Tag Archives: Change

Drum Roll, Please

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I want to start this off by telling you all how sorry I am that I’ve been so bad about blogging. I am recommitting to blogging and am planning on a post a week from here on out! So here goes this week! The next one will be out sometime between the 13th and 18th, I promise!

It’s official! I have a new site. I’m moving to a place called Kanye. That’s right, like Kanye West. Just the name gives it an air of classy sophistication, am I right? As should be expected, I’ve already nicknamed it Kim and am considering getting a kitten and naming it Saint North. If you know what I’m referencing, I’m sorry, no one should have to waste precious brain space with this information. Kanye is the antithesis of Ralekgetho. So I’m anticipating a little culture shock when I move there. Although, it will be after 6 weeks of staying in the capital, so it may not be that crazy.

I’ve been to Kanye a few times. It’s very near Ralekgetho and I occasionally did grocery shopping there. But I really haven’t explored it. Ralekgetho is barely classified as a village with its population of only 400; Kanye is barely considered a village because of its population of 55,000. It’s the second largest village in Botswana. So naturally, it has many different resources and will come with many different challenges.

Instead of working in a primary school as I was in Ralekgetho, I’ll be working in a senior secondary school. SSS’s only have form 4 and form 5 students, so 11th and 12th grades. Due to the education system here, my students will range in age from 16-24 years old. I’m definitely going to have to hide my age here. Instead of working with 160 students like my primary school in Ralekgetho, I’ll be working with 1,600 students. My job description and projects have also changed quite a bit. I will be teaching guidance classes and holding office hours for counseling students. I’ll also be running most of the clubs that the guidance office is in charge of. As I haven’t started yet, I’m not completely sure of my full job description, but I officially move on the 13th and start work on the 15th. So I’ll know more about the school then.

In Ralekgetho, I was able to work at the clinic and basically see everyone in the village on a weekly basis. In Kanye, I doubt I will ever meet everyone in the village. Instead of an hour hitch hike to my grocery store, I have a thirty minute walk and the grocery store is actually way nicer and has more food options for all my crazy dietary restrictions. There are also many places to explore and hills! So I won’t just be in a hot dry desert anymore. There are actually green things in Kanye!

My house is also going to be an amazing change! Instead of a two and a half where everyone knows when I’ve left my bedroom because the only door goes to the outside, I’m going to have a two bedroom house with only a normal front and back door! No having to go outside to enter my kitchen, living room, or go to the bathroom! That’s right, I have indoor plumbing and running water!!! And from what I heard, it goes out far less than in neighboring villages! So that’s exciting. I also have a geyser, so I can have hot water and, wait for it, ELECTRICITY! That’s right, I went from what people call real Peace Corps to what people call Posh Corps. Not that I really believe there is such a thing as Posh Corps. Just because you don’t have the challenge of no fridge, electricity, or running water, doesn’t mean you don’t have other challenges. So yeah, I’m going to have a really great house and I’m super excited! I’m most excited to have privacy. In my old house, my landlords were constantly watching me, going through my garbage, waking me up (purposefully), complaining about my Setswana, and overall being extremely nosy in my American perspective. So I’m glad to have more privacy and not feel constantly judged!

That’s pretty much all I know about Kanye so far. I’m going to visit tomorrow, Sunday the 7th, to move in more of my stuff. I probably won’t write another post until after the 15th. That way I’ll have more info about the school to talk about. Ooh, I forgot what will be the most impactful part of the move for all of you, I’M GOING TO HAVE WIFI!! I have to learn some self control with that, so my plan is to limit how much messaging and Facebook that I do and then video chat with people more. So on the weekends, I’ll reserve some time to video chat. If you would like to Skype, FaceTime, or Facebook video chat one day, let me know. I probably won’t have it set up until some time in March though.

Lots of love from Bots! 💜

New Year, Fresh Start

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Well, I probably should have written a post a while ago, but a lot has been happening and it took me a while to wrap my head around everything. I’ve been in Gabs for the past two weeks while I wait for training to start. If you read my last post, you know that I’ve been evicted and was in the process of getting a new home in my village. If you follow my Facebook, you know that I have since found out the house I was to move into has fallen through and now I am in Gaborone waiting to find a new village because they couldn’t find me any other housing in Ralekgetho. Now that the situation isn’t as fresh, I think it makes a funny story, but I’ll save that for when I get home.

