Tag Archives: Ralekgetho

Clouds and trees

What I Wish I Had Known (Part 3): Weather

Coming from Washington, I’m really used to one type of weather: rainy. When I lived in Montana, I got to experience a hotter Summer and a much colder Winter, but I was fully prepared for that and I had access and money to make apparel edits when needed. Unfortunately, I was not as prepared for weather here.

When we arrived in Molepolole, Botswana, it was pretty warm for most of the day, but colder at night. That was OK because I was coming from Washington Summer which was rather hot last year, but still not as hot as it gets here. I was also 280 pounds and had clothes that fit me well. I wore a zip-up hoodie almost every day and long pants or skirts. When I arrived in Ralekgetho in mid September for site visit, it was rather cold and windy for the whole two weeks. Ralekgetho is more desert than Molepolole though, so there was less of a wind shield and fewer things to retain heat. When I arrived at site officially in October, it was full Summer. Very hot and dry. We had many rain and lightening storms, but mostly just very hot days. I didn’t have electricity, so I didn’t have a fan. I spent most of my days in as little clothing as possible or in wet clothing. By November, I was also down to 240 pounds. My record high for Ralekgetho was 110°F.

I got evicted from my house in late December and I stayed with my best friend in Otse for 3 weeks. She lives in what we call Narnia. Her house is surrounded by orange and mango trees and grape vines, so she has a lot of shade. Her house was much cooler for those three weeks which were also in the high 90s/low 100s. In the beginning of January, it became apparent I couldn’t stay in Ralekgetho and I was put up in a hotel in Gabs until our In Service Training (IST). So I got to stay in an air conditioned hotel for two weeks before IST and the four weeks of IST. I really lucked out on not having to endure those six weeks of crazy heat.

When I got moved to Kanye in mid February it was already cooling down and I also have electricity, so I was able to immediately invest in a fan. I only used the fan for about a month before I no longer felt like I needed it. I also was down to 220 pounds at that point and my body had far less insulation than previously. It has been a nice couple months of being in the 70s and 80s, but these past two weeks have chilled considerably. Kanye is also a much different terrain than Ralekgetho. We’re in and on many hills here and it gets much colder apparently. The mornings have been in the mid 40s and the afternoons have barely gotten to the low 70s.

I am not handling the cold as well as I thought I would. I’m at around 210 pounds now and still losing, so I have lost 70 pounds of fat insulation and will be losing more. I also didn’t have a fan for most of the summer, so I had to endure the heat a little differently and I think I acclimated a little more. I also no longer have any clothes that fit me well. All my warm clothes are far too big, and I also didn’t bring a lot of clothes because I knew I was going to lose weight. Our houses are also made of cement and have no insulation, so they are often times colder than it is outside. Luckily, Peace Corps provided us with large and warm blankets, so I stay warm at night, but have the worst time getting out of bed in the morning. And this isn’t even fully winter yet. July is supposed to be the worst. My brother will most likely be visiting in July and my plan is to do awesome things with him, but otherwise spend the rest of July in bed or working out since the school takes all of July off.

Clouds and trees
Storm in Ralekgetho, Botswana

What I Wish I Had Known (Part 1)

I’ve been a little down the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t been good about blogging. Sorry! I know you probably don’t really care, but I said I was going to be better about it, so I care. This post is going to be a little long and as I started writing it, I realized it was going to be far too long. So it’s actually going to go out in installments. This first will be mostly about my job. The next will be about cultural differences and I’ll try to get it out in less than a week.

This series of posts is mostly aimed at the new trainees coming to Botswana in July/August. I promised them I would write a bit about what it’s like here, what I packed, etc. So, it’s aimed at them, but will also be pretty informative about what my life is like here for all you curious friends and family out there.

I’m going to get extremely real in this series of posts, so I just want to put a disclaimer that these are my perceptions and feelings toward my service currently. I do know many volunteers who agree with me on many points, but I really can only speak for myself and my one perspective out of the 120ish volunteers currently in country. I also want to make a point that this gives you an idea of what your service could sort of look like, but everyone has completely different services and faces many different challenges. So I don’t want you to read this and start building expectations that this is exactly what your service will look like. This is my service and no one else is going to have the exact same experiences as me. So here goes.

