The real Africa

I’m spending my last night in my 20s reading a good mystery by candlelight. It’s not the bash most people probably plan for celebrating their last night being 29, but I’m okay with it. I’m probably going to spend tomorrow cleaning and doing laundry, because my house is still currently only half put together after the move (see below). I’m okay with that too (cleaning on my birthday, not my house in shambles), because I get to really celebrate my birthday later in the week. I’m seeing friends on Wednesday and Thursday, and on my Friday, my mom and Carol come!!! And I am super excited for that. And I want my house ready for that, so laundry is an okay thing for tomorrow.

I managed to move across the village last Friday (as in 2 days ago). For those that I hadn't told, a bar opened near my house, and so I asked Peace Corps if I could move. And they said yes, and 2 months later, viola. For the record, I didn’t have any security incidents related to the bar… but I didn’t really want to wait around to see if it would be an issue. PC policy is that volunteers aren’t allowed to live near bars/shabeens/depots, so I acted on that. And, I didn’t feel super safe in the other house simply because the doors were flimsy. And the locks sucked. Rose broke into my living room once when the lock on the door broke, and I had to get someone else to break in for me once a few weeks ago for the same reason. Annnnnnd it was pretty easy to do. So, move I did.

Of course, dealing with the ministry of education and Peace Corps took time. PC asked me to look for a house, since I’m already in the village. I gladly took them up on the offer, because it gave me more say in where I would live. A teacher at my school recommended my new place, and then I got the paperwork turtle moving.  PC and MOE looked at it, negotiated rent, told them to fix a few minor things, and signed papers.  I kept pushing to be able to move by the end of June, so I wouldn’t have multiple leases, and so I could be moved before my family came and stuff. Low and behold, it actually happened!

I was stressed out the day of the move, simply because I didn’t know how it was going to go. There’s always the risk, being the lekoa in the community, that I’d get surrounded by people wanting to touch and have my things. So I recruited Aileen and her friend Parker who is visiting, and they helped me move and guard my stuff. My old landlord said he would help me move, but then passed it off to a guy I didn’t know, who looked at my furniture and went and recruited a 2^nd random dude to help. 4 pick-up loads puttering 5 minutes across the village later, and I was moved. We only had to push the truck through the deep sand twice.  The actual moving took less than 2 hours. And that was simply some furniture maneuvering logistics. I did some cleaning on Friday, hooked up my stove and gas tank, hung some curtains, and collapsed in exhaustion. Yesterday I put my living room together; tomorrow I’ll tackle my bedroom.  But it’s so nice to have functional doors and locks, I can’t even tell you. And a gate for my porch, so kids can play in my yard and not swarm my porch/house.

Today, I attempted to buy electricity, locks, sponges, bleach and airtime in Letlhakeng. I was able to get the airtime and locks. For some reason, no stores carried bleach or sponges, which I find odd.  And whatever network is necessary to buy electricity was down, so I couldn’t do that either. Hence the current reading by candlelight. When I made it back to my village, I discovered I could buy electricity here. But the network was still down. At least I can try again tomorrow without trucking out to L again!

While I was in L, stalking the small general dealer/grocery store to see if I could buy electricity, I ran into a guy that knew Aileen’s friend Parker. Small world much? It was a little weird for a white guy to already know my name. And let’s be honest, I now stare at the white tourists just as much as the Batswana. But we talked for a few minutes and discovered we were both on our way to lunch, so he and his wife gave me a ride and we had lunch together at a little Botswana restaurant. They were thrilled to get to try real Botswana food, and I could at least explain what most of the choices were.  At the end they even paid for my meal, so all in all it was great! It was kind of funny to be with people that were like, wow, we’re in the real Africa!! This isn’t like Gabs! And I do understand where they are coming from, because if all you’ve known is the capital of a country, any country really, going into the rest of it, especially rural areas, will be quite different.  But itwas weird to hang out with them because all of my friends in Botswana are either Batswana, or pcvs, and the excitement of ‘we’re in Africa!’ has either worn off or was never there to begin with. This couple also went against advice and tried to take a small 4-door sedan on the dirt road past my village up to Khutse game reserve, and literally had to dig their car out of the sand a few times. Real Africa? Check.

