South Africa

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Mon 1 Dec 2008

a few thoughts..alot of photos..joyeuse world aids day

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa , Madagascar , Swaziland
1 Comment 


i dance in the farms of ambositra, Madagascar. 
a memory. two years ago around this time I was settled in ntabethemba area and made my mind up that i would learn a xhosa song before heading off to namibia. During mginti ceremonies, where the boys go to get snip snip circumsized, while they leave their community to head to the bush and when they come back - it is filled with songs. These songs are only sung by the males and they learn many of them when they are in the mountains during circumsicion school. I met up with my buddies down the road and asked them to teach me a classic. its goes like this:

heeeeeyyy MaLahoyaaa, Heyyyyy Malahoyaaa..hey hey…..Kwathluuu Abantu malahoya hey heyy…heyyy malahoya…hey malahoya…kwathlu abantu malahoya enkosi hey hey…..

With your fancy xhosa stick, and a good beat emphasized with a heavy stomp, its a very catchy song. It refers King Malahoya, who formed one of the main ancestors of the isiXhosa people. Put simply it says: Don’t let other people separate your people.

Is it nationalistic? xenophobic? or a encouraging a sense of community peace? Anti-apartheid? Pro Apartheid? One night two years ago, there was a funeral for a extended family member of my host family. All the males got together, sipping the mQhomoti and castles - and we sang Hey Malahoya all night. The next day a local guy who sang with me approached. He started talking about the whites he once worked for, africanners, the apartheid system. He then told me he had never met a white like me before. He didn’t know “we” could be like that. Hey Malahoya. Hey Malahoya.

review

where was i..last we spoke I was in the middle of running the UK IDEALS project in Mpumalanga. Since then the team took a mid term in Sabie, Kruger Park and went back to work in the small community of KaHoyi near the Mozambique border. Back to Pretoria to, as I called it, have a individual retreat - work on a massive amounts of reports for the project and ofcourse, my fav, financial reports. My final good byes to my SCORE family. Apparently its like the mafia, once in, I won’t really be able to leave. And then le trip classic - The same gal from the Congo adventures joined me for a real vacation to Madagascar, no tour company, one guide book and the french road and three weeks to use any extra money I had made.


The rainforests. Here are thick bamboo village in an area calld Ravanofana. before you enter a thick primary forest, your first thought is, this must be a hill that goes straight up. but its not, it is dense, untouched, a real mother of nature that does not grow openings to light.


The train. sometimes you hear of trains form the 1920s that still run. usually that means that th train has been refurbished somehow, but uses the same track. here is the same train, the same seats, the same toilet, that passes through remote highland villages of Madagascar. This is the view you see throughout.


It stops in small villages whos primary source of income is selling exotic fruits and beer to italian tourists. the kids make beads and hats and would approached you “woooza wooza!” . becca and i thought it was a cool slang of “whaaatsup!” - started repeated it back to the kids and they looked back confused. turns out it means white person.



kids are different here. actually it is a completly other culture with few comparisons to my southern african families. Malagash people are much more reserved, less extroverted - compared to kids who will run up to you as a foreigner and follow you everywhere, malagash kids will mostly remain silent if they see you, these few were exceptions


rice fields



traditional houses always depends on whats around it. I’ve never seen anywhere in southern africa however that has such differences in houses - cntral province you will find these red gingerbread houses in clusters on rice fields, on the east  coast you will see polynesian straw frames on stilts, and by Antanarivo you can find condensed wooden apartements.




Ambositra


yes. a beach. mada is loaded with them. If you want to escape the rainforests, mountains, lemurs and vanila farms - check out ile de St. marie - a small island off the east coast north of toamasina.


Ile de st. marie used to be The hotspot for pirates - they even have their own graveyard with a memorial to the real Captain hook.


loaded with bungalows and hot shot hotels for retired french aristocrats - it is home - fishing and market in the day, taking dugout searching the reefs for fruits de merre.