Here’s a look at my job, both what my job would have been in Ralekgetho and what my job is here in Kanye:
I’m what’s called a life skills volunteer in the Youth in Development sector. I’m in a unique situation because I’m going through a second community integration phase right now. While my fellow volunteers are really getting into their jobs, I’m still trying to figure out what my job is going to look like. That being said, because of my unique circumstances, I’m able to tell you about two very different Botswana experiences.

In Ralekgetho (my first village) I worked at a small primary school of only 160 students. That’s the smallest school I’ve heard of here. I refused to teach because I didn’t think that was sustainable or useful when what I’m here for is to help with HIV/AIDS work. The main thing we’re supposed to do in schools is help them to implement a curriculum called living or life skills. In the primary school level, it’s mostly about self awareness, self-esteem, and other basic mental and physical health topics. It really isn’t until standards 5-7, which are the last three grades at the primary level, that you go into more HIV related topics. A large issue we face here that the national language is considered English and so their standardized testing is done in English, but more often than not, the students are taught in Setswana and their English is not good enough to read the tests. This can lead to students failing out of school and falling into more risky behavior which can lead to HIV. So we are expected to help rectify this situation a bit.

So this is what I had planned for projects: I was going to start 3 English clubs, one for standards 1, 2, and 3, one for standards 4 and 5, and one for standards 6 and 7. I was also helping the health post in my village and they wanted to do monthly health talks for the community. So the standard 7 teacher and I had planned to teach the standard 7s a health topic and have them lead the health talks for the community. My tutor in the community wanted to start a girl guide troop and I have a lot of experience as a Girl Scout for 11 years, and the founder and leader of a large troop of 30 girls for 3 years, so I was going to help her with that. The community seemed a little disjointed from the school, so I was planning a monthly newsletter to share more of what was happening with the school and community as a whole. I was also planning monthly events to address vision issues in the school, oral hygiene, gender based violence, etc. I was also planning to fix up the school library, have library hours to talk to students, and start reading clubs.

I had a lot of plans and normally I wouldn’t try to start so many different projects, but I was really able to integrate in Ralekgetho and had many people who wanted to help with these projects. So I had a lot of hope that they would be sustainable and successful. Since I had to leave that village before I was able to begin anything, we really have no idea how successful I would have been. I’ve heard of volunteers who’ve had 20 or so ideas and not a single one was successful in their service. There are just too many factors involved to really know if something will take off. Ralekgetho was also one of the few sites that had never had a volunteer before. So I was really starting everything from scratch.

Kanye is very different. First off, I’m in a senior secondary school, so I’m working with form 4 and 5 students (11th and 12th grades). I am teaching, more like facilitating, 14 classes a week on guidance and living topics. So similar to the living curriculum for the primary school, just more in depth and we have a whole period to discuss the topics instead of just infusing it into other lessons. I also have office hours to work with students one on one for guidance and counseling. On top of that I am facilitating a club called teen talk and helping with the PACT (peer approach to counseling by teens) club. I’m also assisting a local man in starting a youth center. Besides the youth center, I am just filling in the shoes of the previous volunteer. I never really had interest in teaching, but my counterparts expected me to just do what the previous volunteer did. They had already made a schedule of my classes before I even moved here.

In Ralekgetho, I had all the control over my job and here I have no control. In the end, this job is going to be more applicable to my education and career pursuits, but is also less free and open for me to make my own path. In many ways, I feel like I am just acting as another guidance and counseling teacher. So I feel that this job is less sustainable than what I was doing in Ralekgetho. In Ralekgetho I had other teachers and counterparts who were equally as invested in the projects with me. Here, I am pretty much on my own with my projects. When I leave, what I’m currently doing is not going to continue. My teen talk club won’t continue, and my classes will most likely be dispersed amongst the other two teachers, but many times they don’t actually attend their own classes as is; other things seem to take priority. So the amount of teaching will also go down. It’s challenging to think that I won’t be making a real impact in the school, but hopefully I’ll be making a real impact with the students.

