flew up to Kasane, which is in the Northeastern corner of Botswana. We got in around noon and had arranged to be picked up at the airport and after a buffet lunch at a gorgeous lodge we were immediately taken on safari in Chobe National Park. It was by far the best game drive I've been on since being here. Chobe has the highest concentration of elephants in the world, and we saw many of them along with huge herd of antelope, giraffe, and other animals that got incredibly close to the car! The Chobe River also runs through the park so we saw huge pods of hippos, which are actually the most dangerous animals in Africa.

After the game drive we were driven to the Kazungula ferry to cross the border into Zambia. Kazungula is a cool place geographically because it's the place where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all meet. In reality, the "ferry" they use to get people across the Zambezi river which makes the border could generously be called a barge. Its dirty, old, smelly, and practically falling apart. They first load a few tracter trailers or cars on and then let on the people, who just stand there next to the cars. We got our passports stamped in Zambia and then got picked up by the driver from the hostel we would be staying at and headed out. After a longer than anticipated car ride (the van broke down, typical) we reached the Jollyboy's Hostel, which is a great hostel in Livingstone, the home of Victoria Falls.

White Water Rafting
The next morning we got up early and were picked up at 7 AM to go white water rafting on the Zambezi river, which is a Class 5 (highest) river. It was a great time! After going to the boat company to hear the safety talk, grab breakfast, and gear up we headed out on a half hour drive through mud-hut villages to the gorge. We then had to climb almost vertical down this treacherous boulder/stick ladder path into the gorge. It was probably the scariest part of the trip!


We got acclimated in our boat and no sooner had we taken off then we were capsized by the first rapid, aptly named the "Gnashing Jaws of Death". The water was pretty cold and I was not a fan of swimming in white water holding on to the overturned boat for dear life. We unflipped the boat and thankfully that was the only time we fully flipped. Going over the rest of the rapids was really fun once it stopped being terrifying! It was definitely a roller coaster ride and my entire body was sore (and a little bruised/cut up) afterwards! It as definitely a great workout though and the Zambezi was a beautiful and intense place to have my first white water rafting adventure!

Livingstone Island
The next morning, I got up early again and went with two girls from Cornell that I met in the hostel to go have breakfast on Livingstone Island. This is the Island at the very edge of the falls where Livingstone was first taken to see the falls. The tours are opperated by the most posh lodge in the area: the Royal Livingstone. So we got to the lodge and they speedboated us out to the island, then they gave us raincoats and took us on a tour of the island. When I heard "tour" I had no idea that they meant they would take us to the VERY EDGE of the falls. We could sit on the rocks and everything. It was incredible to be that close to such power and the spray created a rainbow so you felt like you were at the end of the end of it. After that, since this tour is operated by a 5 star lodge, we were served with tea and a gourmet breakfast. It was a magical morning!

"My sister, me I like to trade, I give you good price" - Marketplace Adventures
This is a quick not about the bartering process in Zambia. Zambia is a lot poorer than Botswana, which really doesn't have much of a bartering culture. Usually if you just stand there long enough in Bots people will lower the price a little but for the most part the price doesn't move much. By contrast, in Zambia they're allll about trading. I'm used to this from China and Ecuador, but I have to say I like it better in Africa. The traders are a lot more personal when they make their sales pitch and it feels more like a friendly negotiation than a fight like it feels in China.

Another thing that makes trading different here is that they LOVE to trade you for items you think are totally insignificant so they can take it back and give it to their family in the village. One guy asked me what I wanted for the hair tie that was on my wrist. Other requested items were socks and pens. A lot of people, like me, also trade old t-shirts, which they LOVE. The result is a lot of Zambians walking around with t-shirts that bear the names of random American towns or Universities. It was an interesting, and sometimes exhausting, afternoon of shopping. I'm horrible at bargaining because everyone tries to push you into their shop and tries their best to keep you there til you've bought something. It's also so clear that they really need the money and I always feel really guilty. But in the end, I got some cool things so I was happy!

