Preparations

Shots!

One the of most important things you'll need before going abroad are the immunizations. You don't wanna ruin your time abroad by catching a disease of some sort. Getting the specific immunizations or medications for vaccine-preventable diseases are different for each country you are travelling to. You can access the CDC website, Central for Disease Control and Prevention, which will inform you of all the required and recommended vaccinations you'll need to be disease-free in that country. Now that doesn't mean you can engage in all sorts of activities abroad thinking you won't acquire any disease. For instance, consuming street food for all meals wouldn't be a smart idea, given that it's cheaper and tempting. Keep your temptations in check! I say this with experience. One of my trips to India wasn't a pleasant experience.

So, for Botswana, the recommendations were, Hepatitis A/B, Typhoid, Rabies, Cholera, Influenza etc. typical of any Asian or African country you are travelling to. Going to your school's travel clinic would really help as they can provide you with a Travax Traveler Health Report. So the shots I ended up getting were Hepatitis A and Typhoid, the ones my parents really wanted me to get. Here is a description of each vaccine

Typhoid - The disease strikes about 21 million people each year around and is caused by contaminated food or water. They are two vaccines for the disease. One is in a form of  pills, and the other is a shot. I got the shot to get it over with, as the pill requires a set timetable to ingest a couple pills in a certain amount of days. 

Hepatitis A - This is a serious liver disease caused by HAV, which can be spread by close personal contact and sometimes eating food or drinking water contaminated with HAV. HAV is typically found in your stool and can cause diarrhea and jaundice. The vaccine requires two doses given six months apart. I only got the first dose a week ago, which according to the physician is okay for me to travel to Botswana as it will provide me with the necessary immunity.

Lastly, a travel health card would come in handy in the event you do get sick so the health workers know what immunizations you already received . Here's mine  

Medications

Over the counter drugs can be helpful in case you get sick. Make sure you take these medications in a hand carry. For Botswana, I'm taking tylenol, pepto-bismol and a prescription of antibiotics just to be safe.

Malaria.

Even though Malaria is not a direct threat to Botswana, some parts of Botswana, especially the northern part  is susceptible to it. To be safe, I'm taking two bug sprays and mosquito repellent bands. I will need them for my safari trip to the Okavango Delta, located north of Botswana.

State Department.

When travelling abroad it's safe to let the state department know of your travel plans in case there is an emergency.