tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418278806827648462024-03-18T22:02:07.344-07:00Melissa in BotswanaOn April 10, 2010, I will be leaving to begin 27 months as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana, working in the Community Health/AIDS Capacity Building project. All stories and entries will be based on my own personal experiences, and should in no way represent the official views and opinions of the Peace Corps or the United States government.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-89067817342503051932012-11-08T01:12:00.000-08:002012-11-08T01:12:06.464-08:00Reflection<i>In June 2012, I officially closed service and returned to America. I spent a few months in New York reconnecting with family and friends, and in September I moved to Sitka, Alaska, where I serve as an AmeriCorps volunteer working with emergency medical services. This will be my final entry in this blog.</i><br />
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I miss Botswana. There, I said it, and I'm not ashamed. I live in a gorgeous place, surrounded by whales and eagles and ocean and forest, and I still find myself thinking wistfully about the dusty village I complained so much about.<br />
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It's not that I'm longing to go back to weeks without running water, nights filled with boredom and loneliness and ant and cockroach killing, sweaty bus rides with no open windows, daily marriage proposals and harassment, and the frustration of caring passionately about my work and being met with ambivalence and obstinance. I haven't forgotten those things, and I don't think I'm in danger of remembering my time in Africa through a rose colored lens. It's just an occasional twinge- when a good memory surfaces, or when I start to realize how long it may be before I could possibly see any of of my friends there again. Peace Corps is cruel in a way. You spend over two years fighting to accept a new culture and to be accepted by your community and to build relationships there. This doesn't usually happen until your last few months in service, when it's like a key has turned and everything is different. You have local friends, you understand the culture and you've figured out how to work within it, and feel like you actually could fit in and maybe even get something done. Then, almost immediately, your service is over and it's time to leave. This is great in that it ensures that nearly every volunteer leaves feeling positive about his or her service and host country, but it's also deeply unsettling to the volunteer once the excitement of being back in America begins to fade. My friends who still live in Botswana- will I ever see them again? What about other RPCVs? Sure I'm more likely to see other volunteers again, but America is a lot bigger and busier than I'd remembered, and reunions will likely be few and far between. I no longer have daily or even weekly contact with anyone who can relate to the life I lived for 26 months. It's a big loss. If I let a Setswana phrase slip out, no one around me understands. I constantly have to monitor how many times a day I use the phrases "In Africa...." and "This one time in Botswana...." for fear of boring everyone around me and sounding like Peace Corps is all I ever talk about. But Peace Corps was my life for over two years, and probably the most important experience of my adult life so far- of course most of my stories revolve around my time there!<br />
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I haven't experienced any of the anti-American feelings I've heard some returned volunteers describe. If anything, my service made me more patriotic and grateful to be an American than I ever was before. And I don't hold any romantic or idealistic visions of Africa, as it seems so many visitors to Africa carry with them and write about. But Botswana, for better or worse, was my home for over two years. My time there changed me as a person and how I see the world in ways that I'm sure my family and friends can't even see yet, and I don't yet have the words to explain. Somehow Botswana, with its donkeys and goats and acacia trees, and its long lines and early mornings, its bewildering clash of East and West, traditional and modern, and wealth and poverty, and its exotic creatures and landscapes and dry, dusty villages, and of course, its cheerful, occasionally frustrating, often blunt, but always hopeful people, has gotten under my skin and into my heart. While I will probably never miss being called a 'lekgoa' or being told that I am 'growing too old and must have a baby now now', I will certainly miss being able to make a taxi driver chuckle by being able to unexpectedly answer all of his greetings in Setswana, and having him tell me that I am "becoming black" like him. I already miss having friends who will come running to help me whenever I need them, whether it's to change a lightbulb or to spend time with me when I'm grieving. I hope that where ever they are, they know I'd do the same for them if I could. I may still be enjoying my rainy days here, but I know I will miss the blue sky opening wide above my head so close I could almost touch the blueness, and sinking into spectacular sunsets that show off all of the splendor of creation. I may marvel at the Northern Lights here, but I will never forget staring up from the bush at a blanket of stars that made me feel tiny, yet part of something much larger than myself at the same time.<br />
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I learned many, many things during my Peace Corps service. I learned how to eat steak without a plate or utensils, how to 'braii' without fancy barbeque equipment, how to kill a scorpion without getting stung, and how to cook mophane worms and phaleche. I learned how to do my laundry by hand and how to wash dishes and bathe with no running water. I learned that it takes 9 liters to refill my toilet when the water is out, and that it takes insects about three months to discover that a new tenant has moved in and is storing food in the cabinets. I learned how to take buses and hitchhike around Botswana, and I learned just how many people you can fit in the back of a truck, or even in one seat. I learned that I am impatient and that I am obsessed with schedules and deadlines, and that Botswana does not share my obsession. I learned what it's like to be a minority, and to be stared at because I look different, and to be expected to behave in a certain way because of the color of my skin. I learned never to take my education, my health, and the rights I grew up expecting for granted. I learned what it's like to represent my country and culture with every word and action, and I learned what it's like to be a minor celebrity and to have people I've never met greet me by name. I learned how to be alone and how to be independent, but I also learned what it's like to feel lost and insecure and wholly dependent on strangers for basic needs. I learned to rely on the kindness of others, and was rarely disappointed. I learned what it was like to fail utterly and to be laughed at and not taken seriously, but I also learned what it was like to gain trust and respect by proving myself day after day. I learned that if you remember to see the person in front of you and not just an obstacle, and you can make that person laugh, often the obstacle will melt away. I learned to remember humanity by looking people in the eye, greeting them, and shaking their hands.<br />
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These are lessons I never want to forget. They have become a part of me as Botswana has become a part of me. No matter how far I go or how long I'm gone, I will keep the places I've seen, the people I've met, and the lessons I've learned with me for the rest of my life. I may never know if my service impacted anyone in Botswana, but for better or worse, Botswana has changed me forever, and I don't regret a minute of my time there.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-22464025227096632352010-11-01T03:44:00.001-07:002010-11-01T03:44:53.024-07:00Hard Labor and HalloweenI realized this weekend that it is much easier to feel like a real live Peace Corps volunteer when you are hot, sweaty, and exhausted, with blisters on your hands after a day of hard manual labor. Even though we all tried our hardest to enter Peace Corps without expectations, on some level I think most of us envisioned ourselves hard at work building things and working outside in some tropical setting, even after we were told that we were placed in offices and clinics in a mid-income country. It's what most people picture when they think of the Peace Corps, so it was very satisfying to have a day where we were doing exactly that. Mike, one of the Peace Corps volunteers up in Francistown, the second largest city in Botswana, works at a community center that focuses on orphan care in one of the more poverty stricken areas of the city. Usually on Saturdays, orphans from the surrounding area gather at the center to play football (soccer), have fun on the playground, and eat a meal provided by the center, but this week, Mike called on any available Peace Corps volunteers to come down to the center and help with some development projects he had planned. Eight of us were able to make it, and he put us to work tilling the soil for a planned community garden, clearing some land for a basketball court, starting a compost pile, and lining the driveway with tires so cars would avoid running over the football field. We arrived around 8am, and by lunch, we had accomplished more than any of us thought we could accomplish in one morning. The garden plots are ready for planting, the basketball court is about ready for cementing, composting has begun, and no one will be driving over the football field anytime soon. We were an absolute mess, covered in dirt, sweat, bruises, and blisters, but absolutely excited to have done something concrete and visible. Since Botswana is a mid-income country and we are mostly here to work on HIV/AIDS issues, we don't often get to see the results of our work. We discuss, educate, and attempt to work on behavior change, but never know how much of what we teach is taken home and used. Statistics can be helpful in the long run, but we are only here for two years, and it is very likely that we will never know how much of an impact we've really had on people's lives here. It can be very frustrating to work on programs without seeing results, so the occasional physical projects we come across can be very rewarding, and very helpful in boosting morale. And to see the kids get really excited about what we were doing, and wanting to help dig and rake, was just icing on the cake. <br />
Of course, this weekend was Halloween in the States, so we couldn't let the occasion pass when we were already gathered together. We did the best we could to celebrate like we would back home, complete with candy corn, Thriller, and costumes thrown together from china shops or whatever we had at the house (one volunteer was a tree). We had a great time, even if we may have gotten a few extra stares from locals as we walked the streets of Francistown in our costumes.<br />
Halloween is a fun holiday, and it was nice to be able to celebrate it, but it was a reminder that the real holidays will arrive quickly and that for the first time, I'll be thousands of miles from home and family and tradition. I'm a real sucker for the holidays, especially the tradition part, so I'm not expecting this to be easy. Luckily, our Peace Corps group has formed its own little family, and while I'm sure I'll still miss my real family like crazy, I think I'll survive. We already have our Thanksgiving menu planned out (although if anyone wants to send over anything to help make our feast more home-like, we would really appreciate it), and we're planning a big vacation to Victoria Falls and Zambia for Christmas. Even if I know I'll miss home, I can't help feeling like this will probably be one the more exciting holiday seasons I'll ever have!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-35180424680108938032010-10-20T06:49:00.001-07:002010-10-20T06:49:08.539-07:00Life in a Picture10/19/10<br />
Sometimes I have the sneaking suspicion that I am actually living inside a child's drawing. You all know the kind I mean. The drawing with the straight line through the middle of it, with nothing below it, and bright blue skies above it. Puffy white marshmallow clouds often make an appearance. Green bushes and trees and maybe a large pink flower populate the horizon, and perhaps there is a small house with two windows and a triangular roof. And of course, the yellow sun smiles down from a corner, its rays reaching straight down to earth. Sometimes I walk out my door and it is all there before me, in bright Crayola colors. The rocky red-brown dirt stretches out before my feet like a carpet until it meets with a green line of acacia trees and bushes and perhaps a small hut with a cone shaped roof. From the roofs and tops of trees, the sky expands out, a blanket of impossible blueness above me, with the sun beating down its greetings overhead, daring me to be unhappy for even a moment. Really, sometimes the blue of the sky is so bold as to be impertinent, especially when one is trying to enjoy a bad mood. Sometimes the sky tries so hard to be blue that it actually reaches into purple, and then the lavender blossoms of the October trees fade into the sky at the horizon.<br />