Sunset Cruise
That night we also went on a sunset cruise. There's not much to say here, but it was nice and fun. We got to see crocodiles, hippos, and the always gorgeous African sunset over the Zambezi.
Leap of Faith and the Smoke that Thunders
The last day of our adventures started in the morning. We went down to Victoria Falls and immediately went to the bridge over the gorge that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe to get our adrenaline rush. We made a pact that we would all do the bunji combo, which includes a bunji jump, a gorge swing, and a zipline. We decided to get the worst overwith first so we did the bunji. I've never been so scared in my life. I was shaking. The bridge is 111 meters (364 feet) high and the prospect of jumping off of it headfirst is terrifying when you're actually there staring out into the gorge. We were also the first jumpers of the morning, so we didn't get to see anyone do it before us.

The one great thing was that all the other tourists on the bridge are really supportive. I met one Texan lady who must've been like 60 who said she was going to do it after us and she had just done the one in Cape Town which is 170 meters. So if she could do it so could I. I went last, and as I was getting strapped in a group of Zambian priests and nuns were waving to me on the bridge. I asked the priest to pray for me because to be honest I'd been praying all morning (you would too if you were about to jump off a bridge!) He said it seemed he'd come at the perfect time and came over and blessed me. Then I turned around strapped to the harness and chord and after the man yelled "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNJI" I took the leap of faith and swan dived off.

It really was the most unreal feeling in the world. It's pure nothingness and wind rushing around. One the chord caught me the first time and I bounced up I realized it was nowhere near the horrible experience I though it would be. By the 3rd bounce I was having a blast! It was also incredible because the spray from the falls made a rainbow and you felt like you were diving into it.

After that I did the gorge swing, which I didn't like as much and I think is scarier then the bunji because you just fall straight down feet first and then start swinging across the gorge. The swinging part is cool because the view is beautiful, but the initial drop is horrible. I ended the morning with a really tame zipline across from the gorge to the bridge, which helped bring down my levels of adrenaline.

After our thrill seeking, we crossed the border into Zimbabwe to see their side of the falls. Victoria Falls is the largest sheet of falling water in the world and it's absolutely spectacular. You can see why it's one of the It really takes your breath away. The native name for it means "The smoke that thunders" and you can see where that comes from because you get SOAKED at the park from all the spray.

All in all, it was an amazing vacation. I pushed myself to do a lot of things I would have never done. Carpe dium! It was a perfect way to conclude my trip!

The Final Project

So this week concluded my internship at Botswana's Ministry of Health. I've learned a ton here and it's been an amazing experience. Very few American students have the opportunity to work for the government of a developing country, but it really is the best way to gain perspective about issues of development and global health. Every day I was coming into work with Botswana's best and brightest and seeing the challenges they faced. Moreover, I spent most of this internship working for the Office of the Health Inspectorate, which means I got to go with them on inspections and read accreditation reports and help pinpoint and identify all the problems within the health system and the barriers that they face in improving the health care of the citizens of this country.


About 3 weeks ago, Vernon and I had finished our project reading through the accreditation reports of 4 clinics in Botswana and identifying the critical criteria they needed to work on to get accredited. When we went to our boss to get a new project he just gave us some tedious spreadsheet work to do and told us that he would be going on holiday before he retired at the end of the month. We had just come back from an amazing week helping with the accreditation baseline assessment at the mental hospital, so we were frustrated at being stuck in from of Excel again. However, after expressing this frustration to Gill and Nicki, the amazing English mother-daughter pair who run the Botswana-Upenn partnership office in Gabs, the end of our internship took a different turn.

It turns out Gill's husband works for the Minister of Health as the Advisor for Public Private Partnerships. So she had us meet with him to see if he could give us a real substantial project for us to work on. When we went to go see him, he said that this was perfect timing, because he had just been asked to write two grant proposals for PEPFAR and it would be tremendous help to have two Americans working on the project. So that's what we were assigned to do.