So, anyway, I am not only houseless, but also villageless. A lot of people at this point have asked me why I’m staying. Many people have left and a lot of people here have said they would have left if they had to go through what I’ve been handling. It’s actually been kind of challenging staying in the hotel that the people who are ET-ing (Early Terminating) are also staying at. I spent two weeks listening to people tell me why they were going home and that they were surprised I would stay after dealing with the already challenging aspects of my village and then being evicted and having to relocate and people trying to decide if they want to stay or go home. This was especially hard because I was trying to actively listen and help them while they were talking themselves into leaving, staying, and then leaving again, without feeling like leaving myself.

The truth is, I have thought a lot about ET-ing, but in the perspective that it really isn’t something I want to do. It’s just one of those things that you have to consider when you’re in these situations here. When I first got evicted, I was upset and wondering if it was my sign that I wasn’t meant to be here, but that thought went away pretty quickly. There are of course reasons why I feel like I don’t need to be here. In a lot of ways, I feel like Peace Corps doesn’t really need to be in this country. I feel like we have been here long enough and that the country is developed enough that we aren’t really needed. In a lot of ways, I feel like Peace Corps is used in this country as a status symbol and a way for the country to get more funding. Most villages here request Peace Corps volunteers because they want to have an American (and are usually disappointed if they’re black) in their village. Of course this isn’t always the case and just because they don’t need us, doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff for us to do. However, I am also always questioning why I am here and whether I am perpetuating a stereotype that white people are smarter and therefore are the only people who can solve the problems in Africa. And why did I decide that I was qualified to come and help a country with a problem that I haven’t even studied? I don’t have a public health background. What kind of expertise do I have to really help the people of Botswana, that the people of Botswana don’t already have? Why can’t they help themselves? Even with all of these questions and internal struggles I have with myself, I’m not ready to go home.

I came here for more than this idealistic image that I was going to be some sort of savior. I came here to learn about another culture, help under privileged populations, learn about my culture through others eyes, process my own knowledge and opinions of my own culture, learn more about myself, make growth and positive changes for myself that I didn’t think were possible in the toxic environments in America, and broaden my horizons. I wanted to have knowledge and experience beyond my little American bubble so that I could understand more about what people in this world are going through and how they’re culture and views affect that.

In these nearly 6 months, I have learned so much about myself, America, and Botswana. I have grown in ways I wasn’t sure were possible. I’ve accomplished goals that I have been struggling with for years. And I’ve already touched people’s lives around me. I’m not ready to go home, because I’m not ready to stop this journey. I want to see how healthy I can get living in the desert without a car and eating a diet that is nearly all unprocessed foods. I want to see how many more mental health changes I can make to eliminate even more stress, anxiety, and insecurity. I want to challenge myself in ways that aren’t possible in America. I want to read fifteen books a month and not be falling behind on other stuff. I want to learn how to really live on my own, budget for myself, cook for one person without wasting food, and finally get some routine in my life. I want to use this opportunity for everything it’s worth.

My next village may have even fewer amenities than my last or it could have way more. Hey, maybe I’ll have running water and electricity. The village could speak more English than my last village did. It could have more infrastructure than my last village. Ooh, it might have some form of transportation besides hitch hiking in pickups that look like they may just break into a million pieces in the middle of the ride. Maybe my school will have more corporal punishment, or maybe it won’t exist. Maybe there will be more than one hundred students and seven teachers. It might even be a Junior or Senior secondary instead of a primary school. We really have no idea, but it also doesn’t matter. I didn’t come here to work with one specific population on one specific issue. I came here to work in Botswana wherever they needed me. Wherever I am, there will be challenges, but another word for challenge is OPPORTUNITY!! That’s all this is. It’s just an amazing opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact in a different place. So, no, I’m not thinking of going home. Even if I wanted to, I have no money, so I would just be couch surfing until I got a job. Why not stay in a safe, secure, and beautiful place for two years and have a little more money and experience when I come home instead?

