Ministry of Magic

I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom, typing by the light of the only light bulb that currently works in my little house.  The electricity is currently on, which also means I have the gentle breeze of my fan keeping me cool.  The rain has let up in recent days and its heated back up again during the day.

I found out 2 days ago that my bed was actually a temporary loan from a neighbor, who was told the ministry of education would be providing me furniture within a week. Er, or several months it looks like.  So I bought a foam mattress to sleep on and returned my bed to its rightful owner.  We’ll see how I sleep tonight.

The rest of my furniture: stove, chairs, table- are on loan from my school, and I can keep them for the two years I’m here.  I can’t use the stove because I also have no gas tank, so I’m using a borrowed hotplate.  I don’t think that will be repossessed, but I’m not sure.

Internally, I've been very frustrated with Peace Corps and the ministry of education lately, but somehow losing my bed has forced me out of the denial/anger/sadness/mostly anger into acceptance.  Peace Corps is bureaucracy, but they have my back on important things like my safety if I push them.  The ministry of education is bureaucracy on steroids and I will never believe a word they say again.  Today they proved incompetent at using a fax machine. So if they never show up with a bed, I’m okay with that.  If they randomly repossess my refrigerator, the only thing they have given me, I’ll deal.  If they take 12+ months to pay my rent and I get evicted, I’ll call Peace Corps and have them sort it out.

This probably sounds like I’m really angry, but I’m actually not.  I’m just stating reality and getting used to it.  It’s the same reality facing my school.  There are missing teachers, not enough supplies, etc.  All things the ministry promises but never provides.  But they say they will, so if you go looking for them elsewhere it’s not okay, and it’s hard to battle an organization that says it’s on your side but constantly lies due to incompetency.

Please don’t think I don’t like Botswana, or the people (Batswana), or my village, or my school, or my landlord, or the people I interact with in Peace Corps.  None of this is their fault. (Well, a small amount of blame maybe to Peace Corps for not having more of this sorted out before we went to site.  But they were short staffed, and battling the same ridiculous bureaucracy, and they are fighting battles for me, so not sending much blame/angst their direction.)  It’s just frustrating to see all of the flaws in the system and not be able to do anything.

But.  I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I work at the grassroots level, not at the top.  So I’ll work with the teachers I have, with the supplies available, and hang out with students.  I have blackboards and chalk, old but functioning computers in the computer lab, and plenty of open space to play games.  I have teachers wanting me to do things with them and school administrators that care. 

 As frustrated as I’ve been/am, I’m trying not to miss the forest for the trees.  This country has been independent for less than 50 years.  In that time, they have built roads, schools, and hospitals.  Their government, although parts are filled with bureaucracy, isn’t corrupt.  The country is peaceful.  There are schools, and kids are in them, even if they aren’t learning as much as we’d like.  There are clinics, and people receive medicine at them, even if there are shortages of medicines occasionally doctors.  There are roads, and people get around, even if there are transport problems and lots of accidents.   I’ll expand on my thoughts on development in another post.

Botswana really does seem to be going in the right direction, and I’m glad I’m here.  Even if I have to deal with the ministry of magic, er, I mean education, from time to time.

Salajwe

So I've been at my site for week and have been keeping moderately busy.  That will change now that school is out until January, so I have nowhere specific to go on weekdays, and all of the teachers are gone for the break.  I've met a lot of the teachers, brainstormed a little bit with my counterpart and another teacher interested in running clubs, gone by the clinic twice, met the village chief, and seen the primary school. Now I need to get to know people in the village over the next month outside of my school- the 3 small shops, the clinic, random people at the hitching post.

My school has a lot of opportunity and a lot of problems.  Academically, it's the worst in the country.  I think more than 90% of the kids are failing.  This is due to a lot of factors, including lack of motivation and language barriers.  So far I've only interacted with teachers, but I hope to get to know the students well once term begins again in January.

It's hot here, but I have a fan when the electricity is on (70% of the time?).  I also have a bed, a couch, a huge table and 2 chairs, and.... a fridge!  Woo!  I also have a stove but no gas tank yet, so I'm using a hotplate.  I've got a house that has 4 rooms, none of which connect, so they all open to the porch.  I'll have to post a picture for it to make sense.

I've rigged a clothesline with Roses' help out of wire and ribbon, mcgivered my bednet up with ribbon, a pocketknife, and more help from Rose, and broken and fixed a door.  We've had rain, a fierce lightning storm (that sadly killed someone in my village), and a duststorm that sandblasted me before I managed to get inside off my porch.

I celebrated Thanksgiving with Rose, consisting of beef, a beer, pea salad, squash, and mashed potatoes... and watching Mary Poppins.  Then I walked home and almost ran into a cow (this was due to darkness and me still learning the way between our houses, not the 1 beer.  I'm a lightweight, but not -that- much of a lightweight).  Also I got to talk to my mom, aunt and uncle in the states, which was awesome.

I can now officially start listening to Christmas music as I try to play with kids, talk to people, and chase goats off my porch.  Hopefully I'll have more reliable internet in about 2 weeks, but for now, I'm hanging out in the Kalahari - practicing my Setswana, reading, star-gazing, and trying to figure out what I can do with and for the people of Salajwe.

I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!

