written 6/23/10
Her name is Eva*. She is 43 years old, younger than my parents, and she is the mother of 5 children, although none are at home today. When I first walk into the darkened one room cement house where she is staying on her mother's compound, I see nothing but a pile of blankets spread over a thin foam mat on the floor under a small window. Her mother calls her name, and the pile of blankets shifts slightly, and a gaunt face with large, sunken eyes and high cheekbones appears. She has no hair, and she has difficulty keeping her eyes open for more than a few moments. She responds to her name with a murmur, and closes her eyes, using what little strength she has to bury her face in her pillow. Her mother pulls aside her blankets to show us legs that are no more than skin-covered skeleton. She gently moves her daughter's legs to avoid bedsores, and we see that she is wearing an adult diaper. Her emaciation is breath-taking. She cannot weigh more than 70 pounds, and that is a generous estimate. I have never seen disease and suffering like this in person, and it is difficult not to allow my emotions to take over. My instinct is to sweep her up in my arms and rush to the nearest hospital, demanding immediate attention, IV nutrition, and medication. Fighting this urge, I listen as her mother sits on the floor next to her and calmly tells us that she did in fact spend Monday in the hospital due to severe diarrhea, and was discharged with a diagnosis of wasting syndrome, some medication, and a can of Ensure, on which she has been subsisting exclusively. For several days last week, she refused food altogether, and was unresponsive and not breathing properly. It is difficult to believe that the condition I am seeing her in now is actually an improved condition. According to her mother and her medical chart, she had been on ARV's for some time, but stopped taking them regularly for an unknown amount of time. As is often the case, this break allowed for drug resistance to build, and although she has restarted treatment, it is no longer effective. She has finished rounds of tuberculosis drugs, but her mother still piles startling quantities of daily medications on our laps when we ask what she is taking. There are enough drugs, she says, but she is nearly out of diapers and Ensure and other supplies necessary for her daughter's care. She pauses to turn her daughter's legs once again, and we notice discoloration on her feet that may be the first signs of Kaposi's sarcoma. It is strange to note how calm everyone is, when everything inside me is screaming. Don't they understand how serious this situation is? How can life go on for this family with their loved one suffering on a foam mat?
Of course they understand the gravity of the situation. Of course they are grieving, and of course they care. However, it is a fact of life for them, something they must find a way to deal with every single day, as it is for so many here in Botswana. I am the newcomer here, who, despite my outrage and empathy, will walk away at the end of the visit and go on with my life as usual. Who am I to judge them for going on with their lives? Despite their apparent calm and good cheer, it is obvious the toll it is taking on the family. They greet me with smiles and warmth, but talk seriously about Eva's illness. Her older sister sits next to me outside, and with a wry smile and a shake of her head, she sighs and looks at me intently. “I'm tired,” she says, “so tired.”
Soon it is time to leave, and we advise her mother to put the radio on in her daughter's room so she can have something to occupy her mind, as she is too weak even to read, and we promise to return soon, hopefully with extra supplies. I find it difficult to leave, and I spend much of the walk home memorizing the path so I can find it again, although I have no idea how I could possibly help. As I get farther and farther away, perspective begins to return, and I realize that I cannot single-handedly swoop in and save anyone through sheer determination and will. This is not to say that I won't be back- I have no doubt that I will be, as part of the community outreach of my clinic. But I do have to remember that there are doctors and nurses who are doing the best they can, and allow myself to understand the grave reality of HIV. Until now, HIV has been an abstract idea for me, and many people, I allowed myself to live in the fantasy that ARV's have somehow emasculated HIV and made it more of a nuisance than a serious virus with no cure. Of course, ARV's have made an enormous difference, and every day they allow people to live out healthy lives for years and years longer than they would have without them. But they are not a cure, and people still die from AIDS. I think of all the young people I have seen at the clinic in the last few days, vibrant, healthy, laughing- and then I think of how many of them are HIV positive. And how many of them are mothers. Will they suffer like Eva? The thought is unimaginable, unbearable, but it is more than plausible. Do they know what could possibly be lying ahead for them? And what about those that are negative for now, but engaging in unsafe sex? Do they know what they are really risking? Until today, I didn't really know. Until today, HIV was a virus, clinical and impersonal, and AIDS was something people only died of in movies. Today I saw the face of this disease, and it was real, and the image will stay with me for the rest of my life.
On our way back from Eva's house, we meet another face, a small boy no older than 6 years old and already HIV positive. He is playing in the yard with his brother, and runs over to the fence to greet us, although he turns shy when he sees me. He puts his hands together as if in prayer, and pushes them through the fence toward us, a traditional sign of respect that few children here remember these days. We take his hands briefly, and he retreats back to stand near his giggling older brother, staring back at us with wide, curious eyes. His mother isn't home, so we will return for a visit another time, as he, too, is a patient at our clinic. This small boy, like so many others, will grow up HIV positive through no fault of his own, taking powerful drugs every day for the rest of his life, and may never know why. Certainly he doesn't understand it now. Maybe by the time he is old enough to understand, we will have found a cure, or at least a new line of drugs that will allow him to lead a long, healthy life, and he will never have to know suffering like Eva's.
Maybe.
*Name has been changed to ensure privacy.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Risky Dreaming
written 6/22/10
All my life, I have loved making lists, planning events that I knew would never happen, and coming up with ideas to solve problems that I knew I could never really carry out. Now my job as a Peace Corps volunteer is to do all of those things, and then make them actually happen. I am finally in a situation where all my dreaming and list making and planning and organizing could actually make a difference and lead to real action and change- and it scares the heck out of me. I have been at site for a little over a week, and already I have project ideas whirling around in my head and filling up pages in my notebook- but will I be able to turn them into a reality? Am I really capable of that? What if I fail? Will I be taken seriously? What if no one is interested? What if they are interested, but I can't make it really happen, and I get people's hopes up for nothing? What if all I'm really good at doing is dreaming? It is a little frightening to be given the opportunity to do something you always wanted to do. Dreaming is easier than doing, and it would be easy to turn back and keep my ideas and dreams safely in my notebook where they have no chance to succeed or fail. A life in a notebook, however, is no life at all for a dream, so I will choose to let them out, and no matter how painful, I choose to see if they will take flight. If they don't, then at least I will know that I have tried, that I was brave enough to put myself out there. If they do, though, then I stand a chance of making the difference in the world that I have always hoped to make. It's a risk I'm willing to take.
All my life, I have loved making lists, planning events that I knew would never happen, and coming up with ideas to solve problems that I knew I could never really carry out. Now my job as a Peace Corps volunteer is to do all of those things, and then make them actually happen. I am finally in a situation where all my dreaming and list making and planning and organizing could actually make a difference and lead to real action and change- and it scares the heck out of me. I have been at site for a little over a week, and already I have project ideas whirling around in my head and filling up pages in my notebook- but will I be able to turn them into a reality? Am I really capable of that? What if I fail? Will I be taken seriously? What if no one is interested? What if they are interested, but I can't make it really happen, and I get people's hopes up for nothing? What if all I'm really good at doing is dreaming? It is a little frightening to be given the opportunity to do something you always wanted to do. Dreaming is easier than doing, and it would be easy to turn back and keep my ideas and dreams safely in my notebook where they have no chance to succeed or fail. A life in a notebook, however, is no life at all for a dream, so I will choose to let them out, and no matter how painful, I choose to see if they will take flight. If they don't, then at least I will know that I have tried, that I was brave enough to put myself out there. If they do, though, then I stand a chance of making the difference in the world that I have always hoped to make. It's a risk I'm willing to take.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
News, Notes, and Observations
written 6/22/10
It is currently 8pm on a Tuesday, and for no apparent reason, already I am too exhausted to contemplate staying up even another hour- or to write a real blog entry. Hence this jumble of rambling thoughts, which is about all my mind can keep up with tonight. Have fun!
I started work at the clinic for real yesterday, and have spent most of my time there recording data from the H1N1 vaccine campaign that just started here. Right now we are in phase 1 of the campaign, and only pregnant women and people with chronic illnesses are eligible to receive the vaccine. Basically, the patient comes in, the nurse looks through the chart to determine eligibility and hands me the chart, and I record which category the patient falls under on a data sheet and then place a sticker on their chart with the date. It's not thrilling work, but it's actually a great way to meet the people my clinic serves.
It is surprisingly embarrassing to be introduced in glowing manner and to have all your qualifications and interests listed in front of many people while you are standing right there. I don't know how important people can bear to hear it all the time. Even more embarrassing, however, is having your coworker throw in that you are may be looking for a husband in Botswana (an untrue and unhelpful statement, in case you are wondering).
I hate it when the word processor decides that I want to insert bullets without asking my permission.
I need to get some American candles. I bought one in a supermarket here, and it is burning with a 5 inch flame and emitting black smoke. Interesting to watch, but ultimately probably not the safest way to light a room.
I still don't have lights in my bedroom or the bathroom, but have learned not to care. It'll get done eventually, and in the meantime, I only use my bedroom for sleeping, right?
I am finally sleeping in my bedroom, on an actual bed, with a boxspring, sheets, a comforter, and two pillows. This is an amazing development. I wasn't going to settle for anything less than my vision of comfort, so it took several trips to the china shops before I found the perfect comforter. It is white and fluffy and soft and incredibly warm. It was also not cheap (comparatively- P300), but it is definitely worth it- and it even came with a duster to cover up the boxspring! I set up the bed with all the dressings on Sunday afternoon almost immediately after purchasing them, and spent the rest of the day resisting the urge to climb into bed before sunset. Really, with all it's whiteness and fluffiness and the candlelit atmosphere and fake wood furniture that looks pretty fancy in the dark, I almost felt overly casual and inappropriately dressed in my long sleeve t-shirt and shamrock pj pants. I know I'm writing a lot about the simple topic of a bed, but it's hard to overestimate how important it is to have somewhere to retreat to and feel comfortable in.
Another amazing thing about my bedroom is that it now has curtains. Curtains are of the utmost importance here, for security, privacy, and preventing drafts, so to be without them for even a few days was awful. I eventually got tired of not having them, cut a spare white sheet in two, and used my little sewing kit to turn them into curtains. Perhaps not the most amazing thing to have done, but I was pretty impressed with my handiwork.
I was never a morning person to begin with, but now that it is winter in Africa and I have a warm, comfortable bed, mornings have never been more difficult.
The song 'Sex in the Morning' is blasting outside my window.
The enormous grasshopper-like creature is still sitting on my bathroom door handle. He hasn't moved at all, but he's still very much alive, and very much intent on staying where he is. I've named him Horace, and we are becoming fast friends.
The dry season is definitely here. My contacts get so dry that it's almost impossible to unfold them when I take them out, and my skin is raw and cracked. Thank goodness I brought Burt's Bees lotion!
I am now impressed by small, everyday events. Ice cubes in my drink? Amazing! Water pressure in the kitchen faucet? Fantastic! Running water for more than 24 hours? A miracle!!
I think I get the most homesick when I think about church or youth group events I'm missing, because they're usually a combination of family, friends, faith, and tradition. Last weekend, I missed the retirement celebration of our youth group director, a very special lady who has meant a lot to many of us and who has made a difference in many young people's lives. AYM won't be the same without her and she'll be greatly missed, but I wish her every happiness in retired life, and look forward to visiting when I get back. She won't get rid of us that easily!
