a MUCH better week

This week turned out much better than last week, due to it being the 2nd week of school and things finding a rhythm, cool people, and you know, things didn't explode in the US.

Highs
- I'm now an assistant volleyball coach!  And it's a lot of fun.  I didn't realize how much I've missed volleyball until I was around it this week.  I also didn't realize how long it's been since I actually PLAYED volleyball, and I need to not injure myself =P
- I met with the PACT club at the primary school and had fun teaching them Kingdom, Wisdom, Condom, with lots of resulting giggles and enthusiasm
- Aileen (another PCV near to me) and I talked to the ENTIRE student body about HIV facts and myths.  This could also fall under challenges, but for the most part it went pretty good.  In other news, my school could use a bull horn for such events =P
- 2 of my fellow PCVs have asked me to help them with workshops in May and June- yay for being productive! (and getting to visit friends)
- getting to know a few more teachers, and I got invited to one of their houses to meet their adorable 2 year old =)
- bumped into some fellow volunteers on my shopping trip in Moleps
- my mom and friend booked their plane tickets to come see me in July!!

Lows
- No real lows- at least none in the category of things exploding in the US or animals dying on me during desert hurricanes.

Challenges
- I didn't get to meet with my Lempu PACT club this week because I couldn't figure out when to meet with them- sports have sort of taken over the world this term.  So I need to keep pushing for a time to meet and chase down some kids this next week.
- Still feeling like I don't know very many students.  A lot of this is because of the language barrier. So I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and attempt to hang out with them during some free time during the school day.  It'll be super awkward at first, but maybe some conversations will happen.

Hopes
- I have a teacher interested in starting an English club with me at Lempu- really hoping we can find a time and some interested kids!
- Potential to read with/help out in some classes at the primary school
- Methinks I've lined up 2 interesting groups to come and do stuff with my students and teachers- more on that when the events take place

Randomness
- We randomly pulled students for a blood donation workshop, trying to promote students to participate in blood drives. They all jumped and squealed when the speaker pulled out the needle and blood bag they use though...
- I've started feeding my neighbors dog.  And by that I mean I actually bought dog food. We'll see where this goes...
- One of my teachers saw me making a poster for the HIV presentation and now wants me to help him design a visual aide of the reproductive system of a chicken
- I saw a botswana squirrel for the first time.  It looks like someone stuck a squirrel tail on a small ferret.

Shakawe Marathon

I'll add pictures to this post when I go to Gabs sometime and get better interwebs!
5/11/2013 - Done!

So at the end of last month a bunch of PCVs and I went north to Shakawe.  Several PCVs there had organized a half marathon, 5km fun run, and health fair following the runs, all to raise money for a mobile clinic to reach areas without a clinic or health post.

We stayed with the PCVs there- there were 3-4 hosting PCVs, and about 30 of us came.  So, we colonized their floors, guest rooms, and make a little tent city in their yards.  Our country director Tim and his family also came, and he and his wife ran the half marathon.  I jogged/mostly walked the 5km, which wound up being a 10km because the turn-around was in the wrong place.  We also walked to and from the marathon from various houses, so I'm pretty sure I walked more like 13km that day.

 The start of the half marathon.

 The health fair was fun, several people did face painting, I did a little booth on clean water and hand-washing (conveniently located next to an NGO from the delta region that had an awesome booth on conservation and sanitation- yeah making contacts!), and a booth on gender based violence.  There were also organizations doing HIV testing and counseling, blood pressure screenings, and some other health screenings and info booths.

 Face Painting

Gender-based violence booth.

 There was lots of speeches, dancing, and some food- in true Botswana fashion.

The next day was Easter, and about 15 of us went to Tsodilo hills, a world heritage site with hundreds of rock paintings that are thousands of years old.  We were all a little sore from the day before, but I was so happy to be hiking and climbing!  The paintings were really neat and I took tons of pictures.

 Hiking!

 3000+ year old rock paintings

An incredible view after climbing.

The next 3 days I spent hanging out in the delta with a bunch of people. 

  Lots of boatrides,

 we saw crocodiles, 

we may have swam in crocodile and schisto infested waters,

we camped,

hiked, all together drank a ridiculous amount of alcohol, and generally frolicked :)  

I didn't see any hippos, but we heard them at night because they grunt.

Sunset on the delta.

All in all, it was a fantastic first vacation in Bots.  Lots of friends, some animals, hiking, boating, good food, and getting out of my village.  The only downside was lots of traveling time, but we travel cheap that way so I can't complain!

Hopefully will update with pics soon!   Edit 5/11/2013 Now with pictures!

A rough week, worldwide

It's been a bit of a rough week.  That might be a bit of an understatement.

Although I have limited internet, I've been following the crazy going down in Boston, from the marathon to the lock down.  And the explosion in Texas. And it was also the 6th anniversary of the VT shootings, which is always a rough day by itself.

Add to that some stomach flu in the beginning of the week, some worries about a few things lost in my mom's move, and some drama with a couple of my students, and it was kind of a crappy week.