Other times, I find myself walking home in quite a different child's picture, this time dampened with the sprinklings of a little black rain cloud following high above me. Blue skies can be seen on all sides as I walk under its shadow, and the sun peeks in from a corner, smiling in amusement at the efforts of the small renegade cloud before quickly reasserting its dominance over the skies.<br />
And now my little black rain cloud has followed me home, and I don't care if my neighbors all think I'm slightly deranged for standing under its showers, determined to get at wet as possible before it goes away. This is my first rain since May. <br />
It's remarkably difficult to take things seriously when you suspect that you live in a child's drawing, but as a Peace Corps volunteer, I am obligated to serve where ever I am placed, imaginary or not, and to be serious on occasion, or I'd never get anything done. It is with great pride then, that I announce that I have managed to be serious long enough to get my first Peace Corps project off the ground and running. Yes, our first baby care class at Madiba Health Post was held this morning. The head nurse and I taught three pregnant women and one breastfeeding mother about the ins and outs of having a healthy pregnancy, from fetal development to nutrition to infection prevention. Our small class didn't have a lot to say, but they answered questions when asked, laughed in all the right places, and even showed special interest in exercise during pregnancy. I'm hoping to figure out a way to incorporate some appropriate stretches and exercises into one of the future classes, so if anyone has any expertise, be sure to let me know. Our turnout wasn't exactly what we'd expected, but it's a good starting place. As people keep telling me, there's a lot to be said for the education of even one person.<br />
When I am not busy being serious, I am often living in dreamland, reading books upon books, which may account for the flights of fancy my imagination has been taking lately. The Peace Corps office has a small library, and volunteers are constantly exchanging books, but even that is not enough to keep up my appetite. I am forced to break my principles and read electronic books on my laptop, downloaded for free through Project Gutenberg, a wonderful site devoted to making all the old classics whose copyrights have expired available to the public at no cost. It has allowed me to read books like Jane Eyre, Peter Pan, and A Tale of Two Cities, and to reread favorites such as the Anne of Green Gables series and Romeo and Juliet. I never will like reading on a screen, though. There's something so satisfying about curling up with an actual book and turning real pages that a computer could never replace it. <br />
And now it is time to be serious again- only this time I am serious about making dinner, since I have brought home boneless chicken breasts, a rare treat in these parts. Living in this culture that can't live without its precious meat, I am somehow becoming more and more of a vegetarian every day, and can't figure out why. I'm in no danger of becoming a real vegetarian though- my current excitement at the idea chicken cutlets is too great for that!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-34319637225799465762010-10-13T07:44:00.001-07:002010-10-13T07:44:53.757-07:00Preparation isn't Everything10/13/10<br />
I was prepared. I'd made signs and invitations in English and Setswana. I'd given a presentation to my clinic staff. I'd spent hours on a friend's computer doing research, and knew all of the effects and side effects of pregnancy and all the possible complications and warning signs. I had handouts on nutrition and the do's and do not's of pregnancy, and had 20 copies of each made (no small feat in Botswana). I had information on gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and fetal alcohol syndrome, and knew all of my stages of fetal development. I had a notebook, a binder, a sign in sheet, and name tags. I knew women who were very excited about the class, and some who wanted to come even though they already had kids. The clinic staff was enthusiastic and telling everyone who came in about the class, and I was slightly worried that we would have more attendees than would be manageable. <br />
I should have known. <br />
I knew that no one would be there exactly at 2pm. Nothing starts on time in Botswana, so I waited patiently and without concern as the time passed and 2:30 came and went. By 3pm, however, I was slightly concerned. By 3:15, I had given up, and had put everything away and was chatting with one of the nurses about the heat and telling her stories about snow in New York, when a young woman showed up at the door, asking where the 'workshop' was. And that was it. One person. Weeks of preparation for an project that everyone thought was needed and useful, from my clinic staff to Peace Corps staff to local people on the street, and only one person turned up.<br />
I could be disappointed. I could be negative and let this color my whole Peace Corps experience, and let myself spin back down into feeling useless and homesick. I could give up the whole project. In fact, if I thought that the lack of attendance showed that there was no interest or need for the project, the only responsible thing to do would be to give up the project. I can't teach something that people don't feel the need to know. But I honestly don't think that's the case here. My counterpart has been a nurse in Botswana for years, and she saw the need to teach new mothers how to have healthy pregnancies and births and how to care for their newborns before I even brought up the project idea. And I've never been met with anything less than enthusiasm when discussing the class with local women. Clearly, I will not be giving up on this so easily.<br />
But why didn't anyone show up, if people seemed so enthusiastic? I was a little stumped at first, but after talking to my clinic staff and the one woman who did show up, I'm kicking myself for not seeing the obvious. We wanted to hold the class in the afternoon because that is when the clinic is the least busy, and we could put all our focus into the class. This makes sense until you realize that there must be a reason that people come to the clinics in the mornings and not the afternoons. Botswana is a morning oriented country. Work starts at 7:30am here. Everything opens at 7:30am. People are up with the sun, and generally have the majority of their chores for the day finished by noon. Afternoons are for relaxing, even at work. Lunch hour ends at 2pm, but not a lot gets done between then end of lunch and the end of the work day. I didn't really understand this before, and I still don't really understand it now, but that's the way life is here, and I'm not going to change it. If you want to do something serious in Botswana, the afternoon is not the time to do it. The most obvious reason however, is one that I should have seen immediately. We were asking pregnant women to walk to the clinic in the midday sun of the African summer! Walking around at 2pm in the full sun is uncomfortable enough, and I try to avoid doing it- I can't imagine doing it while pregnant. I wouldn't have come, either.<br />
Every meeting in Botswana ends with a 'way forward', so I'll wrap up this entry with our 'way forward'. Our new strategy: captive audience. Our first class has been rescheduled for next Tuesday at 7:30am, when the clinic opens to long lines and crowds of people. All pregnant women who are waiting to be seen for regular checkups will be redirected to the class before being seen. This would never, ever fly in the US, and in fact would probably cause considerable outrage by ladies waiting to be seen who have other things to do with their day, but here in Botswana, this plan has serious potential. People here are used to waiting, and I have yet to see an outraged Motswana. And this is not my plan, but the plan of the midwife, who is co-teaching the class and who is responsible for seeing all pre-natal visits. Let's hope it works!<br />
In other news, I had a fantastic time camping out in the salt pans at the beginning of the month, and will try to post some pictures. It's so liberating to finally be able to travel and see the rest of Botswana (and other Peace Corps volunteers)! It definitely makes sticking it out at site easier when you have something to look forward to. Although right now, my most anticipated events tend to be the times of day when I have running water. Now that it's summer and every day is over 90 degrees, my water seems to be on vacation. Since coming back from the pans, I haven't had an entire day with running water yet. It's especially fun when you've walked at least 6 or 7 miles, have been working and running errands all day, you have no clean clothes left, and you walk in your door in desperate need of a bath due to smelliness and sweatiness, turn on the water, and......nothing. It's my favorite part of the Peace Corps. My new favorite hobbies include collecting water in containers of all shapes and sizes, and turning the faucet on and off, whether the water is on or not. Either I turn it on and off in the pathetic hope that this will somehow make the water flow, or I am turning it on and off to admire the gush of water on the rare occasion that it's on. I am picturing my return to America being very much like the scene in Castaway when Tom Hanks spends his first night in civilization turning the lights on and off. Only I will be standing at the kitchen sink, joyfully splashing in the overabundance of running water. And showering. I anticipate setting a full week aside for showering.<br />
On that happy thought, I'll end this entry, and hope for water when I get home!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-25401185607103280492010-09-23T11:34:00.000-07:002010-09-23T11:38:59.656-07:00Fitting InDespite the arrival of summer in Botswana, bureaucratic confusion and lack of resources holding up my projects, and the fact that I am still owed large amounts of money by the runaway t-shirt man and a neighbor who doesn't like to pay for his electricity, I am having a good week. I can't explain it. There's no reason for it. The fact of the matter is that as I was staring out of the combi window, squished in the back as usual, watching the everyday chaos that is the Mahalapye mall at the close of business hours, the thought came to me: I like it here. I didn't mean to think this, and I never expected to think it. The thought floated up from nowhere and popped into my head, and surprised as I was to find it there, I discovered that I agreed, and allowed the thought to stay. I have no idea how long this thought will stay with me. It's quite possible, and even probable, that it will disappear as quickly as it came. For now, though, it is here. Maybe it's the bright yellow flowers that have sprung up everywhere in the last week. Maybe I'm still riding a post-IST wave of positive thinking, although I don't remember thinking this positively at IST. More likely, I think it is that I'm allowing myself to feel more open here. For a long time, I was on my guard all time, preventing harassment, unwanted attention, and even possible crime by refusing to speak to anyone. For a while, it seemed that even saying 'hello' to man was an invitation for a proposal, and that every conversation with any local was a stressful lesson in cultural differences. I looked the other way when passing people, and cringed when I heard someone call out “Lesh!!” (my Setswana name is Lesego, and Lesh is the nickname). I still have days like that, but lately I have been better about ignoring rude people and being friendly to everyone else. I even smile at people now! While I have been better about being open and treating people like neighbors instead of enemies to be avoided, I have also begun to feel more accepted in my community. I'm not sure which came first, but I think they may go hand in hand. I feel like I belong, so I am treated like I belong. <br /><br />Some hints that I am starting to fit in:<br />-Most of the combi drivers know me and know exactly where to drop me off. None of them have called me 'baby' in weeks, and instead, some have started to call me 'sister'.<br />-The bus callers no longer yell “Gabs! Gabs!” in my face when I pass them (since all white people are assumed to be going to Gabs), and the taxi drivers no longer fall over themselves to bring me to the nearest lodge. <br />-I no longer quite know what to do with myself in crowds of non-Peace Corps white people. When I see a tour bus stopped in front of the grocery store, my instinct is to turn around and walk away to avoid the awkwardness. This should be fun when I get back to New York.