Gender Camp!

So I had the idea to do a two-day day camp at my school way back in August, when we were planning out the school term. The form 3 students take their end of school exams in October and are done and gone by the first week of November.  The form 1 and 2 students take their end of the year exams in November and then have about a week where they have to be at school but they really do nothing, because the teachers are busy grading. So, I thought I could use some of that time to sort of blitz them with information through a camp, and not have to worry about food/sleeping arrangements/transport/bathing this time around.

Me and one of my volleyball girls.

The camp wound up being for Form 2s (all 240ish of them), and we did sessions on gender, gender based violence, gender and power, reproductive health, healthy relationships, and contraception.  It was also during the 16 days of activism against gender based violence, so we gave the kids an opportunity to sign a pledge against GBV and gave out white ribbons. I had 6 other volunteers helping me, so we each had a session. I only did my gender and power game with about half of the kids, but that's okay. All of the other sessions were done for all of the classes, and I consider that a huge success.

The frustrating part was that my school and guidance and counseling committee was supportive of me as I planned the camp, but then gave me no support DURING the camp. I didn't mind planning it and having other volunteers come and facilitate sessions, but I wanted teachers in the classrooms for translation, cultural sensitivity, and crowd control. And that didn't happen at all- we did the entire thing ourselves as PCVs. Which, was super super frustrating  and I really wanted to just walk out the first day because things were so badly planned/not planned at all on the school's part. But, then I saw my friends playing games with like 80 kids and the kids were having a ball, so we decided to just do it ourselves. 

Visuals of AIDS, HIV, female condoms, and assertiveness.

We split the kids into single gender groups, and about half of the boys wandered off halfway through each day because we only had 2 teachers helping us keep order. So we had full classes of girls and half classes of boys. But, it was better than nothing, a lot of kids learned stuff and had fun, and it was the best we could do under the circumstances. They learned about different types of gender based violence, they each got to practice putting a condom on a model, and they learned the difference between gender and sex.

Condom demonstration!

We also had a lot of fun with 6 of us squished in my house, cooking all of the things, including Mexican food and a giant banana scone.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do, banana scone!

Super delicious and fun

Hanging out in my house

The biggest thing was I feel like this helped break the ice between me and a lot of these kids. So I hope that I can teach more effectively next year. 

The banner says "Gender and Wellness Day Camp"

All in all, a successful camp. Frustrating at times, but the kids got a lot out of it, and that's really all that matters. Also, my fellow PCVs are amazing people who slept on my floor, interacted with my kids, and put up with the crazy from my school. I love my government issued family :D

  

We try to look normal...

but this is far more accurate ;)

"I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful, life"

Crazy:
- We had a thunderstorm on Wednesday afternoon that knocked the power out... and I'm pretty sure I saw sparks from when lightning hit a power pole at my school. Good things my stuff was unplugged!

Tragic:
- I saw a goat almost hang himself. He (or she) was in the back of a truck that passed us. He was tied up but jumped out and was hanging there twitching. Our whole truck starting yelling PUDI!!! (Setswana for goat) And the luckily the truck pulled over and hoisted him back in. I think he was okay, but it was terrifying to watch.

Almost magic:
- I went to a really good workshop in Gabs on Monday and Tuesday. It's called the virtue project, and it's basically a positive discipline strategy based on acknowledging virtues in people instead of pointing out failures. I really hope I can bring the concepts back to my school. In addition, I got to hang out in Gabs for a few days with friends, air conditioning, hot showers, and good food.

Awful: It's hot. And buggy. And sandy.

Beautiful: Friendships with teachers at my school. Sunsets. Letters and packages from friends back home.

Life: One more week of school, in which I'm trying to run a mini camp for like... 200 kids. Stayed tuned for how THAT turns out ;)

A little more normal

I realize I've been bad at blogging lately. And then I realized that one of the reasons why, is that a year into my service, I think things are finally seeming quasi-normal to me. Not that I like everything, or don't have bad days, but I'm learning to shrug at things, roll my eyes, and be assertive when I need to be. And normal amounts to less blogging, because I tend to write when something stirs an emotion, whether it be happy, sad, angry, or whatever.
It's also the end of the school term here and not a lot has been going on. So when big shiny things aren't happening, I forget to write sometimes.
So I'm going to attempt to try a weekly post on random things that happened during the week, no matter how big or small.