PEPFAR stands for the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. It's hailed by some as the best thing Geroge W. Bush ever did in office, and I'm inclined to agree with that. It provides a huge amount of aid money to the 14 countries most effected by the AIDS epidemic and is a major reason why most HIV+ people in Botswana have access to the anti-retroviral drugs that can save their lives. Anyway, since Obama took office PEPFAR has been looking to expand it's impact beyond just supplying drugs and testing under something called the GHI (Global Health Initiative). This program works on creating sustainable health care systems within the countries PEPFAR is active in so that in the future they will be stronger on their own and eventually not need aid money, which is truely the only solution.


The two grant proposals I wrote last week were directly related to that. Both were about strengthening Botswana's healthcare system overall, rather than just providing quick fixes. The first grant I wrote was for a Healthcare Management and Leadership Training Program. This program will train the management staff of the healthcare facilities, especially hospitals, with leadership and management skills, because right now most of the people in these positions aren't trained; their just doctors who got placed there and have to try to manage the hospital on top of seeing patients. In hospitals where there are only a few doctors, this is really a challenge. In the past, all of the management positions were filled by the British left over from colonization, but they all left a few decades ago, leaving a lot of untrained people filling the void. The hope is that this will be a great way to build capacity within the healthcare system so it has trained people who can both handle the technicalities of health facility management as well as provide visionary leadership to take Botswana's healthcare standards much higher than they are now.

The other grant I wrote these pas two weeks was a grant for a pilot Care Management System at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone. Princess Marina is where a lot of the other Penn interns work and it's the best/biggest public hospital in Botswana. That being said, the standard of care there is still pretty appalling. The wards are opperating at about 120% capacity and patients sometimes wait 7 days before being seen by the appropriate specialist. This is because a lot of the time the Batswana doctors aren't good about filling out the patients files and don't seem to realize how bad it is to have such long waiting times. But when you're in a country where about 1/4 of the population has HIV, this can be really deadly. An AIDS patient who has an opportunistic infection of pneumonia or meningitis will die if they're not seen quickly. So the grant I wrote is to establish a team of care management experts who will audit patient files and hold hospital staff accountable, to make sure that patients are being seen by necessary specialists as quickly as possible and that doctors are providing both a high quality of care and documenting everything correctly in the patients' files.


This project was AMAZING to work on. I'm possibly going to be writing my thesis on PEPFAR and how it's changed US-African relations in the past 2 administrations, so this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually submit a grant proposal to the US government program I'm going to be studying. I also learned a lot from the project. It was a nice way to come full circle, because both of the grants I wrote address deficiencies in the healthcare system that I'd identified during my inspections. It was great to both have a chance to be part of the team pointing out the problem and the team working towards a solution. It was also awesome to be able to apply a lot of what I've learned about the need to build stronger health infrastructure in developing countries and not just try to put a band-aid on the issue. If I ever have a job at the US Agency for International Development or the World Health Organization, this will be a learning experience I will certainly draw on, since most Americans are only ever used to reviewing grant proposals from the governments of developing countries, not actually writing them from their perspective. I'm so greatful for this opportunity and it was an amazing way to end my internship :)

Good Morning Teacha!

So on Friday I took the day off of work and went to visit Jing and David who work at the Kamogelo Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project in the nearby village of Mogaditshane. Orphans and vulnerable children are a large population in Botswana because the AIDS epidemic has hit this country so hard (about 25% of adults are infected and 60-80 thousand children are orphans because of it). Kamogelo is run by the Catholic diocese here and is headed by Sister Margaret, a Motswana nun.


It's not a stereotypical orphanage, in that none of the children stay there over night. It's more like a daycare/preschool. The culture of the Batswana has very strong emphasis on extended family, and there is very much the "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality. It's not uncommon for children to be brought up by grandparents or aunts/uncles. So if a child's parents die of AIDS, most often a family member offers to take in the child. Also, a lot of the kids that go to Kamogelo aren't orphans at all. They're what the global health community calls "vulnerable children", meaning their parents have HIV/AIDS which makes the kids more at risk for HIV and a lot of other social problems. The kids come to Kamogelo in the morning, where they get breakfast, then have lessons, have lunch, play, and then go home. It serves kids ages 3-6 with a class for each age that has about 15-20 kids in it.