<br />-When someone yells “Lesh!!” from across the street, I no longer cringe and pretend I didn't hear. I turn around, smile, and greet the other person- and lately, I have even started recognizing some of these people who seem to know me so well! This one is a patient at the clinic, this one is a student at the school, this one sells oranges at the bus rank....someday, I may even know their names.<br />-In taxis and on combis, people no longer stare at me as I get in. I have no idea if I've really met all these people or if they're just used to seeing the white girl in town, but I appreciate the lack of attention. <br />-I know exactly when to avoid the grocery stores and the atms (late afternoons at the end of the month when everyone gets paid, in case you're wondering), but I'm no longer afraid of the chaos and the long lines. Over thirty minutes in line to use the outdoor atm? No problem. There's a curb to sit on, and I'm sure I'll find someone interesting to talk to.<br />-I know three different ways to get to my clinic from my house, and the positives and negatives of each route (Is it too windy for the sandy path? Do I mind pushing through throngs of schoolchildren today?).<br />-In the two weeks since IST, I have only been proposed to once. This may be a record.<br />-I know which store to go to for every item I want, and where the best prices are- even though I'll still end up just going to Spar to get everything so I don't have to wander around town and check all of my bags at each store.<br />-I know better than the post office workers how much a stamp costs.<br />-My Motswana accent is close to being perfected. I now communicate mostly through various forms of “Ah!”, which can be used to express any emotion, I no longer use contractions, and I begin almost every sentence with “Ga ke re...” (“isn't it”), even when speaking to other Americans. This may also be fun when I go back to New York.<br />-My favorite 'fitting in' moment so far: I enter the internet cafe, and to my surprise, there are two very non-Motswana teenagers talking to the lady at the desk, who is by now a friend of mine. It's obvious that they're American, and when the leave, they struggle with the Setswana words for 'thank you', and end up asking the lady how to say it. She looks at me in shared amusement, and we both start to laugh as she tells them to ask me. I am a mess, even by Peace Corps standards, with my hair in braids, wearing an outfit I wouldn't be caught dead in if I were in America, and these blonde haired, wide eyed kids look at me in confusion as I tell them:<br /> “Ke a leboga!”Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-41883530924571501082010-09-15T04:38:00.000-07:002010-10-06T13:46:25.516-07:00Apologies and UpdatesTo be perfectly honest, I am slightly afraid to begin this entry. It's been so long since I wrote an entry, that I am afraid that either I will find that I have forgotten how to write and everyone will be disappointed, or that I will find that I have too much to write about and won't finish until morning. I'll try to keep a good pace without leaving anything out.<br /> First, I feel that I should provide some reason for not writing for almost two months. Sadly, I have no good reason, but I'll try to explain anyway. I would love to say that I was too busy, but that's certainly not the case at all, although hopefully someday it will be. The truth of the matter is that I simply didn't have anything to say, at least not anything that I wanted to put onto a public website. I said in my last entry that I was starting to feel at home here and that life was beginning to feel ordinary. If I was living an ordinary life and nothing seemed momentous and important, then what could I possibly write about? I know it's hard to fathom that living in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer can be boring and mundane, but I assure you that it can be, and often is. I went to the clinic in the mornings, puttered around, helping in various small ways, went home for lunch, and spent my afternoons and weekends getting to know my community resources, grocery shopping, and doing laundry. I was still on lockdown, so travel and adventure were out of the question, and being settled and comfortable in my house and community, nothing seemed extraordinary to me. Nothing to write home about, so to speak. <br />Let me also explain that while my living situation was becoming so settled, my emotions were still anything but. Yes, I got used to life here, but I'm still getting used to living so far from home. I've never been one to be homesick (well, at least not in the last 10 or 15 years, in case anyone who knew me back then is reading and wants to call me out on this). I'd go off on my adventures without looking back, and although I'd be happy to see my friends and family again, I was usually sorry to come home and would miss the place I'd left for weeks afterward. I still miss some of those places today. I think if you'd have asked some of my friends and family about their concerns regarding me joining the Peace Corps, at least a few would have said that there was a good chance I'd fall in love with my assigned country and never want to come home. I can say now with great confidence that they should no longer be concerned about that. I like Botswana, I like most of the people I've met, and I think I'm going to like my work here very much, but I have not fallen in love with it, and I don't think I ever will. That's been hard for me to accept, and I didn't know how to express that without the negativity. I also have been more homesick here than I ever expected to be, and that's difficult for me to say too, akin to admitting weakness. My family has gone through a lot of major changes since I left, and it's been tough to sit it out here without participating and with minimal communication. My family might be challenging sometimes, but they're probably what I miss the most. I have great friends here, but I've also found it tough to not be able to talk to my old friends whenever I want to- and even harder to miss their weddings! I miss being able to drive, I miss going to church, I miss being a youth minister at AYM, I miss being the Girls 4 cabin counselor at Camp Adventure, I miss mountains and lakes and the ocean, I miss real trees, and I miss speaking fluent, fast English and being understood. And daily hot showers. And having a kitchen table. And knowing what the heck is going on in the rest of the world.<br />Anyway, the point is that following my birthday, I had over a month where I walked the balance between not having anything to say and following the old rule: “if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.” Hence the lack of blog-writing.<br /> You might be adding up the time, and realizing that I haven't accounted for the last few weeks. Don't worry, I'm getting there. From August 25th to September 9th, I was in Gaborone for in-service training, along with all the volunteers in the Bots 9 group. We lived at a lodge for two weeks, spending our weekdays at lengthy training sessions on such topics as project management and volunteerism, and our nights and weekends generally re-living the college dorm experience, complete with 80's night and karaoke. Gaborone is a relatively small but modern city, with government buildings, large churches, many lodges, and several mall areas. Our lodge was walking distance from the Riverwalk Mall, which could be compared to just about any mall on Long Island. It has clothing stores, home goods stores, a book store, a few overpriced specialty shops, a movie theater, two enormous American-style grocery stores, and restaurants and a coffee shop- you can even get pizza there (which we did, of course, on the first day). We spent a lot of our time there, but I'll highlight some non-Riverwalk IST experiences. One night our lodge was overrun by poets of every southern African nationality, and we were invited to attend their poetry slam/open mic in the conference room. I'm not especially into poetry, especially spoken poetry, but having nothing better to do, I went with a few other volunteers. I am so glad I did. Although spoken poetry still feels a little awkward to me, these people were amazing performers, and they incorporated so much passion and music into their work that I felt lucky to be in the audience. A very talented Bots 8 volunteer performed an song, and at some point, she must have mentioned me to them, because before I knew it, I was up on the stage. I didn't have anything prepared (certainly nothing original) and I know it wasn't my best performance, but everyone was very supportive, and it felt great to be included in the group. <br /> Another night, we heard that a local cafe/bar was having a salsa night, and since one of our volunteers had done a previous term of service in Mexico, and it happened to be his birthday, we decided to go. We spent an hour learning and practicing salsa in someone's hotel room, and were eager to get to the bar to try it for real. However, when we got there, they were cleaning up, and there was no music playing! Salsa night was canceled, but we were a determined group of people without a backup plan. After many rounds of negotiations, the bar was re-opened, another volunteer sped over with some salsa music, drinks were provided at a discounted price, and the dancing began. We were practically the only ones there, but we can make our own party, and it ended up being a pretty good night. Who'd have thought I'd learn to salsa in Botswana?<br /> The best experience by far, though, was our day at Mokgolodi Game Reserve. About a half an hour outside of Gaborone, Mokgolodi contains all kinds of animals that are allowed to roam the reserve, including leopards, giraffes, rhinos, and wildebeest. Unfortunately, we arrived around midday, which is apparently naptime for most of the wild animals of Botswana. We did, however, get to see kudu, hippos, warthogs, baboons, and many, many impala. Not very impressive, you might think. We thought the same. Until we got to the hyenas and cheetahs, of course. The hyenas are kept in an enclosure, but they were lounging near the fence. There are some hyenas on the reserve that are allowed to roam freely, but these spotted hyenas were raised as pets until their owner got nervous when they appeared large enough to eat his small children. I don't blame him- hyenas are much larger in person than I'd imagined them to be! The cheetahs are also kept in an enclosure, but having paid extra and signed the required waiver, we were allowed inside with them. We had no idea what to expect as we went through the double gate in our safari jeep- it felt a little like being in Jurassic Park. We were told that these cheetahs were twin brothers, orphaned at a young age and rescued and kept by the reserve. They are now 14 years old, old men in the cheetah world, although still pretty active around feeding time or when taunted by impalas hanging around outside the enclosure. When we met the first one, though, he was napping on the side of the dirt path. Our guide got out first, walked over slowly, and then stooped down and began stroking the cheetah's head and rubbing and tussling it as if it were an oversized house cat. We held our breaths- until the purring started. Powerful purring, loud enough to be heard by everyone and to be picked up by the weak microphone on my camera's video recorder. Each of us took our turn, careful to follow the guides instructions to touch only the cheetah's head and to approach from behind him. The fur on his head was matted and a bit rough, but he leaned into each touch and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the experience. I longed to touch the rest of his fur, which looked much softer and shinier, but as I enjoy the use of both my arms, I didn't dare. We stayed with the first one for a long time, getting more and more comfortable with the idea that we were petting a cheetah, even through a scary but thrilling moment when the cheetah rolled over as a volunteer was petting him, and reached out his arm so that his paw was resting on the volunteer's arm. Eventually, though, it was time to move on and meet the other cat. This one, too, was napping, and barely noticed our arrival and consequent petting and photo-taking. He was darker in color than the other, with more prominent markings, and stretched out sleeping in the sun, he reminded me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip. As we took turns petting, I looked back through the brush to the other cheetah, and to my shock, he was no longer lounging, but walking straight toward us! Jealous of our attention to his brother, he sauntered past us and meaningfully plopped down next to his brother and stretched out lazily. Of course we set out petting and photographing both cats immediately until it was finally time to leave and finish our game drive. We met up with the rest of our group at the reserve's restaurant, where we learned never to order calamari in the desert, and then piled into the combi and headed back to the hotel and Riverwalk, where a bunch of us went out for Indian food. All in all, I would say that it was a very successful day. How many people can say that they have petted a live cheetah?