Food ready for meal on table

A New Home for the Holidays

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A lot has happened this month and I have yet to document it. First off, I had a training in Ghanzi and got to live a week in a malaria zone! During that week I learned that the rash I’ve been developing has not been heat rash, but is instead something called Dermatitis Herpetiformis (I just call it DH). DH is a rash associated with Celiac Disease. So this confirms that I got my moms genetics and now every time I get into gluten (even trace amounts) I get this rash. Celiac is an autoimmune disease, so my body is essentially attacking itself instead of the gluten that it can’t process. It really sucks to find out that for the next 80 years of my life (yes, I’m planning to live to 102 like my great grandma) I won’t be able to eat any gluten, but it’s also kind of what I needed to get myself to stop eating it. I have a nasty habit of letting myself cheat and I doubt I would have ever reigned myself in well if I didn’t finally have something show me the severity of my condition. Right before figuring this out, I also decided I was very allergic to chicken eggs and have since confirmed that. So I can no longer eat any gluten or chicken eggs (if only there were ducks here in this landlocked desert country!). So that’s what’s been happening on the health front. I’ve also officially lost over 50 pounds since getting here, so that’s another step toward a healthier me!

After my training, I went back to my village. I was supposed to stay there from the second week of December all the way to Christmas Eve, but that changed a little when I got back. There is no school in December (it’s their summer break here), so I was spending most of my days spending a couple hours hanging out with my tutor/one of my only friends in the village/one of the only people who understands and speaks enough English to talk to me, and then watching a couple movies and reading a ton. So I was essentially doing nothing and it was quite nice, but a week before Christmas, I was laying in bed barely awake when my supervisor and the village councillor came to my house. They told me there was a problem with my rent and asked how long it would take me to pack my things up and move. I was shocked. My landlord hadn’t said anything to me (although, there is a huge language barrier there) and my supervisor never once said there was a problem brewing either. All I wanted to do was call someone because I was really freaking out, but I was expecting to be able to charge everything that day at the clinic, so all of my electronics and battery packs were dead. I had to just send my phone and charger with my supervisor and hurry up and pack.

I got all of my things packed and ready in 2 hours and then my supervisor and a few villagers helped me load everything in a trailer and move it to the school compound into a teacher’s house. The house was currently vacant because all of the teachers were gone for the festive season and the teacher who had lived in that house wasn’t returning. But as soon as the new teacher comes in January, I’ll have to be out of that house. My supervisor just kept saying he didn’t think there was a house in the village for me and they were probably going to send me to a new site. I called my Peace Corps program director and he was very helpful, but said he wouldn’t be able to come out until the next day and I just needed to sit tight.

So I spent a night in an unfamiliar house, terrified of these little beetles that have infested the school grounds (They lay on you and essentially pee. Their urine burns your skin and you have basically a chemical burn the size of a quarter. It’s horrifying.), hearing noises that sound like my door being opened, and sleeping with the light on and a can of Doom (bug spray) by my side in case I was attacked by these flying beetles. Needless to say, I got maybe 3 hours of sleep that night.

The next morning, my program manager and the volunteer liaison show up to talk to me and my supervisor. It turns out that it was a huge misunderstanding between my supervisor, landlord, and the Ministry of Education who pay my rent. So my landlord was frustrated and decided he wanted a different tenant and my supervisor overreacted and pulled me out without considering options. Luckily, my supervisor was able to find a new house for me though. So we went to see the new house, it’s beautiful! Way bigger, it’s going to have electricity, and it has so much more privacy than I had before. I’m very excited for it, but it, unfortunately, won’t be ready until late February, early March. So for the moment, I will be staying on the teacher compound, but moving to a smaller house so that two teachers can share the larger one I’m in right now. They may not love me for that, but I’m not supposed to live with someone. I think this really was a good thing because I was very uncomfortable in my old house (mostly just tolerating it because I thought it was my only option) and this new house is going to be amazing. And because this all happened the week before Christmas, I got to go to Bethany’s house early!

