A rough week, worldwide

It's been a bit of a rough week.  That might be a bit of an understatement.

Although I have limited internet, I've been following the crazy going down in Boston, from the marathon to the lock down.  And the explosion in Texas. And it was also the 6th anniversary of the VT shootings, which is always a rough day by itself.

Add to that some stomach flu in the beginning of the week, some worries about a few things lost in my mom's move, and some drama with a couple of my students, and it was kind of a crappy week.

Then I tried to rescue a lamb I found Friday night before we got the Botswana equivalent of a hurricane. He was super cute but very young, and I had no idea how long he was separated from his mother- possibly more than 24 hours, since I saw him by himself on Thursday.  But I wrapped him in a towel and brought him inside and tried to give him some milk.  He slept a little while, but then got shivery and there wasn't much else I could do for him, and he died around 2am.  Of course I was a hot mess, and wasn't able to sleep and blah.  Luckily my cousin was online and calmed me down and reassured me I did everything I could, and was basically awesome like always :)  Since I was up, I was also on CNN and followed the FBI catching the other bombing suspect.  

So... its been a crappy week.  Yesterday I hung out with another PCV in Moleps to get groceries and get out of my house, and it was very much needed.  Aileen is awesome!

On the upside, school has started again and I've got lots of things on the calender to do there, and hopefully a lot of them actually happen :) I'm also healthy again, and hopefully there are less world tragedies in the next week :P

I promise I'll make my next post happier, since I still need to blog about my trip north!

Great Expectations (with apologies to Dickens)

Why did I join peace corps?

This question has been bouncing around my brain lately, and it came to a head today amidst a conversation online between some of my fellow PCVs.  Apparently some prospective PCVs have found some of my friends blogs and have been asking about their experiences in Botswana, and asking whether we recommend they accept their Bots placement.  Yeesh, no pressure or anything.

If you ask all 32 of my group why we joined Peace Corps, you’d probably get 32 different answers.  Sure there would be some common threads along the lines of, I want to help people, I want to travel, I’ve wanted to for x number of years.  But the decision to take that leap is different for each person that serves.

I had been thinking about being a Peace Corps Volunteer since at least undergrad if not before.  I don’t remember when I first heard of it.  For a while it was sort of a hazy future dream that I didn’t think I could actually do, and by that I mean I didn’t think I had the guts to go and survive overseas by myself for 2 years.  True I’m not by myself in that there are 130+ volunteers in country with me, but I do live by myself in a village, 30 minutes from the nearest American.

Then when I decided to make a bit of a career switch into public health from chemistry, it seemed a good way to get field experience.  And going into PC with a masters seemed to make the idea of being plunked down in the middle of nowhere and being expected to do development projects a little less scary. I also did the masters international program at Emory to learn more about PC, but mostly to talk to returned volunteers about their experiences.  I didn’t want the glossy brochures, I wanted real stories.  I wanted to know the good, the bad, and the gross.  I needed to process some possible scenarios and see if it would be worth it for me, and if I could handle it.

Ultimately I decided to apply and planned on going, without really dwelling on it too much.  That probably sounds really strange, but once I decided it was what I wanted to do, and that I was doing it… I didn’t want to think about it much because I was afraid I would talk myself out of it.  It was easy to distract myself during the application process because I was in grad school.  And then I got my placement and mostly convinced myself that it was what I wanted*, and boom- I left for Botswana.

One of the consequences of not thinking about my 2 years of service much before I left was that I thought I had no expectations.  And it was emphasized to me to not have expectations.  Well, I had expectations that I didn’t realize until I got here.  Some were fulfilled: I expected to work with teens, work in HIV, live in a remote village, read a lot of books, have to be creative, etc.  Some weren’t fulfilled and it turned out fine:  I thought I wouldn’t have electricity or running water and I have both, I thought I would be able to do more in the beginning and I am learning patience, etc.  Some weren’t fulfilled and it’s made parts of my service so far harder than I thought: I thought it would be easy to make friends- its not so much. I have made some, but its taking a lot longer than I thought.  I thought Peace Corps would be more understood and welcomed in the country.  It’s not that people don’t want us here, but most people don’t know what we are here for, ask us for money a lot, and seem confused by our presence, especially at first.  I thought I would be using my MPH more and doing more health related things- it’s not that I’m no using my education at all, but I’m not planning on working in a school/education after Peace Corps, so it’s not as applicable to my future.  I thought PC knew what they were doing a lot more than they do.  PC Washington promotes the masters international program like they place you special if you have a masters, and that’s completely not true, at least in this country.  PC Botswana is forced to work with various government agencies that border on dysfunctional, and that affects every volunteer in country.  I’m not sure which part of PC, or all of them, is to blame for the fact that most of our pre-service training was awful. Sometimes being a PCV feels like being in a weird social experiment, on top of integrating into your village and doing development work.

