by Marx Garekwe

24 April 2006

Ditladi, Botswana: The small village of Ditladi in the North East District of Botswana is the kind of settlement where everybody knows everybody’s business. It is the first Tuesday of the month, and the village residents have been called to the kgotla – a traditional community gathering place in Botswana – to talk about HIV/AIDS.

With a population of just about 1,200 inhabitants, mostly farmers, the village has been hard hit by HIV/AIDS. The village chief has rallied the meeting at the request of UN Volunteer Tsholofelo Barei, or Tsholo, as she is known in the district.

(Tsholo is a Community Capacity Enhancement Programme (CCEP) facilitator, one of several national UN Volunteers supporting the government and UNDP in combating HIV/AIDS. The CCEP concept was introduced by UNDP in 2004 as part of its Southern African Capacity Initiative.)

This is one of several meetings Tsholo and other UN Volunteers organize throughout the country to engage communities in open discussions on issues of sexuality and HIV/AIDS. This meeting in particular was held to discuss the factors that contribute to the spread of the virus in the community.

With all invitees present, the discussion begins:

“Unemployment plays a major part in the spread of HIV/AIDS,” says Boitshepho Joseph Tahla, the vice-chairperson of Ditladi’s Village Development Committee. “The youth idles around a lot, as they don’t have anything to occupy themselves with.”

“No, no. I disagree with that. It’s not unemployment,” says the village deputy chief. “People should stop having sex.”

“What do you mean?” Tsholo asks for clarification.

“Because the virus is spread through sexual intercourse,” confirms the deputy chief.

“I agree with him,” says one young man. “After drinking one wants just anything, especially sex,” he adds.

As the conversation goes back and forth in the kgotla about the factors responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS, one young lady stands up to give her perspective: “The virus is spread by the fact that we young girls have many kids [and we] need to feed them. As such, we end up going to the drinking depots even if we don’t drink. After getting drunk they pay you something for sex so you can buy food for your kids.”

At that point, another woman, in her late teens, stands up: “The problem is that we young girls started having kids far too early. Then we end up having pressures in life. Our parents should be open to us about sexual issues,” she says.

The deputy chief interjects: “We have lost our culture. We can’t teach young people our culture as they have now adopted foreign cultures. They no longer stay home with us... instead they sneak away at night when we’re sleeping.”

When it is all said and done, after close to two hours of back and forth, the kgotla ends and the attendees conclude that the main problem is alcohol and unlimited hours of drinking. They intend to take their conversation a step further by calling another meeting to draft a by-law to regulate the sale of alcohol in the community.

For Tsholo, this is a typical day as a UN Volunteer, moving between 46 villages spread across the North East District. When she is not conducting similar meetings she goes visiting any of the villages with the Home-Based Care committees.

Before this morning’s kgotla, she visited the house of Meshack Ndu, a 47-year-old man, bedridden by HIV, and one of many people in the village visited by the Home-Based Care committee.

Meshack lives with his aged parents, who are cared for by his 33-year-old sister, Baveyi. She says Meshack was working for a construction company in Francistown – Botswana’s second largest urban centre – and had only returned home in January after falling ill. Meshack’s story is typical across Botswana. Scores of men and women leave their hometowns to look for work, but return, infected with HIV and seeking help.

For Tsholo, however, the CCEP and its approach to foster open discussions at the community level is an important step forward in avoiding future infections.

“Since CCEP was introduced some two years ago, people now talk openly and freely about HIV/AIDS in their own languages,” she says. “The process brings communities together.”

Marx Garekwe is the Public Affairs and Communications Officer in UNDP Botswana.