Botswana, who are you?

I know that trying to characterize an African person is like characterizing a European person. There is so much diversity upon the 700M people living in Europe: comparing a person living is Paris to one from rural Romania is close to absurd, then why trying to compare 1.1B African people at one time? Nevertheless, it is hard to draw any distinction based on my limited knowledge of Africa. So, let’s take this one step at a time. Botswana being the first. Here is what I’ve learned so far.

Botswana is a young state, celebrating 50 years just last September. Slightly younger than Israel which has 68 years from its independence. As far as I can tell, this is my first visit to a country younger than Israel. Both Israel and Botswana got their independence from the United Kingdom’s occupation. As of today, Botswana’s population is tiny: 2.13M, 1/4 of Israel’s population. But on land area Botswana leads with a land area that is x26 times the land area of Israel!

Here are some more interesting facts that got me thinking. In Botswana’s capital city, Gaborone, there are a total of 14 hotels, while the entire country has 33 based on the data presented on TripAdvisor. For a country that has a very solid tourism industry, that accounts for 12% of their GDP (about 40% is from diamond mining BTW), that sounds a bit odd to me. Botswana is world-famous for its wildlife and Safari adventures, especially with the Okavango Delta region in the north, where I’ll spend 4 days after my volunteering. Expect to hear more about this :).

Only 9.8% of the households in Botswana hold a television set. As striking as this sounds, with the recent crap on television these days, its a puzzle to who’s favor this statistic should be counted for.

But most definitely, the one statistic which caught me by surprise and caused me to really drop my jaw is this: 23% of the population in Botswana suffer from AIDS or are HIV positive. That is 1 out of 4 people. Naturally, at this state, this leads to another appalling statistic: Life expectancy in Botswana is less than 47 years. 47. Israel’s life expectancy is 79. So, an average Israeli is expected to live 68% longer than the average Botswani. I cannot even start and tell you how this statistic makes me feel. Just trying to imagine a health system that is trying to cope with these numbers. But even more than that, when in Israel most kids have at least several grandparents and somethings grand-grandparents, most kids in Botswana do not have that at all probably. And just to imagine all the agony that this terrible situation is causing on a day to day basis and on so many lives.

So, yea, based on these numbers, it is not surprising that per “happy planet index” Israel is ranked 15 in the happiest countries in the world, when Botswana is 141.
However, I must state that based on my limited research on infection rate this is drastically improving, and Botswana is counted as one of the successes of treatment in AIDS worldwide. And, important for me personally there is very little danger in infection, considering basic protection is taken. It will be interesting to get closer sense of living with an AIDS epidemic at these sizes.

Don’t know about you, but I'm getting excited to meet Botswana face to face.