Shoe-leather development

I’m finding out how grassy and rooty grassroots development can be.  I borrowed the shoe-leather in the title from the term shoe-leather epidemiology, which is where epidemiologists would actually wear down the leather of their shoes tracking disease cases as they sought to figure out what was making people sick.  I think I’m wearing down some shoe leather getting projects and people together.

My current going-ons are 2 PACT clubs, attempting to find out of school youth and show them a movie, talking to some guidance and counseling classes, co-leading a workshop with my counterpart, and planning for an NGO to come and do a training in my village. 

This doesn't sound like a lot considering it’s my full-time job, but let me tell you, it is.  And that’s because I have every day things going on too- school meetings, spending time with teachers and at the clinic. I also have random things going on, like helping to clean out the volunteers house that left, and going to an out of town wedding this weekend.  Also it’s nearing the end of the school term so teachers and students are busy.

It comes down to, I’m actually busy!  Woo! 

Today, case in point.  Walk to Kgotla (where the village chief is) for 8am meeting.  Chief is not there, so there is no meeting.  See from a distance that the social worker is in.  Surprise her in her office and try to get another date to show a movie in the village.  Walk to Lempu and find that exams ARE happening, because the school now has ink to print the tests.  So no visiting a class to talk to them this morning.  Talk with counterpart instead, and arrange to meet tomorrow to plan a workshop we are facilitating next week in another village.  Find teacher that has invited me to wedding, get asked to tea at her house.  I discover I do like soft porridge, hang out with a friend (side note: I have friends!!!), and catch up on Generations.  Walk to clinic to see if we can use a room there to show a movie.  They say they will bring it up in their weekly meeting and tell me Monday.  I see them packing a truck and note that their mobile clinic to another village has moved from Fridays to Wednesday because of transport- this is important because I want to go with them some time.  Go home to finish preparing for PACT club at primary school.  Get a text saying the students are testing so no PACT club.  Go to primary school anyway to meet with guidance and counseling teacher and school head to get permission for teachers to participate in next weeks workshop.   Go home again and try to make travel plans for the weekend, plans for the NGO training, and prepare for tomorrow’s PACT club.

I text and call people when I can, but an awful lot of grassroots development at the village level works much better face to face.  It's partly culture, partly communication.  There's also some formality in asking permission for things here, so I usually can't get fast answers to questions like can we meet here?  The answer needs to come from a committee or a meeting.

So I traipse around my village a lot trying to get things going.  This is by no means a complaint- I like to walk, I have an umbrella to shade myself from the sun, and a good fan to plop in front of when I’m done J  But I might need new shoes at some point.  ^_^

The good, the bad, the progress, and the completely random

The good:

- We had PACT club at the primary school, with students AND teachers!

- PACT at Lempu for the 2nd week in a row

- I’ve used my soccer ball to hang out with kids some- whee!

- I’m building relationships at the schools and clinic- slowly but surely

- Lempu wants me to talk to ALL of the girls at school – whoa/yikes, but yay for school initiative, and a platform to recruit for a girls club!

- I was able to pay rent, YAY! 

- I got a stove and gas tank from MOE, YAY!

 - Rain!

Works in Progress:

- The class schedule keeps rearranging at Lempu, so I keep missing one class I want to talk to.  Oh well, onto next week!

- Still looking for a place with electricity to show some HIV/AIDS films in the community

- Planning multiple workshops for teachers, and looking for people to work with me on them and clubs

- Not broiling.  It’s been freaking hot lately.  I've discovered that dunking my head in water and sitting in front of my fan is particularly effective.

- My attitude.  I don’t want to be a downer about everything, and I’m beginning to loosen up more and be less frustrated about stuff (of course, it really helps that things seemed to work this week!).

The bad:

- Ministry of Ed wants my entire group to to go a workshop in 2 weeks- oy.

The completely random:

- A truck came and dumped a load of sand in my yard at 3:45am one day this week.  Huh??