Mid-Service Musings

I've been reminded that it's been almost 2 months since I posted. Oops? As they say here, sooooorry.

Several milestones have passed since I last updated. September 11th marked one year since I left home. September 13th marked one year in Botswana. October 14th (ish) is my official halfway point through my time here, and in a few days, I'll have one year left in Country (November 14th, 2014 is my last day as a volunteer).

Generally, volunteers have a slump around the one-year mark. I've sort of been going in and out of a slump the last month or so, but nothing like June. I think mostly I've been happy, as in, I've made it this far! I've made it more than halfway! Woo! I can also look back on the past year and sometimes that's helpful. While I really don't feel like I've done much, when you total it up, it's not nothing.

- 2 GLOW camps

- 2 Teacher workshops

- Teaching some Form 2 and 3 classes

- Making friends with teachers at school

- Attempting clubs, and having an end of the year party for my PACT club this past week

- Working with a young woman in my village trying to help her start a small business

- Helping at a health fair in another volunteer's village

- Helped count out a lot of pills at my clinic

I've also got a lot planned for the rest of this year and next year:

- More teaching

- Compiling lesson plans to make curriculum more easily accessible for teachers and volunteers

- Coaching volleyball again

- More camps

- More workshops

- Trying a different approach to a club

- Working on some gender-based-violence (GBV) initiatives

- Possibly a safe male circumcision campaign in my village

- Collaborating with other volunteers whenever possible

I've also just been able to do a lot of cool things personally this year:

- I've learned some Setswana

- I've learned how to cook more things

- I've read 91 books (and am in the middle of another 3)

- I've watched a bunch of movies and TV

- I've done a fair amount of writing- blogging, fiction, and nonfiction

- I've traveled to 4 African countries- Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa

- I've traveled lots of different places within Botswana, including the Okavango Delta and Tsodilo Hills

- I've seen a lion, a leopard, giraffes, elephants, impala, hippos, crocodiles, amazing birds, buffalo, and tons of other things in the wild

- I've made new friends

- I've learned a lot about development and behavior change

- I've learned a lot about myself

In the next 12-14 months, I'm planning on more writing, reading, traveling in and out of Bots, backpacking after my service is over, and whatever else I can fit in. 

Most of all, thank you to my friends and family back home. Without your love, support, e-mails, phone calls, letters, packages, prayers and visits, there's no way I would have made it this far. <3 div="">

Shadowing, from the other side!

So, you may remember about 11 months ago that I got to shadow a current volunteer in Ghanzi while I was in training. Well last week I got to host my own shadow at my site, and it was lots of fun (and cool to be able to be on the other side). The only bummer is I completely forgot to take pictures! Whoops.

I met Kristin, my shadowee, in Moleps where I buy groceries. One so we could buy groceries, but also so she didn't have to hitch into my village by herself- that's a little scary when you are traveling in country the first time, and 'climb in a pick-up next to the hitching tree' isn't the most specific of instructions. Moleps wound up being a bit of a shadow party, as we bumped into about 6-7 other volunteers and their shadows at the KFC (rule #1 of shadowing: feed your trainee well. Who knows exactly what they get fed at homestay). We got groceries and squished into combis and got on our way. I was a little afraid I'd freak Kristin out with how far in the bush my site is, but she handled everything really well.

PC, for all of their flukes and quasi-illogical policies/communication, seems to be pretty spot-on with matching volunteers for shadowing. Kristin and I talked a ton, cooked good food, and basically had a fun 4 days in my village. She got to see me teach a class, plan a little bit at school, sort pills at the clinic, and interact with an out of school youth I'm helping with a business plan. She also got to play with kids in my yard and see how to deal with not having water for 3 days, including me having to get someone at my school to fill up my containers there and give me a ride home (I can do many things, but I can't walk home from school carrying 40L of water). Then I discovered the reason why my water was off was because the kids in my yard had turned off the valve to my house in the yard. I almost killed a kid. I mean, I started laughing when I figured it out, but SO SO SO frustrating. Le sigh. Kristin rolled with it though. And I immediately filled all of my containers again and we rejoiced at having water :)

It was a lot of fun having a shadow. She was a rockstar and hitched out of my village by herself after I dropped her at the hitching post, cuz I had to go back to school to teach. Having someone to talk to is lots of fun, and she was eager to learn about what its like to be a volunteer, and I was eager to share all the stuff I learned over the past year. A really fun week, hopefully I get an awesome shadow next year too :)

Teaching

I think I left off my last blog entry that I was going to attempt to interact with more students by hanging out after school and trying to play games with them. This is a good idea in theory (like so many other things I've tried), but the reality is I still don't know many kids really well, so they are reluctant to come over and attempt to play a game/talk with me.