And now for a few random pictures while I still have free internet...

The sunset at my homestay

Mananeo, the mama of all the puppies in my compound.  She understands the Setswana for, I have no food!

And now for swearing in!  Me with the flags of the day before the ceremony.

Stephanie in her awesome Nelson Mandela skirt!

Our country director, the 4 guys in our training group, and the regional director of Peace Corps in Africa!

Tim (our CD) speaking during the ceremony.

Kristan and Liz speaking in English and Setswana during the ceremony.

Me and my host mom

Me and Tonic, one of my awesome language instructors.

Our group with the U.S. Ambassador to Botswana.  This was actually yesterday because she couldn't make it to our swearing in, but she took the time to meet us when we were in Gabs. (She's the one directly to the right of the PC sign in the background)

Tomorrow I go to my site, wheee!  Not sure how often I can access internet in the beginning, so if I'm quiet on here assume no news is good news :)

Almost a volunteer!

This is our training room, where we've spent way too much of our time lately.

At least this time we were making party decorations!

Kate, Eden, Jess and Liz.  I think Jess looks like something out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory :)  (That's a LOT of paper chain right there.)

Prepping for the party, Luis makes a LOT of pasta!

Spaghetti, garlic bread, coleslaw, and baked beans- American food that the Batswana sort of liked.

We had a craaaazy thunderstorm after the party.  This was at the cafe we like to hang out at, where we got caught for about 45 minutes.

Not sure if you can see how the streets are flooded after the storm.

Puppies!  Of course it was necessary to re-enact the lion king since the puppy was named Tau (lion).

The puppies loved Emma.

I kinda want this girl, not gonna lie.

MoFengke, the fun 8-year old in my house.

Tswaname and Maudu :)

Thankfulness

The last few weeks of training have been rough, because some of the subject matter is heavy, and we are so ready for training to be done.  But the last couple of days have been a lot better, as things are finishing up, the end is visible, and we’ve been planning for a party.

So on a lighter Thanksgiving-ish note, here are 30 things I’m thankful for, in no particular order:

1.  My host family.  I've had good conversations with my host mom, fun hanging out with my host sister and her adorable little girl, and Thato and I officially treat each other like brother and sister, aka half of our interactions we are laughing at and making fun of each other J

2. There are the cutest puppies EVER in our compound

3. Beginning to shop for some things for my new home at my site.  My nesting instinct is going craaaaazy

4. Obama won the election! (Not trying to throw politics at anyone, but this did legit make me very happy)

5. Our internet works again at school

6. I got a care package from my mom

7.  My fellow trainees- I’ve had some great conversations with people this week that really make my heart sing

8.   Current PCVs- there are a lot of really awesome people serving here in Botswana, and they have been very welcoming/sympathetic/friendly to us trainees

9. Cadbury chocolate

10. I can walk to school- I’d be going waaay more crazy if I wasn’t getting any exercise

11.  Fatcakes and meatpies

12.  I’ve lost 10-15 pounds.  Granted, this is mostly a result of getting rather epic food poisoning several weeks ago and subsequently not eating much meat, but I’ll take the silver lining.

13.   Being able to read hundreds of books on my kindle.  I’ve seriously read 25+ books since I’ve been here

14. PST dance parties

15. Orange and Pineapple Fanta

16. E-mails from friends back at home

17. The feeling of accomplishment I get when washing my laundry by hand

18. Gorgeous sunsets

19. PC staff, especially our language instructors.  They put up with a lot of complaining and crazy Americans and still manage to like us J

20. Catching up on my favorite web comic

21. The skit my friends made this last week about PC safety policies, which had the line: “hide yo chickens, hide yo wife!  Avian flu is comin’!”

22. Generations, the South African soap opera I’m sort of addicted to

23. The little kids in my neighborhood that yell HIII!!!!! when I walk by twice a day

24. Ridiculous thunderstorms

25. I’m going to be a junior secondary school, aka mostly working with teens

26. A fun party for our host families last Saturday

27. No more language tests for a few months

28. PC got a Sekalagadi teacher so I’ve been able to learn some Sekalagadi

29. I become an official PCV this week!

30. I’m in freaking Africa! 

Rinse Cycle

So I knew it would be hard to explain my two years of Peace Corps service to people that have never experienced it.  What I wasn’t prepared for was how draining pre-service training would be, and how it’s really hard to explain the insanity factor to people who haven’t experienced it.

I feel like I’m in a washing machine.  Everyone tells you it’s a good thing, you are going to get clean and ready to be used.  Woo!  Except you don’t realize how long the wash cycle takes.  It’s a lot of fun in the beginning when you are tossed in with all of these other people along for the ride, and you don’t think much about the water filling up until you are spinning around.  And even that is fun in the beginning, until you begin to get a little seasick from the spinning and the close quarters and the constant reminders that you aren’t clean yet but you will be if you hang in there.

And sometimes the spin cycle pauses and you are thankful for the lull, and then you begin to go stir crazy from the lack of movement.  And then you start spinning again and think, thank God, something is happening!  Except then it won’t stop and it’s so repetitive. Spin, pause.  Spin, pause.  And throughout the whole process you are aware that it will end soon, but not soon enough, but when it does you’ll miss being close to everyone, even if your introverted tendencies are not happy about being submerged for this long, thank you very much.

