"I shall go down in history as the man who opened a door!"

Lots of points to whoever gets my movie reference in the title ;)

So, I break doors and locks in this country. I don't actually break them with force, they just seem to break in my presence. While staff and other volunteers have pointed out that people often take shortcuts with construction here, I feel like I've had waaaay more door and lock incidents than other volunteers.

- My first night in the country, at a lodge in Gabs, the key to the door of the room I was staying in didn't work, and it took 3 staff to convince them I wasn't lying/inept and they finally moved us to another room.

- My first week at site the hinge to my bedroom door broke (and it opened to the outside), nearly causing the whole door to fall off, and I had to call PC to call someone in my village to come make a fake wire hinge so I could close and lock my door.

- My bathroom door swelled so I couldn't close it because of the rain.

- My living room door lock would randomly not work, so at various times Rose (another PCV) and a random guy in the village had to break into my living room for me.

- The handle broke off the kitchen door because it required so much force to open and close it.

- All 4 of the doors and locks in that house had issues at some point, which is one of the reasons I wound up moving to a new house.

-I dropped the lock to the gate in my yard in the sand, and then it wouldn't open, which required me to climb  the gate in and out of my yard for 2 weeks until a friend could come and jimmy it open with cooking oil.

- At the new house, the bathroom door decided it wouldn't lock after living here 6 months. Waiting on landlord to fix it.

- At another PC conference in Gabs, Barbara and I could -barely- lock and unlock the door. On day 3 of the conference Barbara couldn't even get the key in the lock, so she went to the front desk for help. They responded, Oh! Try this key! And gave her a completely different one, which worked beautifully. They had REKEYED the door while we were out of the room, and it never occurred to them to tell us or give us the new key.

- My current living room door is swollen with the rain again so I have to yank or push really hard to open or close it.

- A few weeks ago the key to my kitchen door broke, so I was locked out of my kitchen for 36 hours while I sent a friend to hardware stores in Gabs to find me a new key.

All this to say, doors/locks are not my friend in this country. But it makes for some pretty hilarious text messaging between me and Aileen.

Mary: I’ve managed to break the key to my kitchen door and am locked out of my kitchen.

Aileen: Hah, omg, just read your text. How on earth do you manage these things?

M: Teacher friend looking for key at hardware store in Gabs and can’t find it. Facepalm.

A: Urrrrm… not good. Maybe that model is out of stock.

M: He found the key! Now to see if it’s actually the right one… and if I didn’t break the lock too.

A: The fascinating saga of one woman/s search for the key… to open her kitchen door.

M: Houston, we have entered the kitchen. I repeat, we have entered the kitchen.

A: You break doors, I break sim cards.

M: Speaking of which, my living room door has swelled with the rain and it now requires a karate move to get it open.

A: At this point in your career its to be expected.

Under the Surface: Part 2

In part 1 I talked about how the treatment of children in this country is a huge problem, and really goes against the national principle of Botho on which Tswana society and Botswana is based on. I don’t think theres something inherently wrong with Batswana,  I think this is due to a severe lack of mental health awareness and services. To clarify, when I say mental health, I mean things like stress reduction and coping techniques, support systems, and counseling, as well as psychiatric services and medication.

I feel like people in this country are traumatized. Not everyone, but many, especially in rural areas. They are traumatized by lack of family support systems, systematic and cyclical physical and sexual abuse, and profound loss. There is no mental health system or even awareness of mental/emotional  health needs. Children are taught to bottle up their emotions from a young age, so people don’t deal with their feelings. I feel like what Peace Corps should be sending here above all else are mental health professionals and counselors. My working assumption is that at least half the people I interact with probably have some level of post-traumatic stress disorder from losing loved ones and/or abuse, and then having no way to work through such trauma.

I don’t think it was always like this. I’ve read and heard stories about Botswana from 50-60 years ago, and it seemed like there was more of a village culture and intact families and support systems, even though there was much more overall poverty and less development. But development changed some of that, as well as the AIDS epidemic. Half a generation was wiped out. Family structures got messed up badly. Grandparents and young teenagers were raising kids. Since ARVs have become available, the death rate from HIV has plummeted. But in some ways, the damage has been done. There is a generation traumatized from so much loss, and they are now raising children. But they haven’t really dealt with their own trauma, so it’s hard to be a good parent, let alone raise emotionally healthy kids. Lots of kids suffer from neglect, especially in the rural areas. Marriage rates are very low due to the high cost of getting married, so almost every woman I know has one or more children before getting married, if she gets married. The kids often have different fathers. This considerably messes with the traditional family structure and support system. Kids no longer have aunts and uncles helping initiate them into adulthood and explaining sexuality to them, so in most cases no one has these conversations with them. This contributes to high HIV infection and teen pregnancy rates, and the cycle continues.

