What was intended to be a mere motivational talk with feed back from students turned out to be a pleasant surprise for Dr. Brader Brathwaite, a visiting Lecturer from the University of the West Indies, Mount Hope Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Exposing students to guest speakers have become a regular feature with the Rainbow High School's Guidance and Counseling Department. This time, however, the school's Steelpan Ensemble in its debut performance pulled one on the T&T Curriculum Specialist by welcoming her on the steelpans the only musical invention of the twenty first century - born in her own homeland of Trinidad and Tobago in the 1940s.

In his opening discourse Rainbow's principal Mr. Sandy Gilmore welcomed Dr. Brathwaite as coming from "that great cricketing region - The West Indies". From this term students at this private English medium school who do  music are exposed to the steelpan - a rare offering for the landlocked country.

Days after the visit, the Rainbowites are still talking about  the enjoyable approach she utilized. She has challenged students to increase the life expectancy in Botswana that has dropped from 65 to 50 because of the ravage of the AIDS epidemic.

In her discussion, she focused on the need for students to travel safely through the period of adolescence when they could make life-threatening mistakes because of the influences of hormones preparing them for adulthood.  At this time they are also enticed by peers to try new experiences with repercussions that they are not yet mentally prepared for, like teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. She enjoined that they must still be able to cherish this period of development with many school friends who are going through the same physical changes like vital statistics in the girls and voices and height in the boys.

Secondary schools in Botswana have been mandated to integrate information on AIDS and sexuality into their curriculum. Word soon spread around about the lecture at Rainbow and two other secondary schools: Ramotswa Senior Secondary School and Gaborone Senior Secondary were able to schedule talks from Dr Brathwaite.  At Ramotswa, a school that accommodates hearing impaired students she updated staff on new information in AIDS. At Gaborone she met with upper school Science students and their teachers.

Dr. Brathwaite was just about winding up her three months stint at the
University of Botswana where she volunteered to integrate HIV teaching
across [70 courses] in the curriculum at the University of Botswana.
 

Hollis J. Clifton
Correspondent out of Africa