World AIDS day

Katie had spent most of the day passing out condoms indiscriminately to everyone she saw at the clinic. I, however, spent world AIDS day building a ladder ball yard game set. In all honesty, HIV/AIDS prevention and education isn’t where my heart lies. I would rather be teaching, training, or working to build things. Any way, Katie came home with 2 boxes of condoms and asked me to accompany her to the bar for the evening. My first thought was, crap, after dark in Botswana, were going to get robbed. Then I thought, well that would be an adventure too. So when the sun set and dishes were through we set out to one of the two bars in town, closed. I could hear music coming from a shebien off in the distance so we headed that way. A shebien is a 24 hr establishment that sells local sorghum beer or ShakeShake. The place was crowded, men gathered in groups sitting tightly around their 1L cartons of ShakeShake. Katie went to work, hitting each individual up with a condom or 2. Even if they didn’t want them, Katie insisted and by the time she found me practicing my Setswana with a group of drunk men she had emptied an entire box (100) and was part way through the next. On our way out some smart ass youth just about lost some teeth when he got Katie’s attention by tugging at her skirt. When he saw she wasn’t alone, he stopped being a lebelete (female dog). Off we went to the next bar. This was the place I expected to be crowded but with it being crazy Tuesday December 1st the hooligan count was down to 4. Three were playing pool and only 2 were drinking. We ordered some sodas and Katie did here thing and stocked the dispenser with her extras. I had pool playing plans so I put my money down on the pool table requesting that I play next. 1 Pula for a game of pool, that’s like .13 cents. Our turn finely came around and we played teams against the two guys who where just playing. We played like crap, I blame the uneven table and the ripped felt but it most likely is my lack of practice. I was worse than Katie. She practically carried our team and complained of a sore back from it as wellJ. We lost after 4-5 chances of our opponents missing the 8 ball. Called it a night and went home knowing that we had done something productive for world AIDS day.
A beautiful shot of our village.

The ladder ball I built.

This is a shabine "a 24hr bar that sells local sorghum beer"