It was such a great day! We went to work and went to the staff morning prayer/Bible reflection. You have never heard such moving singing in your life until you've heard a hymn sung by a group of Batswana. One person kind of appoints themselves canter and sings the first line and then everyone joins in with the most perfect harmony I've ever heard. It's amazing and they sound like they've rehearse for months but they do it just on the spot.

After that all the kids came. As soon as they see a new adult, especially a foreigner, they scream TEACHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! and cling to you because they're desperate for attention. I was literally dripping children. Kids in my arms, on my back, on my legs. But they are the cutest kids ever. However, "Good morning teacha" is pretty much the extent of most of their English. They do sing English songs, like "Jesus loves the little children", "Good morning Mr. Teddy Bear", and "Welcome to Kamogelo". I taught them the Hokie Pokie, which was hilarious.

The lesson that day was short and consisted of writing their name, writing the word "apple" and then coloring in the apple. Friday's aren't heavy on lessons because the teacher's clean the classrooms, so they just let the kids loose on the playground after. So I got to go run around outside, push kids on the swings, play catch, and carry them around. It was a blast! But I also had to sometime break up kids fighting and make sure they didn't kill themselves on the playground. I took a few pictures and it's funny that one word the kids know very well is "camera" because other volunteers have taken pictures too. They cannot get enough of seeing their pictures on the screen.

Kamogelo is a great place, but it's extremely sad to see these kids who have to go through so much and are living in real poverty. At least here they get 2 hot meals (with a lot of carbs and starchy food to help them gain weight), most have a uniform of some kind, and they get a start at an education even if the curriculum isn't very organized.

Saturday I went with Cat to the orphanage she works at called SOS Children's Village for the graduation party. SOS is very different. A lot of the children stay there overnight, divided into little houses with 2 house "mothers" and about 12 kids of all ages (so if a sibling group comes they can all be together). You can tell SOS is a lot better funded and it's a lot more colorful, with bright murals on the walls and things. The kids there were great too and also very happy to see us!

Both of them were great places to see. They have different approaches but are still dedicated to solving the same problem faced by children here. I hope that with they help them have a better future.

Okavango Safari to Enter my "Roaring 20s"

So this weekend was a long weekend for the Penn interns, because Thursday was a Botswana national holiday (President's Day) and we all used one of our allowed personal days on Friday. We all went different places in small groups. Others went to Cape Town, Durban, Chobe/Victoria Falls, and villages not far from Gabs. Tamar, Alex, and I decided to use this long weekend to see "The Jewel of Africa" and Botswana's most famous tourist attraction: the Okavango Delta. It's a really unique place because it's the only inland delta in the whole world, so it has a really unique landscape and ecosystem.

Because of that, the Delta is really difficult to see when you're a poor college student on a budget. Botswana has perfected low-impact ecotourism, which is a good thing. This means that they have pretty few tourist lodges/places within the region and they are all commited to environmentally friendly practices that sustain the amazing wildlife tourists come to see. That being said, the vast majority of the lodges in the Delta are extremely, almost excessively expensive and this part of Botswana has the international reputation among safari-goers for being uber-exclusive.