Evening is usually my favorite time of day, but it's my least favorite here. During the day, I am charged up and full of ideas for my service, and don't have much time to dwell on things. Weekends are a bit of an exception to that, but even then I can usually keep myself busy working on the house and doing laundry and shopping. Once the sun sets, my period of limbo before bedtime begins. I refuse to answer the door after dark, and every noise startles me. I attempt to read or watch movies, but more often than not, I end up playing spider solitaire or writing a blog entry while listening to music, just to keep my ears, hands, and mind occupied. I'm hoping that this unease will change once I get settled and start bringing home real work to do.
A new strategy for getting through life here and reminding myself that I am getting used to life in Botswana has been to plan packing lists, travel tips, and even itineraries for imaginary visitors. It helps me see what I've learned about living here, and it occupies my time and satisfies my urge to plan and make lists. If any of you do decide to visit me here (and I hope you do!), I'll be well prepared.
It has now been over an hour, and I am ready for sleep in my wonderful, wonderful bed. Good night.
It is currently 8pm on a Tuesday, and for no apparent reason, already I am too exhausted to contemplate staying up even another hour- or to write a real blog entry. Hence this jumble of rambling thoughts, which is about all my mind can keep up with tonight. Have fun!
I started work at the clinic for real yesterday, and have spent most of my time there recording data from the H1N1 vaccine campaign that just started here. Right now we are in phase 1 of the campaign, and only pregnant women and people with chronic illnesses are eligible to receive the vaccine. Basically, the patient comes in, the nurse looks through the chart to determine eligibility and hands me the chart, and I record which category the patient falls under on a data sheet and then place a sticker on their chart with the date. It's not thrilling work, but it's actually a great way to meet the people my clinic serves.
It is surprisingly embarrassing to be introduced in glowing manner and to have all your qualifications and interests listed in front of many people while you are standing right there. I don't know how important people can bear to hear it all the time. Even more embarrassing, however, is having your coworker throw in that you are may be looking for a husband in Botswana (an untrue and unhelpful statement, in case you are wondering).
I hate it when the word processor decides that I want to insert bullets without asking my permission.
I need to get some American candles. I bought one in a supermarket here, and it is burning with a 5 inch flame and emitting black smoke. Interesting to watch, but ultimately probably not the safest way to light a room.
I still don't have lights in my bedroom or the bathroom, but have learned not to care. It'll get done eventually, and in the meantime, I only use my bedroom for sleeping, right?
I am finally sleeping in my bedroom, on an actual bed, with a boxspring, sheets, a comforter, and two pillows. This is an amazing development. I wasn't going to settle for anything less than my vision of comfort, so it took several trips to the china shops before I found the perfect comforter. It is white and fluffy and soft and incredibly warm. It was also not cheap (comparatively- P300), but it is definitely worth it- and it even came with a duster to cover up the boxspring! I set up the bed with all the dressings on Sunday afternoon almost immediately after purchasing them, and spent the rest of the day resisting the urge to climb into bed before sunset. Really, with all it's whiteness and fluffiness and the candlelit atmosphere and fake wood furniture that looks pretty fancy in the dark, I almost felt overly casual and inappropriately dressed in my long sleeve t-shirt and shamrock pj pants. I know I'm writing a lot about the simple topic of a bed, but it's hard to overestimate how important it is to have somewhere to retreat to and feel comfortable in.
Another amazing thing about my bedroom is that it now has curtains. Curtains are of the utmost importance here, for security, privacy, and preventing drafts, so to be without them for even a few days was awful. I eventually got tired of not having them, cut a spare white sheet in two, and used my little sewing kit to turn them into curtains. Perhaps not the most amazing thing to have done, but I was pretty impressed with my handiwork.
I was never a morning person to begin with, but now that it is winter in Africa and I have a warm, comfortable bed, mornings have never been more difficult.
The song 'Sex in the Morning' is blasting outside my window.
The enormous grasshopper-like creature is still sitting on my bathroom door handle. He hasn't moved at all, but he's still very much alive, and very much intent on staying where he is. I've named him Horace, and we are becoming fast friends.
The dry season is definitely here. My contacts get so dry that it's almost impossible to unfold them when I take them out, and my skin is raw and cracked. Thank goodness I brought Burt's Bees lotion!
I am now impressed by small, everyday events. Ice cubes in my drink? Amazing! Water pressure in the kitchen faucet? Fantastic! Running water for more than 24 hours? A miracle!!
I think I get the most homesick when I think about church or youth group events I'm missing, because they're usually a combination of family, friends, faith, and tradition. Last weekend, I missed the retirement celebration of our youth group director, a very special lady who has meant a lot to many of us and who has made a difference in many young people's lives. AYM won't be the same without her and she'll be greatly missed, but I wish her every happiness in retired life, and look forward to visiting when I get back. She won't get rid of us that easily!
Evening is usually my favorite time of day, but it's my least favorite here. During the day, I am charged up and full of ideas for my service, and don't have much time to dwell on things. Weekends are a bit of an exception to that, but even then I can usually keep myself busy working on the house and doing laundry and shopping. Once the sun sets, my period of limbo before bedtime begins. I refuse to answer the door after dark, and every noise startles me. I attempt to read or watch movies, but more often than not, I end up playing spider solitaire or writing a blog entry while listening to music, just to keep my ears, hands, and mind occupied. I'm hoping that this unease will change once I get settled and start bringing home real work to do.
A new strategy for getting through life here and reminding myself that I am getting used to life in Botswana has been to plan packing lists, travel tips, and even itineraries for imaginary visitors. It helps me see what I've learned about living here, and it occupies my time and satisfies my urge to plan and make lists. If any of you do decide to visit me here (and I hope you do!), I'll be well prepared.
It has now been over an hour, and I am ready for sleep in my wonderful, wonderful bed. Good night.
A Morning Entry
written 6/19
I woke up at 7:00 this morning from a wonderful dream about Thanksgiving to the sounds of Dr. Dre blaring from a neighbor's car stereo. This is strange for several reasons. Firstly, it is now 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and I have already been up for hours. This is unacceptable. I had to be up early every Saturday on Long Island because I had work, and I've had to be up early every Saturday since arriving in Botswana because I had training. This was supposed to be my first Saturday to really sleep in. Thus, I feel that I have every reason to balk a little at being woken up at such an early hour. Although it is a part of the culture here to be up early no matter what day it is, this is one part of the culture that I plan to refuse to conform with. Weekends are still weekends, and whether I am sleeping or not, I will be in bed until at least 9:30 on Saturdays.
Second, it is the middle of June, and I am dreaming about a holiday that won't happen for another half a year, and in Botswana, it won't really happen at all. I think I can explain this one pretty well, though. It feels like fall here, especially in the evenings and mornings, because according the seasonal schedule of the southern hemisphere, it is fall, almost winter. I wear a hoodie and jeans every day, and have squash and apples in my kitchen. The air is crisp and clear, and it gets dark early. Even some of the trees are changing color, although it gets too warm during the day to get the full array of colors and fallen leaves that we get in New York. The few trees here that change color generally turn yellow and brown, and a few leaves fall off, but you don't really see barren trees like we would in the US in November or December. Still, it's enough to allow my mind to believe that it is autumn, and that Halloween and Thanksgiving should be right around the corner. It should be interesting to see what Christmas feels like when it's over 100 degrees outside.
Finally, Dr. Dre? Really? I know I've covered this before, but it's still a little shock every time I hear American music in Botswana. Actually, I wasn't confused at all at first, because I woke up thinking that it was Thanksgiving on Long Island, which made everything make sense. Of course people were up early- it's a holiday, and people have to start cooking! And of course Dr. Dre is blasting, my brothers listen to rap all the time! It took me a few minutes to settle into reality and realize the absurdity of the situation.
It is now after 10am, finally an acceptable time to get out of bed on a Saturday and begin the day. On the schedule is shopping for previously mentioned necessities and going to Mike and Geri's to take a much needed bath. A worker finally came yesterday to install the geyser (water heater), but he was unsuccessful due to faulty electric lines and multiple leaks. He did fix the leak in my kitchen, but now my bathroom is flooded. I'm hoping that next week will be a week of many repairs, and by the end of it, I will have hot running water, no leaks, and a secure house, based on the security officer's recommended repairs. My goal for today is much less lofty- to set up my bed with sheets and blankets and my windows with curtains so I can sleep in my real bed. Tomorrow I may or may not decide to seek out the Catholic Church in town, and then I plan to spend the rest of the day cleaning the walls and cooking. I may even have my first visitor, another PCV who will be passing through on her way back to her village outside Mahalapye. Hopefully the house will be ready!
With that, I am off to begin a lovely fall weekend in Botswana. Maybe I'll even cook that squash or make some applesauce. Happy Thanksgiving!
An update: Aside from making applesauce (which came out weird, apples are extremely sweet and grainy here), I failed completely at today's mission, and instead spent the entire day watching movies on my laptop and taking the worst bath of my life (really, it was so miserable that I don't even want to talk about it- let's just say that it made me miss bucket baths, and I can't wait until I have hot running water). Things were quiet around the compound during the day, but of course now that it's the evening, the blaring car stereo has returned. Now it's playing Justin Bieber. And I thought I could escape him by crossing an ocean and living in the African bush. Sigh.
I woke up at 7:00 this morning from a wonderful dream about Thanksgiving to the sounds of Dr. Dre blaring from a neighbor's car stereo. This is strange for several reasons. Firstly, it is now 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and I have already been up for hours. This is unacceptable. I had to be up early every Saturday on Long Island because I had work, and I've had to be up early every Saturday since arriving in Botswana because I had training. This was supposed to be my first Saturday to really sleep in. Thus, I feel that I have every reason to balk a little at being woken up at such an early hour. Although it is a part of the culture here to be up early no matter what day it is, this is one part of the culture that I plan to refuse to conform with. Weekends are still weekends, and whether I am sleeping or not, I will be in bed until at least 9:30 on Saturdays.
Second, it is the middle of June, and I am dreaming about a holiday that won't happen for another half a year, and in Botswana, it won't really happen at all. I think I can explain this one pretty well, though. It feels like fall here, especially in the evenings and mornings, because according the seasonal schedule of the southern hemisphere, it is fall, almost winter. I wear a hoodie and jeans every day, and have squash and apples in my kitchen. The air is crisp and clear, and it gets dark early. Even some of the trees are changing color, although it gets too warm during the day to get the full array of colors and fallen leaves that we get in New York. The few trees here that change color generally turn yellow and brown, and a few leaves fall off, but you don't really see barren trees like we would in the US in November or December. Still, it's enough to allow my mind to believe that it is autumn, and that Halloween and Thanksgiving should be right around the corner. It should be interesting to see what Christmas feels like when it's over 100 degrees outside.
Finally, Dr. Dre? Really? I know I've covered this before, but it's still a little shock every time I hear American music in Botswana. Actually, I wasn't confused at all at first, because I woke up thinking that it was Thanksgiving on Long Island, which made everything make sense. Of course people were up early- it's a holiday, and people have to start cooking! And of course Dr. Dre is blasting, my brothers listen to rap all the time! It took me a few minutes to settle into reality and realize the absurdity of the situation.
