First week at school!

The first week of school!

After arriving just as last term ended and then nothing was going on over the holidays, I’ve been looking forward to school starting for a long time.  Here’s the good, the bad, the confusing and the potential.

The good:

- School has started!

- We finally have some firewood

- My counterpart and a few other teachers seem willing to do stuff with me

- I can sit in on classes and start getting to know students

- They already have an active SGA that I might be able to work with

- I got to introduce myself to all of the new form 1 students

The bad:

- There’s still a big lack of furniture and books (and teachers and food and firewood and…)

- They ran out of food and firewood Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and had to send the day students home.  The boarders went hungry until they found food and firewood, which usually happened around 5pm.  This is after not feeding the kids at all Monday, the day they arrived, because the term technically doesn’t start until Tuesday.

The confusing/frustrating:

- All of the directions in the new student orientation were given in Setswana.  The teachers know that these kids don’t understand and speak English (About 30-40 probably do out of 700 something).  But then they still exhort them to study hard and get good marks, in classes that are taught and tested in English.  I don’t get how people either don’t understand that the kids won’t get anything out of lessons in English, or ignore it and pretend like the students just don’t care about school.

- The hungry kids (see above)

- This chaos of the first week, including classes left unattended and lack of food and firewood, apparently happens every year.

The potential:

- We now have at least some firewood, so hopefully we can keep the students for the full day and have PACT club

- There are several clubs/students organizations I might be able to work with

- The teachers and school staff are happy to have me and introduce me to everyone as ‘our Peace Corps Volunteer’

- Some teachers are interested in having me teach a class or help them teach creatively

- We had a guidance and counseling meeting where I got the go ahead for PACT club and we put a few activities on the school calendar

- School has started so I can finally DO something!

- The end of my Peace Corps ‘Community Assessment Phase’, affectionately called Lock Down, is almost over as well.  This means I can start doing projects instead of just observing, and I can leave my village more. 

Botswana 101: The Schools

Some more Bots 101 so you understand what I'm doing, or at least referring to, at my school.

Primary School is Standards 1-7.  (Like our grades 1-7 in the US.) 

Junior Secondary School is Form 1-3. (Like our grades 8-10 in the US.)

Senior Secondary School is Form 4-5. (Like our grades 11-12 in the US.)

Required Subjects at J.S S. are Math, Science, English, Setswana, Agriculture, Social Studies, and Guidance and Counseling.  Students pick 2 other subjects from Design and Technology, Home Economics, Religious and Moral Education, Art, and Physical Education.

There are also a lot of sports teams and a few clubs for students after school.  One of the clubs I’ll be working with a lot is PACT club, Peer Approach to Counseling Teens, which is an extension of guidance and counseling: encouraging good decision making, peer mediation, healthy living, HIV awareness, etc.

Botswana has a good school infrastructure, but it also has a lot of challenges. 

In Standard 1, subjects are taught in Setswana, the native tongue of 85% of the country.  English is one of the main subjects, and then after the first standard or two, all subjects are taught in English. (Except Setswana, which is taught through form 5.)  The reason for the switch to and push towards English is that it’s the national language and Botswana wants to be internationally competitive.

This is fine if the kids actually learn English, and I think in most places they do.  Just not where I am.  In the Kalahari there are a lot of smaller tribes, some of which were relocated out of game reserves into settlement villages (like my village.  Think Native American reservations.).  These people are the poorest in Botswana and usually don’t speak Setswana as their native tongue.  In my area they speak Sekalagadi; other places speak Kalanga, and I have no idea the languages of the San in the west.  So these kids start learning Setswana in school and then immediately start learning English too, FROM Setswana.  And honestly, most of them don’t learn much English, and therefore much else, in school. 

It would be like if in America, you learn English in your family as a child, go to school and start learning Spanish, and then FROM Spanish you start learning Mandarin Chinese… and then all of the rest of your subjects are in Mandarin.  Good luck with that, right?

But Mary, you ask, how do these kids pass a grade level if they don’t know English?  The answer is, they don’t.  But kids are automatically passed on from standard to standard, form to form, even if they fail every subject, through form 3.  To get into Senior Secondary school they have to pass exams (in English).  But before that, passing isn’t required.