So now, let’s talk about Yule/Christmas! So I got to Bethany a week early, and unfortunately a day before my holiday package from my brother and mom arrived, so I couldn’t pick it up. We have just been chilling and hanging out. I helped her with some stuff at her school the first few days and then we’ve been celebrating our holidays in little spurts to make sure we don’t get too homesick. It’s hard to celebrate winter holidays in the summer. It’s just too hot and feels very strange. It’s also hard to do some things that you’ve always done with specific people. I tried to sit down and watch Scrooge and the whole time I felt like I should be sitting with my mom watching it. It just felt wrong, but we did make delicious feasts. Of course, they weren’t as big as they’d be in the states, but when you normally make as little as we do, they felt like feasts. I made my favorites on Yule and celebrated my holiday and Bethany made her favorites on Christmas Eve to celebrate some of her traditions. Everything came out perfectly and I’ve probably eaten as much in this last week as I did all of last month.

Bethany and I haven’t tried to kill each other yet! So that’s a major accomplishment. Although, we still have nearly a week together, so you never know what will happen. I was granted a small extension to stay here through the 2nd because there were some concerns about my safety on the school compound alone since the other teachers don’t come back until the weekend of the 2nd. It’s all just a precaution though and I’m sure once everyone is back in the village I’ll feel much safer and things will go back to normal. It’s just been a big emotional mess.

I’m excited to get back to my site and start the new year though! I have a feeling it’s going to be a great one! As always, I miss and love you all back home. And I hope you had the merriest of Christmases and happiest of Yules, Hanukkahs, and all other holidays. My next holidays here are New Years and then my 22nd in a couple of weeks. Happy New Year everyone!

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

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I hope you all laughed at that because it looks nothing like Christmas here. Although, in Letlhakeng where I was for the weekend they have a really bright white road and rocks and if you just squint right, it looks like snow. Then you also have to find a way to reconcile why it’s 95 degrees and it looks like there’s snow on the ground, but the world isn’t perfect, so you just have to do your best.

The weather is one of the biggest factors for why it doesn’t feel like the holiday season. It’s too hot, dry, and sunny for me to feel like drinking hot cocoa and preparing for a turkey slaughter. Obviously, those aren’t going to be part of my holidays for these two years, but they’re just a few of the things I took for granted back in America.

The holidays come with a lot of homesickness and that’s OK. They should, it means I have something at home worth missing and that is the most beautiful thing that I will never take for granted again. I want to acknowledge my homesickness, because as John Green so eloquently wrote, “pain demands to be felt”, but I also want to acknowledge that my homesickness is just one small part of my experience and I have so much to be grateful for here. I had a whole post written about my cynicism, annoyances, and homesickness, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I decided to write this one about what I’m grateful for instead. That doesn’t mean I won’t be posting a cynical one in the future, but you all get a small reprieve from my negativity for now 😊

So here are the many things I am grateful for this year:

My family. Both blood and built. I’m grateful for all of you and wouldn’t be where I am without you. I especially want to thank my mom and brother and two best friends Melanie and Bethany for all of the support they’ve given me through this adventure. My whole Peace Corps family is amazing and Thanksgiving was a little more bearable after we made an amazing Thanksgiving feast complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, peach crisp, and much more.

I’m thankful for hot showers and bath tubs. I don’t have either in my house, so when I’m off to a training or visiting a volunteer with more amenities, I am sure to be in the shower/bath at least once a day.

I’m grateful that my school has electricity and I’m able to charge things there. I really only miss having my own electricity occasionally. I’ve grown very used to it already.

I’m grateful for my health and that I am able to just keep getting healthier. I’ve lost 50 pounds since getting here and can already feel the small changes that makes. I still have a ways to go to be to the physical fitness and health I want to be at, but I’m grateful that I’m able to make healthy and positive changes.

I’m grateful for my literacy. I can’t imagine not being able to read. Which brings me to my gratefulness of books. Books can bring you into such an alternate universe, and make you feel an amazing array of emotions. I’ve read 40 books since getting here and it has truly helped with my homesickness.

