Monday blues

October 27th 2010

Early morning bread burglar

Now that we have had time to settle in our accommodation at Woodlands, just outside Francistown, here is a quick reflection of the first week in Gaborone. Things have not always gone according to plan! Will and his BCA counterpart Girish could not have done any more pre-trip planning if they had tried, but factors outside of their control such as the teachers’ strike, punctures on the ‘shouldn’t be on the road’ combi and Godfrey’s time keeping have put a spanner in the works. In spite of that, we have had some great sessions with both teachers and children, but not necessarily on the same day. We have only had the primary school teachers for a single morning in various locations which has limited the amount of tutoring that we can do. It has been very useful for returnee teachers, but a bit rushed for new ones.

Chris and his caffeine addiction

The overwhelming positive has been the different style of our HIV / AIDS awareness messages and the way in which the whole CWB have delivered them. Last year, it was a bit of an add on at the end for the teachers, and lacking for the children. This time, the HIV messages are being introduced right from the outset and reinforced throughout the sessions. There has been a small amount of confusion as to the approach of HIV awareness with the primary school children, but Sarah, a returnee teacher from Ramotswa summed it up nicely for me. All of the children are taught about the ABC, but instead of dwelling too much on ‘C’ (condom for protection), the emphasis is on Abstinence and Be faithful. ‘C’ stands for ‘be Careful’. Just like in their school work, the children are encouraged for strive for A and B.

The 2 Vs - supposedly best sides

Our home for the next few days is Woodlands, a self catering camp site with lodges and cottages down a 7km dirt road just outside Francistown. There is a river just a the bottom, but like all rivers that we have seen, it is just a dry bed with no sign of water. At least the stagnate pools have dried up, which keeps the mosquitoes at bay even though the heat and humidity are very high. We have a two bedroom cottage and a twin bedded lodge. This has meant rearranging room mates. Veronika and Veronique are together in one room, Mike

R and Mike S are sharing another, with Will and Adrian on mattresses in the living/kitchen. Mike G, Allan and Chris are in the lodge. It has thrown up one or two very minor issues – Veronika is going to have to wear a 3XL shirt from the BCA as a night shirt; Allan and Chris are going to make doubly sure that they don’t snore and disturb Mike Griggs; there are four people trying to use one bathroom at the same time and Mike Reeves has to make sure that Veronique is decent when he wants to get the toothpaste or shampoo from his wife.

One posed photo too many

Botswana has claimed its first two victims. Mike Reeves and Allan Parker-Read were unable to join the rest of the team on Monday due to sickness. However the rest joined Clement, a Zimbabwean coach who we met last year to go to the Francistown sports club to coach 23 teachers. They proved to be very enthusiastic and we look forward to seeing them again on Tuesday and Wednesday for more tutoring leading to an assessment and certification. The media was also out in force, with journalists from three newspapers and a television crew. In the afternoon, the ‘magnificent 7’ coached 94 children including 24 children from the local School for the deaf in spite of being an hour late due to a puncture in the combi.

It was Veronique and Mike Stratford’s turn to cook dinner which was delicious and especially worthy considering they were cooking by candle light due to a power cut following a powerful storm. They have set the bar high with marks out of ten averaging 9. It would have been higher but there were no grapes or port with cheese and biscuits.
Mike Reeves

PS Apologies for the lack of blog entries and continuity, but storms which knock out the power and an inability to log on from Woodlands has meant that we have struggled to get online. Thanks to Mike and Anne, the owners of the lodge for the use of their office.

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