Also, passing here is 50%.  I haven’t figured out the grade scale yet, but looking at term results (posted with names, outside for all to see at school) from May, 17 kids in Form 3 passed classes like we would count in the States, which here was a B.  Another 40-50 got Cs, somewhere in the 50-65% range.

Schools often suffer from shortages of books and other materials, and sometimes food.  It seems there are never enough teachers, and when there is a teacher missing, that class just has no teacher.  Sometimes for months.  There is no substitute system here.  Currently my school is missing about 8-10 teachers.

Some of this sounds pretty depressing, and sometimes it seems that way, especially at my school.  I think I have the Botswana equivalent of like, inner city Philly as far as challenges at my school.  But Botswana has a high percentage of kids in school, and is pretty good about having social workers provide kids with uniforms and school fees if they don’t have the funds.  And having put together this school system from nothing in about 40 years, it’s got a lot going for it.  Hopefully they keep making positive changes in the future.

I’m sure I’ll post again about schools after I’ve worked at one for a while J

Botswana 101: The Country

So, this probably should have been the first post in my Peace Corps journey… oops.

I feel like a little info about the country itself would be helpful to whoever is reading this as you follow along my 2-year journey.  If you are like me, you don’t know much about Botswana (at least I didn’t until I came here.  All I knew is that it was in southern Africa).

So, here’s a few facts and figures about Bots, Wikipedia style:

Location:  Just above South Africa.  Namibia to the left, Zimbabwe to the right, Zambia to the north.

Climate: Mostly desert- the Kalahari Desert.  More temperate in the south and east (if you look at a map, that’s where the greatest population of people live.  Not a coincidence.)  Okavanga Delta in the north.

Population: About 2 million.  And half of them are under the age of 30.

Languages:  Setswana and English.  Although English is the ‘National’ language, most people prefer to speak Setswana, which is a Bantu language.  Various other languages are also spoken by various tribes/villages throughout the country.

Economy: Diamonds.  And cattle.  There are 3 million cattle in this country, so more cows than people.   Diamonds fuel the economy since the government owns 50% of the mines.  Cows fuel peoples’ day to day lives and are the sign of wealth.  Cows > bank accounts.

Biggest strengths:  Peaceful, uncorrupt government.  Amazing use of diamond mines to build infrastructure of country.  Good healthcare system.   Lots of animals and tourist possibilities in the north.  More than 25% of the country is game reserves to give animals spaces (animals = lions, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, gemsbok, hippos, rhinos, hyenas, wild dogs, cheetahs, jaguars, elephants.  Coming for a safari yet?)

Biggest challenges:  2^nd highest HIV rate in the world, I’ll expand on that below.  Not much private economy.  The diamond mines are slated to run out in 10-20 years, which means the country needs to switch its economy to other things.  Very high unemployment.  25% employed outside of their own cattle herds and farming lands.  Lack of accountability in government and in jobs in general. Alcohol abuse.

HIV:  The epidemic is driven by many things, including alcohol, multiple concurrent partnerships, low condom use, low circumcision rates, intergenerational sex, transactional sex, etc.  In some places 50% of women of childbearing age are HIV positive.  Currently the government provides free anti-retrovirals to all patients that need it.  Peace Corps is in the country through American PEPFAR, the presidents emergency plan for AIDS relief, which funds other Bots HIV programs as well.

History:

Botswana is known as the success story of Africa.  It was never an official colony, but rather a British protectorate.  This has good and bad results: it’s avoided some of the worst results of colonization and post-colonial rule (see: race in South Africa, violence in D.R.C, ethnic clashes in Nigeria, anarchy in Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, etc.).  But it also didn’t get the infrastructure build-up that say, Kenya and South Africa did.  So when it became a country in the 60s, there wasn’t much to start with.  Then they found diamonds.  Lots of them.  And unlike almost everywhere else in Africa, this resource did not curse them, but was put to good use by a functional government.  And the government built roads, schools, and hospitals.  It wired the country for electricity and cell phones, and set up piping so that water is drinkable straight from the tap in most places (you need to travel the developing world to realize how freaking rare drinkable tap water is outside of the US and Europe). It got more than 90% of its kids in school and provided free healthcare.  It provided food for a lot of the country that had no way to provide for itself.  It did really cool things with that diamond money.  It got upgraded to middle income country status.

