Relentless Sunshine

It's almost always sunny in Botswana

And it just got a little sunnier.

This is not a digression from our discussion of Dia's work, but a further explanation of what we do not know.

Botswana is a warm place, where it only rains a bit, and mostly in the few months of southern Africa's winter. (The word for rain - pula - is the same as the word for money).

Click here for the forecast - no rain in sight.
Before Dia went to Botswana, I gave her a nickname. Technically it is not a nickname, since it is many times longer than her name, but sometimes you have an extraordinary circumstance which requires bending the rules, which for me is not easy when it comes to words. I call Dia the "relentless sunshine".

We all know people who we consider optimists. Dia is one of those people, but that term does not begin to touch it. I would say that Dia is constitutionally incapable of seeing the negative in a situation. It's a powerful and striking form of blindness. In the most difficult of situations, she will be the one to point out the up side. It's not like she's afraid to take on the hard stuff; she just doesn't want to talk about it. Doesn't want to give it any space in her brain.

Two concrete results from this sunny disposition. One, that huge smile you see in most of her pictures. Two, she is not eager to tell us much about her work at the clinic in Sefphofe. It's hard stuff, we assume.

When we talk or text with her, we hear about the people she works with. We hear about weddings and other celebrations. We hear about the donkeys in the road as she walks to work and the puppies in her yard when she comes home. But what happens in the clinic, at least as far as we know, stays at the clinic.

That's why we'll have to go see for ourselves.