Antananarivo (Tana)

The capital of madagascar is magical. as french colony, the narrow streets , rolling hills, tall thin buildings , crepes on the copple stone streets could confuse you for 19th century haute savoie france. taking a second look you see the street children, the indonesian food, asian looking people and rickshaw (pouse pouses) riddling the area - and alas you have real unique madagascar. the history behind the area tracks the growing power of the king and queens of the Merina people, as they forced any foreigners out and throw christians off their palace roofs.




becca and i learned to make friends by buying drinks. this guy hated the governement for the conspiracy of burning down the palaces. he was once a tour guide and now he had no where to tour. the governemnt i guess burnt it down to get money from UNESCO to rebuild it. smart.
Animals



those frolickin furry creatures in the movie Madagascar do exist in real madagascar - there are abot 60 kinds of them - some our tame, some will never be seen - look up The Aye Aye for the coolest looking one.  and no i haven’t seen the movie yet.




toamasina, east coast colonial town loaded with pouse pouses



food - as the malagash people came over the past 2000 years from indonesian with polynesian looks and food - they brought with them Malagash rice. its no Nshima though.


interesting kinds of fruits, the nearest place to mada to find these guys is India.



UMHLANGA - reed dance

During IDEALS project with universit of birmingham students, i placed bubbles. I ofcourse knew exactly what a good idea I had, but they had to know it..it was their process. I placed a bubble infront of them to accept or forget. the bubble to take a night away from the village of Hoyi and road trip it into Swaziland to check out the Umhlanga ceremoney. they agreed, and i had to drive.

The reed ceremoney also appears in other bantu cultures, including the Zulu. It traces back perhaps 500 years where young girls across the land would come to the kings palace and actually help build it - in a way to pay homage. They brought reed straws from all across the land and placed them around his home. ofcourse these are not a few ladies, and they are special. Actually 100,000 virgin girls come by the truck loads (really big trucks) from across swaziland with reeds. Conveniently this is also the time where the King (king mswati II) choses his 13th wife. So there we were, at the kings palace in swaziland, watching as these topless virgins sang, danced and placed their reeds.

The king actually doesn’t look at everyone and say “ah ha, you look like a good wife, i’ll have you!” - the kings “people” do a whole evaluation of the local women of swaziland, make sure she “pure” - and i figure an HIV test as well - and the decision is made. the chosen wife does still dance though.




a swazi guard stands to watch



Swazi king palace




Life in kaHoyi








My Gogo. host grandmother only spoke shangani..i spoke siswati…oh the hilariousness continues. currently pitching this as an abc sitcom


My host mom in Hoyi. she was great, the family was great. I miss them.


Kruger and Sabie



my favorite. after driving striaght for 10 hours in Kruger, I stoped the van. something was blocking it. The biggest elephant we had seen all day was charging us. “GO nico  GOO!” the brits complained i should race through it, i said no way. “Mandla would do it!” ah good one, use my precious ego against me. No I said again. we waited..it cant coming, reversing…reversing..it was still coming..finally it went to the side just a moment to the bushes. placing the van into 1st , to 2nd, and quickly to 3rd we raced by.  way to go. i beat babar. or…he just got bored



Just an update for now….the rest, the past month, and being home. to come soon

off to this hour has 22 minutes,

Nico


 

Thu 21 Aug 2008

the rollercoaster

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa , DRC
[11] Comments 



Congolese can smile too…

My grandmothers last advice to me was that life is like a roller coaster, you have your highs, your lows. And in the end, judging from this experience, the ride ends where I began.

There wasn’t any waiting in line to catch the ride, it started as soon as I got off the plane from Canada. I had been gone for a month and there was plenty to catch up on, mainly receipts, final site visits, end of service for 12 volunteers, and preparing for the fresh new batch.

The ride didn’t cost anything, I just needed a certain height of 2 years experience. The coaster seat was very warn down, changing from a broken down jeep at night in the bush of Zambia, to a plane that wasn’t meant to carry people over Congo, a truck hitting the surf of Cape Town, a big white van driving down 6 crazy brits in kruger national park in South Africa and also to my dirty feet which taught volleyball to kids near Swaziland.

It climbed to the top, closing deals with unicef, host families and NGO partners, and then came the bungee jump over the Zambezi river. It went for loop de loops with a last minute unplanned trip to Democratic of Congo. That loop cost me a major bribe.

The coaster went down deep through a cave, there were good byes to friends of the past year and half, the not so positive final review by volunteers, and even missing my flight.

It went up high on a plateau of kind, and I realized I had seen this plateau before. It was General orientation, my 3rd . 25 wacky volunteers from around southern africa and ofcourse, Norway. In simonstown, a rich coastal town just outside of Cape town with penguins who wander the nights. I had been here two years ago to the day. The ride continued back to Zambia where I coordinated Specific orientation , my 3rd – this time with a partner sitting next to me, Melissa, the new me, the new team leader for SCORE Zambia. She has just started her ride.