So there are all of the expectations I didn’t know I had.  But I’m also learning that expectations aren’t two dimensional in Peace Corps.  I’ll plan a PACT club and hope 8 kids show up, and I get 6.  Should I be disappointed?  My expectation wasn’t met.  Then the next week those same kids lead 3 hours of Youth Against AIDS month rally for the entire school- singing, dancing, giving speeches, writing poetry.  Expectations blown out of the water.

I had expectations that I’d make friends, because, well, I’ve made friends everywhere else I’ve gone in my life right?  Why not Botswana?  So far I’ve made about 4.  And I consider that a huge accomplishment…  Considering that not 2 months ago I felt like I had zero.  So in a way, that’s an expectation exceeded for now.

If you asked me why I wanted to join Peace Corps 8 months ago, about a month before I left, this is probably what I would have said.  I want to: help people. Travel. Get field experience. Prove to myself that I can do it. See if I want to live abroad in the future. See how things work on the ground in public health before I get jobs higher up the ladder.   Am I doing all of that? I think so. I’m also learning that at least half of the PC experience is the relationships you build with the people you live and work with.  I knew that would be important, but I didn’t know how important. Expectation altered. I’m learning that behavior change is really hard. I’m learning how much I rely on the support of my family and friends, here in PC and back in the states. I’m learning just how bored I can get in my village. I’m learning how much I take water for granted in the US.

Getting your expectations tossed back in your face isn’t exactly pleasant, but I feel like the general trend is upwards.  If I went home now I’d be seriously frustrated and feel like hadn’t done anything, because most of what I’ve done is lay the groundwork for the rest of my service.  I’ve been trying to get to know people, make friends, and figure out how things work.  Learn a little Setswana.  Survive PC trainings and lock down.  I have 19 months to go, and feel like I’ll be able to do a little more each month.

I probably won’t be able to fully say whether or not my pc experience was ‘worth it’ in different ways until I’m back in the States.  Sure, some parts are frustrating as hell.  There’s a lot of hard work involved… but that’s at least one expectation that I had in the right place- I didn’t expect it to be easy.  I hope it will be worth it, although personal growth wise, I think it already has been.  There are lots of reasons I came, and lots of (sometimes different) reasons I plan on staying.  Who knows if I would have been happier or more frustrated in a different placement or a different country, but seeing that I’ll never know that, there’s no use worrying about it. 

I guess the biggest expectation I had was that my service was going to be full of challenges and cool things I couldn’t really dream of until I got here, and that has been true.

*I was really happy to get a placement in sub-saharan Africa, my only disappointment was the placement sounded more like youth development than health.  And I was right about that, because they are literally changing my job description to youth development in HIV/AIDS.  But I came to grips with that here and now like my placement so its ok.  That’s probably a whole other post for another day.

Traveling, PCV style

So I got to go up to the delta for a few days- 9 including 4 days of traveling!  It was a lot of fun- some PCVs in Shakawe (sha-KA-way) organized a huge half-marathon/5K run and health fair, so a lot of other PCVs went up to run and help at the health fair.  While we were up there some of us went to Tsodilo hills and on boat rides on the delta near Sepupo.

I’ll post a bunch of pictures and stories from my delta trip, but I wanted to show first how I got there and back.  Since we don’t have cars as PCVs, we rely on public transportation, hitching, and spending the night with fellow volunteers to get places.

So this is a map of Botswana with my route marked on it, from Salajwe to Shakawe and back. The green and black are the trip up, alternating with each leg of the trip.  The yellow and red are the trip home.

Day 1: Hitch from Salajwe to Letlhakeng- 1 hour.