Then I tried to rescue a lamb I found Friday night before we got the Botswana equivalent of a hurricane. He was super cute but very young, and I had no idea how long he was separated from his mother- possibly more than 24 hours, since I saw him by himself on Thursday.  But I wrapped him in a towel and brought him inside and tried to give him some milk.  He slept a little while, but then got shivery and there wasn't much else I could do for him, and he died around 2am.  Of course I was a hot mess, and wasn't able to sleep and blah.  Luckily my cousin was online and calmed me down and reassured me I did everything I could, and was basically awesome like always :)  Since I was up, I was also on CNN and followed the FBI catching the other bombing suspect.  

So... its been a crappy week.  Yesterday I hung out with another PCV in Moleps to get groceries and get out of my house, and it was very much needed.  Aileen is awesome!

On the upside, school has started again and I've got lots of things on the calender to do there, and hopefully a lot of them actually happen :) I'm also healthy again, and hopefully there are less world tragedies in the next week :P

I promise I'll make my next post happier, since I still need to blog about my trip north!

Great Expectations (with apologies to Dickens)

Why did I join peace corps?

This question has been bouncing around my brain lately, and it came to a head today amidst a conversation online between some of my fellow PCVs.  Apparently some prospective PCVs have found some of my friends blogs and have been asking about their experiences in Botswana, and asking whether we recommend they accept their Bots placement.  Yeesh, no pressure or anything.

If you ask all 32 of my group why we joined Peace Corps, you’d probably get 32 different answers.  Sure there would be some common threads along the lines of, I want to help people, I want to travel, I’ve wanted to for x number of years.  But the decision to take that leap is different for each person that serves.

I had been thinking about being a Peace Corps Volunteer since at least undergrad if not before.  I don’t remember when I first heard of it.  For a while it was sort of a hazy future dream that I didn’t think I could actually do, and by that I mean I didn’t think I had the guts to go and survive overseas by myself for 2 years.  True I’m not by myself in that there are 130+ volunteers in country with me, but I do live by myself in a village, 30 minutes from the nearest American.

Then when I decided to make a bit of a career switch into public health from chemistry, it seemed a good way to get field experience.  And going into PC with a masters seemed to make the idea of being plunked down in the middle of nowhere and being expected to do development projects a little less scary. I also did the masters international program at Emory to learn more about PC, but mostly to talk to returned volunteers about their experiences.  I didn’t want the glossy brochures, I wanted real stories.  I wanted to know the good, the bad, and the gross.  I needed to process some possible scenarios and see if it would be worth it for me, and if I could handle it.

Ultimately I decided to apply and planned on going, without really dwelling on it too much.  That probably sounds really strange, but once I decided it was what I wanted to do, and that I was doing it… I didn’t want to think about it much because I was afraid I would talk myself out of it.  It was easy to distract myself during the application process because I was in grad school.  And then I got my placement and mostly convinced myself that it was what I wanted*, and boom- I left for Botswana.

One of the consequences of not thinking about my 2 years of service much before I left was that I thought I had no expectations.  And it was emphasized to me to not have expectations.  Well, I had expectations that I didn’t realize until I got here.  Some were fulfilled: I expected to work with teens, work in HIV, live in a remote village, read a lot of books, have to be creative, etc.  Some weren’t fulfilled and it turned out fine:  I thought I wouldn’t have electricity or running water and I have both, I thought I would be able to do more in the beginning and I am learning patience, etc.  Some weren’t fulfilled and it’s made parts of my service so far harder than I thought: I thought it would be easy to make friends- its not so much. I have made some, but its taking a lot longer than I thought.  I thought Peace Corps would be more understood and welcomed in the country.  It’s not that people don’t want us here, but most people don’t know what we are here for, ask us for money a lot, and seem confused by our presence, especially at first.  I thought I would be using my MPH more and doing more health related things- it’s not that I’m no using my education at all, but I’m not planning on working in a school/education after Peace Corps, so it’s not as applicable to my future.  I thought PC knew what they were doing a lot more than they do.  PC Washington promotes the masters international program like they place you special if you have a masters, and that’s completely not true, at least in this country.  PC Botswana is forced to work with various government agencies that border on dysfunctional, and that affects every volunteer in country.  I’m not sure which part of PC, or all of them, is to blame for the fact that most of our pre-service training was awful. Sometimes being a PCV feels like being in a weird social experiment, on top of integrating into your village and doing development work.

So there are all of the expectations I didn’t know I had.  But I’m also learning that expectations aren’t two dimensional in Peace Corps.  I’ll plan a PACT club and hope 8 kids show up, and I get 6.  Should I be disappointed?  My expectation wasn’t met.  Then the next week those same kids lead 3 hours of Youth Against AIDS month rally for the entire school- singing, dancing, giving speeches, writing poetry.  Expectations blown out of the water.

I had expectations that I’d make friends, because, well, I’ve made friends everywhere else I’ve gone in my life right?  Why not Botswana?  So far I’ve made about 4.  And I consider that a huge accomplishment…  Considering that not 2 months ago I felt like I had zero.  So in a way, that’s an expectation exceeded for now.