I’m grateful for the people in my village who really want me there and are making positive changes already. Even though it seems my supervisor is not at the same level of distaste for corporal punishment, my counterpart may be able to still help me abolish it. When I first met with my counterpart, he didn’t think we would be able to eliminate corporal punishment, or that any of the teachers were at fault for the poor results of the school. It’s very common here to blame the students, saying that they aren’t trying to learn, so how can the teachers teach them. Since that meeting though, he has brought up eliminating corporal punishment in a staff meeting with no provocation from me and told the teachers during a test results discussion that they must be doing something wrong and they all need to reevaluate their teaching strategies. These two small changes are huge here! I’m so happy that after only 2 months of knowing my counterpart, I’ve been able to plant little seeds of change.

I’m grateful for a roof over my head, and water to keep me hydrated. That’s more than a lot of people have and I am extremely lucky to have both.

I’m thankful for my resilience, openness to change, and drive. I know my drive can seem extreme and overwhelming at times, but it has helped me accomplish so much in my life. I am extremely happy to always be motivated for positive change.

I am grateful for the earth and how much shit it puts up with from us humans. I only hope I can help to protect it as much as possible in my short life.

I’m grateful for the insanity of time. Even when I think time is going to move so slowly and I’m going to be somewhere forever, I look at the date and realize I’ve been here 4 months. Time here is very different than at home because life here is so different, but I love that it’s been 4 months and that I still have 23 left.

I’m thankful for a lot of small things that makes America my home and I can’t wait to be home, but I’m also so grateful for this experience. It was definitely not the Thanksgiving I’m used to, but homesickness or not, I’m really happy here. I love that I’m doing something so out of the box and even if it’s not everything I thought it would be, it’s life changing.

Boredom Has Struck

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This post was written on November 1st

I knew it was just a matter of time before my newfound relaxation was going to turn into boredom, but I was hoping I’d be able to stave it off for a bit. Unfortunately, it’s here. Yesterday was Halloween and it felt very strange for me to not be celebrating. So instead, I spent the day contemplating what I could be doing in various places in my house. Laying in bed, “maybe I should just keep reading”. Laying on the floor after doing sit-ups, “maybe I could watch a movie”. Sitting on the couch after my computer died in the middle of the first episode of ER, “maybe I should cook something, I’ve been meaning to try to make kettle corn”. Standing in my kitchen after deciding to not make kettle corn and instead eat a cookie, “I guess I could write some letters”. And so on and so forth. It got to the point where I couldn’t wait until it was dark and I could go to bed without feeling bad about myself.

Part of it is the heat, when it 99°F outside and my plaster house retains the heat so it’s really like 105°F inside, it’s hard to want to do anything. It’s also that this is more free time than I’ve ever had. When I was a kid, I was always at work with my mom and busy. When I started college, I was taking 20 credits and working four jobs. When I was in grad school, I was taking more than a full time load and working. I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m alone with this much time. There isn’t anywhere in the community I could go either unless I want to be ridiculed for my lack of Setswana at some random persons house because all the people I know are gone on the weekends.

When I’m bored in the states, I eat. I’m trying really hard not to do that here because it’s really not healthy and I don’t want to lose my momentum of losing weight (I’ve lost nearly 40 pounds). I tried filling my time with extra exercise, but there are only so many squats I can do when my legs are already tired from trudging through loose sand all week. I’ve been reading a lot (5.5 books this week alone), but that’s a lot of new information for my mind to assimilate, so I can’t fill all my time with that. I can watch about 2 movies before my computer battery dies, so that doesn’t get too far. And then once it’s dead, I can’t easily work on my community assessment or writing. I’ve been writing Christmas cards, but I get terrible cramps from my shoulder down through my wrist if I do that too long as well. I can write these blog posts, communicate with friends, and play solitaire on my phone, but my phone battery only lasts so long as well. So now I spend a fair amount of time chasing flies around my room trying to kill them and I’ve taken to learning all the solitaire games in the According to Hoyle book. It’s keeping me occupied for now. Maybe I just need to get a little more creative with how I occupy my time. Hey, I’ve got 2 years to figure it out, right?

