Safari operators alleviating AIDS crisis

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Small charter planes fly tourists from all over the world to safari camps in Botswana's Okavango Delta, where they view wildlife by day and pay up to US$1,000 a night to stay in luxury lodges or rough it in five-star tents.

Safari camps are big business in the Okavango Delta. (Image: Botswana Tourism)

The safari camps are mainly expatriate owned and managed, but guests are waited on, cooked for and guided through the bush by people from Maun, the largest town in the district and the gateway to the Okavango. After the government, safari camp operators are the biggest employers.

Most of the camps are only reachable by air, so employees spend three months at a time in the bush, working and living together. Many are young and single, while those who are married are rarely employed as couples and usually leave their spouses behind in Maun.

In other parts of the world, after-hours boredom would not be considered a dangerous occupational hazard, but this is Botswana, where one in four adults is infected with HIV.

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[25 Feb 2008 08:44]