- Got complemented by one of the nurses that I have a nice pelvis.  She was like, you’ll have no trouble delivering babies!  Me: … Uh, good to know! o.O

- A bird flew in and out of my room and scared the bejesus out of me for about 30 seconds.

- Saw the Salajwe branch of the Botswana democratic party meeting under a tree near my house.

A day in the life of a PCV

6:00am- Hit alarm and go back to sleep.

6:25am- Remember that you have a 7am meeting and spring out of bed.

6:45am- Quickly walk to school.  Halfway through your walk amongest the students, they all take off at a sprint leaving you in a cloud of dust.

6:46am- Check behind you to make sure there’s not a lion or something.

7:00am- 30 minute staff meeting that is 2/3 in Setswana.  Make an announcement about your teacher survey and stalk teachers with it afterwards.

7:30am- Hang out with counterpart in her office, do final preparations of this afternoon’s PACT club.

8:00am- Go home to get a box to put said surveys in.

8:30am- Eat random breakfast.

8:45am- Power randomly goes off.  Shrug.

9:15am- Surprise!  Ministry of Education people come with a stove and a gas tank!

9:16am- Suppress your happy dance until after the nice men have left.

9:30am- Rearrange your kitchen for gas tank.

10:00am- Wave goodbye to the MOE truck, and then happy dance!

10:15am- Tell facebook you have a gas tank.

10:45am – Realize the MOE people left your gate open and your yard is now full of donkeys. 

11:00am- Check e-mail.  Find out that 3 of the things you have been planning just changed dates.  Make mental note to write on calendar in pencil.

11:10am- Power randomly comes back on.

11:15am- Realize that someone chased the donkeys out of your yard for you and closed the gate.  Score!

11:30am- Go back to school with PACT club supplies and box.

11:45am- Chill in teachers lounge.   Are not surprised to see no completed surveys.  Read. Chat with a teacher.

2:00pm- Go attempt to find PACT students.  Find 3.  Send them to round up the rest.  They come back 5.  Send them out again, they come back 8.  Decide that’s enough.

2:25- PACT club!  Have interesting discussion about teenage pregnancy.

3:15- Stick around to hang out with kids and have them color your PACT club sign.

3:45 – Walk home.  Try not to pass out from heat.  Greet every single child you see.  Don’t get angry when a few ask for money.

4:00pm- Change clothes.  Dump bucket of water on head.  Sit in front of fan for foreseeable future.  Drink copious amounts of water and crystal light.

6:00pm- Cook on shiny new stove.

6:15pm- Wash dishes in buckets on porch.  Fill bath bucket.  Doom several cockroaches in bathroom.

6:30pm- Bucket bath.  Settle in room with fan and watch a movie on computer.

8:55pm – Gaze at gorgeous full moon from porch.

9:00pm- Get into makeshift bed, tucking mosquito net 360 around bed so there are no unexpected visitors in the night.

The conversation I have in my head at least once a day:

Emotions: This is really frustrating.

Brain: What is frustrating?

E: Trying to get ANYTHING done.

B: Well, you are still learning the system.

E: Their system sucks.

B: Come on, just cause it’s not how we do it in America doesn’t mean it’s bad.

E: But I feel like less gets done in their system, and it takes way longer.

B: Well no system is perfect.  And this is a developing country.  If they had all their crap together, Peace Corps wouldn’t be here.

E: I guess.  I just feel like the things that are lacking prevent me from doing much.

B: Like what?

E: Well the ministry of Education (MOE) wants us to do lifeskills.  That’s kind of hard when there aren’t enough teachers and the kids are hungry.

B: All school systems, probably in the entire world, need more teachers.  Ask your friends in the states, I’m almost positive they’d say the same thing- lack of teachers and lack of resources.

E: This is different.  This is entire classes being left with no teacher for multiple terms, and then yelled at for failing their classes.

B: Ok.  How can you fix that?

E: Um, I can’t.  Even if I were to just randomly start teaching a few classes, which technically I’m not supposed to do, there would still be lots of classes without teachers.  And I don’t think the kids would understand me anyway,

B: Ok.  So you aren’t going to be able to fix everything.  You aren’t superwoman.  That’s probably the first step to lessening your frustrations.