The journey is coming to a close, and it looks like where I started. I speak isiXhosa well, which is almost similar to siSwati which they speak here in Schoemansdal just off the Swaziland border. I grew out my beard again, I dance the same as I used to , I see cows wander, roosters wake me and village dogs surround me as I return to rural field life in South Africa, Mpumalanga province. Eating pap, getting sun burnt, teaching volleyball, starring at mountains and laughing with kids. Just like Ntabethemba days. But it is different, a different host family, a different role as I am now being paid to wander the village with 6 University of Birmingham students who I coordinate and my own now changed perspective of community and development.

Another month and I’ll be stepping off the coaster, not sure when the circus will be back in town. In October I am planning on going to Madagascar and then home home home. This may be my 2nd last update on this site. Enjoy les photos.







 

Tue 20 May 2008

maybe it is just a bad hangover

Posted by Nico under General , Canada , Zambia , South Africa , Halifax
[4] Comments 



(jan and i went surfing in lawrencetown…yeah its freezing)

It was surprised to find me a few places this past month, some happy, some miserable, as I come to the end of the ride that started with a very dry mouth. The story goes, that on the eve on the Kuomboka ceremony, as I made arrangements to see the Lozi king in the western province of Zambia travel down the river on a huge canoe, I checked into the clinic down the road, because of the dry mouth I had been having for the previous weeks - thinking, it was malaria. The very instant looked like this:

doctor pricks my finger and puts it on a stick. i hear a beep. the doctor says “are you diabetic?”

To sum up, I’ve spent the last 3 weeks in my home of Halifax being massaged by the Canadian social medicine system and fed well by friends and family. I was diagnosed and will forever be until a cure is discovered, type 1 diabetic. ‘Well atleast its not AIDS!” says mom. which…i am happy for..i think.

I will spend the next week at home, and will once again return to the mother land, which i have been calling home , this coming saturday night. I will be finishing in Zambia with an end of service for my volunteers who have been with me since july 07, and then I will be leading 6 students from the university of birmingham around southern Africa for 7 weeks - which leads to september…and the fall shall be another flight. i flight to end all flights - and so will end the findthesky journeys…for now.


Maropeng, south african volunteer placed in Nyimba. to the left, the classic look of most small towns on the side of the road to Malawi



When a group of norwegians, dutch, scottish, zambian and canadians get together for food and drinks in cape town following a meeting at night- rarely does anyone think its a good ideat to have 4 hours sleep and wake up to climb a mountain at 5am to watch the sunrise. Well, i dont know how i did it, maybe it startd with the guilt trip and turned into peer pressure. well either way, we made it to the top of lions head for this, and i slept all the way back to Zambia that
morning.



everyone loves fishing, and everyone loves pictures, here i am finding the fisher man and the police guard at the bridge that boarders luapula province. its almost like the guard is pulling a sly stallone pose


easter weekend meant flatmates harry, adam , and irish friends natasha and maeve set a journey to Jungle Junction, outside of Livingstone towards Botswana, - HIGHLY recommended by me - if your looking for a quiet get away, time to chill, hippos running a muck at night, and general sense of peace, go here. i woke up in my hut to see this from my bed


cant have a get away without box wine. only way to jungle junction is by dugout canoe


 

Sun 16 Dec 2007

back in the SA … HAPPY HOLIDAZE

Posted by Nico under General , Zambia , South Africa
[2] Comments 


ah, its been a while.

its been hard to keep up with this blog, a year and half into this, far from the “honeymoon” of livin in africa - its great and wonderful, but its work, so therefore i have been losing interest in posting stories and pics constantly. BUT i’m still here,

currently in cape town for meetings and a few days off to cruise around one of the most beautiful cities in the world. its true. i climbed table mountain yesturday. something for everyone to do.