So I’m hanging out in my new house, looking forward to next weekend, thankful for locking doors, good friends, and glad to be in ‘the real Africa’ J

So... what exactly IS lifeskills???

I feel like my cohort and I were asking ourselves and everyone around us this question all during our pre-service training. It was only at our in-service training that we got the formal answer of, training teachers on how to use some specific guidance and counseling curriculum- both in guidance and counseling classes and infusing the topics into other subjects. This was a bit weird to start with since it was so specific- most people come into Peace Corps thinking it’s all about figuring out what your community wants to do, not being an extension of a government ministry/outside agency. It was also weird because it took us so long to figure it out.

In reality though, lifeskills volunteers do a lot more than curriculum workshops. So here is my description of my job in a nutshell, mostly for future volunteers, but also for my friends and family back home.

What the assignment of ‘lifeskills liaison volunteer’ basically means is that you will be based at a school, and assigned a counterpart (cp) from that school, most likely someone involved in the guidance and counseling committee/department, often the senior guidance and counseling teacher. This is often a little bit of a crapshoot whether the person a) knows what you are here for, aka you are not another teacher, b) cares about lifeskills and guidance and counseling, and C) has time to work with you. You are by no means limited to working with this one person!! My cp is great and I’ve done a lot with her. Other people have found other teachers and people in the community to work with if their assigned cp didn't work out too well. Actually, I recommend working with multiple people anyway, because then if someone gets sick/ moves/ is busy, you aren't stuck. (Problem I’ve had this term because my cp has been out sick.)

The "liaison" part is sort of weird... at first I thought it was between the school and the community, but I think it’s meant to be between the school and ministry of education(MOE)/EDC. (EDC is an organization that with the US CDC developed the afore mentioned life skills curriculum). Most of us try to avoid everything having to do with MOE other than this curriculum, which is good curriculum.

In summary, being assigned a specific thing to do is weird, and most of us try it if we can, and ignore it if it doesn't work.

So what do we actually do? That really ranges from volunteer to volunteer. I've been at my site for a little over 7 months. I am currently trying to get/keep some clubs going- PACT (peer approach to counseling teens, aka lifeskills using peer education) club at my school and the primary school in my village (I'm at the equivalent of a middle school), and an English club. This is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done, because the schedule seems to change every 5 seconds and clubs are often cancelled or moved. But I'm learning to show up, run a club if I can, and not stress if I can't. 2/3 of my clubs I have counterparts for, and one I'm running on my own. PC -really- wants us to have counterparts, for sustainability and capacity building and honestly, things just work better when you work with locals who know how everything works. It's often tricky to find people willing to work with you, especially in the beginning. We all try to work with people, and from time to time we try doing things on our own as well. Back to things I've done: I've presented/facilitated three workshops for teachers and one all school assembly. I've also had a workshop cancelled on me twice- back to the crazy scheduling thing. I've talked to students in guidance and counseling classes, having them write questions anonymously and I'll answer them to the whole class later. I’m probably going to actually teach some guidance and counseling classes next term. I helped coach volleyball and facilitated getting a few kids at my school interviewed for a website project. I get a crowd of kids on my porch often, wanting to color/hula hoop/ play soccer. I may try to make this into an informal club.  

In the future at school I'd love to regularly have clubs, possibly tutor math/science, do more workshops/assemblies, and maybe a typing class- for students and/or teachers. Lifeskills is really broad- it covers HIV/AIDS, sexuality and safe sex, teen pregnancy, communication, decision making, drugs and alcohol abuse, goals, study skills, relationships, anger management, assertiveness, self esteem, job training,  etc. Literally it is skills for life. So, while we try and do HIV activities and awareness periodically, almost anything you are interested in can fall under lifeskills. Lifeskills volunteers do PACT club, English clubs, tutoring, teaching (although PC doesn't want us to, but it happens), sports, arts and crafts, hanging out with students, holding workshops for teachers on life skills/typing/lots of other things, working with out of school youth, and promoting awareness of lifeskills issues with big events such as world AIDS day celebrations, alcohol awareness events, and safe male circumcision campaigns. Some people with counseling experience can also capacity build their guidance and counseling departments on how to counsel students, and sometimes counsel students themselves.