If you asked me why I wanted to join Peace Corps 8 months ago, about a month before I left, this is probably what I would have said.  I want to: help people. Travel. Get field experience. Prove to myself that I can do it. See if I want to live abroad in the future. See how things work on the ground in public health before I get jobs higher up the ladder.   Am I doing all of that? I think so. I’m also learning that at least half of the PC experience is the relationships you build with the people you live and work with.  I knew that would be important, but I didn’t know how important. Expectation altered. I’m learning that behavior change is really hard. I’m learning how much I rely on the support of my family and friends, here in PC and back in the states. I’m learning just how bored I can get in my village. I’m learning how much I take water for granted in the US.

Getting your expectations tossed back in your face isn’t exactly pleasant, but I feel like the general trend is upwards.  If I went home now I’d be seriously frustrated and feel like hadn’t done anything, because most of what I’ve done is lay the groundwork for the rest of my service.  I’ve been trying to get to know people, make friends, and figure out how things work.  Learn a little Setswana.  Survive PC trainings and lock down.  I have 19 months to go, and feel like I’ll be able to do a little more each month.

I probably won’t be able to fully say whether or not my pc experience was ‘worth it’ in different ways until I’m back in the States.  Sure, some parts are frustrating as hell.  There’s a lot of hard work involved… but that’s at least one expectation that I had in the right place- I didn’t expect it to be easy.  I hope it will be worth it, although personal growth wise, I think it already has been.  There are lots of reasons I came, and lots of (sometimes different) reasons I plan on staying.  Who knows if I would have been happier or more frustrated in a different placement or a different country, but seeing that I’ll never know that, there’s no use worrying about it. 

I guess the biggest expectation I had was that my service was going to be full of challenges and cool things I couldn’t really dream of until I got here, and that has been true.

*I was really happy to get a placement in sub-saharan Africa, my only disappointment was the placement sounded more like youth development than health.  And I was right about that, because they are literally changing my job description to youth development in HIV/AIDS.  But I came to grips with that here and now like my placement so its ok.  That’s probably a whole other post for another day.

Traveling, PCV style

So I got to go up to the delta for a few days- 9 including 4 days of traveling!  It was a lot of fun- some PCVs in Shakawe (sha-KA-way) organized a huge half-marathon/5K run and health fair, so a lot of other PCVs went up to run and help at the health fair.  While we were up there some of us went to Tsodilo hills and on boat rides on the delta near Sepupo.

I’ll post a bunch of pictures and stories from my delta trip, but I wanted to show first how I got there and back.  Since we don’t have cars as PCVs, we rely on public transportation, hitching, and spending the night with fellow volunteers to get places.

So this is a map of Botswana with my route marked on it, from Salajwe to Shakawe and back. The green and black are the trip up, alternating with each leg of the trip.  The yellow and red are the trip home.

Day 1: Hitch from Salajwe to Letlhakeng- 1 hour.

Wait in L for a hitch for 2 hours, meet up with another volunteer going with me.

Take combi from L to Takotakwane – 45 minutes.

Wait in T for a hitch for 2 hours.

Get a hitch all the way to Ghanzi- 4.5 hours.

Spend night in Ghanzi with 3 other PCVs and a German volunteer.

Day 2: Wait in Ghanzi 1.5 hours for a hitch (now there are 6 of us).

Get a hitch to Sehithwa- 2.5 hours.

Meet up with 2 other PCVs and another German volunteer). Wait for a hitch- 1 hour.

Get 2 almost simultaneous hitches to Shakawe (There are now 9 of us)- 4.5 hours.

Return trip! (2 nights in this mess, not saying where bc I don’t know who told Peace Corps what*)

Starting from Sepupa after the boat trip, about 10 of us.

Get a hitch to Gumare- 1 hour.

Wait for bus- 30 minutes.

Bus to Sehithwa- 2 hours, about 7 of us.

Wait for a hitch- 30 minutes.

Combi/bus to Ghanzi- 2.5 hours (with some extra time to have a blow out and change a tire)

Wait for hitch in Ghanzi- 3 hours.

Bus to Kang- 3 hours- 3 of us.

Wait for bus in Kang- 30 minutes.

Bus to Morumisu - 45 minutes- my 2 friends keep going.

Wait for hitch- 1 hour.

Hitch to Letlhakeng, by way of going back to Kang to get gas and then to L- 3 hours.

Wait for hitch in L- 1.5 hours.

Hitch to Khudamalapye- 30 minutes.

Wait for hitch HOME- 45 minutes.

Hitch to Salajwe!- 30 minutes.

* Peace Corps has a policy that you have to tell them what village you are sleeping in.  PCVs have a policy of not ratting out their fellow volunteers if some choose not to follow this policy.  Hence I’m not naming where we spent the nights on the way home, because I don’t know who told Peace Corps what.  On the way up I happened to know that we all told PC where we were, because our country director was also spending the night in Ghanzi (he went to Shakawe with his family and he and his wife ran the half marathon!) and we saw him a few times there.