 

Wed 3 Jan 2007

exhausted, but loving it

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa , Mozambique
1 Comment 

Southern Africa is huge, and budget travel is readily available if you’re willing to sacrifice your human spirit. Theres plenty of combis (van like taxis) that will take you just about everywhere for cheap - a 12 hour ride can cost something like $30 canadian dollars, with cheap in country flights running just a bit more. But, budget travel in africa, is not like elsewhere, at best it is exhaustingly uncomfortable. The usual scenario is myself stuffed in the back between to big mommas both with 2 crying babies each in behind usual taxi drunk in a oven size vehicle, while the taxi driver roams around the streets/villages for a countless hours because there is a micrometer of space available where he thinks he can cram one more soul into. and then theres the roads, the heat, the highest car accident rate in the world…but hey, when you got a good combi, they usually blast the best big beat african songs all night, as loud as possible.

lets see…the past 30 days approx.

  • 5 countries (South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia (leave tomorrow)
  • 2 train rides
  • 4 flights (as of tomorrow)
  • 15 Combi Rides (least being an 30 mins drive, most being 3 hours, max being 13 hours)
  • 4 times Hitched
  • 6 Buses
  • 1 time I got to drive truck for 5 hours because my driver was sleepy

Happy Holidaze and New Years what what

Before i start, it may seem to you that you wished you were in the places I visited, but remember, while I was laying on the beach, I did miss my good friends and family back home, the snow (althought i hear there isn’t any back home) , the annual polar bear dip, and the days of just doing nothing, laying on my couch and watching a movie with equaly bored friends. I did miss those.

I started off the trip meeting up with fellow volunteer Thomas in Jeffrys Bay, one of the most famous surf spots in south africa for some serious downtime. Next we ventured to the big city life of Durban to spend Christmas, with hot beaches and bbq with other volunteers Jonothon and Lena. Body boarding, sun burning, it was hot, and even hotter with the amount of spicy indian food I was eating (durban has about 1/3 indian population with wicked delicious food). We enjoyed chilling out and our first cricket game, which turned out not much of a game, but really jsut a picnic time for people to enjoy the holiday sun with cool beers. Myself, Lena and Jonothon left for Mozambique to meet up with other canadian friends in Tofo along the coast, north of the Maputo.

Mozambique - como esta?

Fascinating country - the Portuguese captured this country way back in the day and the people are completely influenced by such European culture and language. The capital Maputo is unlike every other big city in southern africa as there are plenty of european style cafes along the streets - Spanish music playing at the clubs - and buildings that have a mid 20th century spanish feel to them, but with 21st century African wear and tear. in the 60s, the country had their independence and almost all the Portuguese left. Then came civil war which crushed most of the infrastructure in the country leaving it one of the poorest in the world. With the war ending only 10 years ago - there is plenty of growth, and a mountain of challenges. I spent most my time in Tofo, a remote resort beach town where most rich white south african call home for the holidaze. There are a few backpackers and camping sites, but soon int he next few years there will be massive hotels and condos lining the beach, but for now, it was full, but the beaches are so big it seemed untouched at times. just a stones throw away from the resorts are what the real Mozambique looks like, delicious mango, pineapple, and coconut trees surrounding the villages made up of straw huts - see pics. Mangos need to make a comeback in Canada.

From there it was back to Jo’burg (Johannesburg) and then to Cape town. I will be leaving tomorrow for Zambia to start my new position as Zambia team leader - and am almost as confused as yourself as what exactly I will be doing.

till next time, enjoy the snow, go skiing, play hockey, have fun, ack I forgot my sun screen today,


 

Thu 7 Dec 2006

World Aids Day is great for t-shirt companies

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa
No Comments 

Ah World Aids Day finally complete, longest day. But I am satisfied with the result. There were also a 3 other world aids day events in nearby cities i was invited to attend, make speeches and ofcourse, get a free t-shirt! 3 more clean shirt to wear out here in the village.

The highlight for me was the JikaMajika dance competition, the villagers had never seen anything like it - full on Jive Kwaito-Hiphop african dance competition for youth. Check video JIIIIVE . Before announcin the winner, the DJ reminded everyone what the day was about, and that there would now be a special guest dancer..me. Before that point I had not shown my breakdance moves to any of the village…and when i started spinnin on my head, the community hall exploded. They couldn’t believe it, crazy white guy CAN DANCE!

Currently it’s time to get back into traveling - the cheap overnighter train means trying to sleep next to crying babies and plenty of drunks. but hey 45 rand (7canadian) to Blomfontain and then off to Maseru, Lesotho to meet fellow canadian sport volunteers. I was told “pony treckin in mountains” - i will expect nothing less.