Also you begin to wonder if the whole process is actually worth anything, because you are pretty sure they forgot to add soap, so you’ll have to clean yourself when you get to site anyway.  Currently you are just soggy and slightly seasick.

Then you realize they did put in something like soap, but it’s not actually soap- so it won’t get you as clean as you want and need to be, and you’ll probably have to scrub it off at site later.  It also burns your eyes at inopportune moments.  Those frustrations on top on of the spinning and closeness makes you want to jump out of the washer not infrequently.

At this point, we are counting the days until we are done soaking and spinning and are clean enough to swear in as Peace Corps volunteers.  At which point we’ll go to our sites and find all the stuff that pre-service training didn't wash out or prepare us for and be frustrated all over again.  But we’ll be free of the washer for a while at least.

I don’t know if this made sense at all.  Sometimes I feel like I really am going crazy.  If I ever see another flipchart again, I might do something drastic.  Then again, I helped come up with a rap yesterday about taking malaria prophylaxis, so the drastic might already be happening :P

Finally some pictures!

It takes sooo long to upload pictures at school, but I was finally able to get a few up today.  Here are some snippets from my Botswana life :)

 Cows at my host family's cattle post.

 Dancing at the cultural site!

 They made us dance too!

 Botswana chess.  I'll let you know when I figure out how it works.

 Yummy food.  Clockwise from the white stuff on top: Paleche, grilled chicken, cabbage, seshwa (pounded beef, in the middle), and a roll.

 Maudu, the adorable 1-year old in my house at her birthday party :D

 My host family: Me, Tswanama holding Maudu, and my mom.  My brother Thato wasn't there.

This was during a crazy thunderstorm we had a few days ago (actually the same night hurricane Sandy came ashore in the US).  This was at night, lit up by lightning.

Also, We're all going crazy

I want to be as real as possible on here.  I can’t say everything, because this is a public blog, and therefore I’m not going to write specifics, especially anything negative, that would be traced back to my host family, or people in my village, etc.   But 26 months in the Peace Corps won’t be all roses either, and I don’t think keeping this blog annoyingly cheerful when I’m in a bad mood would help me or my readers.

That being said, we’re all going crazy.  And by we I mean Bots 13 in training. 9 weeks of sitting in training, at least 2/3 of which is review, some of which changes, makes for a reallllly long 2 months.  And it’s a necessary beast, because we ARE getting lots of good information.  Really good language training, really helpful cultural information, necessary other information.  But we are at the point of climbing the walls and really wanting to be at our sites.

Part of the problem is that PC is filled with bureaucracy and requirements from PC Washington that we can’t escape.  Part of the problem is that Botswana is also really good at bureaucracy.  And part of the problem is that we have a group of people highly educated in different areas that all need to be put on the same page, so most sessions are new information for some people and review for many more.  Also some of the sessions seem completely pointless, like when we get outdated health information that we know is wrong, or when we get a 3 hour session on information that could have been given to us in 30 minutes if we didn't have to do group work and make a flip chart.

We’re currently trying to gather information about our sites and getting anxious when we hear that not all of the housing is set up yet, or that it seems most schools didn't know they had to pick us up and take us to site.   I’m sure most of this will be resolved, and my situation seems pretty good, but it does raise anxiety levels.  That with our boredom = crazy.

On the plus side, we met our supervisors and/or counterparts (teachers we will be working with) yesterday and most of them seem very nice and eager to have us.  My counterpart seems super nice and helped me make a game plan of things I can do at my site, like running after school clubs and teacher trainings.  So there is a use for our training J

So… slowly going crazy.  Only 3 weeks of training left!

Language, and my Setswana-Spanglish

Learning a language is a really interesting process.  Especially the second time (or maybe 3^rd, depending on how you look at it) around with competent teachers.

I’m a native English speaker (hopefully that’s not a newsflash) that didn’t learn any other language until I was 13, when I started Spanish.  It was rough.  Long story short, I had a horrible few years in the public school system with bad teachers and classmates and really learned nothing, except a hatred of foreign languages.  By the time I got a good teacher (4^th try’s the charm) it was too late: I hated Spanish and I dropped it.

Fast forward to college, where I needed 3 years of high school foreign language to be able fulfill the language requirement.  I had 2.5 years.  Rats.  So I started over again with Spanish, learned way more than I did in the previous 2.5 years, but still decided that I sucked at foreign languages.  I can carry on simple conversations in Spanish; order food, tell you a little about myself, get a few directions, etc., but that’s about it.

Now I’m in the Peace Corps learning Setswana, a Bantu language spoken in Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia.  At first, it took my 2 whole days to just remember my Setswana name.  But after a week or two the sounds became more familiar and it got a bit easier.  And besides the actual Setswana, I’ve learned a few things.

1) I actually don’t suck at languages like I thought I did.  Granted I’m not amazing or anything, but it’s coming faster than I thought it would.

2) I’m beginning to see the link between music, math, and language.  People always told me that if you are good at math you are good at language, and I was always like, you’ve never met me apparently.  I’m pretty darn good at math- my college major got me close to a math minor, but I thought I was language inept.  Now I’m realizing that pattern recognition, something my math brain is pretty good at, is really helpful for languages.  I’m not sure I have ‘the ear’ that people talk about, but maybe at least I won’t require Setswana for dummies.