No matter what your work looks like here, you’ll have less control than you’ll be used to from American jobs; you just have to find the little things that can keep you going. For me, it’s knowing that I can be a positive influence to my kids. I can help that form 5 who’s being bullied because he comes off as gay (which is further complicated by the fact that any form of sex besides penile/vaginal intercourse is illegal here), or that student who wants to know how to make it through school when she feels all her motivation is gone. I can be that non-judgmental active listener, that I’ve never seen anywhere else in this country. A lot of the time, people just need validation, and I can give that. If that helps a student to succeed and in turn help or influence someone else in the future, I’ve made a sustainable impact. That’s what I have to hold onto.

Watch for my next post on cultural differences! (It is now available here.)

Drum Roll, Please

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

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

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 a Village Life for Me

Well, I’ve officially been at site for nearly two weeks (probably two by the time you read this). It’s been an interesting beginning. With a village this small and underdeveloped, they’ve never really encountered a white person or an American before. So I’ve kind of become the village show pony. This week we had two major events: a Kgotla meeting with the Vice President of the country and a torch lighting ceremony for the 50th anniversary of Botswana’s Independence. Both of these events were opportunities for the village to dress me up, make me sing and dance, talk to me in lots of Setswana that I couldn’t understand, touch my tattoos, and make me sit right in the front of everything. Both events made me very uncomfortable, but I’m glad my village is trying to accept me as one of their own and hopefully my newness will wear off a bit and they won’t all be touching and grabbing me. Setswana is probably my biggest challenge though. I managed to test as intermediate high at the end of training, but that really didn’t prepare me for speaking it here. Everyone talks very quickly mixing all their words together making it impossible to differentiate them and when I ask them (in Setswana) to repeat what they said slowly, they just change what they’re asking to fit their limited English. So I don’t feel like I’m learning any and I don’t know how to respond to something I don’t understand. Since my village has an extremely low percentage of people who speak English, even the kids who are supposed to be learning it in school for up to 7 years already, I’m definitely going to need to keep working on my Setswana. They say it’s the easiest language to learn and I’ll be fluent in the next two months! We’ll see about that.

Otherwise I’m just in my community assessment, so my days aren’t very busy. Once my Setswana is better, I plan to visit every family’s home and interview every member of the village! I think that would be a great way to get the whole community involved and hear what everyone thinks of the village. Currently, I just go to the school every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I stay long enough to charge all of my electronics and chat with the teachers. When everyone else is busy, I study my Setswana, read, or work on my community assessment. On Wednesdays I go to the clinic to help with anything they need and chat with the nurses. They disperse their HIV medications on one of the last Wednesday’s of the month. In the evenings and weekends, I do my chores like washing the laundry, cooking, sweeping, bathing, etc… and I do lots of reading (I’ve read 4 books since getting here). Sometimes I’ll write some letters (I’m trying to make that a daily thing) or watch a movie, but I mostly read.

I also hosted my first visitors this past weekend. Mike and Marcy who are volunteers I shadowed with in a nearby village called Thamaga. They came over to help me hang my bug net, some picture, fix a couple door locks, move my gas cylinder outside, and help with some other household mends. My house feels so much more like home now! I was very happy to have some friends over who are so amazing and kind to help me! The next step for the house is to have my landlord and a roof guy come fix the roof so that when the wind comes, it doesn’t blow off (right now it lifts about 4 inches with big gusts of wind).

Overall, I’m settling in very well and I’m extremely excited to start my projects! I really feel like this is the perfect village for me and I can’t wait to see how these two years go! What an adventure I’m on!