It’s Getting Hot In Here, So Wet Down All Your Clothes

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Well, we’re officially in spring. I wish it were like the beautiful Washington spring, but instead it’s days of 100 degree weather with no air conditioning or cooling systems. I only just discovered that my home stay has ice cubes, but I can’t get used to that because I most likely won’t have a fridge/freezer in my site. It’s also culturally inappropriate to wear clothes that reveal your knees (specifically your knee pits) and your shoulders and armpits. So I have sweat more this month than I think I have sweat in the rest of my life combined. I’ve started taking cold baths nightly and soaking my t-shirt to get some coolness from that. This is mostly why I decided to cut my hair.

I was trying to grow it out because I thought I would like to pull it back in a ponytail. That way I could go upwards of 6 days without washing it and it would be out of my face. That was a good plan until my sweat was making it so that I had to wash it more often, and I realized I don’t like just pulling my hair back everyday. So I asked Bethany and Evan to buzz my hair (Brenna came along to give support and suggestions). There was a little confusion on what I wanted at first and with how much hair I have, it took over two hours to get the first cut. So we stopped a little earlier than I wanted and decided we’d go back to it. Bethany cut a little more off the top a few days later. And about a week after that we went back at it with the buzzer. Evan didn’t feel comfortable cutting more off, so I enlisted Brad. He went at it happily and then Fatima joined in because she thought it looked fun. Finally we got it to a nice short length that I can not worry about for my lockdown period until In-Service Training in January where my friends will help me out again.

We’ll have to see how hot it still is in January. It will most likely be pretty terrible still as that is the end of summer/beginning of fall. It supposedly starts cooling down for winter around April. I’m not used to this weather, but I am adjusting slightly. We’ll see how it goes.

What am I doing with my life?

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This is one of a few posts written while I could not sleep one night during my site visit a few weeks ago.

Today I took a 5 hour nap in the middle of the day, so naturally it’s 1 am and I can’t get my mind to shut down. So here are a few ramblings of the future. But first let me take you to a glimpse of the past:

I’ve known that I’ve had a passion for psychology since I really dug into college when I was 16 and since then have been exploring different paths I thought I might want to pursue with psychology. The latest of which was to go back to school when I returned from Peace Corps to get my masters and licensure and then hopefully my doctorate in social work. I’ve been thinking that I want to start my own child therapy practice with an emphasis in trauma and that plan hasn’t really changed, but tonight I lay awake for hours wondering if that was really the best plan for me and if I would really be good at that. I think a major part of why that came up for me is because I’ve been thinking hard about whether I will want to extend in the Peace Corps.

I know at this point you’re probably thinking, what the hell is wrong with this girl, doesn’t she know how to be present and let life just unfold. The truth is, no, I don’t really know how to do that. I’ve always had pride in my motivation, drive, and preparedness and that comes from always thinking about the future. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely live in the present and enjoy the experiences I have, but when my brain just has time to free flow, it goes to the future and that has helped me to accomplish everything I have in my short 21 years. So yes, I’m having this amazing experience in Africa and still thinking of the future.

So originally, before I even got accepted into the Peace Corps, I was already thinking of extending my service. All the RPCVs I had met who had had the best services had extended, you get extra money in the end, and I thought that once I came home, I would want to settle down and build a life in one spot and that wouldn’t leave time to do something like this again. What I’ve realized is that you don’t actually need two whole years to get a good appreciation of a culture (although, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more in the time to come and all of the views of this post may change). I already have learned far more about Botswana in these 2 months than I would have imagined. So maybe settling down with a career and a house, and traveling and working abroad aren’t mutually exclusive. Once I realized that I could have more experiences like this after I’ve established my career, the need to extend fell away. I realized that I don’t need to prove anything by being away from home for more than 2 years (that’s already a hell of a long time). So maybe I don’t need to extend, but then this changed my thinking of what I would be doing when I got home.

So anyway, I had lots of doubts and questions about what I was doing with my life and after about 4 hours of hard thinking about it and consulting with the people who know me best, I decided to stop thinking about it with the realization that nothing has really changed and who knows what the future will bring. I just need to maintain my way of planning and then changing the plans with life. I’m sure I’m bound to go back to this question many times in my service and maybe it will change, or maybe the plan I’ve been hashing since I was 16 will persevere through all of life’s many changes.