3)  Spanish is waaaaaaaaaaay easier than Setswana.  This has renewed my motivation to pick up my Spanish again once I get back to the US, because shoo.  If I can learn Setswana, I can definitely learn Spanish.

4)  I know more Spanish that I give myself credit for.  This is because every time I want to say something in Setswana and I don’t know the word for it, the Spanish word pops into my head.  Not helpful brain, not helpful.

5) I might actually like languages. Who knew?  I’ve hated and then found I didn’t actually hate enough things that I’ve learned to never say never, but this revelation is pretty amazing.  I still maintain you can put me in a mental hospital if I ever claim to like physics though.

6) If I like languages and don’t completely suck at them… this opens some pretty cool doors.  There are some places in Africa that I’d like to work in the future that are francophone, and I could go from there.  My one current worry is that I’m not sure my brain knows how to sort out multiple languages, as evidenced by my substituting Spanish for Setswana.  I’m afraid that Setswana is dislodging my Spanish, and that French would dislodge my Setswana.  Maybe someone who is trilingual can comment on this.  Maybe I just need to cement them both better in my brain.

So, language is obviously going okay. Ke ithuta Setswana!  (I am learning Setswana!)

My site is Salajwe!

So I've gotten my site announcement, and it's Salajwe!  From what I know, it's a village of around 1700 just south of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.  There is a primary school, junior secondary school and clinic, as well as 1-2 shops.  My shopping village is Molepolole, which is 2-3 hours away depending finding a hitch.   Luckily I think I can get non-perishables in my village, so I can stock up on vegetables when I go to Moleps.
I'll be working with the junior secondary school, which is ages 13-15ish, heavy on the ish.  Of the 750 kids at the school, 600 of them board there.
I don't know anything about my living situation yet, but there is another volunteer in my village who works at the clinic, so she is trying to scope that out for me.  Salajwe is not on a tarred (paved road), so I think I take a khombi (minibus that seats about 14) and then hitch hike the rest of the way.  Hitching is pretty safe here and very common, so don't worry too much about my safety.  Also we don't travel at night, due to drunk drivers and cows (and not always in that order).  If you are going to worry about my safety when traveling, it should be from accidents, not sketchy people picking up hitch-hikers :P
So!  I have a site!  And I get to go there in less than a month.  I'll update with a new address when I procure one.  :D

What I can do

As I write this, I'm sitting outside the library in Kanye, enjoying the shade, coolish weather, and free wi-fi.  Four girls that were sitting in the grass near me for a while finally came up to me and starting asking me for money, not an uncommon occurrence.  On a whim I decided to use the reverse psychology I’ve heard friends here discuss.  Give me 2 pula.  You give ME 2 pula.  What?  It completely baffles them that I’m asking THEM for money.  They were persistent though, and part of me wanted to tell them to bug off, I’m not going to give you money.  But then they asked me where I was from, and I managed to steer the conversation towards them: What form (grade) are you in?  What is your favorite subject?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  We had a laugh when I gently correctly one girl’s pronunciation of pilot, because I swear she first said pirate. (Which is doubly funny because there is no coast here; Botswana is a landlocked country.  I told her she’d be stealing boats in the Okavanga Delta.)  They are at junior secondary school, which is like middle school in the States, and what I’ll be working in at my site in less than a month.  They said I should come to their school, they have bad teachers that don’t teach them and beat them when they don’t know their lessons.  I asked if they had books that they could study on their own, and they said they weren’t good, etc.  There is corporeal punishment in schools here, but I have no idea if they are studying or not, who is actually getting beaten, etc.  So I told them that in a few years, they get to run things.  They get to make the decisions about teacher training, and corporal punishment, etc.  And if they don’t like the way things are, they should change them.  Because they would be in a better place to do that than me as a volunteer, because people will just assume I’m a crazy lacoa (white person).  That made them laugh, and although I’m not sure if they believe me, I think I at least gave them something to think about.

During our conversation they kept saying I want to go to America, everyone’s rich in America.  (So as I’m talking with them, I now have the song ‘America’ from West Side Story playing in my brain.  If you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean.)  And I’m trying to explain a few things like: America is big, more than 150x the population of your country.  So no, I have not met Beyonce or Obama.  Also, not everyone is rich in America.  Yes they might have more money than people here, but things cost more there.  Also, there are poor people in America.  And bad teachers.  And people that can’t find jobs. Etc.  And I said, you guys want to be pilots, nurses, and teachers.  Why don’t you make Botswana so great that people want to come and move here? And they were like, huh?   The conversation sort of dwindled after this and they started asking me for money again.  So I told them I was glad to talk with them, but if they kept asking me for money I was going to leave.  That sort of startled them, and they left a few minutes later, saying they would see me again.

This might not sound like a great conversation, but it actually was.  Because I made them think.  And I think they were surprised I would take an interest in them, asking them about school and their goals and such.  And it really solidified for me something I can do here as a PCV.  I can engage with students, as much as possible, and rock their world a little bit.  Care about them, help them dream, show them a point of view they’ve never thought about. 

