Dumela everyone!

The past week has been an absolute whirlwind. Within 24 hours of graduation last Saturday, I was moved out of Rice and on my way to the airport. I had a long layover in London, and so I left the airport and hopped on a tour bus that stopped at the major sites including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. I then flew from London to Johannesburg, and from Johannesburg to Gaborone.

All this is to say that after 37 hours of travel, I have safely arrived in Botswana and am eager to begin work! I am based in the Women’s Health Clinic, a center for cervical cancer screening, that is housed in Princess Marina Hospital, the main referral hospital in Botswana. The BTB internship has several components, but the main goals of my trip will be to assist the clinic however I can and collect feedback on student-designed medical devices.

My mentor is out for the week, so I’ve spent the past few days acquainting myself to the clinic. I’ve met the nurses and administrators who run the cervical cancer screening program, and have started finding ways to contribute. One of my first assignments was to enter patient information into their electronic records. This task ended up being a great way to learn more about their clients’ backgrounds, and as a sociology major, was quite interesting. For example, nearly all of the patients are HIV+, but almost all are on ARV’s. A large majority of the women are single, and many have children. Absolutely everyone has a cell phone. I also read about any traditional medicines that patients have been using, their annual income, their method of birth control, their education level, and their medical history.

Piecing together these patients’ stories has helped me start to process my initial impressions of the country. Botswana has seen impressive growth within the past few years, thanks largely to a peaceful democratic political system and the success of the mining industry, and today  is classified as middle-income country. BMW’s and Audis fills the streets, parks are impeccably-maintained and impressive malls dot the city. At the same time, electricity is unreliable, many people still walk for water and firewood, and the entire country relies on a single internet server. These kinds of disparities can be found just about anywhere, but they seem to be especially obvious here.

All in all, it’s been an exciting and exhausting first week in Botswana. I’m looking forward to really jumping into work next week, and am eager to begin discussing the projects from Rice with the staff here. Until next time!