Pieces of me are slipping away

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This is one of a few posts written while I could not sleep one night during my site visit a few weeks ago.

Everyday, I lose a little more of my American identity. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can also be kind of shocking and sad. Here everything is changing, now I just need to own these changes and decide how to handle them. Here are a few of the changes:

My name: In America, I’m known as Joiwyn or variations of that depending how close we are. I take great pride in having a beautiful and unique name and always having to explain it (it essentially means pure joy). And I love my name and would never change it. Here, my name is Kesaobaka or Kesa for short. It’s important to have a Setswana name to integrate better and also because a name like Joiwyn is hard for Batswana (the people of Botswana) to pronounce. Kesaobaka means I praise Him. I haven’t met anyone else with the name, so that better than being one of the 20 Mpho’s or many Neo’s of our training group. And I understand the message behind it, although not being Christian myself made me a little put off by it at first. I do love this Setswana name, but I often miss being called Joiwyn and feel like it’s a part of my identity that I’ve lost.

My language: In my village very few people speak English. So I’m pretty much forced to learn as much Setswana as possible. I really enjoy learning the language and being able to communicate with people here, but it also feels like I’m losing a piece of myself. I can’t communicate as fully in Setswana and went from having a rather large vocabulary to a very small one. You don’t realize how much comfort comes from speaking your mother tongue until you’re forced to use it very little and in very different ways to promote understanding.

My beliefs: In America, I held pride in owning who I was and freely admitting things like my age and my religion. Here, I’ve started to hide those things. This culture puts a lot of emphasis on being older, so my age loses me respect already even though I don’t tell people how old I am. Many people ask me how old I am and guess around 20 or 21. Which is strange for me since I’m America everyone guessed I was older than I am. I’ve started to say that it’s rude to ask your age in America and I refuse to answer. Religion is a similar issue. Nearly everyone is Christian and today I was told that they try to promote everyone to be Christian so that they can find their salvation. I get asked a lot what prayer group or church I go to at home. I answer honestly that I didn’t go to church and that I was raised with a different religion, but if they probe further, I say that in America religion isn’t usually an open topic. A lot of people keep their religion very private.

Food: I used food for comfort in America. I know it wasn’t healthy, but it was how I coped with things. Here I don’t do that because my comfort foods aren’t here. I’ve found that I eat far less here than I did in America, which is not a bad thing and have found other coping mechanisms for my anxiety or homesickness. I miss my favorite foods, but have also managed to lose 25 pounds because the food I eat here is actually a lot healthier than what I ate at home as well as the reduced portion sizes.

My family: I’ve found that I talk to my brother a ton more and my father quite a bit more since getting here because they both have strong Facebook messaging skills. Unfortunately, I’ve been talking to my mom far less and that has been a little hard. We used to talk on the phone everyday in America. I’ve barely talked to my other brother or sisters. And my friends have been a mixed bag. It’s been hard losing some communication, but what’s even worse is the way people here try to fill the hole. I’ve loved having host moms, but I don’t want to replace my mom. I didn’t come here to get new families, so it’s just felt a little overwhelming having new people to answer to and having these expectations wrapped around me. That is why I was a little worried about my forever home being another home stay, but after talking to my supervisor, it sounds like that is less of a concern.

And lastly my assurance: I’ve been a student for the last 5 years and I’ve known how to do that. I’ve been good at that. I don’t feel as sure that I’ll be good at this. As the first volunteer in my village, I feel like the village is expecting me to make all of these great changes and solve all of these problems and I’m just worried that I’m not actually going to be able to help at all. I’m more worried about failing than I’ve ever been before, but on the flip side, I’m not even sure if I can fail here. Isn’t my just being here making an impact? I’ve always been a worried person raddled with anxiety, but this is a whole new level. Every activity has a new level of anxiety attached to it.

However, I know that with everything I lose, I gain something else. I think my biggest worry is that I will change so much here that I won’t fit into how people see me back home. Change is not inherently bad, as long as I make sure to keep hold of the things that are most important to me.