Working with out of school youth is something I'm trying to start. Same lifeskills topics, but with older teens/younger 20-somethings that aren't in school. Another volunteer and I are putting together workshops for interested youth in her village, and I’m trying to see if my village youth would be interested in them as well.

So lifeskills is my primary project- written on my Peace Corps invitation and everything. PCVs also have secondary projects, although at times they can be bigger and more time consuming that your primary project. With secondary projects, the sky's the limit. You can plant gardens, work at the clinic, volunteer at NGOs/anything you can find at your village, build pit latrines, build libraries, build playgrounds, etc. You just need to make sure it’s something your community wants. I know of volunteers doing all of the above and more. I don’t have any big secondary projects right now, unless you count trying to start an English club at my school and working on permission to read to kids at the primary school. Or my volleyball coaching.

I sort of approach my service as lifeskills themed. Almost everything I’m interested in doing in my village, and that my village seems to want (besides hand-outs), can have a lifeskills aspect.

So, I try and tie in lifeskills to whatever I'm doing, but I do what I want/what my community wants.

Goals 1-3 (and 4)

Peace Corps Officially has 3 goals.

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

The one that everyone thinks about when they hear 'Peace Corps Volunteer' is goal one. This is the development work- clubs, projects, etc. So far in this category I officially have a few teacher workshops, and some quasi-functional clubs. Unofficially I have kids playing in my yard and lots of random conversations with kids, teachers, and the occasional community member. This often falls under goal 2 as well.

For goal 2, I've explained everything from food, dating customs (please at least ask me my name before you propose. Seriously. Arg.), education, sports, weather (our school bell sounds like a tornado siren and made me jump the first month or so I was here), family, college, transportation, pets, politics, healthcare, you name it.

Part of the reason I'm keeping up this blog is goal 3. I also hope to talk to a lot of people and groups when I come back to the USA. For the rest of my life, I'll probably be talking about Peace Corps and my time in Botswana. That's why when you go back home, you are a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV), not a former PCV. Once you join, you'll always be a PCV in one way or another :)

Unofficially, there's also what volunteers like to call goal 4. That's the things we hope to accomplish on a personal level during our service. While you shouldn't join PC only for personal development, it's good to acknowledge that PC service will change you as a person. As our director said once, the volunteers that do the best tend to have joined for a mix of personal reasons and to give back to others (paraphrasing, don't quote that).

So I thought I'd share some of my goal 4. Since my goal 1 is inching along and sometimes feels like its regressing, I've decided to focus more on goals 2-4 lately. This also comes from some soul searching last week when I realized I need to take charge of my own happiness more. I need to come up with my own ways to feel productive and give good effort to my projects and life, and not rely so much on outcomes right now.

Some of my 4th goals:
- Read 200 books during my service, 100 of which are classics. I'm almost at 60 right now, and around 15 of them have been classics.
- I want to learn to cook more things, especially vegetarian dishes. So far I've learned to cook a few more things- pancakes from scratch, morogo (the way they cook greens here), lentils a variety of ways, homemade tortillas.
- Writing. Keeping up this blog, some reminiscences, some creative writing ideas, some journaling. If I'm brave enough I might post some of that here. So far I've got the blog, a journal, and a few other things.
- Keep in touch with people at home. Facebook/E-mail/Letters for now.  If you write me I promise to write you back!  Safe to say my facebook addiction has survived Africa.
- Learn to play guitar. I bought one here and haven't touched it yet.
- Trivia- I'm trying to memorize the periodic table and all of the countries and world capitals. Maybe I'll be good on a trivia team for once when I get home! Yes I know I'm a geek.
- Get in shape. I brought some exercise bands with me and also haven't touched them.
- I'd like to learn some of the constellations. Once again, I have a small star chart I haven't touched.
- Finding different ways to be creative. Sometimes I've colored, or sketched, or watercolored. I've made friendship bracelets to give to kids, and I'm planning on making some collages for my walls. And I want to keep track of my digital pictures and caption them as I go along, so when I get home I'm not overwhelmed.

So these are some of the things I try to do in my current large amounts of free time. 4th goal for the win!   I also watch TV/movies sometimes and play too many computer games, but those aren't really goals :P
Anyone else have ideas of things for me to do?