E: I’m not trying to be superwoman, I just want to actually have something work!

B: What about your PACT clubs?

E: What about them?  It’s taken more than a month just to try and start them, and I still don’t know if I have teachers on board.

B: Kids show up to the one at Lempu.

E: Yeah but the teachers don’t.

B: I didn’t say it’s perfect, but it’s something.

E: But the point of my being here is to build teacher capacity.  Running the club on my own won’t do that.

B: You are here for many reasons, one of which is capacity building.  That’s not limited to teachers; I’d say it also counts with students.

E: So I should just focus on the students and do everything myself?  That’s not sustainable.

B: I didn’t say stop trying with the teachers, I just said don’t discount the impact you are having on the students, even if it doesn’t seem like much.  Building lifeskills in students is really long-term sustainability.

E: Ok.  I’d really like to actually work with teachers though.  And that is my frustration with the lack of resources.  They seem to actually want to help, but are often too busy and overwhelmed.

B: Well, getting things off the ground often takes more work than sustaining them.  If you get the clubs going, trying to draw them in as much as possible, they may feel less overwhelmed at the idea of keeping them going with you.

E: Yeah, but they are still really busy.

B: Remember getting in arguments with you parents in high school about homework and stuff?  Was the issue really being too busy, or priorities?

E: Usually priorities.  So I’m supposed to have them prioritize clubs over classes? That’s whack.

B: No, I don’t think they have to make that decision.  You just have to help them understand the importance of the clubs, that even though there are no examinations involved, that they still really help the students. If you can get the teachers to prioritize some of these activities, they will make time for them.  They’ll figure out how to work it in their schedule.

E: That’s easier said than done.

B: That’s probably a good description of Peace Corps in a nutshell.  Besides, the hardest part is done- they care.  Making someone care is infinitely harder than getting them to work on something they already care about.

E: Yeah.  What about my hungry students?

B: Feed them?

E: With what? I can’t pull paleche out of thin air.

B: Doesn’t your school have a garden?

E: In theory.

B: I think your friend already pointed out, theoretical tomatoes are much less useful than real ones.

E: :P

B: Look into the garden- if 200 students are planting vegetables, that should help with the food problem.  Be creative.

E: Arg.

B: Now what?

E: It’s just… I worry that anything I do is going to turn out wrong.  I feel like there is a real culture of dependence here, and I don’t know what to do with it.

B: There is a culture of dependence.  It’s the result of centuries of colonialism and lots of other things. 

E: It’s annoying.

B: It’s worse than annoying, but do you really think your 2 years in your village will erase hundreds of years of dependent thinking?

E: Of course not.

B: Good, we’re back to figuring out what you can and can’t change.

E: Jerk.

B: Dweeb.

E: My issue is not to fix it, my issue is to not contribute to it!

B: How do you think you will be contributing to it?

E: Starting clubs, or anything by myself. Giving anything to people, even my friends.  Sharing ideas.

B: But even if that happens a little bit, think of the programs you are providing them with.  Lifeskills.  Some of the ideas in which are critical thinking, taking control of your life, and making good decisions.

E: Yeah, but I’ve already had people say things implying they can’t do this type of thing on their own, and that’s not true.  I’m not smarter than they are.

B: You aren’t smarter than them, but you are more empowered.

E: Stop throwing around development buzzwords, it’s annoying.

B: But I think it’s true.  You believe you can do these things and that they can too.  They don’t believe that yet.  That’s where you can come in.

E: And how do I do that?

B: A lot of what you are already trying to do-  Pushing people to work with you. Later on in your service, having them run more and more stuff until you can step away. 

E: -sigh-

B: It’s not something you can really put on your to-do list for the day.  That’s where the relationship building comes in.

E: And that’s the hardest part.

B: Always.  Try inviting some teachers over for dinner on the weekend, or actually using your soccer ball for once.  Talk with people instead of taking pictures of goats all the time :P

E: Fine, fine.  I’ll start when it’s not 500 degrees outside.