<br /> IST ended with a language exam (my score was intermediate high) and a counterpart workshop, where our counterparts and supervisors were invited to spend two days working with us to shape our plans for the rest of our service. Luckily, I have a wonderful counterpart, and we had already taken time to discuss all of these things, so everything went smoothly. Now I am back in Mahalapye, and slowly starting to figure out how to turn these plans into a reality. I have two major projects at the clinic that should be implemented within the month, and I'm pretty excited to have something concrete to do. The first is a baby care class, inspired by the events described in previous entries, which showed the difficulty of caring for a newborn with little education or support. The class will be held every Tuesday afternoon, and it will cover subjects such as nutrition for the pregnant or breastfeeding mother, forming a birth plan, caring for the newborn at home, and emergency care. It will be a 10 week course, and parents who attend each class will receive a certificate at the end. My counterpart is a midwife, and while I have been working on the structure and curriculum for the classes, she will be teaching the bulk of the material. She's as excited as I am, and is even talking about expanding the class to other clinics if it's successful at ours. The other project is not quite as far along yet, but I don't think it will be too difficult to plan and implement. Our clinic is a youth friendly clinic, but currently, it is youth friendly in name only. The nurses are trained to be sensitive to youth, but no special effort is made to reach out to that population. This new project will require that every Thursday afternoon will be reserved for youth only, giving young people the chance to utilize the clinic without being surrounded by crying babies and potentially critical older relatives and neighbors. We will have educational material available, extra efforts will be made to ensure privacy, HIV testing and counseling will be available, and we will hold games and activities to draw the youth in. I'm a little concerned that the hours (2-4:30pm) will be too restrictive for youth attending school, but we have a number of out of school youth in the area, and in Botswana, the definition of youth extends to 29 years, far past school age. We'll see how it works out and how well attended youth hours will actually be. <br /> I'll try to update more frequently than once every couple months, but don't hold it against me if I don't. Maybe it will mean that I'm finally busy and doing something meaningful with my time here!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3XtlJ3-MEhthQFezsatjM3LtJVGvlJQDa8w46ZW4Rets80C4l-3Jxl0MoZyV5k4Mo7D6J_9c2pgn78BYCfBYL14McOV2KdGASVVGLNQRVSZs9aBgTNT8cj6e07WFQFmn5dRgxaQpNzzU/s1600/09.05.10+130.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3XtlJ3-MEhthQFezsatjM3LtJVGvlJQDa8w46ZW4Rets80C4l-3Jxl0MoZyV5k4Mo7D6J_9c2pgn78BYCfBYL14McOV2KdGASVVGLNQRVSZs9aBgTNT8cj6e07WFQFmn5dRgxaQpNzzU/s320/09.05.10+130.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525036210713337154" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6w1R3wvL4P1tDawVNeeeVV2SEbe7NXIkaiWugsxXfsc-kZm_uHAZrywsXsZhdWUeEGvf4C4FXDBkqJwdodJqA14KC6OStDQftjP_YU1iePAPqFBVrTERZcbi-N-oOjynS8Hvu-zjEzs/s1600/09.05.10+044.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6w1R3wvL4P1tDawVNeeeVV2SEbe7NXIkaiWugsxXfsc-kZm_uHAZrywsXsZhdWUeEGvf4C4FXDBkqJwdodJqA14KC6OStDQftjP_YU1iePAPqFBVrTERZcbi-N-oOjynS8Hvu-zjEzs/s320/09.05.10+044.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525036208761763234" /></a>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-63259869758797550422010-07-20T05:35:00.000-07:002010-10-06T13:58:36.314-07:00A Quick Birthday UpdateToday is my birthday, and I have absolutely no plans. I thought I would be depressed by this, but it's actually a bit freeing. Usually I set up all kinds of plans and expectations only to be disappointed when they fall through- I don't have a very good track record when it comes to birthdays. This year, however, there is no way I will be disappointed. After being woken up at 6am by my family calling from New York to wish me a happy birthday, I went back to bed, and at noon, I am still there. In a few minutes, I will head out to town to use the internet and pick up some groceries, and that will be the extent of my birthday activities.<br />I did celebrate a little yesterday, with a birthday lunch at Mike and Geri's. Actually, it was more like a birthday feast, easily the best meal I've had since moving to Botswana. They grilled three enormous T-bone steaks and served them with chard, carrots, and potatoes, topped off with homemade carrot cake and Oreos for dessert. We sat for hours, feasting and discussing various issues surrounding our work here and sharing experiences. I am very lucky to share my site with such amazing, generous people.<br />As a quick follow-up to the previous entry, the baby is home and doing well. She spent four days in the hospital on IV antibiotics, having been diagnosed with an infection probably acquired during birth, and came home on Thursday afternoon. I've been over almost every day since, and have found some great new friends in Shana and Wilton. Shana knows me well enough to understand that I have a weakness for babies, and hands her baby over to me almost immediately upon my arrival. The baby is still tiny, but she is growing some extremely pudgy cheeks, and is the most alert newborn I have ever seen. She looks around at everything with her enormous eyes, trying her hardest to focus on things she couldn't possibly see clearly yet so that she often looks cross-eyed. Wilton and I discuss differences in culture and politics in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the United States, and while we all share a collective homesickness, we also share an appreciation for where we are. I have been lending them movies, and Shana is now among the throngs of young women who have fallen under the spell of 'The Notebook.”<br />At some point between the MosadiMogolo match and this four day weekend, something changed for me. I can't quite figure out when or how it happened, but somehow I feel different. All of a sudden, life here isn't such a daily struggle. Small tasks and chores are no longer exhausting events, but mindless activities. Evenings are still long and boring, but I don't spend them listening for strange sounds and wishing to be home. The bus rank no longer feels overwhelming and chaotic, and crowded combi rides are routine. Even the small kids shouting 'lekgoa' at me as I pass have become just part of the scenery. Everything feels, well, ordinary. I get still get mental flashes reminding me that I am living thousands of miles away from home in Africa, but they don't get to me the way they used to. Of course I still miss my family and friends, but it's tolerable now. I don't spend every day in an active struggle not to call the country director to ask for a plane ticket home. I'm not saying that this is the end of my homesickness and that everything will be easy from here on out. In fact, I'm sure that's not the case at all. But this crazy Peace Corps experience is now my life, for better or for worse, and maybe I'm finally beginning to accept it.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPNS9axonUocfxpiBhYQl9rNMFUtBpfVsVdLH220UwwZXbxDvIgrSb5nzEPtDijvM6Zm0-KGaNOtveRJxH6ATWFbUn2iE82pMuSf3ADqaIhDIzd_0w0TC3VndXS7VeDgvLnlcc2i0EvgE/s1600/07.20.2010+006.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPNS9axonUocfxpiBhYQl9rNMFUtBpfVsVdLH220UwwZXbxDvIgrSb5nzEPtDijvM6Zm0-KGaNOtveRJxH6ATWFbUn2iE82pMuSf3ADqaIhDIzd_0w0TC3VndXS7VeDgvLnlcc2i0EvgE/s200/07.20.2010+006.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525039786273722850" /></a>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-30312290565268871652010-07-20T05:33:00.000-07:002010-10-06T14:13:46.514-07:00TangledThe day started out exactly as I thought it would, with me hitting the snooze button and protesting the injustice of having to be up with the sun on a Sunday to an invisible audience. I stumbled through my morning routine (which has been whittled down to about 10 minutes), and sleepwalked to my clinic. I arrived seven minutes late, and was met by three members of our Mosadi Mogolo team. Three. Of course, this was also exactly what I expected. I always thought I had trouble showing up to events on time, but my habitual tardiness is nothing compared to that of nearly everyone here. Time runs differently here, and outstanding patience is the norm. There is never any fear that an event will start without a key person, or that a bus will leave while someone is using the restroom (or bush...). People here like to say that they respect and value people more than time, and while one might argue that making people wait isn't exactly showing respect, I guess they have a point. In any case, the three were soon joined by the rest of their teammates, who trickled in one by one, in no particular rush. Our transport, which was one of our district's ambulances, showed up 30 minutes after we were supposed to have left. Thirty minutes after that, we were finally on our way to our match in the neighboring village of Tewane, with the team crammed in the back of the ambulance. <br />
Tewane is a very small village, and as the driver of the ambulance joked to me, it's not much more than a settled cattle post. There is a clinic there, but it falls under my clinic's ultimate responsibility. Despite their size, however, they have a team in the tournament, and they were well prepared to host us. We arrived at about 9am, and already the staff was hard at work cooking and setting up for the event. We were served tea and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Note that those are two different types of sandwiches here- peanut butter sandwiches and jelly sandwiches. I was laughed at when I suggested putting them together. I didn't get to eat anything though, because I waited for everyone else to go first, and then was called by my counterpart to head over to the field to help set up before it was my turn. I wasn't too upset though. Tea isn't really my thing, and 9am is a little early for peanut butter sandwiches, anyway.<br />
If I hadn't realized before what a big event the Mosadi Mogolo World Cup is before, I sure know it now. Chairs were set up for the spectators, the field was marked, and a DJ was hired to provide traditional music. By 10:30am, the tournament finally began. While the other two teams played the first soccer match, my team was the first to go through the quiz portion. The entire quiz was in Setswana, so I really don't know any of the specifics, but I do know that the questions were about HIV/AIDS transmission and the PMTCT program, that it involved a demonstration of proper formula feeding technique, and that while my team did the best they could, they definitely struggled. I believe stage fright was their excuse. The questioning took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I was nearly as relieved as my team when it was over. We watched the rest of the first game together, and then it was our turn to play. As I mentioned before, I am not quite a Mosadi Mogolo yet, so I wasn't allowed to play. Eleven of our players went out with bright green jerseys and played their hearts out. They did well despite their lack of practice and some injuries, but it wasn't enough to defeat the other teams. I, on the other hand, was fighting a small battle of my own. The day was bright and sunny, and I had realized early on that I had forgotten sunscreen. I stayed in the shade as much as possible, but between the sun and the lack of food early in the day, I had set myself up for a long day. I ate some peanuts and raisins at the start of the first game, but I knew it wasn't enough. When halftime came around, I ate an orange, just like the rest of the players. Halfway through the orange, however, I realized that the thought of one more bite made my stomach twist, and that if I didn't find a seat somewhere fast, I was going to end up on the ground. Finding no available chair, I squatted in the dirt and put my head down, and stayed like that for quite some time, willing my food to stay in my stomach and my dizziness to subside long enough for me to stand up. Eventually one of the women on the team noticed me and offered her chair, where I stayed for the rest of the two games. By the end of of the final game, I was feeling slightly better, especially because I thought that the end of the games meant that I would soon be at home. I was wrong, as usual. We stayed to help pack up, and then we all made our way over to the community center where we were served traditional Setswana food for dinner. I choked some down, and waited, feeling guilty for not mixing in with everyone else and getting the most out of the experience. Finally, it was time to go. The ambulance brought us back to the clinic, and I walked home, feeling better and better as I got closer and closer to my bed.<br />