So, I've sort of broken a Peace Corps rule* and started teaching guidance and counseling classes. My main counterpart is still out sick frequently, which means that most of these classes haven't had a G/C teacher for months. My substitute counterpart is nice and trying to run the committee in the interim, but she is also a full time moral education teacher, so she can't pick up an extra 18 classes a week. So I've stepped in.

Right now, I've taken on the six classes of Form 2 students. The level of English at my school overall is very low, so probably half the kids can't understand me (and I have a funny American accent). When I've tried to talk to the Form 1s, I get blank stares and a few brave kids telling me they don't understand. The Form 3 students are taking their big end of school test in a month, and they've either mentally checked out or are actually studying. So I'm teaching Form 2s, hoping to build relationships with them that can continue on into next year when they become Form 3s. Maybe next year I'll add on Form 2s (the current Form 1s, the school year here is January-November) as well.

So far it's been fun and challenging. I've had the kids made little name cards like they were at a conference so I can learn some names. I try to get them to interact a bit instead of just talking at them- it sort of works. There's still a big language barrier, so the challenge is to not dumb down the lesson content, but to have as many of them understand me as possible. So far I've been getting help from other teachers to translate key phrases of my lessons into Setswana, so I can speak in English, and then have flipcharts (poster paper) with key phrases in English and Setswana, and then read the Setswana to them. Verbal and visual in two languages. It's a lot of work, but I give the same lesson six times, so it's not bad to do one per week. Also, I'm getting some teacher's attention as I make these visual aides and ask for Setswana help, and I've had two ask me to help them teach more creatively- WIN! This is something I've been trying to do since I got here.

Teachers in this country are taught to basically write notes on the blackboard, students copy them, and memorize the content. This gets information across, but it does nothing for skill building and critical thinking. As far as HIV is concerned, this population is over-saturated with HIV messaging. Although, especially working with youth, you find plenty of people with incorrect facts and misconceptions. But even more than getting the facts right, PCVs are trying to build skill sets. How to make good decisions and think the process over, including different outcomes, consequences, and looking to the future. How to manage stress in healthy ways. How to negotiate condom use. I'm pretty sure my students have been talked to about stress and what it is and that being healthy helps manage it. But what does that actually mean? I'm trying to have them focus first on knowing themselves, so they know what makes them happy. Different people will relieve stress in different ways- healthily. Some people want to read, some want to play soccer, some want to talk with friends. You need to know what destresses you, and that its okay that you de-stress differently from your friends. You need to be able to think critically and realize that drinking might relieve your stress now, but it will cause more problems down the road. With condoms, people know they should use them. But a lot of the time they don't. When I get to that subject, I'll make my kids do dramas (skits) about talking with their partners. At camps we do condom demonstrations. All this to say, we are trying to be as interactive as possible, as life skills volunteers working with youth. We are life skills, not life information, volunteers.

So teaching is fun. I like preparing the lesson plans. I'm getting to know teachers and students better through the process. The teaching itself is a little scary each time I walk in a classroom, but usually after a minute or two I'm fine. I enjoy talking with the students, and I try to treat them like adults. That's another thing I emphasize: these students are 15-19. Botswana considers you a youth often until you are 35, but these guys really are adults or close to it. If I treat them like adults, I can emphasize that these are adult decisions and lifestyle choices they are making. Often it's a new idea for them.

So that's my main project for now. Still working on showing STEPS films, working with out of school youth, and getting functional clubs. But it's nice that I can make something work mostly by myself, and I know it won't be randomly canceled every single time I do it :P I'm also trying to plan another camp, so more on that in a future post when I get things nailed down.

*Peace Corps discourages teaching, especially in the beginning of our service, mostly so the school doesn't get the wrong idea and thing we are just another teacher. Now that I've been at my site for almost 9 months, I'm less worried about that, and I think this is probably the best way to do lifeskills at my school currently.