Wait in L for a hitch for 2 hours, meet up with another volunteer going with me.

Take combi from L to Takotakwane – 45 minutes.

Wait in T for a hitch for 2 hours.

Get a hitch all the way to Ghanzi- 4.5 hours.

Spend night in Ghanzi with 3 other PCVs and a German volunteer.

Day 2: Wait in Ghanzi 1.5 hours for a hitch (now there are 6 of us).

Get a hitch to Sehithwa- 2.5 hours.

Meet up with 2 other PCVs and another German volunteer). Wait for a hitch- 1 hour.

Get 2 almost simultaneous hitches to Shakawe (There are now 9 of us)- 4.5 hours.

Return trip! (2 nights in this mess, not saying where bc I don’t know who told Peace Corps what*)

Starting from Sepupa after the boat trip, about 10 of us.

Get a hitch to Gumare- 1 hour.

Wait for bus- 30 minutes.

Bus to Sehithwa- 2 hours, about 7 of us.

Wait for a hitch- 30 minutes.

Combi/bus to Ghanzi- 2.5 hours (with some extra time to have a blow out and change a tire)

Wait for hitch in Ghanzi- 3 hours.

Bus to Kang- 3 hours- 3 of us.

Wait for bus in Kang- 30 minutes.

Bus to Morumisu - 45 minutes- my 2 friends keep going.

Wait for hitch- 1 hour.

Hitch to Letlhakeng, by way of going back to Kang to get gas and then to L- 3 hours.

Wait for hitch in L- 1.5 hours.

Hitch to Khudamalapye- 30 minutes.

Wait for hitch HOME- 45 minutes.

Hitch to Salajwe!- 30 minutes.

* Peace Corps has a policy that you have to tell them what village you are sleeping in.  PCVs have a policy of not ratting out their fellow volunteers if some choose not to follow this policy.  Hence I’m not naming where we spent the nights on the way home, because I don’t know who told Peace Corps what.  On the way up I happened to know that we all told PC where we were, because our country director was also spending the night in Ghanzi (he went to Shakawe with his family and he and his wife ran the half marathon!) and we saw him a few times there.

"She has read too many books and it has addled her brain."

New blog feature!  I'm going to try and keep a running list of books I'm reading here in Bots.
You can find it  on the main blog page by clicking on 'Books I've Read'.
And you can leave comments with suggestions as well :)
I just hit the 50 book mark, 1/4 of the way to my 200 books in Bots goal!

Take me home, country roads

I've realized that I’m listening to a lot of folk music recently.  It’s good for quiet nights in a small village where you start thinking about lots of things.  I've always liked some folk music, and Peter Paul and Mary have always been one of my favorite groups.

Here in Botswana, I’m listening to John Denver a lot.  This probably makes my mom smile, because she really likes his music, and would play it when I was a kid.  And I’d run screaming out of the room because for some reason I hated it when I was around 10.  I didn't like anything having to do with country music, except maybe Johnny Cash, until I was in college.

The song I listen to the most is ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.  I've never lived in West Virginia, but I lived in Southwest Virginia most of my adult life, and the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River are a bit of home to me.  And the song makes me think of my home in Maryland, and my family’s homes in South Carolina as well.

Surprisingly enough, Batswana also seem to like John Denver, because I've heard him on the radio at least 2-3 times.  The first time was in a combi driven by Peace Corps staff during training last fall.  We were going to Gabs for the day and there were about 14-15 of us in the combi, having 8-9 different conversations with the radio on in the background.  All of the sudden ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ comes on.  Everyone in the entire combi stopped all of their conversations and we proceeded to belt out the chorus each time it came around, with several of us singing all the verses as well.  We burst out laughing at the end, chattering about how unexpected it was to hear John Denver on the radio in Botswana.  And our driver, Zeeman, slowly changed the radio station while giving us a look of slight terror, as in, WHAT just happened?!? Crazy Americans…

As I listen to the song, it sometimes makes me homesick, sometimes makes me wonder if I should be here and not at home, and always makes me realize how much I love my home, my country, and the opportunity to live abroad.  And as I sit here thinking of home, I know that for the rest of my life, hearing ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ will make me think of that combi ride, and of my time in a small village in Botswana.