So we decided to book our trip to the Delta through "The Old Bridge" Backpackers. We got to Maun, which is the "Gateway to the Delta" on Friday, and were immediately picked up in an open air safari truck and driven our place. Once we got there we were immediately put on a motor boat and boated 45 minutes to a village in the southern part of the inner delta. We had book a 2 day Mokoro Camping Safari. A mokoro is a traditional dugout canoe used in Botswana, particularly by the tribes in the Delta. From the village, we met our guides and the other polers (it took 4 mokoros to get us and our stuff out there) and embarked on a 2 hour long mokoro trip. The Delta swamps are like nothing I've ever seen. Huge waterways of tall grasses, huge patches of water lilies, all types of birds flying overhead, and dotted with islands covered in palm trees. There were also some unpleasant parts of the longgg mokoro ride, mostly the fact that mokoros go right through the reeds and tall grasses coming out of the water, leaving the passengers inside covered in gnats, mosquitos, and cobwebs (with spiders in sometimes in the boat). Good thing I was wearing long pants/sleeves and took my malaria medicine!

We got to the island, set up camp, relaxed, and went on a game walk. We didn't see much the first night, just birds and a few steenbok. BUT there was a bull elephant that decided he wanted to eat some palm nuts about a hundred yards behind our tents. He kept getting closer and closer and we were hoping he wouldn't come crashing through! But by nightfall he went away. Our cook, Monk, cooked us an amazing dinner of beef stew, rice, salad, butternut squash, and this cool apples-and-bananas-boiled-in-milk desert that I have to try, then we went to bed in the warmest tents ever in very comfortable bedrolls listening to bird calls that sounded ten times cooler than those tapes rich Americans use to fall asleep ...sweet!

The next morning we got up at sunrise and mokoro'd out to another island for a early morning 3-hour game walk. As we were getting to the island we could see an elephant get our of the water up onto the island, which was amazing to watch! Then as we pulled up to the island we saw its whole family, about 4 elephants eating and chilling. On the game walk we also saw a herd of zebra (with a really cute baby they were trying to protect!), hyena tracks, more beautiful birds, a herd of impalla, and wildabeast. One the mokoro ride back we saw some monkeys and we heard (but couldn't spot) a leopard. Exciting!


When we got back to camp around mid-day, Monk made us the Botswana version of French toast (toast dipped in beat eggs and then deep-fried, he had also never even heard of syrup before as there are no maple trees here) and other assorted breakfast foods. We stuffed ourselves and relaxed for a little bit before breaking camp and heading back on the Mokoros for the 2 hour journey home. The bugs weren't bad for the first half and the weather was warm, mostly sunny, and amazng so it was actually really relaxing to be in such a beautiful place, so close to nature, and enjoying creation.

When we got back to the hostel, we each dropped our stuff in our private rooms, which were pretty cute, and then went to watch some World Cup soccer with the collection of white/Asian characters that collect at a Backpackers hostel in the middle of nowhere in Africa. After eating dinner and watching the games we were so tired we passed out.

Today, I had the most chill birthday ever. After eating breakfast we checked out of the hostel and then we did a whole lot of nothing in Maun. But, for doing nothing, it was pretty awesome. The weather was clear blue skies and pretty hot (by my American standards) so we changed into shorts and walked around the town of Maun, which has almost nothing in it. Its extremely sad to see the state of Maun, which is extremely poor despite the fact that so much money is spent on tourism there. I also know from reports I've read at work that the Okavango district has some of the worst health indicators in Botswana. The mix in Maun is really interesting and kind of sad. though the industry provides some local Batswana with employment, but most of the managers of the safari companies are British expats or white Africans who've been here for generations, so its a weird dynamic. Anyway, I then had an amazing 2 hour long lunch at a French restaurant that caters to tourists outside of the Airport, complete with a dessert crepe filled with bananas, almonds, and Tia Maria chocolate syrup - YUM! Then we walked around Maun more and bought some cool souvenirs, which I haven't bought almost any of so far.

After a short flight back to Gabs I took an incredibly refreshing shower, but as soon as I walked out of it the rest of the interns surprised me, in cute animal masks with a cake, candles, and a birthday glass of wine. They made me blow out my candles in my towel, while taking what I'm sure are mortifying pictures. Then I got changes and we celebrated/ relaxed for the rest of the night.

It was, overall, an amazing and relaxing weekend and a great way to spend my last few days as a teenager, reflect on the years I've had so far, and bring in an exciting new year of life ☺