Sadly, my bed would have to wait a while longer. On my family compound, there are four houses- mine, my landlord's, some lady's, and one very tiny shack occupied by a young Zimbabwean couple with a brand new baby. The new mother, Shana, is a patient at my clinic as well as my neighbor, so I'd been following her case pretty closely. She came into the clinic on Monday with some bleeding, and we sent her to the hospital, sure that they would deliver the baby by the end of the day. Instead, she stayed in the hospital, and didn't deliver until they finally did a c-section on Wednesday night. By Friday, she and the baby were home. This is Shana's first baby, and she is here in Botswana without a mother, sister, or an aunt to help her out, so I was sure to check on her on Friday and Saturday, and helped with washing the baby and answering some basic questions. She was doing pretty well, so I almost didn't check on them after the MosadiMogolo match. I was feeling sunsick and tired, it was already dark, and everything seemed to be going okay for them. However, I had promised that I would check on them when I got home, so I knocked on the door. The father, Wilton, was watching television, and Shana was lying on the bed next to the baby. “She's feeling a little warm today,” Shana told me casually when I asked how the baby was doing. The one room cement house was sweltering even in the chilly winter evening, so I wasn't surprised. Then she added that the baby hadn't been feeding well, a very alarming sign in a newborn. I unpeeled the layers of blankets to find a flushed, sleeping baby. Leaving all the blankets off, I ran to my house and dug through my Peace Corps health kit to find a disposable thermometer. I ran back and stuck it under the baby's arm, and made awkward conversation as we waited for the result. The minute passed, and I took the reading-102F. I'm not a doctor, but even I knew that was too high- it would be a high fever for me, let alone a 3-day old newborn. I texted my own mom as well as the head nurse at my clinic, who both confirmed that the baby would need to see a doctor as soon as possible. Not knowing how to go about this on a Sunday night in Botswana, I knocked on the door of my landlady, who is also a nurse in my district. She was horrified that the baby had been home all day with such a high fever and that she hadn't known about it, and after scolding the parents, she quickly arranged for transport to the hospital. Before I knew what was happening, I was in the car holding the baby in one arm and comforting the now frightened and sobbing new mother with the other. Bed was a distant dream. Fear is contagious, and I spent the car ride anxiously monitoring the baby's breathing and looking for signs of febrile seizure. We pulled up in front of the emergency entrance, and the three of us entered with no idea of what to do or where to go. I looked to the parents for direction, but they were looking to me in the same way. Finally someone told Wilton where he had to go to handle paying and checking in, while Shana and I were pointed in the general direction of the emergency room. In the emergency department, there was no receptionist at the desk. Every bench in the waiting room was full, mostly occupied by tired mothers and small children with dull, glassy eyes wrapped in blankets. It was obviously a busy night, but no one seemed rushed, and the bright lights and beeping machines and general atmosphere of chaos and slight panic found in any ER in the US was definitely missing. Instead, the room was dim and quiet, and the atmosphere was subdued, with an air of impatient resignation. Someone mercifully made room for Shana to sit down, since she was still recovering from her c-section, but I stood holding the baby while we waited, fighting hard to push away the dizziness and nausea I had been feeling earlier. We waited and waited, and Wilton came back, and we waited some more. No one seemed to be moving, so Wilton took the baby while I ventured into the actual emergency room to investigate. A man with a chunk of his leg missing was calmly rolled in past me on a stretcher, and two nurses sat at a small desk evaluating a patient. Upon questioning them, I learned that the hospital only keeps one doctor on duty in the emergency department after 4:30pm, and they were waiting for him to return from a call. This seemed an unacceptable and ridiculous policy to me, but there was nothing to be done about it. Eventually I cornered a nurse and explained our story, and she was able to give the baby some medication to keep the fever down while we waited. Shortly after that, we pushed our way into the consultation room regardless of whether it was our turn or not, and had the baby evaluated. The fever had barely budged, and the nurse decided (surprise, surprise) that the baby would have to see a doctor. They situated Shana and the baby with a bed. No one had any idea when the doctor would be coming back, and it looked like it would be a long night. I was prepared to settle in for the long haul, but Wilton made arrangements for someone to pick us up and bring us home for the night, while Shana would stay with the baby. I didn't like this arrangement one bit, since it would mean leaving them alone, but the point was made that if they were admitted at 2am, I would have no way to get home, so I reluctantly agreed. I left Shana with strict instructions to text me with any news or developments, and met our ride outside and went home at around 10pm. Finally faced with the opportunity to sleep, I was no longer tired. Actually, that's not accurate at all. I was exhausted beyond the point of sleep. I texted the nurse at my clinic and my landlady to let them know how the baby was doing, and spoke to my mom on the phone to debrief the evening's events. I took some medicine for the headache my fatigue had burst into, made myself something to eat, and wandered around the house aimlessly. Eventually, Shana texted me to let me know that they had been seen by the doctor and been admitted overnight, and I was able to settle down and head off to sleep.<br />
The next morning, I arrived at work hours late, having beaten my alarm clock into submission when it rang at 7am. Everyone was very nice about it, and I ended up sitting in a room with our community health educator and our community mobilizer chatting about recent events. They were concerned about the baby of course, but they had more news for me: Eva had passed away over the weekend. I was saddened, especially thinking about her family, but not surprised. We were supposed to go for a follow up home visit the week before, but when it was time to go, we were informed that she had been admitted to the hospital. She was so weak and so sick that I couldn't help but feel a little relief for her, knowing that she's beyond suffering now. I didn't know her personally, not enough to truly mourn, but she will always be with me. She was the first AIDS patient I ever met, and she will live on as my motivation for working to prevent suffering like hers. <br />
I knew when I was assigned with work in Botswana as a health volunteer specializing in HIV/AIDS that I would see all the comings and goings of life, births as well as deaths, but there is no way to understand what that really means until you really experience it. I am still at the beginning of my service, and I still don't fully understand it, but I am beginning to see that I will not be able to observe these events as an detached bystander. I have been here at site for less than two months and I am already tangled up and involved beyond my expectations, and I wouldn't have it any other way.<br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheo8hXt9-GRrjeS7QT697qIma5GnkgjDLshXEj_UKk2vZr4zRx_eZq_tQy4ce9_8ffu6qaZaoFDk8MhUG9QNkDQmExF_doPZaISwQvKe41dSeX6J5A8eoDgyK9KRWMR2oOGcBKUuJ7ytI/s1600/07.12.10+011.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheo8hXt9-GRrjeS7QT697qIma5GnkgjDLshXEj_UKk2vZr4zRx_eZq_tQy4ce9_8ffu6qaZaoFDk8MhUG9QNkDQmExF_doPZaISwQvKe41dSeX6J5A8eoDgyK9KRWMR2oOGcBKUuJ7ytI/s200/07.12.10+011.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525043222793162066" /></a><br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcigxn0BV4DcpzQ1y-07FdGQSHjmlZJ3re_986fMThVDALKqgRfQWDrDLVPQahG_nKYa4R2oVNsyrOGu1WmtnuKnAHssRVVB9pnKFqPHIsfAv1V1Mqh804VR1BOUb6Nicvk_dPQ6ZV7VE/s1600/07.12.10+001.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcigxn0BV4DcpzQ1y-07FdGQSHjmlZJ3re_986fMThVDALKqgRfQWDrDLVPQahG_nKYa4R2oVNsyrOGu1WmtnuKnAHssRVVB9pnKFqPHIsfAv1V1Mqh804VR1BOUb6Nicvk_dPQ6ZV7VE/s200/07.12.10+001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525043214282020450" /></a>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-22171583800006393612010-07-13T07:21:00.000-07:002010-07-13T07:22:39.010-07:00Mosadi Mogolowritten 7/7/10 <br /> In two weeks, I will officially be a mosadi mogolo. Mosadi mogolo means 'old lady' here, which is most definitely not a derogatory term at all here. Rather, it is used to show respect, or when applied to someone who is obviously not an 'old lady', to draw out a chuckle. Of course, I am not an old lady, but according to the official rules of the Mosadi Mogolo World Cup, I will qualify as one when I turn 25 in two weeks. This brings back a memory of 10th grade history class, when one of my classmates declared to the teacher that life pretty much ends once you turn 25- not knowing that the next day was the teacher's 25th birthday. Now it is my turn, and 25 does not sound old at all, and life had better not end for me in two weeks. All that will happen, I am quite sure, is that I will finally be able to rent a car and book any hotel room I want in the US, and apparently, I will become a mosadi mogolo here.<br /> The Mosadi Mogolo World Cup is my first community event here in Botswana, and our entire sub-district is participating, with nearly every town, village, and catchment area represented. The event is run by our district health team, and it involves a World Cup football (soccer) series in which only women over 25 years old can compete. There are weeks of matches, which will culminate in a World Cup final in about 3 weeks. The score of the football match is not the only factor in winning the cup, however. After the match, each team faces off to prove their knowledge of HIV/AIDS and the PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission program) program. Their score on the quiz round is added to their score in the football match to determine the winner. The event was run last year, but this is the first year that my clinic has put together a team, which started holding practices on Monday. We are the definition of underdogs, with very little skill and not even enough players to fill all the field positions, much less the reserves. But we have heart. These ladies, ranging in age from 25 to older than 60, show up for an HIV/AIDS study session every day from 2-3pm, and then practice from 3-5pm. They have a coach who runs drills and urges them to “kick with power”. It is a pretty funny sight, to see all these women of various ages and states of physical fitness running and kicking across the field, with their small children trailing after them laughing and imitating. I've never seen anything quite like it, but I admire them. They are serious during the study sessions, and ask questions about difficult English words like 'cryptococcal meningitis' and 'immunodeficiency', and they seem to really enjoy themselves out on the field. I hope they do well in our first match, which will be held on Sunday.<br /> A few entries ago, I was explaining, and almost lamenting, that I didn't have a lot of activities to fill my days with. This has changed drastically in a very short time. Now I have all sorts of demands on my time, and I wonder how I will be able to keep this up once I really start working on projects. My clinic is demanding more and more of time as the H1N1 campaign rolls forward. As many as 50-60 people will show up in one morning to get the vaccine, and for an already understaffed clinic that also must attend to every other health need the community has, the situation can become overwhelming quickly. I am not allowed to administer vaccines, but just collecting the charts and documenting the vaccines takes a bit of the pressure off the nurses. I also answer the phone (although I don't think this helps much- Setswana is tough enough for me to understand in person, let alone on the phone, and I always have to get someone else anyway), find lab results, and count pills (but I don't distribute them, as that would be another big no-no for a PCV). The clinic is chaotic and crowded in the mornings, but empty and sleepy in afternoons, so I think if my clinic had its way, I would be there every morning. Of course, Botswana is a very morning-oriented country, so every other organization or school I want to meet and work with also wants me to come in the mornings- and there's only so many places I can be at once! To my clinic's dismay, I spent the first hour of the morning today at the local primary school, and I will be spending the entire day, morning included, at the senior secondary school. I understand that the clinic is busy and needs extra hands, but at some point we need to compromise. Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be working on capacity building projects and community programs and education, not doing simple tasks that anyone can do and that the clinic staff will have to do on their own once the volunteer leaves. It's like hiring a teacher, but keeping her in the back office making photocopies. Of course I'll do the smaller tasks too. The clinic needs help with them, and I'm here to help. I'm not above it. But it's not all I should be doing. My primary job should be promoting the clinic's agenda and message out in the community and in the schools, and working within the clinic to help it provide better service to its patients. Putting stickers in charts is important, but not something to spend 20 hours a week doing. <br /> Along with the needs of the clinic, the meetings I have had in the last couple weeks are slowly turning into real demands on my time. As I noted in previous entries, the secondary school is going to take a lot of my time, probably almost as much as the clinic. Yesterday, a man from the technical school stopped by the clinic to ask if I could help out with some life skills and health education issues, and I am waiting for his call to set something up. And today I spent part of my morning at a local primary school, and it looks like I will be spending a significant part of my time there, too. The kids range in age from 6-15, and although I will primarily be working with the guidance teacher on life skills and health, I'll probably also be helping out the teachers with their lessons, especially the English teachers. I was introduced to the entire school this morning, which was quite an experience. At the beginning of every day, the kids gather in lines according to age group in front of the school for the 'assembly'. Once gathered, they sing several songs (mostly religious, as is common anywhere in Botswana- it's also co-run by the Catholic church, so it makes even more sense here), and are spoken to by the headmaster, the guidance teacher, and a nun (also a teacher). Parts of these speeches seemed to be a practiced dialogue, and the kids knew all the responses. Because this is a primary school, everything was in Setswana, so I didn't really get a lot of it. After the speeches, it was my turn. As usual, I was introduced as being from the UK. Apparently the people here don't recognize accents well, because I've been told that I am from England, Australia, and South Africa- anywhere that there is an abundance of white people. Today at the clinic, I was told that I have a European voice. When I corrected the teacher and told the kids that I was from America, I got a collective awed gasp from my audience, followed by a louder one when I said that I was from New York. New York is one of the few American cities that everyone here recognizes, and I always get a good reaction when I tell people I lived near there. I blame Jay-Z, since I can't get through two days here without hearing “Empire State of Mind”. Anyway, the kids were very attentive, even if they were a bit giggly, and soon my part of the show was over. They sang a couple more songs, and were dismissed. Even the dismissal was orchestrated- the kids peeled off in their lines row by row while singing “We Are Marching in the Light of God”, and headed off to class. I stuck around and met the teachers, who seemed unconcerned that all of their students were sitting in their classrooms unattended while they were introduced to the strange American. After our meeting, I entertained the guidance teacher's class for a few minutes before heading back to the clinic while she attended to something. The kids in the class were 7 and 8 years old, and their English skills were minimal, so we were a bit limited. I taught them the word 'map' and drew one to show where I was from, and had them point out Botswana. Classes for this age are usually taught in Setswana, but when they are older, they will be taught in English only. This seems a little strange to me, almost like the kids are set up to fail. Some kids don't even speak Setswana at home. In Mahalapye this is less of a problem, but in some parts of the country, many people speak Kalanga or Sesarwa or Afrikaans at home. As one PCV put it on her blog (this won't be exact, but it was a good example), imagine growing up speaking English at home, but then starting school at age 6 and being taught in Spanish only. You are then taught French using Spanish, and when you hit high school, you are expected to learn everything else- science, math, history- in French, your third language. It would get a little confusing, to say the least. I can't imagine having to do it, but I'm impressed at how well these kids adapt to it. I'm having trouble just learning Setswana! I'm waiting for the guidance teacher's call to find out when I'll be headed back, to help out on a regular basis, but I think it will be soon. <br /> Not only do I have these schools and my clinic playing for my attentions, but I'm also supposed to be doing my community assessment, and I still haven't met with even half the groups that I wanted to meet with. I also still have to make it over to the hospital and the prison, even if it's just to find out more about their services and their connection to the community as a whole. I'm just going to take it week by week for now. I have plenty of time before In-Service training at the end of August, and even more time before my term of service in Botswana is over. As I was standing this afternoon with the sun beating down on my head, watching my mosadi mogolos running down the field through the dried grass and into the deep blue sky, the woman organizing the team mentioned that she hoped for a better team next year. I looked at her and agreed that next year we would have enough time and experience to pull together a very strong team- and then realized what I said. I will be here next year. I'm not just passing through, and I am not just a visitor. I don't have to get everything done in the next few weeks, because my departure is not imminent. I live here, and this is my community. I'm not staying forever, but I am staying. It's not something that I can come to terms with yet in the evenings, when often all I can think about is home and family and friends, but there in that field today, I accepted it without thinking. I will be here next year.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-9985559604866101552010-07-13T07:18:00.000-07:002010-07-13T07:21:15.457-07:00Independence Daywritten 7/4/10<br /><br /> Today, I cleaned my house, had friends over for the afternoon, grilled burgers, ate junk food, and drank wine. Sounds like a fairly typical low-key 4th of July doesn't it? If you can overlook that we were the only 4 people celebrating the 4th for miles and miles, the burgers were grilled and eaten indoors, we were all wearing sweaters and fleeces, and there were certainly no fireworks, I guess it was. It was actually a pretty nice day, overall. I love having people over, and can't wait until I have my house really set up the way I want it- with a table and chairs and maybe an area rug- so I can do it more often. I also can't wait until we all have the freedom to visit each other whenever we want. Ironically, our Independence Day plans centered on our very lack of independence. Our Peace Corps group is currently on lock-down, which is the 2-3 month period between the end of pre-service training and the beginning of in-service training when we are not allowed to leave our sites unless it's for official Peace Corps business. We are supposed to be spending all of our time integrating into our communities, which I can understand, but it also leads to a lot of volunteers going a little stir- crazy, especially on weekends, and especially, especially on holiday weekends. There's only so much community integration a person can handle, and only so much community integration the locals will tolerate before they start thinking we're a little strange. Thank goodness my village has 3 other Peace Corps volunteers so we can visit each other without ever leaving site.<br /> While we all reminisced and talked wistfully about firework shows we were missing back home, I couldn't help but think that here in Botswana, we have a pretty impressive show in the sky every night. Last night I was outside my house after dark (which almost never happens), and happened to glance up. In Molepolole, I often stared into the night sky, mesmerized by the stars that could never be seen a mere hour away from New York City, prompting my host mother to shake her head at the crazy American- apparently star-gazing is not a popular activity here. Last night, however, I found that the night sky in Molepolole was nothing compared to the night sky here. I'm sure the show is even better in the tiny villages without any electricity, but there are no streetlights in my part of town, and no one uses their outdoor lights around here, so there was very little to pollute the view. I said before that I find the dark oppressive here, and I do. It wraps around me like a blanket- some nights I can almost touch it. The stars, then, are all the more powerful, their light piercing through the tangible darkness and reaching down to the earth from the heavens. They are strong, and they are many. People are always talking about the African sky in some romantic way, imagining an bright orange sun setting over a wide, hazy savannah, perhaps with a giraffe off in the horizon. Or maybe they imagine a deep blue sky spread over a vast landscape of foreign trees and dirt roads, with white clouds far off above them. These images catch my imagination, too, and they certainly exist here. The sky here has a personality and moods of its own, reflecting the people and the lands it covers. The cheerful, solid blue the sky takes on nearly every day here certainly matches the attitudes of the Batswana I meet every day. Despite poverty, HIV, unemployment, and other hardships people face here, I have never seen a Motswana greet without a smile and a handshake, and the music people play is unfailingly upbeat and optimistic. And indeed, how can you wallow or mourn with the bright blue sky looking down on you every day? It's no coincidence that their flag is the same color as their sky.<br /> No matter how beautiful or how symbolic the daytime sky can be, however, it is the night sky that captivates me and draws me in with its mystery. The African sky is no less impressive after its majestic sunset. Without tall buildings and trees to obstruct the view, the sky stretches up from every corner of the earth. It's easy to see how the ancient people believed the sky to be a dome over the land, separating the heavens from the earth, the point at which mortal meets immortal, and time meets eternity. In a way, the night sky is where time meets eternity: we see the stars today as they were millions of years ago. We see light from the past, even from the beginnings of the universe when it all began. Millions of years from now, the light our own star gives off today, the light that we see and work and play by, will be seen lightyears away. Our time on this earth will have long past, but in that moment, something of it will live on. The stars are countless, forming pictures across the sky. Some of these pictures are familiar from the northern sky despite their strange new positions, but some are new and nameless to me. They converge in a great bright strip, the Milky Way, clearly visible to me for the first time in my life. I stare straight into the center, trying to imagine the innumerable far-off planets and solar systems that must accompany each distant star, then look away, off into deep space, picturing new galaxies in the darkest patches of sky, where the stars are too far away to be seen with the naked eye. <br /> Somehow, I don't think I'll miss fireworks too much while I'm here.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-26463412128294491092010-07-03T06:14:00.000-07:002010-07-03T06:16:17.978-07:00Life Goes On<meta equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.1 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --></style>written 7/2 <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> And life in the Peace Corps inches on slowly. This weekend, the 4</span></span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 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.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> My Peace Corps life </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">is</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 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.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> 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.