It is now after 10am, finally an acceptable time to get out of bed on a Saturday and begin the day. On the schedule is shopping for previously mentioned necessities and going to Mike and Geri's to take a much needed bath. A worker finally came yesterday to install the geyser (water heater), but he was unsuccessful due to faulty electric lines and multiple leaks. He did fix the leak in my kitchen, but now my bathroom is flooded. I'm hoping that next week will be a week of many repairs, and by the end of it, I will have hot running water, no leaks, and a secure house, based on the security officer's recommended repairs. My goal for today is much less lofty- to set up my bed with sheets and blankets and my windows with curtains so I can sleep in my real bed. Tomorrow I may or may not decide to seek out the Catholic Church in town, and then I plan to spend the rest of the day cleaning the walls and cooking. I may even have my first visitor, another PCV who will be passing through on her way back to her village outside Mahalapye. Hopefully the house will be ready!
With that, I am off to begin a lovely fall weekend in Botswana. Maybe I'll even cook that squash or make some applesauce. Happy Thanksgiving!
An update: Aside from making applesauce (which came out weird, apples are extremely sweet and grainy here), I failed completely at today's mission, and instead spent the entire day watching movies on my laptop and taking the worst bath of my life (really, it was so miserable that I don't even want to talk about it- let's just say that it made me miss bucket baths, and I can't wait until I have hot running water). Things were quiet around the compound during the day, but of course now that it's the evening, the blaring car stereo has returned. Now it's playing Justin Bieber. And I thought I could escape him by crossing an ocean and living in the African bush. Sigh.
A lifestyle of extremes
written 6/17
I am currently sitting on a couch that looks like the one in my mom's living room, typing a blog entry on my laptop while listening to music on itunes and finishing a Diet Coke and a cheeseburger I grilled on my George Foreman Grill. No, don't worry, I haven't gone back to America- I've just created my own little piece of America in Botswana. Gone are the fantasies of living in a hut eating exotic local foods and falling asleep to the sounds of the great outdoors. I have accepted this, and no longer feel guilty for living a life similar to my life in the United States. As long as I am living on a level similar to the local people and sticking to the Peace Corps budget, which I am, I won't worry about it.
Not to say that this isn't still an adventure or that everything is easy here. I haven't bathed properly in nearly a week because the water has been turned off in the evenings, which is generally when I would have free time to bathe. Morning baths have been ruled out entirely due to extreme cold. My counterpart and other volunteers in Mahalapye may have nice, insulated houses that keep the warmth in, but I do not. I can see my breath in the morning while I am still laying in bed, and by 7pm, I am curled up with multiple layers of clothing and a blanket. I am hoping that my house will be a little warmer once I get curtains, some area rugs, and draft stoppers, but getting those items is turning into an adventure all of its own. I have now been to the shopping area of town 4 times, and have yet to return with everything I went out to get. I would give almost anything for one trip to Walmart or Target. This makes me sound like a terrible Peace Corps volunteer, wanting to shop at big box stores over sustaining the local economy, but there really is not much local economy to support. Most of the grocery stores and large clothing stores are actually South African chains, and most of the small, independent shops are owned by foreigners, mainly Chinese people- hence the cringe-worthy name “China shops”. There are about a million China shops in Mahalapye, and each one is its own little permanent garage sale. You never know what you might find, or what kind of quality to expect. There is even a Costco-type outlet called Sefalana that I have been to twice. I'm not sure who owns it, but I don't imagine that it's too much better than anything other store of its type. It's actually a pretty useful store, especially for buying food in bulk, but it doesn't have any of the aforementioned warmth-keeping-in items. I think this weekend I will be heading to the fabric shop so I can make my own curtains, and then hitting every China shop in town in the hope of finding sheets, a comforter, and some area rugs. The whole Botswana shopping experience is made even more complicated when you add transportation to the mix. I could walk to the shopping part of town, but it would take about an hour. This is fine for going from home to the store, but unacceptable when attempting to carry 3 weeks worth of groceries or furniture on the way back home. The other options for getting home are either a taxi or combi. I do not like taking taxis here. I don't like how they forget to slow down when they pull over and nearly run me over, I don't like that they frequently refuse to take you as a passenger because they're not heading in the same direction (taxis here apparently run on set routes), and I don't like being overcharged because I don't look like a local. This leaves taking a combi, which I did for the first time yesterday. In case I haven't already explained combis, they are 12-15 seat white vans that run set routes around specific parts of town, but have no schedule. You are expected to know where they stop and just wait there until one shows up. Not knowing any of these things, I walked over to the bus rank, which is my least favorite part of town. It is packed with people and vendors, and while it looks exciting and more foreign than most other places in Botswana, it is actually a hotspot for theft and unwanted attention and marriage proposals from strangers ( I was only proposed to twice yesterday, and then asked for money immediately after refusing. It was a slow day.). I asked one of the vendors where I could pick up a combi to my ward, and was pointed in a general direction. When walking the streets of Mahalapye, I often feel that it is useful to get into New Yorker mode, and walk quickly and with purpose, whether I know where I'm going or not. I really couldn't look more like an outsider if I tried, but I can at least avoid looking like a lost, vulnerable outsider. Therefore, I walked in a straight line, keeping my eyes straight ahead, but my ears open- and thankfully heard a driver calling out the name of my ward. I was the first passenger in the combi, which meant that we had to wait until it filled up before we left, but it wasn't long before I was squished against a back window with my bags and we were on our way. I was expecting the usual stares and patronizing smiles and chuckles from my fellow passengers, but was pleasantly surprised that they seemed unimpressed with my presence, even when I asked how much to pay (the true sign of a newbie). The ride went along without incident, and I got off at the secondary school about a 3 minute walk from my house. Best of all, it only cost P2.50 (about 35 cents US). All in all, my first combi ride on my own went well. I think I'll be using it pretty often, although I definitely plan to limit shopping to a twice a month event once I'm all settled in. I'm perfectly happy to stay in my own little corner of town as much as possible.
Another chance for adventure has been the walk from my house to my clinic, which I did by myself for the first time yesterday. There are two ways to go, one using the tarred road and then a dirt road through a residential area, and one following a sandy road all the way there- it's just a matter of whether I want to turn left or right when I leave my house. Yesterday I decided to take the tarred road, thinking that it would be simple and that there would be more people around to ask for directions if I lost my way. I followed the road past the school and walked and walked until I got the familiar, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me that I was walking too far. Against all New Yorker instincts, I pulled out the map my counterpart had drawn for me, and found that if I had walked even a little further, I would have missed my turn. I turned and continued down a dirt road and, deciding to assume I was going the right way, I took some time to appreciate my surroundings. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was in Africa, the way I'd imagined it. There was no tarred road in sight, and I was surrounded by family compounds of small cement houses and round traditional huts. I passed old women with babies on their backs sweeping their dirt yards with straw brooms as Setswana music drifted through the air, full of drums and dance beats, probably from someone's car stereo. The reddish brown of the huts and dirt road was occasionally interrupted by palm trees and trees blooming with purple and red flowers as I meandered toward the clinic. At least 3 times, I approached women in their yards to make sure I was still going the right way, and received no strange stares, only directions given in rapid Setswana. Usually when I speak Setswana, I am laughed at and answered in English, so although I didn't necessarily understand everything these ladies said, I appreciated their total acceptance of the strange lekgoa wandering the dirt roads speaking halting Setswana, and got enough of their directions to make it to the clinic successfully.
This morning I decided to turn onto the sandy road to see which route I preferred. I'd taken it before, but didn't remember most of it because I'd been walking and talking with a coworker. I ended up making it to the clinic in less time than the first route took, but was disappointed in the lack of scenery. The white sand of the road reminded me of the beach, and it was a little depressing to know that the road wouldn't lead me out to the ocean. Most of the scenery was comprised of a fence on one side and bushes and family compounds on the other. I only had to ask directions once, at a 4 way intersection, and reached the clinic in no time. My one remarkable find on this route was a general store. This was a surprise, since my landlord's son had led me to believe that there weren't any in my ward, but I guess he just meant that there were none that were open at that time of the evening. General stores here usually have cold drinks, airtime, and some food essentials like bread, soup mix, rice, and canned goods. Their prices are usually a little high, but their convenience makes up for it. Either way, it's a pretty useful thing to have on the way from work to home, and although I like the scenery of the first route better, I think I'll be using the sandy route frequently, too.
One of the hardest parts about moving into my new place so far has been realizing that I'm going to have to adjust to living by myself again. I lived by myself for a year in New Paltz, and actually enjoyed it and missed it when I had to move back in with my family in the months before leaving for Botswana, so I thought I would slip back into life on my own easily and naturally. As usual, I was wrong. Yes, I appreciate having privacy again (although not too much privacy at the moment, since I don't have curtains yet), and I enjoy being able to spend my evenings however I like. And it is especially nice to have a place that is my own, where I don't have to constantly be on my guard and within cultural norms. But when I come home, I am alone, more alone than I've ever been. In New Paltz, I could stay out until 9 or 10pm with friends and then go to bed. I could spend hours talking to people on the phone or on the internet. If I needed something, I could get in my car at any time of the night and drive to the store where I would see people, often people I knew. And if I got really lonely or bored, I could always drive 3 hours and spend the weekend at my mom's. Here I have none of those things. Airtime is expensive, so I can't even call other volunteers in Botswana, and my family in the US can only afford to call once a week. I could get the internet, but it is very expensive, and I need to save money if I have any hope of traveling while I'm here. It's not safe to go out after dark, so by 6pm, I am in my house with the doors locked, and I won't see or probably even speak to another person until the morning. It's something I'm going to have to get used to, or I will go crazy here. Writing these blog entries is a coping mechanism, because I feel like I'm talking to someone. I have a feeling that I will do a lot of writing, reading and (if I ever get a light in the kitchen and if the water ever stays on past 4pm) cooking in the evenings here. I wish I could say that I'll do a lot of sleeping, too, but when I live alone, I tend to go to bed late. I'm a night person by nature, and I don't go to bed until either I'm literally falling asleep standing up or until whoever else I'm staying with goes to bed. If I try to go to bed too early, I lay there for hours agonizing over every creak and scratch that I hear- believe me, I've tried it. Maybe I'll try it again once I have my real bed set up, because even without sheets, it looks incredibly inviting- I haven't slept in a real bed in so long!!! At my homestay in Molepolole, I had a bed, but it had no real mattress- just wire mesh and a foam pad., and until I can find sheets and comforter, I have set up camp on a small couch in the spare bedroom of my new house. The spare bedroom faces out into the family compound, and I lose a lot of sleep to the noises of people coming and going and blasting car stereos. I know that there are other people living here and that the property is pretty secure, but hearing a lot of voices in the dark is unsettling when you live alone- yet another thing I'll have to get used to. More than once I've been annoyed by people making noise in the yard at night only to remember that it's only 8pm and that people have every right to be outside and talk on their own property!
Don't worry about me feeling too alone though- I've already found a few roommates, although they are quite a bit smaller than my roommates in the past have been. There is a resident African version of a ladybug who lives in the spare bedroom, 3 small brown cockroaches that were immediately squished and evacuated, spiders of various shapes and sizes lurking in corners of the kitchen that I haven't swept out yet, and an enormous grasshopper-type creature dwelling on the handle of my bathroom door that I nearly accidentally shook hands with earlier today. He's still there at this very moment, and as he is too large and spiky to squish or move, I feel it best to let him live there as long as he chooses. Maybe I'll train him to eat the cockroaches.
