As usual, there is a radio playing loudly in the background as I type away at my computer. The station plays whatever sounds good, including Botswana house music. I’m not a house fan but when you go to a club here in Gaborone (pronounced Haboronee), and you’re on the dance floor, it consumes you.

I’m in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, as one of 20 youth interns undergoing an intense two-week orientation session as a part of the Coady International Institute’s Youth In Partnership Program.¹ The Coady institute, funded from the federal government through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), will offer 60 international internships to qualified university and college graduates over the next two years. The graduates will work with development organizations, the Coady Institute’s overseas partnerships, in their field of study.

What am I learning at my internship at BOFWA (Botswana Family Welfare Association)? So far, I’ve learned that web design and “worms”go together.

Thato, whose office I share, calls me outside. She’s a graduate volunteer for one of the programs used to engage youth in the country’s fight against AIDS. Of Botswana’s population of 2 million people, about 25% are infected with HIV/AIDS. It’s a bit disquieting to be in a public area here, to look around and realize that potentially 1 in 4 people is infected with the debilitating disease. You wouldn’t know it by just looking around.  All levels of education, and health care, including anti-retroviral medications, are free for all Batswana so people appear remarkably healthy.

Outside of the caravan that is our office, there are some tables underneath a shed. That’s where I find Mr. Levi, the finance director for BOFWA, sitting.

Some kids from BOFWA’s Youth Action Movement group walk by. They are from the 5 various branches located in different villages around Botswana. They arrive for a meeting about a campaign called “15 and Counting” which aims to remind policy makers around the world of the commitment they made 15 years ago to provide young people with “better access to sexual and reproductive Health services, information and education.” BOFWA’s main donor, IPPF, is spearheading the campaign for its over 140-member associates worldwide. IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) is an international organization based in the UK whose mandate is to give youth around the world access to comprehensive sexuality education.

As I walk closer to Mr. Levi, I see that he’s eating something. In a Styrofoam plate, packaged in cellophane are these black creature-like thingy’s, with small grayish-white spots. The sticker on the packaging is from a local supermarket.

I look closer to see that they are fried and seasoned in oil and onions. They’re ugly. I slowly realize that I’ve been told about these before, and now was the time for me to try it. It was Phane (pannay), a caterpillar commonly eaten as a snack. Mr. Levi says they’re great with beer. (Later on, I would tell him and Thato about lobster and watch them cringe).

I pick one up at Thato’s encouragement and recall our conversation a few days earlier. I was asking her about this “worm” I had heard about. I asked her what would happen to the “worms” if they were not harvested. She said they would become butterflies.

Great. I’m about to eat a baby butterfly.

I open my mouth and close my eyes and wait for the big surprise. I am too intimidated to take it all in one bite, so I bite it in half and chew. And chew. And chew the chewy exoskeleton. I look at what’s left between my fingers and see its yellow insides. I was expecting it to taste as bad as it looked; foul, rancid. But it was neither. Surprisingly, it was not that bad, quite anti-climactic. “How’s it?” Meh. I gave no comment. I am concentrating on what I think is a caterpillar leg stuck between my teeth.

I am 3 months into my internship now and I am enjoying Gaborone. I’ve also managed to not make caterpillar-eating a habit.

I came with the expectation to do web design but I am now aware of much more. One thing I struggled with, and continue to struggle with, is the ubiquity of AIDS here and what I perceived as the growing desensitization of the people towards it. I expected to land in Botswana and see people urgently running around trying to cure AIDS. I tried to imagine what the situation would be like in Canada if 25% of the population were infected with HIV/AIDS; if the infection rate was skyrocketing for youths between the ages of 0-29—a demographic which represents 70% of the population, and if less than 10% of infants born with HIV/AIDS live past the age of 20. I imagine that in Canada there would be some sort of over the top, military-enforced, bio-warfare movement aimed at eradicating HIV/AIDS.

In the everyday seriousness of sexual and reproductive health services, I’ve learned that there is more to the management and treatment of AIDS than just medicine and legislation. There’s a stubbornness and resilience that has come to exist among those infected and affected. People have to live their lives despite their hardships. They can’t allow AIDS to take their health and their joy. Through the caterpillars that accompanied my web design, I’ve learned people are willing to share their good times, and for that I am grateful.