Botswana is an
impressive country. It is home to the world’s largest inland delta, it has
unmatched wildlife in its national parks (more elephants than any other country
on the planet), and it has one of the least corrupt governments in Africa. But
things aren’t entirely rosy in this country, even though people try to pretend
they are.
You see, Botswana is
challenged by the roots of HIV, which run deep and pervade farther than you
could even imagine. Even in Setswana, for example, the word for “love” and
“like” are one and the same. There’s not even a distinction between the two on
paper. And that’s just the start of it.
Of its modest 2 million
citizens, about 2/3 of the women claim to have experienced some form of gender-based
violence in their lifetimes. That means over 65% of women have been abused,
whether it be physically, emotionally, financially, etc. And that’s only
reported cases. And after Swaziland (a little nugget situated inside
of South Africa, Botswana has the highest rates of HIV in the world. In fact,
Botswana actually graduated from the Peace Corps in the 90s but was later asked
back because of the unbelievable losses from HIV. Even today, around 50% of
middle-aged women are HIV positive. Those numbers, frankly, are astounding.
Without knowing anything
about this place, it’s easy to sit there and scratch your head asking how
Botswana got in so far over its head with the HIV epidemic. With
only 2 million people and a national wealth built on a foundation of diamonds,
how could this all have happened? Now, I’ve only been here for a few
months, but I’ve learned a lot and I think I can shed some light (keep in mind
these are just my own insights)….
1. Botswana is grappling with the clashing of traditional
and modern values. A huge majority of the population here is Christian. And I
don’t mean the kind that only goes to church on holidays. I mean speaking in
tongues, channeling the holy ghost, multiple-days-of-the-week churchgoers. But,
this doesn’t seem to reflect in a lot of their culture. Why is that? I’m
getting there, don’t worry.
2. Marriage…in Botswana, who needs it? I’ve noticed
that, especially in the north where I am living, there are hardly any weddings
or marriages. This seems like it’s mostly because of the price. A husband-to-be
has to pay a lebola, or dowry, for his wife. This varies in price, but can be
any number of cattle plus cold hard Pula on top of that. Interestingly, this
practice is deep-rooted in tradition, but has evolved into something of a
competition. It’s something you can brag to your friends about (“Well my
husband paid 20 head of cattle for me…..yours only paid 12?). And, on top of
the show-offy nature of it all, it leaves the family of the groom broke and unable
to support the newlyweds, who are traditionally expected to move in with the
groom’s family straight away. Wouldn’t this money be better spent on a new
house or plot of land for the newlyweds? The uncles are the ones who negotiate
all of this and also receive a “commission” from the lebola negotiation. And
let’s face it, nothing good ever comes of a greedy uncle. Plus, once a woman is
married, she doesn’t get much out of the union itself. The marriage is a
formality which the man is often essentially expected to disregard even from
before it is made official. That leads me to my next point…
3. Culture of infidelity. Men here (and often
women, not to discriminate) are incredibly unfaithful. It doesn’t matter if you
are married or dating or what…there is pretty much no expectation that a couple
will stay faithful to each other. On multiple occasions I have had
conversations explaining how this whole concept of infidelity is foreign to me
as an American. I mean sure, people in America are known to cheat, but rarely
is it brushed off and seen as normal or even expected. Not that it is
encouraged here. People will tell you that you shouldn’t do it, but when it
comes down to it, cheating is a part of a relationship. There is even a term
for a man’s mistress, or “small house,” referring to the small house built on
his compound for her to live in, right under the wife’s nose. And child
defilement is something that can be found in every village/town in this
country. Transactional relationships between older men and young girls exist
where the men give the girls cell phones, air time, new clothes, etc. in
exchange for sex. When you're a teenage girl who has no income for yourself,
it's easy to see how tempting such relationships can be. Not to mention the
myths that exist whereby if you have sex with a virgin you will be cured of
HIV. Turns out that's not true, but it doesn't stop men from trying it
anyways.
4. The end of the month is my least favorite time
in Botswana. At the end of the month, everyone gets paid their monthly salary.
The bars are full, people are staggering around, and the verbal abuse is
rampant. I know what parts of my village to avoid (the bar that the chief owns,
for example, despite a big sign posted near the community center that shows him
taking a stance against alcohol), but it’s impossible not to notice the
drinking culture here. In fact it was one of the first things I picked up on.
At the risk of generalizing, it seems that for the most part people either
drink to get wasted, or else they are staunchly opposed to alcohol consumption.
There is little to no middle ground where people have a couple beers in a
social setting, which makes it hard to explain your own preference for alcohol.
It’s such a hot-button issue when people ask you, and you never know which side
of the chasm they are on. Alcohol is involved in a staggering number of
instances of gender-based violence and HIV transmission. It has accelerated the
progression of this virus unfathomably, as HIV transmission in cases of sexual
abuse is incredibly higher. The government has even tried to discourage alcohol
usage by charging a high alcohol levy tax, but it seems as if it has had no
effect on consumption rates. So instead, people are spending a higher
percentage of their income on purchasing the same amount of alcohol, leaving
them with fewer funds to, for example, support their family with. I’m not
disagreeing with the existence of the alcohol levy, just questioning if it’s
the most effective way to tackle these issues.
5. And to me, this is really the kicker: the
government employs a majority of people in this country and has the power to
send its employees anywhere in the country with no real say from them. Here,
government workers include all clinic/hospital employees, teachers, miners,
builders, cleaning staffs, and even some clothing stores. If you want to talk
about big government, you should do some research on Botswana. With a lot of
families where the husband is the breadwinner, he may be sent to another part
of the country to work, while his wife and children are left in the home
village. He might come home for holidays, but it can get lonely living
somewhere by yourself…this seems to be where a lot of the sleeping around
happens. And when he does return home on the holidays, who knows what kinds of
STDs and infectious baggage he is bringing back with him. This is especially
true with miners who spend so much time living in groups of men far from home
at the mines where sex workers linger and loneliness bites. I really
believe that by breaking up families for employment purposes like this, it is
putting undue strain on the family unit and creating voids filled by infidelity
and lack of family prioritizing. And the thing is, no one talks about this as
being a large contributing factor. For Batswana, it's just the reality.
You see, this this
country is small. With only 2 million people living within its borders (and
about 150 PCVs), its one small world. And when many of those people have
multiple concurrent sexual partners, may not be using protection, and are
living far from their families and partners in a culture that on some level
accepts this infidelity, you can see how HIV seems to have spread like
wildfire. Not to mention the desire among many young people in this country to
get the virus early so that you don’t have to keep worrying about getting
tested or contracting it later. Test positive now, and don’t worry about
continuing to test yourself or use a condom for your own protection later.
Seems fairly logical when you put it that way, doesn’t it? Especially when you
consider that 100% of health care is offered for free in Botswana, so you can
be on ARVs (HIV medications) for the rest of your life at no financial burden
to you whatsoever.
So knowing what you know
now, how on earth do you convince someone that they should watch out for their
health and protect themselves against HIV. To many people here, HIV seems like
an inevitability, and one that is, thankfully, no longer a death sentence. Stay
tuned, folks. That’s my mission.