This week has been a bust as far as work at the clinic goes. I stopped by to check in on my way to town yesterday, and spent about 2 hours there observing and talking to people there this morning before I had to go home to wait for workers that never showed up. Tomorrow I am expecting the Peace Corps security officer to visit in the morning for a site inspection, and I am hoping that the workers that didn't show up today will show up tomorrow, so I don't think I'll be spending much time at the clinic tomorrow, either. I'm actually thankful for the breather between training and starting actual work, but I'm eager to live up to my title as a Peace Corps volunteer. It's frustrating to have been in Africa for over 2 months as volunteer without doing any real work. Everyone at home assumes that I'm doing amazing things as a Peace Corps volunteer, but the truth is that I haven't done anything at all yet. Until now, it's been all training and no doing, and really for the next two months, I'm not supposed to do much either. I'm supposed to be observing, helping with minor tasks, getting to know how my clinic works, and doing an assessment of community needs. Volunteers are supposed to learn how to integrate at training, and then spend time becoming a real community member and finding out what the community really needs and wants before jumping in and working on projects. This approach is actually what I like best about the way Peace Corps operates because it leads to more successful, sustainable projects, but it can be extremely frustrating for the volunteer who just wants to get to work. At least I'll be starting some form of work on Monday, and hopefully setting up a schedule with my counterpart. I always feel better when I have a schedule.
It is now officially that time of night when I am literally falling asleep writing, which means it may finally be time for bed. Hope you haven't been falling asleep reading this long entry!
I am currently sitting on a couch that looks like the one in my mom's living room, typing a blog entry on my laptop while listening to music on itunes and finishing a Diet Coke and a cheeseburger I grilled on my George Foreman Grill. No, don't worry, I haven't gone back to America- I've just created my own little piece of America in Botswana. Gone are the fantasies of living in a hut eating exotic local foods and falling asleep to the sounds of the great outdoors. I have accepted this, and no longer feel guilty for living a life similar to my life in the United States. As long as I am living on a level similar to the local people and sticking to the Peace Corps budget, which I am, I won't worry about it.
Not to say that this isn't still an adventure or that everything is easy here. I haven't bathed properly in nearly a week because the water has been turned off in the evenings, which is generally when I would have free time to bathe. Morning baths have been ruled out entirely due to extreme cold. My counterpart and other volunteers in Mahalapye may have nice, insulated houses that keep the warmth in, but I do not. I can see my breath in the morning while I am still laying in bed, and by 7pm, I am curled up with multiple layers of clothing and a blanket. I am hoping that my house will be a little warmer once I get curtains, some area rugs, and draft stoppers, but getting those items is turning into an adventure all of its own. I have now been to the shopping area of town 4 times, and have yet to return with everything I went out to get. I would give almost anything for one trip to Walmart or Target. This makes me sound like a terrible Peace Corps volunteer, wanting to shop at big box stores over sustaining the local economy, but there really is not much local economy to support. Most of the grocery stores and large clothing stores are actually South African chains, and most of the small, independent shops are owned by foreigners, mainly Chinese people- hence the cringe-worthy name “China shops”. There are about a million China shops in Mahalapye, and each one is its own little permanent garage sale. You never know what you might find, or what kind of quality to expect. There is even a Costco-type outlet called Sefalana that I have been to twice. I'm not sure who owns it, but I don't imagine that it's too much better than anything other store of its type. It's actually a pretty useful store, especially for buying food in bulk, but it doesn't have any of the aforementioned warmth-keeping-in items. I think this weekend I will be heading to the fabric shop so I can make my own curtains, and then hitting every China shop in town in the hope of finding sheets, a comforter, and some area rugs. The whole Botswana shopping experience is made even more complicated when you add transportation to the mix. I could walk to the shopping part of town, but it would take about an hour. This is fine for going from home to the store, but unacceptable when attempting to carry 3 weeks worth of groceries or furniture on the way back home. The other options for getting home are either a taxi or combi. I do not like taking taxis here. I don't like how they forget to slow down when they pull over and nearly run me over, I don't like that they frequently refuse to take you as a passenger because they're not heading in the same direction (taxis here apparently run on set routes), and I don't like being overcharged because I don't look like a local. This leaves taking a combi, which I did for the first time yesterday. In case I haven't already explained combis, they are 12-15 seat white vans that run set routes around specific parts of town, but have no schedule. You are expected to know where they stop and just wait there until one shows up. Not knowing any of these things, I walked over to the bus rank, which is my least favorite part of town. It is packed with people and vendors, and while it looks exciting and more foreign than most other places in Botswana, it is actually a hotspot for theft and unwanted attention and marriage proposals from strangers ( I was only proposed to twice yesterday, and then asked for money immediately after refusing. It was a slow day.). I asked one of the vendors where I could pick up a combi to my ward, and was pointed in a general direction. When walking the streets of Mahalapye, I often feel that it is useful to get into New Yorker mode, and walk quickly and with purpose, whether I know where I'm going or not. I really couldn't look more like an outsider if I tried, but I can at least avoid looking like a lost, vulnerable outsider. Therefore, I walked in a straight line, keeping my eyes straight ahead, but my ears open- and thankfully heard a driver calling out the name of my ward. I was the first passenger in the combi, which meant that we had to wait until it filled up before we left, but it wasn't long before I was squished against a back window with my bags and we were on our way. I was expecting the usual stares and patronizing smiles and chuckles from my fellow passengers, but was pleasantly surprised that they seemed unimpressed with my presence, even when I asked how much to pay (the true sign of a newbie). The ride went along without incident, and I got off at the secondary school about a 3 minute walk from my house. Best of all, it only cost P2.50 (about 35 cents US). All in all, my first combi ride on my own went well. I think I'll be using it pretty often, although I definitely plan to limit shopping to a twice a month event once I'm all settled in. I'm perfectly happy to stay in my own little corner of town as much as possible.
Another chance for adventure has been the walk from my house to my clinic, which I did by myself for the first time yesterday. There are two ways to go, one using the tarred road and then a dirt road through a residential area, and one following a sandy road all the way there- it's just a matter of whether I want to turn left or right when I leave my house. Yesterday I decided to take the tarred road, thinking that it would be simple and that there would be more people around to ask for directions if I lost my way. I followed the road past the school and walked and walked until I got the familiar, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me that I was walking too far. Against all New Yorker instincts, I pulled out the map my counterpart had drawn for me, and found that if I had walked even a little further, I would have missed my turn. I turned and continued down a dirt road and, deciding to assume I was going the right way, I took some time to appreciate my surroundings. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was in Africa, the way I'd imagined it. There was no tarred road in sight, and I was surrounded by family compounds of small cement houses and round traditional huts. I passed old women with babies on their backs sweeping their dirt yards with straw brooms as Setswana music drifted through the air, full of drums and dance beats, probably from someone's car stereo. The reddish brown of the huts and dirt road was occasionally interrupted by palm trees and trees blooming with purple and red flowers as I meandered toward the clinic. At least 3 times, I approached women in their yards to make sure I was still going the right way, and received no strange stares, only directions given in rapid Setswana. Usually when I speak Setswana, I am laughed at and answered in English, so although I didn't necessarily understand everything these ladies said, I appreciated their total acceptance of the strange lekgoa wandering the dirt roads speaking halting Setswana, and got enough of their directions to make it to the clinic successfully.
This morning I decided to turn onto the sandy road to see which route I preferred. I'd taken it before, but didn't remember most of it because I'd been walking and talking with a coworker. I ended up making it to the clinic in less time than the first route took, but was disappointed in the lack of scenery. The white sand of the road reminded me of the beach, and it was a little depressing to know that the road wouldn't lead me out to the ocean. Most of the scenery was comprised of a fence on one side and bushes and family compounds on the other. I only had to ask directions once, at a 4 way intersection, and reached the clinic in no time. My one remarkable find on this route was a general store. This was a surprise, since my landlord's son had led me to believe that there weren't any in my ward, but I guess he just meant that there were none that were open at that time of the evening. General stores here usually have cold drinks, airtime, and some food essentials like bread, soup mix, rice, and canned goods. Their prices are usually a little high, but their convenience makes up for it. Either way, it's a pretty useful thing to have on the way from work to home, and although I like the scenery of the first route better, I think I'll be using the sandy route frequently, too.
One of the hardest parts about moving into my new place so far has been realizing that I'm going to have to adjust to living by myself again. I lived by myself for a year in New Paltz, and actually enjoyed it and missed it when I had to move back in with my family in the months before leaving for Botswana, so I thought I would slip back into life on my own easily and naturally. As usual, I was wrong. Yes, I appreciate having privacy again (although not too much privacy at the moment, since I don't have curtains yet), and I enjoy being able to spend my evenings however I like. And it is especially nice to have a place that is my own, where I don't have to constantly be on my guard and within cultural norms. But when I come home, I am alone, more alone than I've ever been. In New Paltz, I could stay out until 9 or 10pm with friends and then go to bed. I could spend hours talking to people on the phone or on the internet. If I needed something, I could get in my car at any time of the night and drive to the store where I would see people, often people I knew. And if I got really lonely or bored, I could always drive 3 hours and spend the weekend at my mom's. Here I have none of those things. Airtime is expensive, so I can't even call other volunteers in Botswana, and my family in the US can only afford to call once a week. I could get the internet, but it is very expensive, and I need to save money if I have any hope of traveling while I'm here. It's not safe to go out after dark, so by 6pm, I am in my house with the doors locked, and I won't see or probably even speak to another person until the morning. It's something I'm going to have to get used to, or I will go crazy here. Writing these blog entries is a coping mechanism, because I feel like I'm talking to someone. I have a feeling that I will do a lot of writing, reading and (if I ever get a light in the kitchen and if the water ever stays on past 4pm) cooking in the evenings here. I wish I could say that I'll do a lot of sleeping, too, but when I live alone, I tend to go to bed late. I'm a night person by nature, and I don't go to bed until either I'm literally falling asleep standing up or until whoever else I'm staying with goes to bed. If I try to go to bed too early, I lay there for hours agonizing over every creak and scratch that I hear- believe me, I've tried it. Maybe I'll try it again once I have my real bed set up, because even without sheets, it looks incredibly inviting- I haven't slept in a real bed in so long!!! At my homestay in Molepolole, I had a bed, but it had no real mattress- just wire mesh and a foam pad., and until I can find sheets and comforter, I have set up camp on a small couch in the spare bedroom of my new house. The spare bedroom faces out into the family compound, and I lose a lot of sleep to the noises of people coming and going and blasting car stereos. I know that there are other people living here and that the property is pretty secure, but hearing a lot of voices in the dark is unsettling when you live alone- yet another thing I'll have to get used to. More than once I've been annoyed by people making noise in the yard at night only to remember that it's only 8pm and that people have every right to be outside and talk on their own property!
Don't worry about me feeling too alone though- I've already found a few roommates, although they are quite a bit smaller than my roommates in the past have been. There is a resident African version of a ladybug who lives in the spare bedroom, 3 small brown cockroaches that were immediately squished and evacuated, spiders of various shapes and sizes lurking in corners of the kitchen that I haven't swept out yet, and an enormous grasshopper-type creature dwelling on the handle of my bathroom door that I nearly accidentally shook hands with earlier today. He's still there at this very moment, and as he is too large and spiky to squish or move, I feel it best to let him live there as long as he chooses. Maybe I'll train him to eat the cockroaches.