B: -facepalm-

Edit: I should give credit to my best friend Babs for supplying most of my brain's side of this conversation, via a conversation she and I had a few days ago.  ^_^

Life's never boring here...

Sometimes it's a little dull, like when school lets out or everyone leaves for the holidays.  But never boring.

After my last post that was slightly woebegone, I talked with 2 teachers at school for about a half hour and that helped my feelings of isolation a lot.  Then I came home and talked with one of my neighbors for over an hour!  She's the closest I have to a friend, and it gives me hope that she's in the community, and I am also connecting with teachers.  So, friend prayers are potentially being answered :)

Also I think the woman in my kitchen yesterday was the village crazy, and I think she stole my kitchen knife. I've been told she's not dangerous, but its not really comforting to know that a crazy lady wanders the village, and now possibly I've armed her :P

Like I said, never boring...

The hardest thing

I came back from 2 weeks of Peace Corps training yesterday, to a house that was a little sandy and full of dead bugs.  Apparently my mosquito net functions even when I’m not using it. I was exhausted when I got back, from traveling for close to 7 hours with way too much stuff; I had to bring clothes for 2 weeks (really 1 and laundry soap), laptop, chargers, shoes… and then Peace Corps gave me a ton of training materials.  Which is good, except I had to carry it all home.  I was also exhausted from training itself; we covered a LOT of stuff, it was emotionally and mentally exhausting, and now I’m back by myself at my site.  So I went to bed super early and slept almost 12 hours.

And now I’m taking a chill day, marathoning Harry Potter movies and listening to the rain.  Then while I was in another room, a woman walked into my kitchen and almost took stuff except that I discovered her, having heard doors opening and closing.  She didn’t speak English, but I made it very clear that this was NOT okay, and that she needed to leave.  And I got my keys, locked all the doors as she kept speaking in Setswana or Sekalagadi, the latter I think, and then shut myself inside and locked the door. Ugh.

And I as I sat listening to the rain, I asked myself for the hundredth time what the hell I’m doing here, and is it really worth it.  Maybe I’ve been lying to myself that I like my village, because I’m sure not having warm fuzzy feelings about it right now.

And then I realized that it’s that I don’t have any friends here.  I don’t really feel welcome.  I don’t really feel unwelcome either, except when people are asking for stuff, or like today, physically trying to take my stuff.  I feel slightly welcomed at Lempu by the teachers, but the village on a whole kind of feels like a collective shrug.  I came home yesterday wondering if anyone knew that I was gone. 

Some people are nice to me, some are rude, and most don’t care.   I don’t really have friends yet.  And I think that’s the hardest thing right now.  It’s not the village itself, its remoteness, or weather, or the goats.  It’s just feeling like an outsider, still.  I got a lot of training the past few days and a bit of a better idea of what I can do here work-wise.  But what I want and miss the most is friends.  I think they will come, but it will take lots of time.  So I guess I get to work on patience and being out-going, even if I feel like hibernating when people demand I give them things.

I don’t really know how to end this well, except to say that my village and I are a work in progress :P

Pictures of my house

I finally have fast internet to post some pictures, woo!

My house from the outside.

My porch and clothesline.  This is standing in the doorway of my bedroom, looking at the open door to my living room.  To the right out of the picture is my bathroom, and then to the right IN the picture is the kitchen. And I was doing laundry when I took this :)

Clothesline.

My bathroom.  Not finished, but hey, plumbing is plumbing.

My bedroom.  

Still waiting on a bed, although I have made prettier curtains since I took this picture.

My closet and new curtains. 

My living room.  The huge board will be shelves as soon as I can get some cinder blocks.  The rest of the couch cushions are currently part of my bed.  

The rest of my living room.  

The table is currently my desk and storage for half of my worldly goods in Botswana :P

My kitchen.

The rest of my kitchen.  Currently using the hotplate until I get a gas tank.

The view from my yard with a double rainbow.  

The buildings are some of the primary school.

Sunsets here are spectacular.