10 years

It will be ten years tomorrow since I lost my dad. Ten years is a long time. It’s a third of my life. A lot has happened in ten years. The last time I saw my dad, I had finished two years of college and just dropped out for a semester because we realized how sick he was.  Since then I finished my chemistry degree, worked for a small pharmaceutical company, worked for the chemistry department at Virginia Tech, and then decided to switch careers. I got a masters in global public health, and spent a summer doing research in Ghana. I moved from Maryland to Blacksburg to Atlanta to Africa. Now I’m serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana. Sometimes I feel like dad may think I’ve lost my mind, if he could see where I am today. It’s not that I’m doing anything bad, but it’s so far from the course he helped me set at age 18, or maybe 15.

It scares me sometimes that my life seems so normal without my dad. What they say about a ‘new normal’ after someone dies is completely true. Normal now is just me and my mom. We spend holidays together (when I’m not in the Peace Corps), vacation together, help each other move, talk on the phone weekly. Memories of a Christmas where it was the three of us are so far removed that it feels like the memories belong to someone else.

And yet the memories are there, in every part of my life. Dad teaching me to do laundry when I was twelve. Dad taking me hiking in North Carolina when I was six. Dad chaperoning girl scout trips, when he got all of us to chorus BEEP BEEP BEEP as he backed up the old red van, causing my girl scout leader to laugh so hard so could barely see the road. Taking me canoeing with his boy scout troop when I was five and plucking me out of the water when I fell in. Helping me with math homework, teaching me how to budget my allowance. Tolerating my hamsters and guinea pig, and even voluntarily picking up cinnamon (the guinea pig) every now and then. Supporting me in school, sports, drama, my faith. Pushing me to give things my best effort. Taking the time to talk with me about things (sometimes more than I wanted). Swimming in the ocean with me. Cooking creatively in the kitchen, to the point that I demanded to know exactly –what- went in that omelet before I would eat it. Taking me on visits to colleges. Volunteering with my church youth group hours and hours a week. Mentoring boy scouts. Loving and respecting my mom. Being a peacemaker in our family when things got heated. Telling everyone to be alert… because the world needs more lerts. Teaching me by example how to sleep for 14 hours straight and then being WAY hyper on family vacations. Frying 6 turkeys one thanksgiving to get the most use out of the oil. Opening his Christmas presents one year lying on his back, kicking his feet in the air, pretending to be 5 (while mom was afraid he’d drop the dutch oven he was unwrapping on his face). Always logical, always caring, always a sense of humor.

I see so much of him in myself, and I like that. I inherited his and mom’s heart for service and youth, a big reason I’m where I am now, serving as a PCV working with youth. I feel like I could have explained my career change to him and he would have been supportive, I’m just sorry I never got that chance.

He was also very much in favor of me taking risks and being my own person, so I don’t think it would bother him that I’m hanging out in Africa. I was showing signs of the international travel bug as a freshman in college. I went to him with my plan (that didn’t materialize) of going to Kazakhstan over my first spring break, and we strategized over how best to break the idea to mom without freaking her out. (Keep in mind this was like, 2 months after 9/11).

I have no regrets about how I spent the time I had with my dad. Sure, I was an emotional teenager at times, but we were able to talk things out and nothing was really left unsaid. I’m only sorry that the beginning of our friendship as two adults got cut so short.

I found the following shortly after dad died and I always identified with it. I was 20 when he passed, and the cars full of teenagers would often be going to and from scouting activities and youth group.

A great man died today.

He wasn't a world leader or a famous doctor or a war hero or a sports figure. He was no business tycoon, and you will never see his name in the financial pages. But he was one of the greatest men who ever lived. He was my father.

I guess you might say he was a person who was never interested in getting credit or receiving honors. He did corny things like pay bills on time, go to church on Sunday and serve as an officer in the P.T.A.

He helped his kids with their homework and drove his wife to do the grocery shopping on Thursday nights. He got a great kick out of hauling his teenagers and their friends to and from football games.

Tonight is my first night without him. I don't know what to do with myself. I am sorry now for the times I didn't show him the proper respect. But I am grateful for a lot of other things.

I am thankful that God let me have my father for 15 years. And I am happy that I was able to let him know how much I loved him. That wonderful man died with a smile on his face and fulfillment in his heart. He knew that he was a great success as a husband and a father, a brother, a son, and a friend.

I wonder how many millionaires can say that.