Outside of building

Oh, that’s a scorpion

Well, it’s been a week since I swore in, packed up all my belongings, and headed to Ralekgetho. Of course it was my luck to start getting a stomach bug during the move and keep it for the whole weekend. That didn’t stop me from getting settled though! My house is called a two and a half because it’s two and a half rooms. On the left is my bedroom, it’s the newest room to the house and the plaster keeps shifting and crumbling off. It’s really fun when it’s one a.m. and I notice that’s happening because it falls on my face 😉. The middle is my small kitchen, and the right is my sitting room. I’m lucky to have a new house and the freedom to make changes. They’re also very helpful when I notice things that need fixing. My roof had some holes in the tin sheeting where my room would have flooded if the rain came, but they’ve already patched those up. When the wind really hits the roof it likes to lift up 2x4s and all about 4 inches. So hopefully my roof doesn’t blow off. But otherwise it’s very nice. I’m allowed to paint, so I’ll be doing that soon and as my landlord gets money he’s going to make improvements. I may even have electricity by February!

My furniture is very nice. I have a couch, desk, chair, bed, wardrobe, kitchen cabinet unit, and stove! When I get electricity, I will also be getting a fridge. I can’t quite decorate yet because the walls get too hot. Sticky tack, and tape both melt with the heat of the walls and they’re plaster so I can’t put in small thumb tacks or anything like that. I’m going to enlist some friends to help me drill into my walls soon though, so that should help. My landlord essentially said I can make any changes I want as long as they look nice enough to keep for the next volunteer when I leave.

I don’t really have a lot of bugs because it’s so dry here. So I have the occasional fly, some worse than others. Otherwise, I just have some ants, the occasional chicken, and today I found a tiny scorpion in my kitchen. So I guess I’ll have to watch out for those.

So that’s a little taste of my home in Botswana!

Cows on dirt sidewalk by wall

I’ve acquired a fear of being trampled by a herd of cows

You may find this amusing, but death by cow is far more common than you realize. Never the less, I do get laughed at here if I approach the cows too gingerly. But I’m getting ahead of myself, first I should explain where these cows are. And the answer is everywhere! Here’s a cow, there’s a cow, oh there’s a goat, another cow, ooh, a donkey, don’t forget the flocks of chickens everywhere as well. I think I’m still getting ahead of myself. Anyway, it is very common for all sorts of animals to be on the loose here. I actually have never really seen any animals fenced in anywhere.

On the way to Ralekgetho, we would drive by herds of cows, donkeys, or goats and every time my supervisor would say Botswana is a cow country, Botswana is a donkey country, or Botswana is a goat country. They are everywhere and frequently hold up traffic. In my village, it seems the fences are more common to keep animals out of yards than in them. The school is fenced all around and yet, somehow, the goats or cows find ways in to eat the little grass we have. The headmaster of the school will ask the boys of one of the classes to go scare the cows or goats out of the school yard. There are also tons of chickens wandering around with their little flocks of chicks following them.

Unfortunately, because there really isn’t any other noise in the village, I’ll be laying in bed and hear a cow or donkey right outside my window. The other night it sounded like a donkey was dying outside my window for what seemed like an hour, no sign of it in the morning. Tonight, there were at least two roosters having a yelling contest a few houses down. You’d think that since I grew up on a hobby farm I’d be used to animals by now, but like I said, you hear them so much more here. In America, there are other noises drowning them out.

Here, there’s nothing. There isn’t even the buzz of electricity. You can hear so much more and while we’re on the topic, see so much more as well. I’ve seen more stars here than I could imagine in the sky and even caught a solar eclipse by accident. Living in places like this definitely change the way you see the world.

Bandaged Hand

Shit, I Stabbed Myself

So, as most of you know, I went and stabbed myself while I was on my site visit. I was being pretty stupid and in a hurry while trying to get some raw meat apart and jammed a kitchen knife into my palm under my left thumb. Luckily, it was just about a centimeter deep and a little over that long, so it just needed one stitch. My brother became very overprotective and angry when I informed him, but both my parents just said ouch, don’t let it get infected and I haven’t, but it does bring to mind the topic of health care here.