There’s a lot that I’d like to do in my two years here, and much more that I can’t change.  Hopefully at my site I can build long term relationships with them, and help them problem solve, and tutor each other, and start some clubs and other programs.  But even if I just hang out with students for two years, I think that will be the biggest difference I can make, teaching/mentoring/after school programs aside.

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!

Saturday we went to a village about 45 minutes from Kanye that I guess is sort of a tourist attraction?  They danced for us, had us dance with them, and told us a lot about traditional cultures and practices.  At the end we had lunch there, so I know that PC must have paid them for our visit.
The dancing and singing was really fun to watch, and I hope I can get some people to teach me when I get to my site.  I don't have high hopes for my dancing abilities, but I'd really love to learn some of the songs I've heard in church and when people are working.  Some remind me of the spirituals that are sang in the American south from the time of slavery.  (I know that sounds like a duh since I'm in Africa, but most slaves that were taken from Africa that wound up in America were taken from central and west africa, not southern africa.)
Anyway, the dancers made different people in our group dance with them at different times, including the 'grandfathers', 'grandmothers', and Luis, the only guy in our group under 30.  Then the guys in the dancing group picked girls to dance with, and then we mock married Katy, one of our group, to the chiefs son.  This was complete with her getting to dance with the women a few songs (including one called 'I have a headache'), getting an additional skirt and shawl to wear over her clothes, and having a 'honeymoon' in a traditional hut.  The last thing was hilarious because after they were led into the hut, the older women in our group were invited to peak in the window to 'make sure everything was going ok'.  Apparently this really used to happen, the grandmas spied on the honeymoon to make sure things were happening. :P  The whole thing was funny and slightly awkward and Katy was a really good sport.
We also got a chance to grind some sorghum to make a porridge that's a breakfast food, and buy some jewelry made in the village.  I got a neat necklace with beads that are the colors of the Botswana flag.
After we got back from the cultural visit we had free time, so about half of our group hung out in a cafe in Kanye that we've found called Kohai.

Tomorrow I leave for Ghanzi for a few days, so hopefully I can update in a week about those adventures :)

I’ve found internet that’s easier to access, so hopefully I can post more often.  At least for the duration of training.  I realize that I should probably back up a bit and explain a little bit of how Peace Corps works, since I know most people aren’t familiar with the process.

When you apply to Peace Corps, you tell them all of your skills and background and they roughly try to place you somewhere where you can use those skills and experience (very roughly.  More on that in another post).  The application process is a completely separate beast that I’m not going to go into here :P  Once they tell you where you are going, you have the opportunity to accept your invitation or decide not to go.  I got my invite in May after I graduated.  Then there’s a whole bunch more paperwork that goes back and forth between you and PC, until the day arrives that you leave.

When you leave home you go to some city in the US for staging, to meet the rest of the people going to your country at the same time.  A lot of people might not know this, but PC sends people to countries in batches.  So my staging was in Philadelphia with 34 other people going to Botswana to be Life Skills volunteers (more on the life skills stuff later).   We meet each other and more paperwork ensues.  After getting talked at a bunch we basically didn’t sleep and began the process of getting here, via a bus to New York, flying to South Africa, then Gaborone (affectionately known as Gabs for short), then taking a bus to Kanye.

Kanye is our training site.  Each of the 34 of us (one person has gone home already) live with a host family to learn Setswana and local culture and customs (unless you are married then you are placed together).  M-F and some parts of Saturday, the 34 of us have training at a local education center.  This is what I mentioned last time, where we get sessions on health, safety, language, local culture, HIV/AIDS, and eventually what we are doing in schools.  At this point, we are actually not Peace Corps volunteers yet.  We are Peace Corps trainees, in the Bots13 class (you’ll hear me mention that a LOT).  Once we finish training we swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) on November 15^th, at which point we then go to our sites.

So I’m currently a Bots13 PC trainee in the middle of pre-service training (PST).  Have you picked up that PC really likes acronyms? J   There are currently 3 other bots groups here as current volunteers.  Bots 12 came in April, Bots 11 came a year ago in September, and Bots 10 came April 2011, so they only have about 6 months left.  Bots 9 left this past June.  Keep in mind that people think of Peace Corps as a 2 year commitment, but it’s actually 26-27 months, because your training (that I’m currently in) doesn’t count towards your 2 years of service.  I’m sure I’ll go into lots of other PC stuff in future posts.

Next week we have a break from M-F training and we get to shadow current volunteers for a few days.  I leave at 4:30am for Ghanzi (pronounced hanzi, most Gs are silent in Setswana) for 4 days, and I’m super excited.  I’m excited to actually be with a volunteer, and to see more of the country; Ghanzi is pretty far west- look near the Namibia border if you are trying to find it on a map.  I also know that our training class Bots13 will have sites within several hours of Gabs and not be as far as where I’m going next week, so yay for getting to go farther for a few days!  The 8-hour bus ride is not on my list of favorite things, but at least its just one bus I think.  I’ll give a full report in a week or 2.

Once again, leave a comment if you have questions!