This week has been a bust as far as work at the clinic goes. I stopped by to check in on my way to town yesterday, and spent about 2 hours there observing and talking to people there this morning before I had to go home to wait for workers that never showed up. Tomorrow I am expecting the Peace Corps security officer to visit in the morning for a site inspection, and I am hoping that the workers that didn't show up today will show up tomorrow, so I don't think I'll be spending much time at the clinic tomorrow, either. I'm actually thankful for the breather between training and starting actual work, but I'm eager to live up to my title as a Peace Corps volunteer. It's frustrating to have been in Africa for over 2 months as volunteer without doing any real work. Everyone at home assumes that I'm doing amazing things as a Peace Corps volunteer, but the truth is that I haven't done anything at all yet. Until now, it's been all training and no doing, and really for the next two months, I'm not supposed to do much either. I'm supposed to be observing, helping with minor tasks, getting to know how my clinic works, and doing an assessment of community needs. Volunteers are supposed to learn how to integrate at training, and then spend time becoming a real community member and finding out what the community really needs and wants before jumping in and working on projects. This approach is actually what I like best about the way Peace Corps operates because it leads to more successful, sustainable projects, but it can be extremely frustrating for the volunteer who just wants to get to work. At least I'll be starting some form of work on Monday, and hopefully setting up a schedule with my counterpart. I always feel better when I have a schedule.
It is now officially that time of night when I am literally falling asleep writing, which means it may finally be time for bed. Hope you haven't been falling asleep reading this long entry!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Home Sweet Home- For real this time!!
(written 6/16)
I have a house! And I'm living in it! Right now! And it has furniture! After sitting around the District Health Office bumming around and playing on the internet and generally making it known that I wouldn't do anything of importance until I had housing, the nurse in charge of my housing came in at about 2pm yesterday and declared that that she had procured a truck and that I would be moving into my house immediately. Of course this is Peace Corps Botswana, so nothing about the move was as simple as it should have been, but the important thing is that it happened. Geri and went outside to find the truck and met up with our very impressive moving crew- 2 nurses, a not very strong looking driver, Geri, and me. We went first to pick up the furniture from the previous volunteer's house, which took forever. With just our little group, we moved 2 couches, a big cushy chair, 2 coffee tables, an oven, a refrigerator, a wardrobe, a vanity set with mirror, a full size bed with a boxspring (!!!) and an enormous headboard with attached drawers, 3 full propane tanks almost as tall as I am, and all of my kitchen cabinets, along with all of my stuff. While all this furniture means that I'll have a pretty sweet house set up once it's all clean, it was not fun to move. After a little convincing and translation, I got the driver to bring me to Mike and Geri's to pick up my suitcase and food, and from there, we went straight to my house. I was excited to finally be at my house, and thrilled to find that the living room and bedrooms weren't quite as orange as I'd remembered them to be (they're actually more pink), but my excitement didn't last long. Our little moving team managed to get all the furniture into the house (mainly piling everything into the living room for me to figure out later), and then promptly left me alone in a house I hadn't spent more than 2 minutes in. As I looked around, the high of finally having a house quickly sank into the low of realizing what I'd gotten myself into. Glancing at the sawdust and exposed wires and tools left everywhere and the ladder in the kitchen, I quickly realized that I had moved into an active construction site. The water was not connected, the gas was not connected to the stove, the lights in the kitchen, the bathroom, and one of the bedrooms didn't work, everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and spiders, and to top it all off, my furniture (still all piled in the living room) still smelled like the previous volunteer's cat. As I've had to do more than once since arriving in Botswana, I allowed myself a moment to freak out and then collected myself, remembering that I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in Africa. I resisted my instinct to pick up the phone and tell Mike and Geri that it was a mistake, and that my house was not ready to move into, and that I needed to spend another night at their house, and set about trying to figure out how to get through the night on my own. With the help of a guy who apparently lives on my compound, we got the gas hooked up to the stove and brought the construction equipment out to the porch. I moved the bed and the loveseat and tables and shelves to their rightful places (Ever tried to move a couch through a doorway by yourself? I don't recommend it.), and swept the floor for about an hour. At this point, I realized that I still had no water, and would need to do something about it before it got really dark. I sought out the landlord's son who had just gotten home from school, and asked him to bring me to a store where I could buy some bottled water and maybe a snack. Remember how I went on a 'short walk' with my host brother and sister during my first week in Molepolole, and it turned into a long hike uphill in flip-flops and we didn't get back until after dark? Well, this experience was eerily similar. We started walking along the tarred road with about a half hour until sunset, with me thinking that we were headed to some nearby tuck shop or general store. Once the paved road ran out, however, I began to question our destination, and was informed that there was no store in our ward, and that we were going far. I probably should have turned around at this point, but the son reassured me that we would be home before it got really dark, and I really needed the water. I also was enjoying the walk. Before I moved into my house, I was not thrilled about living in Mahalapye. It's a large village, and not really scenic at all, and not at all what I'd envisioned my Peace Corps assignment would be. But last night on our walk, I discovered that I am living on the outskirts of Mahalapye, where there are no malls and no streetlights, but wide open spaces and a river instead! Of course, it's the dry season, so the river wasn't very impressive, but it was enough to make me happy. We also passed some of the most blatant examples of Botswana's income gap, with mansions built next to tent settlements. Sometimes it's easy to forget the poverty that still exists in Botswana, but I don't think I'll be forgetting it here. Eventually we came to a large building, which the boy informed me was our destination. To my surprise, he'd brought me to a hotel! I guess I really am pretty far away from the shopping district, which I'm not too upset about. Thankfully, the hotel had bottled water to sell, and we headed home having accomplished our mission. By this time, the sun had set, but there was still enough light for me to feel okay about the walk home. The only unnerving part was rounding a corner and coming face to face with a bull- those horns can be intimidating when they are pointed straight at you! Luckily the bull was just curious and grazing with his herd, and we passed without incident.
When I got home, I decided that my highest priority was to get the refrigerator working. I started to play around with the outlet, thinking that was the probably, when to my surprise and utter dismay, all the lights in the house suddenly went out. By this time it was really dark out, and my house was pitch black- thank goodness for the flashlight on my cell phone! I was surprised at how calm I was, facing the potential of a night without electricity or running water in a brand new place, but I guess by this time, I had already had my moment of panic hours ago and was prepared for anything. I lit a candle, and headed to the landlord's house. Once again, the son came to my rescue and discovered that there was a problem with my electric box, which he reset without complication, and my lights came back on immediately- along with the refrigerator! With that problem solved, I got back to heavy duty cleaning and unpacking. Opening my bags was a bit like Christmas morning. I found photos and books and even a framed picture of the Montauk lighthouse! With food in my cabinets, furniture in place, and my Irish blessing plaque over the sink, I felt more at home than I have since arriving in Botswana. There's still a lot to do, of course, which is why I am home and not at the clinic today. I'm actually writing this entry as a break from cleaning. I've done laundry (because there's running water today!!!), cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, discovered that the kitchen sink leaks, dusted the bedroom furniture, and am about to head out to the stores to get everything else I need to make this house my home for the next two years. It's actually a really nice house, bigger and nicer (and pinker) than the one I had in New Paltz, although with workmanship that would be unacceptable in the United States (doors that don't quite fit, cracked tiles even though the tiling was just done this month, loose window locks, curved walls, etc). I think that in a week, it'll look amazing and be ready for visitors. Until then, I'll be playing house and cleaning like crazy!
Addendum:
A new desperation-induced Peace Corps recipe for you. I have a feeling this may become a recurrent piece in this blog.
What do you do when you come home from the grocery store all excited about cooking the food you bought and having a real meal with meat and vegetables, only to find that you have no water (AGAIN), and after sighing and starting to make grilled cheese, you realize that the gas for the stove is also no longer working?
1. Get angry.
2.Look over and over again through your cabinets desperately for something that doesn't need to be washed or cooked, hoping that the selection will change, because you've now had either cheese and crackers or bran flakes for 4 meals in a row.
3.Accept your situation. Welcome to the Peace Corps.
4.Get creative. Start with a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Add crushed bran flakes and raisins. Finally, sprinkle some salt on top, and close the sandwich. Yes, salt. Don't make that face, let me explain. The peanut butter here is very sweet, while the peanut butter in the US has some salt in it. We all like salted peanuts, don't we? So it's not that strange. The result is surprisingly tasty, and it satisfies cravings for sweet, crunchy, and salty foods, and it's (kinda) filling.
Not exactly a genius, gourmet solution, but it worked for me. Here's hoping there's water tomorrow so I'll be able to have some salad and grilled chicken for the first time since arriving in Botswana!
I have a house! And I'm living in it! Right now! And it has furniture! After sitting around the District Health Office bumming around and playing on the internet and generally making it known that I wouldn't do anything of importance until I had housing, the nurse in charge of my housing came in at about 2pm yesterday and declared that that she had procured a truck and that I would be moving into my house immediately. Of course this is Peace Corps Botswana, so nothing about the move was as simple as it should have been, but the important thing is that it happened. Geri and went outside to find the truck and met up with our very impressive moving crew- 2 nurses, a not very strong looking driver, Geri, and me. We went first to pick up the furniture from the previous volunteer's house, which took forever. With just our little group, we moved 2 couches, a big cushy chair, 2 coffee tables, an oven, a refrigerator, a wardrobe, a vanity set with mirror, a full size bed with a boxspring (!!!) and an enormous headboard with attached drawers, 3 full propane tanks almost as tall as I am, and all of my kitchen cabinets, along with all of my stuff. While all this furniture means that I'll have a pretty sweet house set up once it's all clean, it was not fun to move. After a little convincing and translation, I got the driver to bring me to Mike and Geri's to pick up my suitcase and food, and from there, we went straight to my house. I was excited to finally be at my house, and thrilled to find that the living room and bedrooms weren't quite as orange as I'd remembered them to be (they're actually more pink), but my excitement didn't last long. Our little moving team managed to get all the furniture into the house (mainly piling everything into the living room for me to figure out later), and then promptly left me alone in a house I hadn't spent more than 2 minutes in. As I looked around, the high of finally having a house quickly sank into the low of realizing what I'd gotten myself into. Glancing at the sawdust and exposed wires and tools left everywhere and the ladder in the kitchen, I quickly realized that I had moved into an active construction site. The water was not connected, the gas was not connected to the stove, the lights in the kitchen, the bathroom, and one of the bedrooms didn't work, everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and spiders, and to top it all off, my furniture (still all piled in the living room) still smelled like the previous volunteer's cat. As I've had to do more than once since arriving in Botswana, I allowed myself a moment to freak out and then collected myself, remembering that I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in Africa. I resisted my instinct to pick up the phone and tell Mike and Geri that it was a mistake, and that my house was not ready to move into, and that I needed to spend another night at their house, and set about trying to figure out how to get through the night on my own. With the help of a guy who apparently lives on my compound, we got the gas hooked up to the stove and brought the construction equipment out to the porch. I moved the bed and the loveseat and tables and shelves to their rightful places (Ever tried to move a couch through a doorway by yourself? I don't recommend it.), and swept the floor for about an hour. At this point, I realized that I still had no water, and would need to do something about it before it got really dark. I sought out the landlord's son who had just gotten home from school, and asked him to bring me to a store where I could buy some bottled water and maybe a snack. Remember how I went on a 'short walk' with my host brother and sister during my first week in Molepolole, and it turned into a long hike uphill in flip-flops and we didn't get back until after dark? Well, this experience was eerily similar. We started walking along the tarred road with about a half hour until sunset, with me thinking that we were headed to some nearby tuck shop or general store. Once the paved road ran out, however, I began to question our destination, and was informed that there was no store in our ward, and that we were going far. I probably should have turned around at this point, but the son reassured me that we would be home before it got really dark, and I really needed the water. I also was enjoying the walk. Before I moved into my house, I was not thrilled about living in Mahalapye. It's a large village, and not really scenic at all, and not at all what I'd envisioned my Peace Corps assignment would be. But last night on our walk, I discovered that I am living on the outskirts of Mahalapye, where there are no malls and no streetlights, but wide open spaces and a river instead! Of course, it's the dry season, so the river wasn't very impressive, but it was enough to make me happy. We also passed some of the most blatant examples of Botswana's income gap, with mansions built next to tent settlements. Sometimes it's easy to forget the poverty that still exists in Botswana, but I don't think I'll be forgetting it here. Eventually we came to a large building, which the boy informed me was our destination. To my surprise, he'd brought me to a hotel! I guess I really am pretty far away from the shopping district, which I'm not too upset about. Thankfully, the hotel had bottled water to sell, and we headed home having accomplished our mission. By this time, the sun had set, but there was still enough light for me to feel okay about the walk home. The only unnerving part was rounding a corner and coming face to face with a bull- those horns can be intimidating when they are pointed straight at you! Luckily the bull was just curious and grazing with his herd, and we passed without incident.