 

Thu 30 Nov 2006

Celebrations

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa
[4] Comments 


Two interesting celebrations I took part in.

Amagqirha : Try to pronouce this word

Ama – g(grr sound)-> Q (is the click using tongue of top of mouth) -> irh (kinda like you have a hair ball in the back of your throat) -> HA

-the clicks I’ve gotten the hang of by now, there are three different kinds, Qha Qho words are a lot easier, but the q to the g took a while , and still have trouble.

This celebration doesn’t happen too often, and was very lucky to be invited to it. The traditional group of the area got together in classic look – beaded white hair, baboon headdress – multicoloured canes – distinctive face paint and a number of other cloths and beads that characterize Xhosa traditional attire. The local amagqirha/ sangoma/ traditional healer/ witch doctor was sick, and the passing of traditional healing rites was passed on that weekend to a new healer.

Many songs and dances were performed while others sat down with their usual blankets and canes, cheered with the now usual “ALALALALALALA” yell – drank their Qumboti (trad. Beer) – a few talks by Umbongis, the traditional oral poets and finish off with usual excessive drinking of attendees and chewing down as much goat as possible. I say usual because although this celebration was different, many of the same events happen in all xhosa cultural events.

The diversity in the villages here is very complex – and its difficult to explain how the Christian values/ traditional norms/ modern influence/ other nearby ethnic groups such as the Sotho – interact. But one thing is forsure, in the middle of every “sacred, traditional, cultural rite of passage” – villager cell phones will always go off.

Thanksgiving

No turkey. There are no set rules for this one, but the celebration is most prominent when people go away to be educated in a post secondary education and land a job. At that point, like funerals, everyone comes back – even those you don’t know at all – just so you can say – Thank you. Give thanks to all the people who without, you wouldn’t have landed the job. And having a job here is something to celebrate about (I’m told unofficially 60%+ unemployment). Traditional dancers and a professional choir from East London performed continued through long speeches. The night time celebrations were fun – I’ve learned a few of the “kwaito” jive dance moves – with a crowd of kids chanting “GO Nico! Go Nico!” while I showed them a few jive steps. The video of typical Kwaito moveswon’t load but please enjoy instead the non-kwaito dance moves of my crazy neighbour – also named Nico HEREfunkydance.MOV . That night, the power went out in the entire village – and myself and friend Eric led the nighttime choir in gospel prayer for electricity. Our prayers were not answered.


 

Wed 15 Nov 2006

“We don’t like black people”

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa
1 Comment 

Ah yes racism, I had almost forgotten/not fully acknowledged that South Africans lived in a rigid government led apartheid regime which forcefully separated whites from blacks, ending only 15 years ago. I guess I was kind of ignorant living in the village, I’m the token white guy for miles and other whites are far away and few in the closest city, so I don’t have a chance to talk about the issues.

So there I was, Thomas a dutch volunteer and myself needed to escape our areas to watch a big soccer game. Soccer in South Africa is a black/coloured sport (coloured is tough to define, “mixed” you could say) while cricket and rugby is white. Still is. The city of Blomfontain has a descent white africanner (dutch speakin) population, many white students go to the popular university, but in a stadium full of 40,000 cheering fans, Thomas and I were the only two whities other than the photographers, injury therapists and coaches of course. To us, and hopefully to good people around the world, it doesn’t matter obviously – we were dead center in the fan crowds – the South Africans fans have all their own chants and actions, I only regained my voice 3 days after from shouting so loud during the game. Awsome match, Celtics win 2-0.

After the game we visited the local student tavern, the first time I had been in a place with all white people in the room – haha its an international thing, white people can’t dance compared to my dance machine villagers. We talked to a few good people, but for those who questioned exactly what we were doing “why? They’re stupid and steal our cattle” “we africanners don’t like black people” . Shucks, a cute racist.

So what are you gonna do, compress hundreds of years of oppression into a 5 minute argument about why they should stop discriminating in a room full of racist africanners? It was not my fight that night.

Hrmm first Christmas coming up/ first Christmukah + wacky Buddhist holiday away from friends and family. Thinking the beach is where I shall be.