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> 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!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> 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. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> 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.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> With that, it is time for bed. Here's hoping for a good internet connection tomorrow so I can post this!</p> Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-61600915892384161432010-07-03T05:55:00.000-07:002010-07-03T06:12:24.993-07:00Happiness is a Hot Shower<meta equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 3.1 (Win32)"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> </style> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> written 6/27</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I am clean, for the first time in months! My hair is washed and conditioned, I smell like soap, and I have discovered that I am not quite as tan as I thought I was- apparently it was all dirt. I have taken a hot shower (two in fact, in the last 24 hours), and all is again right with the world.</span></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This shower comes courtesy of a lovely ear infection that I have been battling for since Thursday. I started antibiotics on Friday, but when I discovered swelling by my jaw on Saturday, the Peace Corps doctor thought it best for me to head down to the Peace Corps office in Gaborone so he could take a look. I didn't argue. One combi, 2 hours on a bus, and an overpriced cab ride later, I made it to Gabs, where the doctor checked me out, declared my ear infection official, gave me some better medications, and sent me off for a free night at a local lodge, since it was too late to head back home to Mahalapye. Before heading to the lodge, I indulged in some American-style fast food at a chain called 'Wimpy's' and grabbed some snacks for the night ahead. The lodge took some finding- I really hate trying to get places in Gaborone. I complain about Mahalapye being big, but Gaborone makes it look absolutely quaint, and after this weekend, I have new appreciation for my home village, despite its lack of hot showers. Anyway, I stayed at Kgale View Lodge, which was tucked away across from the enormous Game City mall. It had very pretty landscaping, outdoor picnic tables, a pool (closed for the 'winter'), and a reception area and dining hall tastefully decorated in a safari theme (of course). My room was small but clean, and the bed was incredibly warm and comfortable, there was a heater I could control, and there was a television with 4 whole channels! I spent the night taking an hour-long hot shower, eating VitaSnack cheddar flavored rice crackers (more addicting than they sound), and watching many episodes of 'Monk' and some South African family drama called 'Wild Hearts' (or something like that).</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> I woke up in time for the free breakfast, but decided that a second shower was obviously more pressing than mediocre hotel food, and spent the morning getting cleaner than I've been in a long time and watching some police and courtroom dramas. Eventually they kicked me out (really, they came to the room and everything- apparently check-out times are earlier here than they are in the US), so I turned in my key and set up camp in the dining hall to use the wireless internet, where I stressed about the status of my student loans for far too long, while cursing facebook's new photo uploader feature, which decided to take a day off. Finally I realized that I still had to travel at least 3 hours before sunset, and I was on my way. I walked around and around the perimeter of the Game City Mall, reaching dangerous levels of frustration, until finding the corner of the parking lot where all the combis were hiding. I found and hopped on the correct one, and made my way to the bus rank, where I found a bus home pretty quickly. The bus rank in Gaborone is big, and very busy and chaotic, but it's actually pretty easy to navigate once you get the hang of it. The taxis and combis generally stay on one side, and the buses line up in rows on the other side. Each row is marked with a sign that tells which city the buses in the row are headed toward. The buses line up, and passengers are herded onto the first bus in line. When that bus is full, it leaves, and the next bus pulls up to begin boarding. There's no real schedule, buses just leave when they're full. This could be a pain if you're going to some remote place that not many people go to, but my village is directly between the two largest cities in Botswana, so I'll almost never be stuck waiting and waiting for a bus to show up or fill up. The bus was empty when I boarded, but within 10 minutes it was overflowing, and we were on our way. I guess I timed the day perfectly- I made it home about 5 minutes before sunset. Now I am wishing for yet another hot shower, and wondering why no one every told me how loud the wind can be at night here. It's whipping around my house, making it groan and creak with every gust. Not only that, but a dog appeared on my compound a few days ago. This should be a good development, because dogs here usually provide extra security, but this one won't shut up. It barks and barks constantly, with no provocation or reason at all. It may be a long night. </span></span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Lesson of the day: If you don't want random heads and appendages to pop in through your window and directly into your face trying to sell you things or ask you for money, be sure to close the window next to your seat tightly any time the bus is parked. I had a floating head try to sell me water today, and when I told it I wasn't thirsty, it insisted that I should give it 5 pula anyway, as a favor. </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">I declined. Rather pushy for a floating head, I thought. </span></i> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">
<br /></p> Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-89607139509099643662010-06-27T02:18:00.000-07:002010-06-27T02:42:16.582-07:00The Firstwritten 6/23/10<br /><br /> 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?<br /> 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.”<br /> 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. <br /> 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.<br /> Maybe.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />*Name has been changed to ensure privacy.</span>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-64958896543017135282010-06-27T02:15:00.000-07:002010-06-27T02:16:15.478-07:00Risky Dreamingwritten 6/22/10<br /><br />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.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-61050055243034850802010-06-23T07:03:00.000-07:002010-06-23T07:04:30.288-07:00News, Notes, and Observationswritten 6/22/10<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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).<br /><br />I hate it when the word processor decides that I want to insert bullets without asking my permission.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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. <br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />The song 'Sex in the Morning' is blasting outside my window.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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!<br /><br />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!! <br /><br />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!<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />It has now been over an hour, and I am ready for sleep in my wonderful, wonderful bed. Good night.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-18644207972848108202010-06-23T07:02:00.000-07:002010-06-23T07:03:09.390-07:00A Morning Entrywritten 6/19<br /><br /> 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. <br /> 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. <br /> 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. <br /> 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! <br /> 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!<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">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.</span>Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-65086272794113651262010-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:002010-06-23T07:01:51.865-07:00A lifestyle of extremeswritten 6/17<br /> 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. <br /> 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. <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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!<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-46435604234018999882010-06-21T07:52:00.000-07:002010-06-21T07:54:10.109-07:00Home Sweet Home- For real this time!!(written 6/16)<br /><br />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. <br /> 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!<br /><br />Addendum:<br />A new desperation-induced Peace Corps recipe for you. I have a feeling this may become a recurrent piece in this blog.<br />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? <br />1. Get angry.<br />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.<br />3.Accept your situation. Welcome to the Peace Corps.<br />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. <br />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!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-79886338954902912942010-06-13T03:02:00.000-07:002010-06-13T03:28:53.101-07:00I 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.<br />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!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-77651053931236294212010-06-10T07:41:00.000-07:002010-06-10T07:45:20.854-07:00A quick noteI"M A PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br />Just thought you all should know.<br />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!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-41604168243295853182010-06-10T07:35:00.000-07:002010-06-10T07:38:44.506-07:00A new care package listNow 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!<br /><br />-Taco shells/seasoning<br />-Corn chips<br />-Tortillas (can you tell that Mexican food is non-existent here?)<br />-Parmesan cheese (of course)<br />-Reese's peanut butter cups (yes, they'll melt a little, but it's fine, I swear)<br />-Gummi worms or Swedish fish<br />-Cool ranch Doritos (they have Doritos, but with weird flavors. Sweet chili, anyone?)<br />-Pretzels (they don't exist here)<br />-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)<br />-Lipton iced tea mix<br />-Dove soap <br />-Opti-free contact solution<br />-Hand sanitizer<br />-Crest Pro-health toothpaste<br />-Mix cd's (music is a coping mechanism)<br />-Warm clothes (it's freezing here! I spent my Memorial Day in a fleece, a long skirt, leggings, and socks- fashionable, I know)<br />-Books (classics are awesome, but anything interesting is fine. Lot's of evening downtime for reading)<br />-Magazines (Newsweek, Time, Scientific American, heck, even People- any connection to the outside world would be appreciated!)<br />-Stationary (because I swear I'll start writing to people at some point)<br />-AA and AAA batteries<br />-DVD's (action, sci-fi, romance, comedy- nothing too heavy yet, real life is heavy enough right now)<br />-Photos (gotta decorate those walls, and have some way to remember you all for 2 years!)<br />-Photo frames (lightweight, nothing fancy)<br />-Lyrics and guitar chords (got the guitar, but my repertoire is abysmal. I'm working on it)<br />-Fun things and surprises (especially things for the house, since I'll be spending the next month or so setting it up)<br /><br />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. :-)<br /><br />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.<br />Oh, and be careful about what you write on the customs sticker- I have to pay customs on every package I get!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-15750313776460703112010-06-03T07:18:00.000-07:002010-06-03T07:20:47.185-07:00Home Sweet Home....eventuallyToday 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?<br /> 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!<br /> 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!<br /> 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! <br /> 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. <br /> 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.<br /> 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.