When I got home, I decided that my highest priority was to get the refrigerator working. I started to play around with the outlet, thinking that was the probably, when to my surprise and utter dismay, all the lights in the house suddenly went out. By this time it was really dark out, and my house was pitch black- thank goodness for the flashlight on my cell phone! I was surprised at how calm I was, facing the potential of a night without electricity or running water in a brand new place, but I guess by this time, I had already had my moment of panic hours ago and was prepared for anything. I lit a candle, and headed to the landlord's house. Once again, the son came to my rescue and discovered that there was a problem with my electric box, which he reset without complication, and my lights came back on immediately- along with the refrigerator! With that problem solved, I got back to heavy duty cleaning and unpacking. Opening my bags was a bit like Christmas morning. I found photos and books and even a framed picture of the Montauk lighthouse! With food in my cabinets, furniture in place, and my Irish blessing plaque over the sink, I felt more at home than I have since arriving in Botswana. There's still a lot to do, of course, which is why I am home and not at the clinic today. I'm actually writing this entry as a break from cleaning. I've done laundry (because there's running water today!!!), cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, discovered that the kitchen sink leaks, dusted the bedroom furniture, and am about to head out to the stores to get everything else I need to make this house my home for the next two years. It's actually a really nice house, bigger and nicer (and pinker) than the one I had in New Paltz, although with workmanship that would be unacceptable in the United States (doors that don't quite fit, cracked tiles even though the tiling was just done this month, loose window locks, curved walls, etc). I think that in a week, it'll look amazing and be ready for visitors. Until then, I'll be playing house and cleaning like crazy!
Addendum:
A new desperation-induced Peace Corps recipe for you. I have a feeling this may become a recurrent piece in this blog.
What do you do when you come home from the grocery store all excited about cooking the food you bought and having a real meal with meat and vegetables, only to find that you have no water (AGAIN), and after sighing and starting to make grilled cheese, you realize that the gas for the stove is also no longer working?
1. Get angry.
2.Look over and over again through your cabinets desperately for something that doesn't need to be washed or cooked, hoping that the selection will change, because you've now had either cheese and crackers or bran flakes for 4 meals in a row.
3.Accept your situation. Welcome to the Peace Corps.
4.Get creative. Start with a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Add crushed bran flakes and raisins. Finally, sprinkle some salt on top, and close the sandwich. Yes, salt. Don't make that face, let me explain. The peanut butter here is very sweet, while the peanut butter in the US has some salt in it. We all like salted peanuts, don't we? So it's not that strange. The result is surprisingly tasty, and it satisfies cravings for sweet, crunchy, and salty foods, and it's (kinda) filling.
Not exactly a genius, gourmet solution, but it worked for me. Here's hoping there's water tomorrow so I'll be able to have some salad and grilled chicken for the first time since arriving in Botswana!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
I get by with a little help from my friends...
This won't be the long entry about swearing-in that I promised you all, since I'm at an internet cafe with limited time, but I thought I'd give you an update on recent events anyway.
There are 5 Bots 9 volunteers that will be serving in the Mahalapye region, and 3 of us rode up together in the same combi. Mahalapye is only a couple hours away from Molepolole, so this move should have been a relatively simple process- the key word however, is 'should'. I heard someone say that when you move to Botswana, you have to imagine yourself moving into a pot of honey. Everything is more difficult than it should be, and everything takes forever. Our combi was supposed to pick us up at 8am, but didn't arrive until 9:15. This was perfect actually, because our bags that had been in storage arrived at the same time (they were also supposed to arrive by 8). We had the driver bring us to each of our 3 homestay houses to pick up the enormous amount of baggage we've somehow accumulated in the last 2 months (I blame Peace Corps- who needs fire extinguishers, airhorns, medical kits, and mosquito nets?). This took some time, but eventually we were on our way. The drive should have taken about 2.5 hours, but we had the slowest driver in Botswana, so by 1pm, we were still over an hour away. It was at this point that the driver turned back to us and said "We have a problem". The gas guage said our tank was empty, and we were at least 50k from the nearest filling station. Since there was really nothing else to do, we drove as slowly as we could, and somehow made it all 50k to the filling station in Shoshong, at which point our driver informed us that he had no money for fuel. We paid with the fading hope of eventual reimbursement. Shoshong is actually a beautiful hillside village that I would love to come back and explore, so we didn't mind the detour too much. We got back on the road, and made it to our meeting point by 3pm. While we waited for the volunteers who live outside Mahalapye to be picked up, I texted my counterpart for directions to my house so the driver could drop me off there (remember that I have only seen my house twice, and only for 5 minutes each time). To my dismay, my counterpart said that my house was not yet furnished, and I would have to stay in another house for at least a week while transportation for the furniture to be found. The last time I had seen this other house, it was not habitable, and upon arrival this time, I found that nothing had changed. I won't get into details here, but I did not feel safe or comfortable staying there. I am a Peace Corps volunteer, and was prepared for hardships like lack of running water and electricity and availability of goods, but I won't compromise my health and safety. Luckily, some other volunteers came to the rescue, a wonderful Bots 9 couple that will also be staying in Mahalapye. I have been staying at their house for the last couple nights, and am grateful beyond words for their generosity. We have spent the last couple days shopping, scoping out the internet cafe, cleaning and organizing the house, and eating American foods. We have some more shopping to do before these meals are gourmet, but I'm pretty thrilled with grilled cheese and quiche with sausage and peas. I'll be staying with them at least for one more night, and then speaking to my counterpart about the situation when I arrive at the clinic for work tomorrow morning. I'm hoping to convince her to allow me to stay in my real house, with or without furniture- I have a sleeping bag for a reason! I just want to get settled into life here, and hopefully that's something anyone can understand. In the meantime, I'm just thankful to have friends that are willing to help me out!
There are 5 Bots 9 volunteers that will be serving in the Mahalapye region, and 3 of us rode up together in the same combi. Mahalapye is only a couple hours away from Molepolole, so this move should have been a relatively simple process- the key word however, is 'should'. I heard someone say that when you move to Botswana, you have to imagine yourself moving into a pot of honey. Everything is more difficult than it should be, and everything takes forever. Our combi was supposed to pick us up at 8am, but didn't arrive until 9:15. This was perfect actually, because our bags that had been in storage arrived at the same time (they were also supposed to arrive by 8). We had the driver bring us to each of our 3 homestay houses to pick up the enormous amount of baggage we've somehow accumulated in the last 2 months (I blame Peace Corps- who needs fire extinguishers, airhorns, medical kits, and mosquito nets?). This took some time, but eventually we were on our way. The drive should have taken about 2.5 hours, but we had the slowest driver in Botswana, so by 1pm, we were still over an hour away. It was at this point that the driver turned back to us and said "We have a problem". The gas guage said our tank was empty, and we were at least 50k from the nearest filling station. Since there was really nothing else to do, we drove as slowly as we could, and somehow made it all 50k to the filling station in Shoshong, at which point our driver informed us that he had no money for fuel. We paid with the fading hope of eventual reimbursement. Shoshong is actually a beautiful hillside village that I would love to come back and explore, so we didn't mind the detour too much. We got back on the road, and made it to our meeting point by 3pm. While we waited for the volunteers who live outside Mahalapye to be picked up, I texted my counterpart for directions to my house so the driver could drop me off there (remember that I have only seen my house twice, and only for 5 minutes each time). To my dismay, my counterpart said that my house was not yet furnished, and I would have to stay in another house for at least a week while transportation for the furniture to be found. The last time I had seen this other house, it was not habitable, and upon arrival this time, I found that nothing had changed. I won't get into details here, but I did not feel safe or comfortable staying there. I am a Peace Corps volunteer, and was prepared for hardships like lack of running water and electricity and availability of goods, but I won't compromise my health and safety. Luckily, some other volunteers came to the rescue, a wonderful Bots 9 couple that will also be staying in Mahalapye. I have been staying at their house for the last couple nights, and am grateful beyond words for their generosity. We have spent the last couple days shopping, scoping out the internet cafe, cleaning and organizing the house, and eating American foods. We have some more shopping to do before these meals are gourmet, but I'm pretty thrilled with grilled cheese and quiche with sausage and peas. I'll be staying with them at least for one more night, and then speaking to my counterpart about the situation when I arrive at the clinic for work tomorrow morning. I'm hoping to convince her to allow me to stay in my real house, with or without furniture- I have a sleeping bag for a reason! I just want to get settled into life here, and hopefully that's something anyone can understand. In the meantime, I'm just thankful to have friends that are willing to help me out!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A quick note
I"M A PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just thought you all should know.
Today I swore to uphold the US Constitution and fulfill my duty as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana, and have moved up from a trainee to an actual, official Peace Corps volunteer. It's been a crazy ride, and while I fully expect that it'll only get crazier from here, I'm so excited to have made it this far. I'll write a real entry on it later because I want to get back to the party and then get home to start packing, but I thought I should write something while I was on here. I should have pretty regular internet access at site, but it might take me a couple weeks to find it and make it a part of my routine, so bear with me and keep checking back if you don't hear from me for a while. I promise to do my best to keep it up!
Just thought you all should know.
Today I swore to uphold the US Constitution and fulfill my duty as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana, and have moved up from a trainee to an actual, official Peace Corps volunteer. It's been a crazy ride, and while I fully expect that it'll only get crazier from here, I'm so excited to have made it this far. I'll write a real entry on it later because I want to get back to the party and then get home to start packing, but I thought I should write something while I was on here. I should have pretty regular internet access at site, but it might take me a couple weeks to find it and make it a part of my routine, so bear with me and keep checking back if you don't hear from me for a while. I promise to do my best to keep it up!
A new care package list
Now that I've been here for two months and am about to move to site, I thought it was about time for an updated list of suggestions for possible care packages. Again, please don't feel like I'm expecting anything, I'm just posting this because people have asked what I could use. Letters and emails are also more than accepted!
-Taco shells/seasoning
-Corn chips
-Tortillas (can you tell that Mexican food is non-existent here?)
