Life Goes On

written 7/2

And life in the Peace Corps inches on slowly. This weekend, the 4^th of July will pass by without the usual fireworks and pomp and circumstance, and next week will bring the 3 month anniversary of our arrival in Botswana. One of the phrases most likely to be heard from a Peace Corps volunteer (I may have even already used it in this blog) is that the days drag on slowly, but the months fly by. I am finding this to be true, although it is the evenings more than the days that drag on for me. The days pass rather quickly, and I rarely finish everything on my to-do list. This may imply that I am busy, hard at work making a difference fighting HIV and poverty, but so far, this is not the case. I spend most of my weekday mornings at my clinic documenting H1N1 vaccinations. It is mindless work, but right now it's what my under-staffed clinic needs, and as I'm not yet ready to fly on my own and create new projects for the clinic, it's fine with me. When I am not at the clinic, I am usually off meeting someone from an organization I feel I could be working with on future projects, at the local schools where I know I'll be doing a lot of work, or at home working on the massive community assessment assignment from Peace Corps that must be completed before In Service Training at the end of August. Running errands is another major consumer of time, made more complicated by limited shopping hours, the need to be home before dark, and the need to rely on public transportation. And due to the lack of structure in my days, I can often be found at home curled up on my couch reading a book at all sorts of unpredictable hours. Before arriving at site, I thought that having to be home before dark and the corresponding inordinate amount of free time meant that I would be a superwoman of sorts in the evenings, capable of cooking gourmet dinners, reading all the classics, studying Setswana, practicing the guitar, and cleaning my house top to bottom. In reality, I am nothing of the sort. I find the darkness oppressive here, and once it falls, I am incapable of completing any major tasks, much less superhuman multi-tasking. I cook easy dinners, grilled cheese or instant soup more often than not, read excessively (I am quickly running out of books), play spider solitaire, and of course, write blog entries. Of course, I do keep a pretty clean house, and I have even started a budget spreadsheet to keep track of my finances, as online banking doesn't seem to be much of an option here at the moment. But in the 3 weeks I've been here, I have yet to cook a full meal or touch my guitar. I bought bananas weeks ago with the intent of making banana bread, but had to throw them out before I got the supplies or the energy to make it. I'm hoping that this lack of energy or purpose in the evenings is a side effect of adjusting to a new lifestyle and ear infections, and that I'll soon be checking everything off of my to-do lists. I'll keep you updated.

My Peace Corps life is starting to taking shape, although ever so slowly. I have a growing list of projects that I think I'll be working on, and finally, this list is based on actual needs and reality. Most of the more concrete projects that are starting to take shape involve the senior secondary school here. I may be a clinic-based volunteer, but I think I'll be working just as closely with the schools. The senior secondary school is the last public school before university here, and many students do not make it that far. Even if they do, drop-outs are a problem, one that I'll be working on, actually. There are many factors that make it difficult for a student to make it through school here. First and foremost is pregnancy. Many of the girls actually do return after giving birth, but when they do, they face more obstacles than ever. The guidance teacher at the school would like to set up a kind of support group for returned mothers, but so far the girls have resisted, fearing the stigma that might come along with membership in such a group. I'm hoping to work with these girls, possibly at the clinic to avoid all the high school drama and stigma. Some of them are clinic patients anyway, so I'll probably get to know them pretty well no matter what.

Poverty makes attending school a struggle, especially when the social work office has difficulty getting food baskets, donated school uniforms, and transport allowance to the students on time. They may need to drop out to get jobs to support their families, or they may have little structure in their homes to reinforce the importance of education. HIV, as usual, complicates matters more. Over ¼ of the students in the school are orphans. They may or may not be HIV positive themselves, but certainly they are affected either way. Most live with extended family with varying levels of care and support, but some live on their own. Many are financially needy, and have trouble finding the means and sometimes the self-discipline to stay in school. The school has organizations run by students to work on these issues, but participation is not impressive. School days are long, and some students have a long commute, and for others, the interest is just not there. There are, of course, dedicated students, but the programs sound like they could use a little life. There are also staff and community-run organizations put together to help support orphans and needy students, but they suffer from a lack of participation as well. This is not necessarily due to lack of interest; rather, it is a lack of time that is the problem. The school day is just as long for teachers as it is for students, and there are faculty meetings to go to, and many have families at home to care for. I'm hoping to work to find solutions to these issues, but I don't know how successful I'll be. I certainly can't add more hours to a day, and that appears to be exactly what's needed.

Other issues are a little more simple. The school library needs books. I'm sure that there must be organizations in place that help with this kind of thing, so I don't think this project should be that complicated. If anyone knows anything about how to go about doing this though, please let me know!

Another issue is pretty familiar to anyone who's ever gone to high school- kids sneaking off to remote corners to smoke and do other dark deeds. Not sure how to handle this one yet, but it's definitely a less formidable issue than others.

I'm glad to finally have a small grasp on what I'll be doing while I'm here, and I'm eager to get started. I really wish I knew what to do around my clinic- most of the time it's so busy that there's barely time to talk, let alone plan new programs, and when it's not busy, everyone spends their time catching up on paperwork and reports. I'd like to spend more time with the community mobilizer, who does a lot of work with home-based care, but we both keep irregular schedules, and once I'm at the clinic, I'm usually put to work anyway. I'm hoping that as I start to feel more comfortable and as my schedule settles into something more predictable, that potential projects will begin to appear. I know the nurses at the clinic regret not having the time to get out into the community to do health presentations and work on prevention, so maybe I'll start from there. I know that I'd also like to focus on regular, everyday health issues in the community, not just HIV. So much attention is heaped on HIV/AIDS here (and rightly so, I suppose), that it is often overlooked that high blood pressure and diabetes are also serious, potentially deadly problems here that many, many people are affected by. Just as in America, people here are often more interested in fixing a problem than preventing it, and that's something I'd like to work on. Interesting- I guess I have a better idea of what I'd like to work on in my clinic than I thought.

With that, it is time for bed. Here's hoping for a good internet connection tomorrow so I can post this!