Human Resources

This week we have been busy reviewing applications and conducting interviews for several key positions within the Mochudi Prevention Project: home-based HIV counselors, a driver and an administrative assistant. I understand that the unemployment situation in Botswana is rather bleak and this was confirmed by the humongous pile of applications we received.

I was very impressed with the professionalism of the BHP human resources department and the precision with which they executed posting of the positions, collection/ review of applications and interviews. The Ministry of Labor must have some pretty tight regulations because they took great care in documenting each applicants' performance within the interview.

My role during the interview process was to run each interviewee through an exercise to demonstrate his/ her competency with technology. This was a very eye-opening experience for me. We had a brief (or so I thought) exercise that involved typing and data entry in a word processing program and a simple spreadsheet computation. I cannot express how fortunate I feel for the fact that I am a digital native and have been around computers (and Nintendo) since I was in Kindergarten. Thank you Granddaddy for those early Apple computers where I made digital doodles and played Webster's Revenge.

The picture above is a typical example of the PILES of paper that surround me each day. The piles are, surprisingly, very dynamic- data-entry specialists and clinicians are continually going through them and shuffling them from place to place. I have been stationed in the Data Management Center (DMC) for most of my time here-- I actually don't have a specific space to sit, but this is where I usually find a seat when I am at BHP Gaborone.

Oh, and I have been getting informal Setswana lessons. Here are a few of my phrases:

Dumela Mma: Hello to a woman
Dumela Rra: Hello to a man

Go siame: goodbye