-Parmesan cheese (of course)
-Reese's peanut butter cups (yes, they'll melt a little, but it's fine, I swear)
-Gummi worms or Swedish fish
-Cool ranch Doritos (they have Doritos, but with weird flavors. Sweet chili, anyone?)
-Pretzels (they don't exist here)
-Brownie mix (I know it sounds like my diet here will be completely full of junk food, but you can't really send romaine lettuce or hummus through the mail, and I can actually get a lot of healthy food here if I look hard enough)
-Lipton iced tea mix
-Dove soap
-Opti-free contact solution
-Hand sanitizer
-Crest Pro-health toothpaste
-Mix cd's (music is a coping mechanism)
-Warm clothes (it's freezing here! I spent my Memorial Day in a fleece, a long skirt, leggings, and socks- fashionable, I know)
-Books (classics are awesome, but anything interesting is fine. Lot's of evening downtime for reading)
-Magazines (Newsweek, Time, Scientific American, heck, even People- any connection to the outside world would be appreciated!)
-Stationary (because I swear I'll start writing to people at some point)
-AA and AAA batteries
-DVD's (action, sci-fi, romance, comedy- nothing too heavy yet, real life is heavy enough right now)
-Photos (gotta decorate those walls, and have some way to remember you all for 2 years!)
-Photo frames (lightweight, nothing fancy)
-Lyrics and guitar chords (got the guitar, but my repertoire is abysmal. I'm working on it)
-Fun things and surprises (especially things for the house, since I'll be spending the next month or so setting it up)
That's about all that I can think of for now. Although if someone can figure out how to get me a New York bagel with cream cheese or a slice of pizza, I'd take that, too. :-)
Just a quick tip - stuffing everything into a large padded envelope is supposed to be much cheaper than sending a box, so if you think you can make it fit, go for it.
Oh, and be careful about what you write on the customs sticker- I have to pay customs on every package I get!
-Taco shells/seasoning
-Corn chips
-Tortillas (can you tell that Mexican food is non-existent here?)
-Parmesan cheese (of course)
-Reese's peanut butter cups (yes, they'll melt a little, but it's fine, I swear)
-Gummi worms or Swedish fish
-Cool ranch Doritos (they have Doritos, but with weird flavors. Sweet chili, anyone?)
-Pretzels (they don't exist here)
-Brownie mix (I know it sounds like my diet here will be completely full of junk food, but you can't really send romaine lettuce or hummus through the mail, and I can actually get a lot of healthy food here if I look hard enough)
-Lipton iced tea mix
-Dove soap
-Opti-free contact solution
-Hand sanitizer
-Crest Pro-health toothpaste
-Mix cd's (music is a coping mechanism)
-Warm clothes (it's freezing here! I spent my Memorial Day in a fleece, a long skirt, leggings, and socks- fashionable, I know)
-Books (classics are awesome, but anything interesting is fine. Lot's of evening downtime for reading)
-Magazines (Newsweek, Time, Scientific American, heck, even People- any connection to the outside world would be appreciated!)
-Stationary (because I swear I'll start writing to people at some point)
-AA and AAA batteries
-DVD's (action, sci-fi, romance, comedy- nothing too heavy yet, real life is heavy enough right now)
-Photos (gotta decorate those walls, and have some way to remember you all for 2 years!)
-Photo frames (lightweight, nothing fancy)
-Lyrics and guitar chords (got the guitar, but my repertoire is abysmal. I'm working on it)
-Fun things and surprises (especially things for the house, since I'll be spending the next month or so setting it up)
That's about all that I can think of for now. Although if someone can figure out how to get me a New York bagel with cream cheese or a slice of pizza, I'd take that, too. :-)
Just a quick tip - stuffing everything into a large padded envelope is supposed to be much cheaper than sending a box, so if you think you can make it fit, go for it.
Oh, and be careful about what you write on the customs sticker- I have to pay customs on every package I get!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Home Sweet Home....eventually
Today is Memorial Day, and while I have visions of barbeques, flip flops, and the air show at Jones Beach, I am currently sitting on my bed wearing a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, leggings, pajama pants, and socks, covered in a heavy fleece leopard print blanket, and I can see my breath. Winter has arrived in Botswana, folks! There are a number of ways to tell it's winter here, but my favorite is when you're explaining something very important to your APCD, and she stops you to let you know that your teeth are chattering while you talk (in case you didn't notice). To be fair, it does usually warm up during the day to the point where short sleeves are acceptable, so I thought leaving the fleece at home would be ok- unfortunately it was overcast most of the day, so it didn't warm up much. Maybe I'll be investing in a small space heater when I move into my new house?
With the mention of the new house, I feel like I should move into a description of my new village and my new work site and my new house, which is really the purpose of this entry, but I don't know how to approach the subject. I guess I'll start with the housing situation, since although it's a bit of a mess, it's the easiest to explain. I was supposed to move into a house that had been used by a Peace Corps volunteer that just left last week, but certain factors that I won't discuss here have closed that option to me. My counterpart found a different house pretty quickly with equivalent amenities, but we are still waiting for Peace Corps staff to visit and approve it. The house is on a family compound behind the senior secondary school, about a 15 minute walk to my clinic. It has a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom with bathtub, two bedrooms, and by the time I move in, it will have working electricity and hot running water in the kitchen and bathroom. It has no furniture yet, since I was supposed to get the previous volunteer's furniture, but my counterpart is working on that situation. The décor is interesting, to say the least. The living room and the bedrooms are all painted a bright peachy orange, which I think is supposed to look cheerful and tropical and they are equipped with brand new white tile floors with an orange floral design. The kitchen and bathroom are painted an intense, bright, crayon-like shade of blue. It's all a little much for my tastes, but it's very clean, and I can work with the colors to tone them down even if I can't repaint. The house is bigger than my house in New Paltz, and there's a good chance that the furniture could end up being nicer, too- what a strange Peace Corps experience!
Onto the clinic. My counterpart is really my supervisor, since she is the head nurse at the clinic, but I think I'll be working pretty closely with all the staff. Because I had no housing yet, I spent my site visit at my counterpart's house, which could have been very awkward, but wasn't because she's amazing. She's very down to earth and funny, and we understand each other really well. She also had her daughter in law and son staying the week with her, and they're around my age, so I ended up having a really good experience with them, but I'll go more into that later. The clinic is youth friendly, as I mentioned before, but it works with all ages and types of people. We got into Mahalapye pretty late in the evening on Wednesday, so I didn't get to see the clinic until Thursday, when I was given the grand tour and introduced to the staff. On Friday I spent the entire morning at the clinic, and was put straight to work giving out vitamin A supplements to kids ages 6 months to 5 years old. To give you an idea of how busy the clinic can get, imagine an average pediatric practice. I worked for a solo practitioner (one doctor), and we saw a max of 30 kids a day. This Friday at the clinic, we saw 90 kids in 3 hours, and there was no doctor. Every kid was weighed and given a vitamin supplement, every mom was questioned about the health of their child, and every record was checked to be sure it was up to date, but it was very much an assembly line with no privacy and no extensive counseling. Then again, it is a clinic and not a private practice, and privacy and time are given to patients who come in because they are sick. The clinic has a lay counselor who does HIV testing and counseling, and everyone works with the PMTCT program, but patients are referred out for ARV distribution. The clinic also works in the community, especially with the senior secondary school, which I also visited. The school head (principal) had some issues already in mind that he'd like me to work on, so I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time there. The community has a lot of resources I'd like to check out and work with, especially the drama group that works on health issues, the prisons, the hospital, and a few community and youth development centers. I guess that's the good thing about living in a really big village- lots of things to do!
I know I touched on my feelings about the size of my village in my last entry, but after seeing it and spending a few days there, I feel it's worth talking about again. I've gotten a few different population estimates, but the number that comes up most often is about 50,000. It's very big, and very spread out, and a little intimidating, especially for someone who wanted a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. During my stay, crime was also mentioned a lot (don't be too worried, I've already had a chat with our security officer about my concerns and I feel that he's taking me very seriously and working with me), and at points during the visit, I was feeling very negative about the whole experience. I kept thinking that this was not what I signed up for, and that this was not how I pictured my Peace Corps experience going, and that two years of my life was a lot to give up for an experience I wasn't completely thrilled about. It's very easy to go down that road and stew in negative thoughts, because no matter what, your Peace Corps experience is never going to match up with the expectations and mental images you had before you left. I expected it to be difficult and prepared myself for homesickness and loneliness, dealing with lack of amenities and comforts, and culture shock. I never thought that as a Peace Corps volunteer in sub-Saharan Africa, I would be in a big house with electricity and hot water, in a big town with malls and supermarkets and crime, or that I would have 3 other volunteers in the same town as me. It sounds like I was a little ignorant before coming here, but really I wasn't. I knew that there were large towns and cities with nice amenities and shopping areas- I just didn't imagine that Peace Corps would place volunteers in such places!
With all these thoughts swimming in my head, I had a pretty rough night on Friday with a lot of doubts. Thankfully, my counterpart must have realized that I was a little burnt out, and she gave me Saturday off while she went to work. I ended up waking up at 4am to go with her kids to spend the day at their cattle post. The cattle post is a huge part of the culture here, and most people seem to have one in their family. Generally, most families will have a house in the village the family is historically from, as well as 'lands' (farmland) in the area surrounding that village, and a cattle post, which is is even further away and deeper into the bush than the lands. They may also have property in Gaborone (the capital), where many people go to school or are able to find decent jobs. For example, my host mother lives in Molepolole on her family's compound, but her mother and children live with her brother in Gaborone, where the kids go to school. The lands and cattle post are taken care of by uncles and cousins. My counterpart's situation is very similar. The separation of family members and the remoteness of the lands and the cattle posts and the way many people live in places they don't consider home adds a whole new facet to the HIV epidemic in Botswana, which is something I really want to find out more about and possibly work with while I'm here.
Ok, cultural lesson and rant over. We got to the cattle post at about 5:30am, before the sun, so we woke the uncles up and started a fire for tea (and warmth- it is winter, after all). As soon as it was light enough to see my surroundings, I fell in love with life at the cattle post. Shelters are just that- shelter. There was a small one room house made of stone and cement, and a couple other houses that looked a lot less sturdy. Electricity and running water are laughable ideas there. The goats and chickens were kept near the houses, and the cattle kraal was a short walk away. While we let the water heat up, we went to watch the uncles milk the cows. We took the fresh milk, and poured some of it in with the hot water, and dropped in a few teabags, stirred it a few times, and the tea was done. I don't usually take my tea with milk, but I would have felt rude refusing the milk they had just worked so hard for, and I was well rewarded- fresh milk makes creamy, delicious tea. We spent a while warming up by the fire with our tea, but soon it was time for work. Some uncles went to work giving the animals medication and preventative treatments, while others went to gather firewood. We went with one of the men to the river to fill up the water tank so the animals (and people) would have something to drink. This is the dry season, so the river was completely dry when we got there. However, water still flows under the ground even during the dry season, so we used a generator and some tubing to suction the water from the water hole into the tank. A few of the cows joined us for the trip, and I was told that when the river is full, baboons and other animals come over for a drink, too. Once we had the water, we gathered some goat dung to use as fertilizer, packed the back of the truck, and headed back to town. Although I must have heard the word 'lekgoa' (white person) at least 37 times, it was so much like the Peace Corps experience I had envisioned that I just wanted to stay. Of course I couldn't stay, so I made arrangements to stay that night at Mike and Geri's house so I could start to process the whole experience with other volunteers. It ended up being a great decision. Mike and Geri had not gotten all the warnings about crime that I had gotten, which leads me to think that people really just wanted to be the single young white girl living alone would be extra careful and not take stupid risks- good advice for a girl living alone anywhere. They had also gone into more of the shops and spent more time wandering around town than I had, and they already had a good grasp of where the basic facilities and shops are, which made me feel a lot better. The good dinner, hot bath, and adult beverages provided may have also helped my mood a little...maybe.
