Last weekend was a very slow one because most of the students from my group went to visit a Rhino reserve for the weekend but I elected to stay behind in the hopes that I would have the promised soccer games. Unfortunately, I haven't actually talked to the coach or any but two of the players since last Saturday's game (over a week ago), and I wasn't too surprised when no one showed up at the time or place I had been told the game would be yesterday. As I've said before, there is very little infrastructure or administrative support for this girl's team, and it shows in the lack of commitment and consistency of its membership. The nice thing about staying was that I was able to do my laundry (hooray!!) which meant a couple of hours kneeling on the floor scrubbing clothes. The water I used was actually scalding hot because we were in the process of losing our water on campus completely, and the first thing to go, strangely enough, is the cold water. So that was an adventure, but at least my clothes are clean and the sun was out long enough for them to dry in the sun!!
The water and electricity problems this week are apparently a direct result of the power shedding techniques being employed by the city officials in response to power shortages both here, and with the main supplier, South Africa. I read a newspaper article that was short of many hard facts, but basically indicated that these problems though being addressed were going to be fairly long-term, and the cause was the excessive power requirements that the building of the stadium in South Africa is requiring in preparation for the 2010 World Cup! I may have to come back for that!
Sorry I haven't updated this week, I need to get into the habit of chronicling the days events every night so that I don't get behind! The thing about life here, is that it has settled fairly well into a routine, and although I am still learning a lot every day, the events are not very exciting to report. The biggest thing I have faced this week (along with all the women in my program) is the realization that men here are extremely forward and persistent, and very good at being charming and making you feel obligated to "acquiesce to their requests" (Pirates of the Carribbean reference!). On a daily basis, every single American woman is approached by men both on campus and off that praise her beauty and even go so far as to propose on the spot. As Americans with little experience in this area, many of the girls, including myself have been struggling with how to express to these men that we are not interested even remotely! I have come to the conclusion through the course of this week, however, that it is a game for these men, and I have absolutely no obligation to them, nor will I have any lasting impact on their poor hearts, and therefore, I have to be out of character for me, and either proceed to ignore them, or flat out deny any interest in giving them my phone number or going for drinks. I have made a ton of progress in that area, and besides a little guilt for the "cold, heartless jerk" routine, I am feeling more and more confident with my ability to turn down these propositions and it has been a huge turning point for me and many of the girls this week. I definitely feel a sense of empowerment building as I become more comfortable asserting my rights and powers as a woman.
So I have finally landed on a research topic!! I met a graduate student this week from Arizona named Betsey, and besides being an awesome woman, she talked to me about a huge issue that women deal with on a very real level here in that women in most African societies draw there status from their ability to reproduce, and therefore there is a HUGE emphasis placed on reproduction. For women who are HIV-positive, this presents a complex dilemma. In mothering children, a woman risks transmitting the virus to them and/or orphaning them at a young age. For those women who do choose to become pregnant (or are unaware of their status at the time of conception) there is a program in Botswana called the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) program sponsored by the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Partnership Initiative that provides free ARV drugs and conducts studies to determine the best regimen to prevent pre-natal and post-natal transmission. I will be looking at a later step in the process, which is the decision of whether to breastfeed or use replacement formula. As of now, the World Health Organization (WHO - ahh! I'm getting acronym crazy!) recommends that HIV-positive women formula feed exclusively if the process is sustainable, affordable, and safe. Unfortunately, people in limited resource environments, which are the ones most affected by the epidemic, do not have the requisite resources in place to formula feed safely and exclusively. Therefore, I will be volunteering in a PMTCT clinic this semester, and hopefully will be interviewing women at the clinic about their choice to breastfeed or formula feed. If any of you are interested in hearing more about the dilemma as I have already gone on in length about it, let me know and I will send you updates individually about what I am learning. Otherwise, I will try to keep future posts about my research a bit more brief!
Other than research and learning how to effectively repel men, the ACM group went to a restaurant on Monday to celebrate a 21st birthday!! The restaurant was called the Bull and Bush, and was largely full of ex-pats (ex-patriots or white people), but was very reasonably priced and delicious! It was rib night, so i decided to share a rack with a friend, and they were quite delicious! I did order a drink (the drinking age is 18 here), and for those of you that are condemning me right now, I'm sorry!, but it was quite refreshing after my earlier workout. Exercise is actually another thing that has been occupying a lot of my time. Unfortunately, problems arose when trying to prove that I wasn't registered with any teams in the U.S., so I was unable to officially join the women's team here. I will still go to two practices a week just for fun (the girls are really cool), but in addition, I will be joining the aerobics club and training on my own for a 10K run followed by a half-marathon training program this summer! It feels so good to be able to devote an hour or two a day to exercise, and I am excited about the progress I can make since I have the time to work out extensively every day!
The big event of this weekend has been writing our research proposals for the independent research, and studying for my first exam in Globalization in Southern Africa on Monday. So pretty mellow weekend, although Alyssa (my roommate) and our friend Whitney and I went to a Chinese place last night at the mall, Riverwalk, where we encountered a very cute, but very very large Chinese baby! I will try to attach a picture, although I have been very unsuccessful with my attempts to add pictures.
Anyway, I will try to post more often! Thanks for reading! TTFN!
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