Some questions and answers, courtesy of my mom and others:

Does your host family speak English?  
Yes!  I'm very lucky they speak it so well, and they are helping me with my Setswana as well.  I've  told the 8-year old that she is my tutor and she helps me pronounce words :)  Although my host mom's children are grown, the children of some cousins are often over/spending the night, so there's usually 3 kids ages 6, 7 and 8 around.  There's also some other older cousins that hang around, I've not figured out the family relations of everyone yet.

Are you the first PCV she has housed?  I think I'm the 3rd.

Is the "plumbing" indoors or out?  
Its actually both?  The house is 'wired' for plumbing.  The toilet works, but the sink in the bathroom doesn't because the pipes leak.  The laundry room sink and the kitchen sink work, but the kitchen sink leaks a bit.  The spout in the bathtub leaks a LOT so it's not usually hooked up.  Bathing is from a bucket of water, some of which I heat on the stove so its warm.  Actual bath is inside in the tub.  Laundry is in tubs outside. Dishes are in the sink but with minimal water.  There is a standpipe outside to fill buckets. Water is scarce here because its the desert, so even if the water runs, it's usually turned off.  They also have a pit latrine if the water is completely shut off, which happened last night for a few hours. Water is drinkable from the tap in most places including my house.

How do you get to your training meetings and to other places like the Mall where internet is located?  
I walk to training, about 30 minutes.  There are also some buses that the PC has to take us places- they are called combis here.  To get to the mall I usually take a cabs, its about 60 cents.

How is the food?  Do you eat most meals with your family?  
Food is good.
Have had an upset stomach one day but really pretty good all things considering.  Lots of stews and heavy starches.  Rice, pasta once for my lunch, something akin to dumplings, and a lot of white stuff with the consistency of grits with no taste.

How long are your training meetings?  What are you discussing/learning?
We have training 8:30-4:30 M-F with an hour off for lunch, and Saturday it varies.  Tomorrow its 9-11 I think.  We have a lot of language training, cross cultural training, safety training, PC values, and how to do jobs at
site.  We haven't hit that last one much yet but its coming.  This week for example we've had about 9 hours of language, food/water safety, intro to using the medical unit here, individual medical consultations and starting
vaccines, sexual assault awareness, how to prevent crime, learned games to play with kids, learned some of our roles as a volunteer (trainer, facilitator, learner, mentor, etc).  Lots of different things broken up into 2 hours sessions, except that sometimes language class can be longer.

You sound really busy!
I'm pretty busy, but I have a fair amount of downtime at night.  Usually I can read a little before bed.  The sun goes down at 6-6:30 and I haven't been out after dark.  I usually go to bed around 9, because the roosters go off at 6am and they have no snooze alarm :P

Other random things: 
My 'mom' (we are supposed to call our host family mom, sister, brother, etc.)  is a counselor in our village, which is a political position. Everyone knows her and shes very busy.  Our training group went to a local village counsel this last week and she was there :)  I also went to church with her on Sunday, which was from about 11- 3.
Then there was a meal afterwards so we got home around 4.  I think I might try church every other week, and do laundry this week instead. My sister showed me how to wash clothes last sunday after church, so I'll try with my own this week :) The weather has been really nice here.  It's cool in the morning and at night, and warm during the day.  I think its about to get really hot, but its nice for now.  I have used my sleeping bag, so I'm very glad I brought it.

If you have other questions leave them in the comment section and I'll try to answer them in the future!

We made it safely to Botswana, and I'm beginning to recover from jet
lag.  We left Philly at 3am Wed. morning and arrived in Botswana around noon on Thursday.  We spent Thursday night in a lodge in Gaborone getting lots of information from PC staff and current volunteers, and then I crashed-
not sleeping for almost 3 days made me more tired than I've been since at least college.
Yesterday we rode a bus to Kanye where we live for training.  After some more information sessions we met our host families.  My host mom has 4 grown children that are all here for the weekend.  I haven't figured out if they live here perminently.  The daughter lives in Gaborone and comes home on the weekends, and has an adorable 10-month old baby.  The house is nice with electricity and plumbing, but currently no running water. We can flush the toilet with buckets of water, and they have a separate barrel of water for drinking, as opposed to washing and flushing toilets.  Tonight I'll figure out how to take a bucket bath- I'll let you know how that goes*. I have my own room that locks- a PC requirement, which is nice and I can sleep pretty well.  I don't think I'll ever sleep through the roosters though.  I swear this morning it sounded like one was IN the kitchen.
We had some more training this morning and then a free afternoon, so my friend Sarah and I took a cab to the mall (which is pretty close) to buy a few things and use the internet cafe.  She got lost lost walking home from the training center, and I got lost walking out to the highway, but we eventually found each other and got a cab.
For now, I think I'll post here about once a week, unless I find some other internet. I have a phone, but I'm not sure how to call long distance yet without it costing more than a dollar a minute (yikes).  Facebook also loads really weird in this cafe, so I might miss something if you post it on my wall.  E-mail is your best bet if you really need to reach me.
The address I have up on the blog will reach me, and I haven't gotten a better one yet, so mail things to the Gaborone address if you are so inclined.
The weather here is gorgeous, its like early-ish spring.  Very cool at night and warm during the day.  I know it will get very hot soon, so I'm enjoying it while I can!
So far Botswana is great, both the people and the country.  I start serious language training on Tuesday, and will then hopefully know more than 3 words in Setswana.  My Botswana name is Lesayho, which means luck.
Go siame! (goodbye!)