"I hear her voice 

In the mornin' hour she calls me 
The radio reminds me of my home far away 
And drivin' down the road I get a feelin' 
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday 

Country Roads, take me home 
To the place I belong 
West Virginia, mountain momma 
Take me home, country roads "

A fun weekend

I had a whirlwind of a weekend/week, and spent an awful lot of time on combis.

Last Thursday Danielle, a PCV in Moleps, came to my village to help clean out Roses house and pack her stuff to be sent back to the USA.  (Rose was the other volunteer in my village.  She got really sick in January and got sent home by PC in February.  She will be fine, she just had to cut her service short, which was a huge bummer.)  So we spent all of Thursday doing that, and I had horrible allergies due to the dust and cat dander.  Then we spent the night at my house and went to Moleps the next day.  [combi 1] Danielle went to work and I continued on to Gabs [combi 2], where I had lunch, and then got on another combi [3] to Jwaneng.  Jwaneng is known in Botswana as where all of the diamonds are.  It might be the largest set of diamond mines in the world.  I stayed with another PCV, Christina,  there for Friday and Saturday nights.  Saturday I took a bus [combi-ish 4] to Keng, to go to a wedding.

Now, how I got to this wedding is sort of a funny story.  A teacher in my village invited me because she was going to be a bridesmaid.  She got me an invitation and everything.  When I get to Jwaneng, Christina tells me that the wedding is of a former PCV to a Motswana, and several other PCVs are going!  Which was true, as well as some Canadian volunteers that knew the bride.  So I stayed at the wedding for several hours, got to eat delicious wedding food (Batswana go all out for weddings.  I’m pretty sure they slaughtered 2 cows and several goats for this one.),  meet some new people, and see a new village.  I hitched back to Jwaneng before dark and showed Christina the wedding pics.  And took a lot of pictures of her dog, who is adorable.

Sunday I went back to Moleps, stopping in Kanye [5] to see my host family from pre-service training.  The 1 year old is now almost 18 months and is still super cute.  I got to hang out a bit with my host mom, sister, and brother.  Then I caught another combi [6] to Gabs, and then another to Moleps [7].  At this point I was kinda tired of combis.  I stayed with Danielle and we made burritos which were AMAZING.  I miss Mexican food a lot.  

Monday I helped my counterpart facilitate a workshop on lifeskills to teachers at a school in Moleps, which was fun and I think it went really well! Considering we were trying to condense a 5 day workshop into 2 hours.   I watched Argo at Danielle’s house that night and really liked the movie.

Tuesday I attempted to get home early, by going to the store at 8:30am and heading to Letlhakeng soon after.  [combi 8] And then I could not get a hitch to my village for the life of me.  I got to L at 10:45/11.  I didn’t get back to Salajwe until almost 4.  I spent half of that time in Khudemalpye with Aileen, as she kept me company at the hitching post.   And then I took a bath, enjoyed being home in my village, and slept almost 12 hours :P 

I've made it 6 months!

I’ve made it 6 months in Botswana, and 4 at my site.  And I’ve almost made it through an entire school term- it ends in a week.  While six months is only about a quarter of my time here, I’m proud of myself for making it this far and not self-destructing in some way shape or form.  It’s not that I actually thought I was going to go bonkers or do something really stupid, but I’m not very good at giving myself credit for things.  I assume when I accomplish things that they mostly aren’t a big deal, because lots of other people have graduated from college, got jobs, been to grad school, joined the Peace Corps, read lots of books, whatever.  Which in itself is true, but I need to work on giving myself credit, because I’m sure good at the other side, which is beating myself up when I don’t do things right (because lots of other people have managed to do x y and z, why can’t I?).

So 6 months in, I’ve made it through lots of Peace Corps training (which has honestly been more stressful than almost anything in my village), moving to a new site, meeting tons of new people, and attempting to get a few things off the ground.  I’ve got a group of kids that meet for PACT club at my school, a group of kids that plays on my porch and in my yard, an awesome counterpart, and a really nice school head (principal).   There’s potential for getting more done next term since I’m beginning to figure out how things work/are planned.  I’ve made friends in PC (our government issued family, we like to say) and a couple so far in my village.

I’m looking forward to being able to do more in a few weeks, and for a nice break between terms to go north and see some PCVs and animals J