 

Mon 6 Nov 2006

not so alone

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa
1 Comment 

gang,

life goes well back in the village for three weeks now. Not so alone afterall, I’ve had two visitors stay with me, Els from holland is on a board commitee member of my host organizations and just happened to be around, so hey, why not check out what one of the volunteers is doing. She stayed for only a two days, but she took me to the game reserve down the road - i guess there rhinos and giraffs close to my house. She ended the trip with “well…i haven’t seen you do any work, but it seems like the community has warmed up to you” good enough for me.

Kim, my fill in team leader is from australia and is with me right now. We climbed the big Ntabethemba mountain that is filled with witches yesturday, and returned alive.

And soon enough i’ll be taking off to the town of Bloemfontain to watch a massive south african soccer game with one of the dutch volunteers.

As for real work - lots of fun and organizing happening - World Aids Day, is coming up December 1st - and community leaders and myself have gotten together to plan a massive community event. Sport councils have been slowly coming together and many of the youth now play volleyball on their own. bonus. Currently i’ve taken up two tasks that are not on my job description: carpenter/welder and computer trainer. I’m helping build netball courts and community message boards - and trying my best to teach one of my main sport volunteers how to use a computer that was donated to the community.

The past 3 months i’ve becom somewhat of a fanatic in reading HIV/AIDS related articles and information. Just finished A Race against time by Stephen Lewis (a mandatory read for any overseas volunteer) - thought i’d post up some lectures for yourself. More Lewis and Stephen Lewis

missed my first halloween ever. how was it?

 

Thu 19 Oct 2006

real stories.

Posted by Nico under General , South Africa
1 Comment 

Real Stories from the field – I spent my time away from the village with other sport volunteers within my host organization SCORE , and then sport volunteers from around the world – we’ve all got our funny, odd, real stories – heres a few.


  • South African volunteer living in a rural community in the north west province – host Mother was nice and friendly, except for her fanatic religious beliefs. Apparently there was some electrical problem, and he was being shocked 5 times a day – but host mom said it was only “spirit coming within you” – when there was no food in the house, people taking furniture away from the house for payment, and the only response being that “god will find food for us” –the volunteer was asked to write a letter pleading to a Nigerian priest (no relation to host mom) for 50,000$. I’ll be seeing this guy next month, I wonder if the Nigerian priest came through.
  • Canadian volunteer in Namibia had no water for two weeks, but fortunately had 9 small local children that follow him around all day and night, and call him daddy. He also lives with one of the last semi nomatic people in the world - The Himba, wikipedia anyone?
  • Norweigan volunteer in South Africa, some children in her area apparently had never seen a white person before…and started throwing rocks at her.
  • Norweigans are smart ones – one sport volunteer thought she’d tan for a short time in Zambian sun, ended up with 2nd degree burns and blisters over her entire body. This same volunteer was smuggled out of the country before she was supposed to go to jail for not figuring out her visa in time.
  • Radio remains popular in Zambia, and one lucky volunteer has her own radio show promoting sport and spinning her tunes to the locals
  • Another lucky volunteer is on their way to buying their own horse for transport – the community doesn’t have electricity, but does have soul
  • At the HIV/AIDS training in Namibia – there were the Canadians, and sport volunteers living in their own community. Coming from outside, HIV in Canada is a grain of rice compared to what lies in Africa. The Canadian volunteers including myself have had few if any personal relation to the disease, but an outstanding optimism -> “We’re gonna cure AIDS! Yah volunteering WOO! GO Canada eh!!”. The sport volunteers coming from carribean, and around southern Africa had a real reason to want the training – most if not all had very close relationships, husbands, mothers, brothers, cousins, siblings lost because of AIDS.


On that note – i’ll share with you some facts that surprised me about HIV/AIDS

- Women have a 1 in 1000 chance of receiving HIV during one unprotected sexual act with an infected man

- Men have a 1 in 4000 chance of receiving HIV during one unprotected sexual act with an infected woman (previously I thought it was more like 70-80% chance, maybe you did too? There’s a reason the media doesn’t spout this fact)

- I may have the exact figure wrong – but in eastern and southern Africa, of those infected with HIV –an estimated 76% are women.

- A well known and reputable scientist states a theory that HIV isn’t a recent trend at all, but has been around for most of modern human existence.

- During the World Aids Conferences in Toronto, each country showed off what they were doing in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. South Africa, with one of the highest prevalence in the world, had its Health Minister show off its goodies. She put together a big table of beetroots and garlic, what some south African traditional healers use to fight HIV. Great.


 

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