*I promise not to give you too much information on bathing and sanitation here :P

I leave for Botswana (by way of Philadelphia, New York, and South Africa) in less than 2 days!  Eek!  I'm currently trying to tie up loose ends and make sure my luggage isn't overweight.

As soon as I figure out a mailing address during training I will post that here.  For the time being, e-mail is the best way to reach me, although I won't have a lot of access to that during training.  Assume for a while that no news is good news :)

7 Quick Takes

1.  I'm at the beach again.  I think this is the 5th time I've been at the beach this summer, albeit 2 of those times were only for a few hours each.  No tropical storms crashing the party as of yet.

2.  I'm going to Botswana in less than a month! 

3. It's kind of hard to pack for 2+ years when I really don't know what to expect there.  I'm stocking up on a few things I'm not sure I'll have access to there like quality shoes, and hoping I can find whatever else I need there.

4.  Mom and I have worked on sorting every cluttered room in the house.  None of them are completely junk free yet, but the crypt is 3/4 organized, the furnished part of the basement is about 2/3 organized, the garage is organized except for 2 shelves, and we cleared 2 desks in the office.  There is still a lot of junk to deal with, but we've made a LOT of progress!

5. I bought myself a netbook and am attempting to adjust to a smaller keyboard.  Here's to travel-sized electronics :)

6.  I think I'm also going to break down and get a kindle too.

7.  I'm in this country until 9/11/2012, so please give me a call/e-mail if you want to hang out before then!!

It’s 6:15 and I’m not at the beach.  I’m sitting in my apartment for almost the last night, surrounded by piles of boxes and things that should be in boxes.  I’m coming off the high of a church retreat and the low of the reality that I’m leaving so many people I love, again.  When I look at my life, I don’t feel like I’ve actually moved that much.  Not counting the bagillion places I lived within Blacksburg, I’ve lived in 3 places during my almost 29 years.  It feels like I’ve said so many more goodbyes though.  At the end of every summer in high school, I had to say goodbye to the summer interns and face the reality that the summer couldn’t last forever.  I changed schools and said goodbye to friends multiple times.  I graduated, from 3 schools now, and each time left a group of friends to scatter to the wind.  I’ve been on multiple short and long trips ending with goodbyes and the reality that that I knew I’d never see all of those people again all in the same place.  It’s not that anyone died, but there was a change.  The group dynamic is greater than the sum of the people.

I knew coming to Atlanta that this was most likely only for two years.  I wasn’t sure how attached I’d get, and I was planning on doing the Peace Corps from the beginning.  I’m not doubting my Peace Corps decision (at least not yet), but I do want to take about 75 people with me, from school and church.  I’m actually not that much a fan of the city of Atlanta itself, but I’d live here permanently in a heartbeat if I knew I’d have this community of friends.

I can come back after Peace Corps.  I’d like to.  I hope to.  But not everyone will be here.  The dynamic will undoubtedly be different.  The babies will be in preschool.  More of my friends will have phDs and will probably be working somewhere else in the country.  I’ll be different, after 2 years in Africa.

And none of that is bad.  It’s just different, and it’s change.  And I kind of hate change, even though I grudgingly admit that without it I wouldn’t be here, and none of the amazing things I’d experienced in my life would have happened without it.  But right now I just want to grab hold of my life and cling to it for a minute, and I feel like time is rushing on instead.

It’s my decision to leave.  I could stay and try to find a job here.   I think in the long run I’d be upset with myself for not doing Peace Corps, because at the same time I am excited about that.   And I’m thankful I made the leap to move here from Blacksburg and go to grad school, even though I was unsure at the time that it was the right decision.

The Pollyanna in me knows that missing people is an indication of how blessed I am, that I have people to miss, good times to remember, and new opportunities to look forward to.  But every time something changes, I always go through a hard transition where I’m sad that I can’t be with everyone I love at the same time.  That sounds like a lot to ask, except that I feel like that desire is so wired in me that it’s not really my fault.  I think a part of me periodically longs for heaven, where I will not be missing anyone.

Somehow I’ve gotten through graduation and the Last Call Retreat without crying on anyone.  I think that’s because it hadn’t hit me at graduation that we were done, and the tropical storm on the retreat sort of distracted me.   But if you are reading this, Atlanta people, know that you mean the world to me, and it’s really, really hard for me to leave.  Please keep in touch!

T

I'm thankful for:

Time
Sleep
Brownies
20 pages of my thesis is written!
Beautiful weather
Extended family

7 Quick Takes

1.  I really stink at time management.  Just saying.

2. I realized the other day that I read a lot of mommy blogs.  I'm not sure this is normal for a non-parent.

3. I really like having a dog around the house. Jana is fostering a sweet Great Pyrenees named Magic.

4. I'm a super light sleeper.  I kicked Magic out of my room the other night because she kept waking me up and licking herself.

5.  My great aunt Mrs. Henderson died yesterday, at the age of 101.  She was a sweet loving person and is in a much better place now.  I'll be going to her funeral this weekend and seeing a lot of extended family.