Women Sitting

Toto, We’re not in Kansas Anymore

Peace Corps, , , , ,

This post was written on Sept 10th. It was posted out of order with the last one “Adjustment” for timing reasons.

So I obviously knew when I decided to move to Botswana that I was leaving what I knew behind and I’m totally OK with that. These are just a few of the differences that I’ve really noticed here in Botswana that I think are interesting to share:

  • The cultural expectation here is that you greet everyone you see and every time you see them. So everyone on the street greets you. Unless you decide to look like a really unfriendly American, but I don’t suggest that. It’s also really common for people to know my name and for little children to run after me. So these are definitely a few things that you don’t expect in America. When I would walk down the street in America, I would usually either give a friendly smile and head nod or pretend that my eyes have forgotten how to raise high enough for eye contact. Here it is considered rude to not greet everyone you see.
  • Fat is good. I repeat, being fat is considered good! It’s seen as a sign of status. If you’re fat, you must have enough money to feed yourself well. Of course, Western views are influencing the culture, so some of the younger folks think that fat is bad. However, I’ve had more strangers here call me beautiful and fat in a good way in the past month than I had in the 21 years of living in the states.
  • On that same note, since I am fat, I am supposed to eat like my brothers (AKA way too much). I’m not really down for that for multiple reasons. Honestly, I didn’t eat that much in one sitting even when I was eating food that was not as carb heavy and strange to my system. Here, every meal is at least half rice or phaltshe and there are generally also potatoes or some other grain or carb. I get full after like five bites. It’s also way hotter for me here, so that makes me eat less. Also, I’m still trying to lose weight, so I don’t want to eat that much. Unfortunately, eating less is seen as bad here. Either you don’t like the cooking, or you are feel depressed. So that’s why there was a little bit of a miscommunication with my host mom and I at the beginning of my stay.
  • Religion. I am a firm believer in owning your identity and not letting others oppress you, or even worse oppress yourself to fit into what others want you to be. So I didn’t hold my beliefs back when my host mom asked. With her, it was OK because she thinks of me as her child and believes she has to accept me no matter what, but there are a few people that it causes tension with. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not yelling from the rooftops “Hey Christians, I don’t believe in God”, but if I’m directly asked if I believe in God, I don’t like lying. I should be able to celebrate my own faith and that shouldn’t really be anyone else’s business. My host mom is very religious, so I went to church with her one Sunday. They had someone sit with me and translate because my mother is in the choir, so I was sitting alone. The woman translating for me kept asking if I knew the various stories and when I would reply that I didn’t she looked shocked each time. Then, at the end of the service, I was cornered by a gentleman who asked me what my prayer group was at home, whether I was a Christian and then the question I can’t get away from “Do you believe in God?” When I told him that I wasn’t raised Christian and that I don’t really believe in a God, he wouldn’t leave me alone about it. He kept saying things like “if God doesn’t exist, how do we exist?” and when I would respond, he would just ask it again in a different way and say things like “No, Kesa, there must be a God. How can you not believe in God?” So I’m still trying to decide if I will start skirting around the question more, or just keep owning my identity no matter what others think.
  • “Why did you draw on yourself, Kesa? Will they come off?” These were the first questions that my host mom asked me about my tattoos. They’re definitely not as common here, but they are becoming more accepted as more youth get them. My host mom’s views have fluctuated on it. Once, she told me that she liked my tattoos and wanted some herself, but was afraid of needles. Then the other day, she saw my thigh tattoo for the first time. She told me she would beat my brother if he ever came home with a tattoo and that I would never find a husband. I told her that I didn’t want a husband that didn’t accept and like my tattoos as a part of me. She didn’t have much else to say after that.

That’s all I can think of right off the bat, but my personal site, Ralekgetho, is going to be an even more drastic difference. My brother mentioned to me yesterday, that he thinks I’ve gone through good transitions to get me ready for my official site. From America, to South Africa, Gabs, Molepolole, and then Ralekgetho. It’s been a small step further into the middle of nowhere with each new place. I can’t wait to see what other new changes are in store. Here I come, Ralekgetho!!