We left for the bus rank at 8:30 Sunday morning, and after a nice long, damp walk, we got there almost an hour later. The bus ride was uneventful (or at least as uneventful as a ride on a bus in Botswana can be), and it provided some good thinking time. I started thinking about potential projects and found myself getting really excited about them. I realized that all this time I'd been thinking things like “this isn't what I joined Peace Corps for”, and really thought for the first time about what I did join Peace Corps for. Of course there were dreams of exotic places and small villages and roughing it, but I can get all those things on vacations here- and there will be plenty of them. I joined Peace Corps to gain professional and life experience and to help people. Period. In signing up and getting on the plane, I agreed that I would go where ever they sent me, knowing that there would be risks and difficulties, because I trusted that I would be sent to a place that needed my skills and that the risks would be reasonable risks. I think I can safely say that almost anywhere in Botswana is a heck of a lot safer than most American cities, or even suburbs. After this site visit, no matter how I feel about my village or my house, I know that there's a lot of work I can do at my site. And my Peace Corps job is flexible enough that as long as there is a community need, I can work with projects that interest me personally and professionally. Along with clinical work, I could also work with the prisons, with the churches, with the drama group, with a school youth group, or maybe find an agricultural project to get involved in. If there is a felt need, I could potentially even do health outreach work to smaller surrounding villages or to people living on the lands and cattle posts. As soon as I got home, I started working on a list of potential projects and a schedule for the next couple months at site, when I'll be doing community needs assessments and getting to know my way around. If you know me, you know that once I start making lists and schedules and planning, I'm in a good place. Not only because I love list-making (and I do), but because it means that I'm starting to dream and to visualize myself living in a place and finding a niche there. Now all that remains to be seen is whether I can turn these more realistic dreams into a reality in the next 2 years.
With the mention of the new house, I feel like I should move into a description of my new village and my new work site and my new house, which is really the purpose of this entry, but I don't know how to approach the subject. I guess I'll start with the housing situation, since although it's a bit of a mess, it's the easiest to explain. I was supposed to move into a house that had been used by a Peace Corps volunteer that just left last week, but certain factors that I won't discuss here have closed that option to me. My counterpart found a different house pretty quickly with equivalent amenities, but we are still waiting for Peace Corps staff to visit and approve it. The house is on a family compound behind the senior secondary school, about a 15 minute walk to my clinic. It has a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom with bathtub, two bedrooms, and by the time I move in, it will have working electricity and hot running water in the kitchen and bathroom. It has no furniture yet, since I was supposed to get the previous volunteer's furniture, but my counterpart is working on that situation. The décor is interesting, to say the least. The living room and the bedrooms are all painted a bright peachy orange, which I think is supposed to look cheerful and tropical and they are equipped with brand new white tile floors with an orange floral design. The kitchen and bathroom are painted an intense, bright, crayon-like shade of blue. It's all a little much for my tastes, but it's very clean, and I can work with the colors to tone them down even if I can't repaint. The house is bigger than my house in New Paltz, and there's a good chance that the furniture could end up being nicer, too- what a strange Peace Corps experience!
Onto the clinic. My counterpart is really my supervisor, since she is the head nurse at the clinic, but I think I'll be working pretty closely with all the staff. Because I had no housing yet, I spent my site visit at my counterpart's house, which could have been very awkward, but wasn't because she's amazing. She's very down to earth and funny, and we understand each other really well. She also had her daughter in law and son staying the week with her, and they're around my age, so I ended up having a really good experience with them, but I'll go more into that later. The clinic is youth friendly, as I mentioned before, but it works with all ages and types of people. We got into Mahalapye pretty late in the evening on Wednesday, so I didn't get to see the clinic until Thursday, when I was given the grand tour and introduced to the staff. On Friday I spent the entire morning at the clinic, and was put straight to work giving out vitamin A supplements to kids ages 6 months to 5 years old. To give you an idea of how busy the clinic can get, imagine an average pediatric practice. I worked for a solo practitioner (one doctor), and we saw a max of 30 kids a day. This Friday at the clinic, we saw 90 kids in 3 hours, and there was no doctor. Every kid was weighed and given a vitamin supplement, every mom was questioned about the health of their child, and every record was checked to be sure it was up to date, but it was very much an assembly line with no privacy and no extensive counseling. Then again, it is a clinic and not a private practice, and privacy and time are given to patients who come in because they are sick. The clinic has a lay counselor who does HIV testing and counseling, and everyone works with the PMTCT program, but patients are referred out for ARV distribution. The clinic also works in the community, especially with the senior secondary school, which I also visited. The school head (principal) had some issues already in mind that he'd like me to work on, so I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time there. The community has a lot of resources I'd like to check out and work with, especially the drama group that works on health issues, the prisons, the hospital, and a few community and youth development centers. I guess that's the good thing about living in a really big village- lots of things to do!
I know I touched on my feelings about the size of my village in my last entry, but after seeing it and spending a few days there, I feel it's worth talking about again. I've gotten a few different population estimates, but the number that comes up most often is about 50,000. It's very big, and very spread out, and a little intimidating, especially for someone who wanted a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. During my stay, crime was also mentioned a lot (don't be too worried, I've already had a chat with our security officer about my concerns and I feel that he's taking me very seriously and working with me), and at points during the visit, I was feeling very negative about the whole experience. I kept thinking that this was not what I signed up for, and that this was not how I pictured my Peace Corps experience going, and that two years of my life was a lot to give up for an experience I wasn't completely thrilled about. It's very easy to go down that road and stew in negative thoughts, because no matter what, your Peace Corps experience is never going to match up with the expectations and mental images you had before you left. I expected it to be difficult and prepared myself for homesickness and loneliness, dealing with lack of amenities and comforts, and culture shock. I never thought that as a Peace Corps volunteer in sub-Saharan Africa, I would be in a big house with electricity and hot water, in a big town with malls and supermarkets and crime, or that I would have 3 other volunteers in the same town as me. It sounds like I was a little ignorant before coming here, but really I wasn't. I knew that there were large towns and cities with nice amenities and shopping areas- I just didn't imagine that Peace Corps would place volunteers in such places!
With all these thoughts swimming in my head, I had a pretty rough night on Friday with a lot of doubts. Thankfully, my counterpart must have realized that I was a little burnt out, and she gave me Saturday off while she went to work. I ended up waking up at 4am to go with her kids to spend the day at their cattle post. The cattle post is a huge part of the culture here, and most people seem to have one in their family. Generally, most families will have a house in the village the family is historically from, as well as 'lands' (farmland) in the area surrounding that village, and a cattle post, which is is even further away and deeper into the bush than the lands. They may also have property in Gaborone (the capital), where many people go to school or are able to find decent jobs. For example, my host mother lives in Molepolole on her family's compound, but her mother and children live with her brother in Gaborone, where the kids go to school. The lands and cattle post are taken care of by uncles and cousins. My counterpart's situation is very similar. The separation of family members and the remoteness of the lands and the cattle posts and the way many people live in places they don't consider home adds a whole new facet to the HIV epidemic in Botswana, which is something I really want to find out more about and possibly work with while I'm here.
Ok, cultural lesson and rant over. We got to the cattle post at about 5:30am, before the sun, so we woke the uncles up and started a fire for tea (and warmth- it is winter, after all). As soon as it was light enough to see my surroundings, I fell in love with life at the cattle post. Shelters are just that- shelter. There was a small one room house made of stone and cement, and a couple other houses that looked a lot less sturdy. Electricity and running water are laughable ideas there. The goats and chickens were kept near the houses, and the cattle kraal was a short walk away. While we let the water heat up, we went to watch the uncles milk the cows. We took the fresh milk, and poured some of it in with the hot water, and dropped in a few teabags, stirred it a few times, and the tea was done. I don't usually take my tea with milk, but I would have felt rude refusing the milk they had just worked so hard for, and I was well rewarded- fresh milk makes creamy, delicious tea. We spent a while warming up by the fire with our tea, but soon it was time for work. Some uncles went to work giving the animals medication and preventative treatments, while others went to gather firewood. We went with one of the men to the river to fill up the water tank so the animals (and people) would have something to drink. This is the dry season, so the river was completely dry when we got there. However, water still flows under the ground even during the dry season, so we used a generator and some tubing to suction the water from the water hole into the tank. A few of the cows joined us for the trip, and I was told that when the river is full, baboons and other animals come over for a drink, too. Once we had the water, we gathered some goat dung to use as fertilizer, packed the back of the truck, and headed back to town. Although I must have heard the word 'lekgoa' (white person) at least 37 times, it was so much like the Peace Corps experience I had envisioned that I just wanted to stay. Of course I couldn't stay, so I made arrangements to stay that night at Mike and Geri's house so I could start to process the whole experience with other volunteers. It ended up being a great decision. Mike and Geri had not gotten all the warnings about crime that I had gotten, which leads me to think that people really just wanted to be the single young white girl living alone would be extra careful and not take stupid risks- good advice for a girl living alone anywhere. They had also gone into more of the shops and spent more time wandering around town than I had, and they already had a good grasp of where the basic facilities and shops are, which made me feel a lot better. The good dinner, hot bath, and adult beverages provided may have also helped my mood a little...maybe.
We left for the bus rank at 8:30 Sunday morning, and after a nice long, damp walk, we got there almost an hour later. The bus ride was uneventful (or at least as uneventful as a ride on a bus in Botswana can be), and it provided some good thinking time. I started thinking about potential projects and found myself getting really excited about them. I realized that all this time I'd been thinking things like “this isn't what I joined Peace Corps for”, and really thought for the first time about what I did join Peace Corps for. Of course there were dreams of exotic places and small villages and roughing it, but I can get all those things on vacations here- and there will be plenty of them. I joined Peace Corps to gain professional and life experience and to help people. Period. In signing up and getting on the plane, I agreed that I would go where ever they sent me, knowing that there would be risks and difficulties, because I trusted that I would be sent to a place that needed my skills and that the risks would be reasonable risks. I think I can safely say that almost anywhere in Botswana is a heck of a lot safer than most American cities, or even suburbs. After this site visit, no matter how I feel about my village or my house, I know that there's a lot of work I can do at my site. And my Peace Corps job is flexible enough that as long as there is a community need, I can work with projects that interest me personally and professionally. Along with clinical work, I could also work with the prisons, with the churches, with the drama group, with a school youth group, or maybe find an agricultural project to get involved in. If there is a felt need, I could potentially even do health outreach work to smaller surrounding villages or to people living on the lands and cattle posts. As soon as I got home, I started working on a list of potential projects and a schedule for the next couple months at site, when I'll be doing community needs assessments and getting to know my way around. If you know me, you know that once I start making lists and schedules and planning, I'm in a good place. Not only because I love list-making (and I do), but because it means that I'm starting to dream and to visualize myself living in a place and finding a niche there. Now all that remains to be seen is whether I can turn these more realistic dreams into a reality in the next 2 years.
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