With all the recent focus on providing generic, low-cost antiretrovirals to countries struggling with AIDS, it is easy to forget that medical progress can create its own burdens. For those with access to the right medications, AIDS has indeed become a chronic disease, but one during which a range of things can go wrong. Far from providing their beneficiaries with simple, painless treatment, ARVs burden their patients with multiple side effects and must be taken on a strict schedule for one’s entire life. Even if the patient does everything right, natural resistance to first-line therapies is common. As a result of these complications, patients on ARVs require a level of medical attention not commonly found in most of Africa. Although we tend to think of African countries struggling with AIDS as suffering from a material deficit, professional deficits are just as severe when it comes to healthcare. Vast stockpiles of ARVs make little difference if countries lack the medical personnel to effectively distribute them. To illustrate this point we need look no further than Botswana.

Amid the sprawling Kalahari Desert, mere miles from the open reign of lions and elephants lies the tiny city of Gaborone, Botswana. Affectionately called Gabs by many of the locals, Gaborone is the capital of this colorful nation, hailed as the “Gem of Africa” on account of its mineral wealth. In human terms, as well, Botswana boasts richness and diversity, playing home to ethnic minorities like the Kalanga, Basarwa, Kgalagadi, and most famously the San people, also known as the Bushmen. Despite its ethnic differences, however, the country has managed to escape the cycle of conflict that afflicts so much of the sub-Saharan region. Botswana prides itself on its commitment to peace and its faith in democratic governance, ideals reflected in its flag, which features black and white stripes representing racial equality flanked by blue, Botswana’s color of peace.

But even a nation as peaceful as Botswana cannot feel secure about its future as long as the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to threaten its existence. In 2003, UNAIDS named Botswana the nation with the highest worldwide percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS. Fully 37.3% of its adults and 20,000 of its children suffer from the disease. Botswana has become so familiar with death that funerals have turned into social occasions, providing an opportunity for teens to mingle on the weekends. This is not to say that funerals in Botswana are informal affairs. On the contrary, Botswana’s culture puts such an emphasis on elaborate displays of wealth at funerals that many families go bankrupt in order to pay burial expenses. The life expectancy of the average male has been reduced from 70 to a mere 33.89 years.