6.  I attempted an online workout routine and am super sore. 

7. Atlanta seems to think its spring already judging by the weather.  I'm not complaining.

Starting an old idea

In 2009 one of my new year's resolutions was to write about (at least) 3 things that I'm thankful for each week.  I think I want to do that again this year.  So with a little bit of catching up, here are some things I'm thankful for.

Week 1:
Silly games with friends
A new year
Cleaning and organizing

Week 2:
Patrick and Joanna
Seeing Jessie, Freddie, and Donovan
The Cellar

Week 3:
A cool class
water treatment
rain

Week 4:
Seeing Kate!
Mom home safely
An awesome women's retreat
Health insurance
Magic our sweet foster dog
African food!

Week 5 (current week):
Good conversations with Jana
A cool thesis topic
Adele
Katherine
Things circulating on facebook

Kumasi Part 1: Revisiting Ghana

(May 27, 2011)

After spending the night in Takoradi, we caught an early bus (like 5am-ish) to Kumasi.  Once we were in the city we got off the bus into… chaos.

                           This is actually downtown Accra near the main market, but same idea.


 It’s hard to describe the bustling energy of urban Africa.  Take an urban city in the US like Washington DC, with its traffic and buildings and industy, without a lot of the pavement and street signs, with 50x more people walking- in the street, between cars, next to the streets, add animals- goats, chickens, sometimes sheep and the stray cat or dog, add a lot more exhaust, the smell of animals, sometimes the waft of sewage depending on how close you are to the gigantic drains all over Ghana, and add the noise- beyond the normal engines and conversations- people hawking goods, offering you taxis and buses, selling animals, constant honking from cars, and the bustle of hundreds of people talking in one area. 

                             I took this in traffic in Kumasi- I don't remember why the people on horseback.

  It affects all of your senses at once except taste, unless you choose to partake in some of the goods being offered.  Then you may get rice, beans, stew, cookies that are more like biscuits, various meat on a stick, pastries, etc.  All that I tried were good, and miraculously, almost all seemed to agree with my system.*

After disembarking into the semi-chaos, we needed to find a place to stay for the 2 days we planned on being in Kumasi.  Diana’s methodology of figuring out taxi fares is to ask several people, not necessarily the drivers, what the fare is to various places, to figure out what we should be charged.  In the process of doing this one guy was almost dragging us into (stopped) traffic to get us a taxi.  He wasn’t the driver, but he was going to find us a taxi and expected us to be tipped for it.  So he told us a fare, and we said that’s way too high.  Then a driver said, no, this, and it was half as much.  So we agreed and started to get into the taxi and the first guy is demanding a tip- we apparently picked the taxi he wanted us to, except for half the fare.  And Diana is trying to explain that we don’t owe him anything, he was trying to gyp us, and as we wait to merge into traffic he’s standing next to the taxi yelling at us that we are bad people because we didn’t tip him.  I was really frustrated, and thinking, I want to yell back at you that you are a bad person.  But I didn’t, because that really wouldn’t have helped anything.  And not all taxi drivers are bad at all- we befriended several in various cities throughout Ghana.

Next edition:  Manhiya  Palace, the Kumasi Market, and bedbugs

* Without going into more detail than you probably want, all of us interns got upset stomachs every now and then, but nothing really bad.  My worst experience was a ‘dodgey tummy’ in the words of Angelina who is from the UK, for about 5 days, and then it cleared up.  I never identified anything that made my stomach upset, and considering that when I went to Jamaica for a week in 2001 I wound in the hospital for a couple of hours because I couldn’t keep water down, I consider Ghana a success for my GI system.

7 Quick Takes

1.  My Christmas/winter break was pretty awesome.  I got to see a lot of people, play with a big goofy black lab, and help my mom start cleaning out our basement.  You might not think that last item is awesome, but trust me, it is.

2. I took a condensed class (read, 2 credits in 1 weeks, class 8:30am-5:30pm) last week and it was really interesting.  Also informtion overload, but still really cool- Environmental Microbiology: Control of Food and Waterborne Diseases.  Now I just need to finish the assignments for the class.

3. My mom is currently in Israel and my cousin is in Antarctica!  I am by far not the only globe trotter in my family.

4. I have this little thing called a thesis to write this semester.  It's more than a little intimidating.  I'm sure I'll blog about it more, because so far I have been very creative in finding ways to avoid working on it.

5.  I'm still applying for the Peace Corps.  I'm currently in the land of a thousand doctor's appointments, to be followed with probably more doctor's appointments, and then hopefully a placement.  So far I've been nominated for a health position- no shock there :)

6. I have recently read several books, and one of my goals is to blog about reading more.  But for now, titles will suffice:  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Ghost Map (for my class, but I already owned it), and 'We Swam the Grand Canyon: A cheap vacation that got a little out of hand'.
Currently reading: King Leopold's Ghost, The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation  Crisis, and Generations.  A lot of my Christmas loot was also books, so there's a lovely pile in the non-yet-started category too.

7. My new years resolution is 'To not let the perfect get in the way of the good'.  So, to not let my human imperfections stop me from trying things and doing them imperfectly.  This is for scheduling, dieting, writing, reading, and all other goals that I make and will probably screw up at some point.  Reading 300/365 days of the year is much better than 0/365 days, even though its not a perfect 365/365.  So we'll see how things go :)