In Botswana, health care is all free. I just went straight to my health post and said stitch me up and she did and then I got sent home with free pain killers and antibiotics. I’ve also been going in each day to get the wound redressed. It’s definitely not the crazy sterile environment we have in the U.S., but it’s also not a breeding pool for infection and sickness.

There are of course still precautions I should take and try to, but they’re mostly precautions I should also take in the states. I’m below the malaria line, so I don’t have to worry about malaria medication here. The water is not always safe to drink though. My village water source seems to be OK, but it’s always better to filter or boil water before drinking it. I don’t have dental services or regular checkups here, so I need to make sure that I keep myself as healthy and hygienic as I can. Otherwise, it’s mostly things I should be watching for in the states, don’t come into contact with foreign blood on an open wound, don’t sit with someone coughing right in your face, don’t eat raw meat or food that’s been sitting out too long, etc.

If I end up with a more serious medical issue, Peace Corps will handle it. Either by taking me to a bigger city such as Gabs or Joburg for treatment or med-evacing me home. So as long as I’m taking preventative health care measures, I should be grand!

Adjustment

This post was written on September 17th. There are some delays with editing and getting them posted on this site.

Today was my first hard day that wasn’t because of grief. It was hard for multiple reasons. I felt really sick for the first time since getting here, started feeling slightly ill equipped to help, started missing home (especially food and my loved ones), and started feeling like I was being confined in my site. And if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t like being put in a box of preconceived notions and expectations. This site placement is definitely going to be a challenge, but through my homesickness and stress today, I realized that I need to own my service and set boundaries now.

When I first got here, my supervisor made it a point to tell all the teachers and staff at a staff meeting at my school, as well as the chief and community during a Kgotla meeting, the things that I shouldn’t be seen doing. He made a point to say that I shouldn’t be driving, doing drugs, drinking too much, sleeping with married men, or having other inappropriate sexual relationships (in the staff meeting, he even turned to me and asked if I was allowed to mate). He made sure to tell my counterpart that he was in charge of knowing where I was at all times and if I was gone too long on the weekends or went somewhere without telling him, he was in charge of handling that. Now I understand that they’ve never had a Peace Corps Volunteer or even an American in the village, but for me, this is really challenging having everyone watching me like I’m an unruly teenager. I came here to work, not to break rules that could get me kicked out of Peace Corps. I try to always remember that everyone has the best intentions. He wants to make sure that I’m safe, that the village cares about me, and that I’m going to actually help them instead of just sitting on my ass. I’m just not used to having so many people in my business. This is one of those cultural things I need to work with though. The other thing that concerns me is the way my village talks about my home here. It’s on a family compound and my supervisor and others have referred to that family as my new host family, and told people that my new surname will be Phoro when I move there. For me, this feels like another confining situation. I don’t feel like I’m my own person here, I feel like I’m the village trophy. I know that in a collectivist society, like this, I have to get used to losing some of my individuality, but on the other hand, I’m supposed to also be sharing my culture and a huge part of that is my independence and individualism. After talking to a few volunteers (so many have checked in with me today, I’m definitely acquiring a peace corps family ☺), I realized that now is the time I need to set boundaries and plans for how to handle these situations. I already spoke to my counterpart. I told him that I understand they want me to be safe, but he doesn’t have to watch me like a hawk because I have a great track record for taking care of myself and I’ll reach out if I need help. He’s awesome. He told me that he thought I was perfect for this placement. I talked to my tutor who is a woman around my age and she told me to be who I am and not let others opinions matter too much. She’s awesome. Now I just have to get over my fear of conflict and authority anxiety and sit down with my supervisor. I know it will be so much better after I do, it’s just hard for me to stand up for myself in situations like this because I want to make the best impression I can. I know though, that it will be worse for me to make an impression that I am extremely flexible and end up breaking under the pressure. I’m still excited about my site, and I still feel so lucky to be here. I just want the small village family to come naturally, not be forced on me from the start.

I’ll write more soon. I am just trying to let myself process all of the change first.

P.S. Send me food 😉 haha