Traveling Hokie

Hey y’all.  Apologies for the delay in update, I was under the weather the middle of the week and wasn’t thinking much about posting.  Am much better now so here you go…

Last week our training group was shadowing, where we live with a current volunteer for a few days and see what they do, what their life is like, etc.

I stayed in Ghanzi with a volunteer named Maureen, who works with NGOs.  Maureen is a lot of fun, and because of her location (the biggest town in the entire district) she has people in and out of her house ALL the time.  Like there’s literally only been a few days at her site when someone hasn’t been staying with her.  So the first night it was just me, the 2^nd night it was me, a couch surfer from Spain named Marta, and a grad student from GB named Jenny.  The 3^rd night it was me, Marta, and some PCVs, and the last night there was a pile of us because we had a barbecue.  Because of Marta and the fact that Maureen speaks Spanish pretty fluently, I think I spoke more Spanish this past week than Setswana, although Marta also spoke English.

I arrived Tuesday around 1:30pm, after getting picked up by PC at 4:30am to go to Gabs to catch a bus.  Although it was almost an 8 hour bus ride, the ride itself wasn’t too bad.  There were 6 of us on the bus, and me and another trainee were going all the way to Ghanzi so we had people to chat with. Our drive through the Kalahari was beautiful, although it mostly looks the same.  Lots of small trees/bushes that are brown, although with the rains coming they will soon bloom.  Not a desert like the Sahara.  Also, ostriches!! And man, they are HUGE!  I wasn't expecting that, so they were really fun to see.

On Wednesday Maureen took me to a smaller village where we helped another volunteer write a grant for her NGO, which provides facilities and materials for San people to make and sell arts and crafts.  Then we went back to Ghanzi and visited the Ghanzi celebration for international mental health day at the bus rink, complete with lots of speeches and dancing.  Then we briefly met with someone at an NGO for people living with HIV.  That night we went to dinner at a restaurant with some PCVs and the people staying with Maureen.  Thursday we were supposed to do some field work but the person taking us was sick.  That afternoon we went to the local elementary school and did a reading group with the kids we could find.  Normally Maureen has a regular group, but some of the kids were having exams, other weren’t there, and the room was locked, so we made due with what we had, PC style J 

Friday we prepared for the brie (pronounced bry), the Botswana way of barbecuing.  At the brie there were a bunch of us and we chilled all evening, going dancing later at the local bar.  Saturday I caught the 10am bus home.  It was an awesome week and is making me want to be at my site!