Creatures Great and Small

This afternoon we went to the hospice and met with three visiting American professors who are on a healthcare tour of the country and were curious about end-of-life care in Botswana.  It was very informative to hear my advisor and the hospice director answer their questions about the hospice and the availability/demand for end-of-life care in Botswana.

I am trying to learn the names of all of the hospice employees and volunteers but it is difficult!  Everyone at the hospice seems very nice but deferential, so I will have to work to break down the barriers created by me being foreign, white, and only here for a few weeks.  I hope that by spending enough time at the hospice and working closely with the staff there that I can make rapid progress in earning their trust.  I can see that there are frequent foreigners who come by briefly and either collect data or get a tour of the facilities without making much of a contribution (at least as far as the hospice staff can tell) so I plan to contribute as much as possible in my short time here.

My Neighborhood and the Botswana Blue Sky

When I got back to the apartment today my roommate told to be sure and shut the door if I see monkeys – I thought she was joking but apparently there are about 14 Rhesus monkeys who live in the neighborhood!  She said she saw a few of them this morning walking behind the apartment.  It is so funny to me because it really doesn’t feel like an exotic place for the most part, but I keep hearing stories about giant cockroaches (so big they wouldn't fit in a drinking glass), spiders the size of your palm, and now monkeys in the backyard.  I have yet to see any of the above, and I'm not exactly looking forward to encountering one of the roaches or spiders.  I suppose that it is all part of the charm/adventure of living in a new place – like seeing roadrunners in Albuquerque - except scarier!