Sorry this got kind of long. I would make it 2 posts, but I don't know where to split it.
I’ve been thinking about expectations a lot since I wrote my
first post on it. Mostly trying to
figure out why I feel so frustrated so much of the time, when I didn’t think I
had any high expectations. What I’m
actually doing is continuing to uncover my hidden expectations, evaluate them,
trying to figure out if they are valid, and then figure out what I can change
to unfrustrate myself. Sometimes I can change my own behavior, more often the
expectation. It’s actually a good learning process, and it’s one of those
things that I know will benefit me in the long run, but… its like character
building. End result good, process
sucks.
Chatting with fellow volunteers, one thing we keep coming
back to is being frustrated with systems in this country. I’ve already blogged
that the ministry of education is like the ministry of magic in Harry Potter.
But it seems all of the systems are mysterious, overly complicated, slow, and
change without warning. Yes, I realize I’m living in a developing country. But
Botswana is actually a middle income country, and with that and a good
government, goes so much potential… and I think therein lies one of my (and a
lot of people’s, including Batswana’s) hidden expectations. There are a lot of resources here. Things should work better than they do.
Tied to that is an overarching theme that has been weird to
digest, an expectation that I got from listening to Peace Corps stories from
other volunteers before I came. I thought I would be placed in a country with a
lot less resources, but a lot more people eager and willing to change things.
Instead, I’m in a middle income country with comparably, lots of resources and
a population that overall, wants the government to fix everything and doesn’t
think they individually can change things.
The first part of this is understandable- the government build roads,
clinics, and schools when the country had nothing. Since the government owns
half of the diamond mines, they could afford to. Currently the government is
the largest employer in Botswana. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with
that (other than the fact that the diamonds are going to run out in 10-20
years, but that’s another post for another day), but its lead to dependence on
government. And not the type you hear politicians in the US wailing about
during election season. American welfare will never rival the amount of
financial, and really emotional, dependence that Batswana have on the
government right now. Financially, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that the
government is preventing a lot of people from starving by providing a welfare
system to people without jobs (although job creation is a problem as well).
Emotionally… it’s hard to convince people that there can be good jobs outside
the government. And that good things can be done outside the government. And
that you can create a village group that doesn’t have to be registered under
some branch of government, for the love. The people in some ways seem sort of stuck. With
resources around them. It’s such a weird
environment to work in.
I also expected to make friends with people as I worked with
them. That’s how it goes in the USA a lot, at least in my experience. Here, I’m finding that people don’t want to
do a lot with you until they know you. You become friends with someone and
learn to trust them, and then you can do things together.
I also expected there to be a learning curve, but things
would get progressively better. And while things are getting better, it’s not
linear. It’s not even one step forward, two steps back. If that were the case,
I’d just walk backwards and still get things done. It’s like a complicated
square dance from one side of the room to the other. You think you are going
one direction and then all the sudden someone spun you in a circle and you are
do-si-doing someone you never met, and then you are back where you started
going, what the hell just happened? And then you can skip halfway across the
room and feel super productive, until you get spun around again.
In the beginning of May, a few weeks into the term, I had
some returned Peace Corps volunteers (RPCVs) come to interview some of my kids
for a project they are doing. It was sheer pulling teeth to get it to happen.
My counterpart was out sick, and I just had to start frantically pulling
teachers, anyone that was a friend of mine or had ever been nice to me, to help
me find kids and be translators. The
interviews were 1-2 hours long. That’s a lot of time to pull teachers out of
classes. Plus we had to translate the consent forms to the kids and make sure
they were okay doing the interview. We may have had to do this 6 times for form
1 girls, and –still- didn’t get one to consent. It was kind of insane. At the
end of the several day interview marathon, I did the Kings Foundation training.
And learned not to schedule things back to back, because holy cow I was
tired. But in the midst of the relief and
pride of actually getting those two activities to work… I was frustrated. Is
every single thing I do in my village going to require this much effort? Am I
going to have to sit on people to get things done, every time I want/need
something done? A, that’s insane, and B, that’s not sustainable. And C, that’s
going to piss everybody off, including myself. –Sigh- I took a few days off to
visit friends and do some Peace Corps business in Gabs. When I got back to my
village, I was in a bit of a funk. And it’s lasted a couple of weeks. I’m sort
of on the verge of pulling myself out of it, we’ll see. But during this funk, I
didn’t want to leave my house. Several days I just didn’t. And all my clubs got
cancelled anyway for the last 3 weeks. A few other things got done. And I
thought a lot.
I didn’t expect clubs to be such a battlefield during my
Peace Corps service. This sort of goes back to the ‘things should work better’
expectation. Clubs get scheduled, and then get stepped on by anything else
going on in school. Sports, testing, teacher workshops, outside groups coming
in, meetings, late lunch, etc. And really, I can’t change the slightly wacked
out school system, consisting of end of month testing, a 6-day schedule for a 5
day week (seriously), and overworked teachers. I can do everything the same,
prepare things, check the calendar, etc, for clubs, and half the time they
happen, and half the time they don’t. I think this is related to the definition
of insanity- doing the same thing over and other again, and expecting different
results. Except I’m expecting the same results and different things
happen. So, I decided that my
give-a-damn is busted as far as clubs, or at least PACT club, is concerned. I’ll
show up, and if clubs happen, cool. If they don’t, fine. I can’t sit on people
or stress about something that’s supposed to happen weekly, that’s planned into
the schedule, but still evades actually happening pretty often.
I decided that I need to take more initiative on my own to
hang out with kids, because the club structure only works sometimes. And if I
have an informal lunch scrabble club, and an informal yard hula hooping club,
well, I’ll make the best I can, formal structures be damned. Ball sports, which
have contributed to my lack of clubs this term, has given me the opportunity to
hang out with the volleyball teams, and I’m hoping to continue getting to know
those girls after the season ends.
I’ve gotten 2 teacher trainings to happen this term, as well
as an all-school assembly. And aside from reminding people a few times to come,
they were relatively painless. I’ve learned that things like this can happen if
I can get them on the school calendar at the beginning of the term. If they don’t
get on the magical calendar in the beginning, I can’t add them on in the middle
of the term, even if the day is free. That would make people’s heads explode.
So although it’s odd, it’s something I can work with. And I’ve decided that I
don’t mind sitting on people to make one-time events happen. It’s one thing to
remind everyone you have a workshop tomorrow, 1-2 times a term. It’s another to
remind them to show up to your club every week. I’m learning to pick my
battles.
I’m also learning not to put all of my eggs in one basket.
Or, don’t count your club meetings before they happen. I’ve met members of the
HIV support group in Salajwe and hope to help them with future projects. I’m
also hoping to make a contact with someone working with out of school youth in
my village, to work with them as well. I need to stop thinking that all I can
do is go to school, because I need to find other things to do if school isn’t
working out all the time.
I’m also learning to just show up more. It doesn’t matter
that I’m not doing much. Being there makes people see me and shows I care. It
helps me find opportunities when I catch random announcements, or hear that the
schedule changed for a weird reason. I feel more productive out of my house
than in it, which is pulling me out of my funk.
I guess that’s a lot of hidden expectations. But things are
still happening; I’m less in a funk, and who knows? I’m still finding things to
do, and I may have a PACT club before 2014.