                The aftermath of that is mixed.  Botswana has some of the best infrastructure in Africa.  It also has a population that is used to relying on the government for almost everything, and therefore private industry is rather stalled.  The biggest challenge facing Botswana now, in my opinion, is getting its population to work in private industry.  The infrastructure is there, it just needs businesses and manufacturing, so it’s not importing most goods from South Africa and can employ its people.  Personally, I think this is an even bigger challenge that the HIV epidemic, which many see as the greatest challenge.  It’s not a competition though, I feel like a country can work on two problems at once.   I’ll go into development issues more in another post.

                Botswana did well enough in development that the Peace Corps, which had been in the country since 6 months after independence, left.  There was a mutual agreement that PC wasn’t really needed anymore, and volunteers could be better used in other places.   They left in 1997, and returned at the request of the Bots president in 2003 to address HIV/AIDS.  So currently all 135 of us in Bots are doing HIV related activities/programming.    Some of us feel like economic volunteers would be more useful, or at least as useful as HIV volunteers, but that’s another post as well.

                So that’s Botswana in a nutshell.  Come visit me!

Things I've learned recently

Things I’ve learned as I’ve sat around my village for a month with nothing to do: (In no particular order)

-          I can be a pretty creative cook

-          It’s hard to motivate people to work hard when they think the same thing will happen whether or not they work hard.  I’m convinced this is why people do things halfway, don’t show up on time, and expect handouts.  It’s a messed up legacy of colonialism and post colonial time when the government had to provide everything for everybody.

-          It’s really easy to adopt the above mindset myself!  Lots of times I have to make myself be social to try and meet people, even though I often think it doesn’t matter if I leave my house or not

-          It’s pretty easy to become a hermit in Peace Corps

-          The kids in my village must think I own a candy shop, the way they ask for sweets.  This is also left over from colonialism, when white people tossed coins and candy to kids.

-          People here are FULLY capable of working hard and getting things done.  The way the clinic handles ARV day is pretty impressive, and the local post office can hand out payday checks to 60+ people in under an hour.

-          It’s pretty impressive to see 8-year olds riding bareback on a horse at a canter while rounding up cattle

-          There is apparently enough water in Botswana to drown a goat, because I got to help in the rescue of a baby goat from a watering hole a few weeks ago.

-          Goats are really cute.  And heavy.

-          You’d almost not know this was the desert, it’s so green from the rain.

-          Thunderstorms are amazing here.

-          Rain messes up our dirt road so much, I wonder why they don’t pave it to save themselves the effort of fixing it every time it rains hard

-          I have a homicidal streak when there are flies in my room.          

-          I really like sleeping under my mosquito net.  I may require a canopied bed when I return to the states.

-          Apparently my name is Lakoa (white person).  Arg.

-          My Setswana has not improved since I moved to my site, but my English has declined a LOT, because people speak to me in broken English and I speak back to them in broken English :P

-          Soccer (football) is everything here- there was a weeklong tournament starting 2 days before Christmas and ending just before New years

-          My school is lacking a lot of things, including furniture for the student dorms

-          In said dorms, the boys are way more destructive than the girls

-          There seems to be no accountability in this country.  I’m not sure it’s possible to get fired from a job unless you legit broke a law.

-          Unemployment seems to be just as big of a problem, if not more so, than HIV here

-          I love hanging out with motivated students, like the daughter of my landlord

-          I missed my South African Soap Opera for 3 weeks and had NO clue what was going on when I watched it at my landlords house

-          My fan might be my single best purchase since coming to Botswana

-          I need to figure out a good way to turn down marriage proposals and propositions.  Saying I have a bf in the states (which I don’t) doesn’t work.

-          It’s really annoying when people demand that I give them my stuff, it’s not even asking.

-          I sewed curtains for one room and I really liked it.  Potential new hobby upon returning to the states.

-          I actually kinda like riding in the back of pickup trucks

-          It doesn’t actually matter how often I sweep, there will still be sand everywhere

-          Putting canned fruit in the freezer is amazing on a hot day

-          Some of the bugs here look like a 2^nd grader designed them, they are so colorful and weird looking

-          Batswana like to party.  Craziest New Years Eve party I’ve ever been to was in my yard a few days ago

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 :)