I am back from Reconnect, and I must say it was great to see my friends from Group 29 again! We stayed at a lovely conference center which was about 20km south of Windhoek. The center was on the top of a hill, surrounded by rolling hills and sparse trees, stripped by the winter. The second day we were there, a large group of tourists set off on a three-week bus trip to Tanzania, so we had the entire place to ourselves which was great. Unfortunately it is still winter so even though the sun was shining, the frigid breeze kept us from fully enjoying the outdoors. Still, we took the opportunity to take nature walks, and i was able to do yoga almost every day!

Harmony Center/Reconnect

Today I am busy doing some preparations for National Oral Health Day (August 18th) and Condom Awareness Day (Aug 22). I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a couple interesting facts I learned from one of my colleagues during our Monday morning meeting; last week she was out at a workshop and today she reported on the things she learned.

**Namibia is one of the two countries in the world with the highest Tuberculosis infection rates. This is aggravated by the fact that Namibia is in the top 3 countries in the world with the highest HIV prevalence rates (HIV makes people much more prone to TB infection). If you want to learn more about TB, check out what wiki has to say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

**So far this year my region (Kunene) has had 4 cases of MDR-TB (Multi Drug Resistant TB), two of which have turned into XDR-TB (Extensively Drug Resistant TB). This condition develops when people default on their treatment multiple times and the bacteria mutates and becomes immune to the standard lines of TB therapy.

**Of the 23 new cases of XDR-TB confirmed last year, 13 people have died. That is a more than 50% fatality rate. Pretty intense.