I don’t want people to think I’m bashing Tswana culture, because I’m not trying to. I understand that it’s different than American culture. And I’m certainly not trying to compare it to American culture and suggest that America has everything right- I could write (and there are written) books about the societal problems in America.  In Tswana culture, men often had multiple wives, something the government is trying to discourage now. Extended family plays a big part in raising kids, and that’s been disrupted by both HIV and development with people moving around. Traditionally it seems people weren’t supposed to be overly emotional in public, but there were places they could show emotion, such as at church and funerals. They had a support network of their village and their extended family. The point is… the way this culture was, seemed to work pretty well for them. But things have changed and it’s not working well anymore.

One symptom of this I see in children and adults is emotional numbness. When you are taught to bottle up your emotions and not feel, or when so much trauma happens you don’ know how to deal with it, you start acting impassively when emotional things happen. It makes it hard to have an emotional connection in relationships. But it’s a coping mechanism to deal with further trauma. I see this when teachers at my school mention someone died, with no emotion in their voice at all. And then move onto a new topic 30 seconds later.

There aren’t easy solutions to any of this, and to suggest there are is to minimize the pain that these people have been through and are still going through.  But I really believe that the first step is talking about it. Talking about how children are treated in this country, and mental health in general. The countries that have made the most progress in their fight against HIV are the ones that acknowledged the problem existed and prepared to address it, not the ones that pretended it didn’t exist.  I think the same thing applies here.

As this relates to me, this ugly stuff under the surface is part of why it’s such an emotional roller coaster to live here. People (and Peace Corps) tell us we are so lucky to be in Botswana, they are so good at development and look at all the progress they’ve made! And that is true, and also not the whole truth. In one day I’ll teach 2 classes where kids stare and me and won’t talk, see starving dogs roam the village, watch a student get caned for some infraction, see kids having a ball playing soccer, talk with a friend about America, listen as people talk with no emotion in their voices about boys beating girls for sex, and marvel that my rural village has 2 schools, a clinic, running water, and electricity. It’s up and down, good and bad, all the time.

I want to do my part in raising awareness about the treatment of children and mental/emotional health, which is why I decided to post this. It may seem weird to combine the two, but I firmly believe that unmet mental health needs are contributing to the maltreatment of children here. These are not bad people. These are a peaceful, respectful people. These are my friends.  Hurt people hurt people.

I hope I haven’t insulted anyone by writing this, especially if they are a Motswana. But the part of the ambassador’s letter that got to me the most was the end, where she wrote “As for me, Botswana and its young people are now in my heart for good. For the rest of my life, I will be cheering you on.”

Me, too.

Under the Surface: Part 1

(I broke my original response to the ambassador’s piece into 2 parts)

I guess I should explain a bit why I posted the ambassador’s piece like I did. When I first read it… I honestly cried. On and off for about an hour, as I read and reread it in my living room. Because someone other than a Peace Corps Volunteer gets it. Or rather, publicly acknowledges it. Not everything is okay in this country. Not everything about Botswana is the success story of Africa. And it goes beyond poverty, and education, and the HIV epidemic.

And the ways in which it’s broken are under the surface. Because on the surface, Botswana IS the success story of Africa. It’s done wonderful things with its diamond money like building roads, schools, and hospitals. It’s trying to invest in social programs and also diversify its economy. It’s a peaceful people that work hard at avoiding corruption. All of this is true, and very good. But there is more to be done. When I see articles and discussions about Botswana’s future, they focus on diversifying the economy and fighting the AIDS epidemic. Those are very important and challenging tasks, and should be given a lot of time and energy. But what I see at the grassroots level is what the ambassador wrote about. The children in this country are neglected, frightened, and abused. This doesn’t really seem to get any press, yet I feel like this is by far the biggest problem to be addressed.

I’ve ranted about the ministry of education before. The ministry fails to provide adequate teachers, books, food, and basic supervision to children at school, and then blames the kids for failing.  The conditions of the boarding schools are appalling- people would be arrested in the US for keeping prisoners in these conditions.  There is rampant sexual abuse of students by teachers. Corporeal punishment is legal, and while politicians debate whether students should be caned, there are teachers and school officials literally beating the crap out of kids for things such as not having the proper uniform, which isn’t the kids fault.

Sometimes conditions are home aren’t much better, and they are harder to monitor. But I have a copy of that behavioral survey the ambassador referenced, and I’ve seen first-hand the abuse, depression, and neglect that it measured. But what gets me the most is the fear. When I teach, it’s almost like pulling teeth to get kids to talk. Teachers walk around with a stick to get kids into classrooms. That’s also how they herd goats and cattle in this country. Is it telling that animals and kids are often treated the same way? Beat them into submission? When I make eye contact with students they look away and blush or giggle, especially the girls. They have the same response to the rest of the teachers. I understand that part of Tswana culture is a deep respect for elders, and in some ways, I wish I could export some of that to America. But there is a fine line between respect and actual fear, and I see it crossed daily. Because children are scared into behaving, adults can tell them to do anything and they will. Or do anything to them and they will take it. This leads to the abuse and neglect.

Healthy Batswana children won’t look exactly like healthy American children, and some of what bothers me may indeed be cultural. But the parts that are human rights violations transcend culture and are mostly not a traditional part of this culture. I think the underlying reasons for a lot of the mistreatment of children in this country stem from unmet emotional/mental health needs, and I’ll go into that in part 2.