My Peace Corps Job in Botswana

It turns out there is a married couple currently volunteering in the Peace Corps in Bots. The Awsumbs (a great name I might add). Anyway, they've established a blog which I posted a few days ago. Their latest entry laid out what each job title entails. My job title is District AIDS Coordinator or DAC.

Here are the details:
1) DACs - District AIDS Coordinators

DAC volunteers work at the district level helping to coordinate HIV/AIDS activities, programs, and interventions. The DAC office is not supposed to implement specific HIV/AIDS activities, which falls on local NGOs and sectors. Instead, DAC offices, with the support of a community AIDS committee, decide how to direct local funds and monitor the effectiveness of interventions. DAC offices also report on local HIV/AIDS programs, such as ARV therapy, PMTCT, orphan care and home based care. A DAC PCV builds the capacity of the DAC and others working in the DAC office. This may involve creating organization tools, improving linkages with community organizations, incorporating data and qualitative assessments into planning and monitoring, advising NGOs and sectors on how best to implement activities, etc.

DAC volunteers live in the bigger villages and towns and their day-to-day job is very office based. (You are being told this upfront—don’t plead ignorance later.) The advantage to being a DAC is the access to resources (e.g., activity budget, vehicle/driver assigned to the office, linkage with various sectors). You also end up being kind of a focal person for the other PC volunteers in your area by sharing information and finding ways to support their activities. The biggest disadvantage is dealing with nonsensical bureaucracy and protocols (which isn't unique to Botswana or the emerging world).

So there it is. Looks like I'm going to have to re-enter the actual "Work World" for a couple years! Dang!