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-6744318809140388472010-05-25T06:15:00.000-07:002010-05-25T06:57:53.751-07:00Preliminary DetailsWe had a half a day of training today, so I have a little bit of extra time to spend with the free wi-fi at the lodge- which means you get an extra blog entry! Yesterday and today we had training with our counterparts. Counterparts are the people we will be working the most closely with at our sites. They may be our supervisors or coworkers, or even just people we partner with on projects. Once we've been at site for a while, we may have multiple counterparts depending on our projects, but for now, we each have one associated with our official work sites. I will be working at Madiba Clinic in Mahalapye, which is a youth based clinic (very exciting!), and my counterpart is one of the nurses there. She also works with the PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) program as a trainer. She has never worked with a Peace Corps volunteer before, but I think that she understands what volunteers are supposed to do, and I'm very happy to be working with her. I told her about my training and my interests, and she thinks we'll be able to do a lot of good work. <br />I have also learned more about my house- or perhaps I should say houses! Right now I have two potential houses. One is the house a Peace Corps volunteer has just moved out of. It's on a family compound, and it has electricity and indoor running water, a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom, and it's fully furnished. However, it is a little far from the clinic I'll be working in, and the previous volunteer did have a break-in (she wasn't home when it happened, and security has been improved since then, so I'd still be comfortable with the situation), so my counterpart has also found another potential house with all the same amenities, but closer to my clinic. Peace Corps hasn't approved this new house yet, so for site visit this week, I'll be staying at the first house, but I'll get to see both, and it sounds like as long as Peace Corps approves both, I'll be able to choose which I prefer. Either way, I can't wait to have my own house again!<br />One more thing. My counterpart gave me my new address, so from here on out, please don't send things to the Peace Corps office in Gaborone- they won't appreciate it. Please send any mail to:<br />Melissa Berger<br />Madiba Clinic<br />Private Bag 2<br />Mahalapye, Botswana<br />Please make sure it has my name on it, and you may want to add Peace Corps in parentheses to make sure it gets to me. Packages are always welcome, but you may want to be careful about what you write about the contents- I have to pay customs on everything I receive here.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-6541693528300467642010-05-24T04:34:00.000-07:002010-05-24T04:36:14.704-07:00And the winner is....So this morning we showed up at training at 9am for site placement announcement, and were seated in 56 chairs with numbers attached to them. The numbers dictated the order in which we would learn our fates. Mine was 15, but as we started with number 56, I had a while to wait. Once our numbers were up, we walked up to the front where we were given an envelope with a quote to read out loud and a number that corresponded to a site on the map of Botswana. I watched while people reacted with varying degrees of surprise, joy, and perplexity, all the while fixating on the sticky tack on my number card in nervous anticipation. Finally it was my turn. I opened the envelope, and matched my numbers, and learned that for the next two years I'll be living in....Mahalapye! <br /> It's hard to describe how I feel about my placement. While I wasn't exactly jumping for joy, I am very happy with my site. Of course, I did want something a bit more rural (Mahalapye is big), and being a little further north would have been nice. It's not an exotic assignment like the Delta or the Kalahari, and I don't think it will be anything like what I pictured when I applied for Peace Corps. However, there are some definite upsides. Mahalapye is big, but it's certainly not a city, so I'll have opportunities to work on agriculture as a secondary project, which is something I'm very excited about. The location, while not exotic, is a good jumping off point to almost anywhere in the country, and I'll only be a couple hours away from both Gaborone and Francistown. Since I shadowed in the Francistown area, I'm already a little attached to it, and a lot of very cool people got placed in that area, so I think I may be visiting fairly frequently. I do have other volunteers that will also be in my village, an older couple that I get along really well with. I'm told that my house is in a nice area on the outskirts of the town, and that it's pretty new, with an indoor toilet (!!!!) and tile floors, but the clinic that I'll be working with is in a less developed area, and I'll have to take a couple combis to get there. When it comes to my actual work assignment, I couldn't be more thrilled. I'll be working in a youth based clinic (a relatively new idea here, but a good one), with opportunities to work with ARV adherence and youth groups. They've never had a Peace Corps volunteer before, so it'll be a new experience for all of us. The clinic is also only where I'm based- once I get to site I'll be doing a community needs analysis, and I may find projects to work on outside the clinic, too. I may get in touch with one of the schools to do some work there, and there's also a prison that I could be working with. We'll see what happens. Next week we only have training on Monday and Tuesday, and then from Wednesday til Sunday we'll be out visiting our sites, meeting our counterparts, and staying in our new houses. After site visits, we do come back to Moleps for a couple more weeks of training, but from here on out, everything will be more geared directly to learning how to do needs analysis and project development. It's getting real!!<br /> After site announcements, we had a braai (barbeque) at one of the staff houses, where we grilled and ate burgers, drank “other beverages” (in the words of training director), danced, and generally let off some steam. I don't remember whose idea the braai was, was but it was sheer genius, exactly what we needed, especially after site placement. It was nice to be real people for once, relaxed and not worrying about breaking cultural norms. Someone said near the beginning of training that PST is intensely stressful not because anything we're asked to do is particularly difficult, but because you have to be on all the time. We have Setswana classes and tech training all day, and then we go home to our host families where we continue to learn culture and language until we go to bed. We occasionally escape to the lodge, but even there we have to be careful not to say or do anything that would make Peace Corps or the United States look bad, because while we are here in Botswana, we are representing both at all times. I think I'm making it sound terrible, which isn't really accurate- we do have fun at training sometimes, and I really like my host family- I'm just trying to get across why having a day like today was so appreciated. I feel like I got to talk to people I hadn't gotten to talk to much yet, and I think we all had fun planning our holidays and parties at people's various sites. I hope the people in Maun and Kasane and the Tuli Block mean it when they say they want visitors, because I think they won't have much of a choice!<br /> Ok, it is now waaaaaayyyy past my bedtime, and I supposed to be going to church early in the morning. I'll update again if I find out any more important details about my site or if anything exciting happens, but otherwise, expect the next post after my site visit. Also, if anyone was planning on sending any packages or letters soon, either mail them immediately or hold onto them until I get my address at my actual site. Mail takes about 2 weeks to get here, not counting any time it gets held up at the embassy or the Peace Corps office, and I won't be in Moleps for too much longer!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-741827880682764846.post-71588993551713095412010-05-19T07:59:00.000-07:002010-05-19T08:01:39.594-07:00Bits and Pieces(written 5/18)<br /><br />Hello again! Sorry for the length of time between entries, but I'll try to catch you all up as well as I can with one blog entry. For simplicity's sake, I'll break up the major events and updates into their own little sections<br />1. Shadowing<br />For those who are not quite sure what shadowing is, I'll attempt to explain here. As part of Peace Corps training, trainees are split up and assigned to a currently serving volunteer that they spend a couple days with to get a sense of what a volunteer really does. I shadowed Erica, an amazing volunteer who is based in the S&CD (social work) office as a CCB (same program as me) in a small rural village called Mokubilo, about 120k west of Francistown. Another trainee, Sydney, also shadowed Erica, and since there were a bunch of us taking the same bus into Francistown, we all met our shadowing hosts there for lunch at an Indian restaurant and a tour of the town. Francistown is the second largest city in Botswana, but it is still pretty small. There's an open air market atmosphere at the bus rank, and you can get cold drinks, produce, snacks, and air time pretty conveniently there. There are a couple mall-like areas with shops, restaurants, and grocery stores, as well as office buildings and a new stadium. We didn't spend too much time in Francistown, as we all had to catch rides to our actual destinations. There should have been an afternoon bus to Mokubilo, but bus schedules are not set in stone here, and by the time we finished our lunch, all the buses had left already. We took a cab to main road, and set out to find a ride. Hitching is not encouraged by the Peace Corps, but it is accepted that it is sometimes the only mode of transportation, especially when traveling in and out of very small rural villages. As Americans, we think of hitching as a negative thing that will only end badly for either the driver or the hitchhiker, but here in Botswana, most people do it, and it is generally a very safe and affordable way to get around. There are areas on main roads that are agreed upon 'hiking spots', and the hiker and the driver agree on a fee before a ride is accepted. And of course, hikers know to be on the look out for drunk drivers and vehicles that look like they're ready to fall apart. Anyway, it took a while to find someone heading the right way, but we eventually found a ride and made it to Mokubilo. Erica doesn't have electricity, so we made a lovely grilled cheese sandwich dinner by candlelight and headlamp-light. I learned a lot from my shadowing experience. I learned that no electricity is fine, but a real bath can be considered a coping mechanism (she had indoor running water!). I learned that watermelons in Botswana can be yellow inside and must be eaten by scooping with your hands and then slurping the juice- no knives or spoons allowed. I learned that it's important to know that there are times when jokes are an appropriate response, and that the people of Botswana have a great sense of humor. I learned that there might not be a lot of structure to my days once I'm at site, and that's ok. Erica has a few different projects that she is working on, including building a library, working with the HIV support group, teaching computer skills, and whatever is needed by the S&CD office, among others. She does some grant writing and fundraising, and always makes sure that she's not the one running the show, which is really the key to capacity building. I know she absolutely hates it when I say this, but I think she's doing a great job, and she really helped Sydney and I understand the role of a CCB. I learned a lot of other things and had other great experiences while shadowing, but you'll just have to ask me if you want to know more. <br />2. Setswana language lessons<br />We had our first language proficiency exam right before shadowing, and I placed novice-mid, which is where most people placed. I was a little disappointed with how I did, and didn't feel that I was able to show off the extent of my knowledge and that I got flustered with what was asked, but now I know what to expect. We switched up our classes and instructors after the exam, which I think was needed. I'm not really settled in with this group yet, but I like everyone in it, and think that aside from a little burn-out, we're doing fine. <br />3. Site Placement<br />No idea yet. We'll find out on Saturday where we'll be living for the next 2 years. This may be the longest week of my life.<br />4. Cultural visit<br />On Saturday, we went for a “cultural visit”, which ended up being a visit to see some rock paintings and some traditional dancing. The rock paintings were pretty cool, mostly pictures of animals painted by the bushmen (I know the term isn't exactly politically correct, but that's the term our guide used). A few of us scrambled up the rocks ( I felt like I was back in the Hudson Valley!), and got a pretty good view of the region. I'll try to get a picture up on here, despite the slow internet connection. The dancing was very interesting, and they even put on a mock wedding ceremony for us, with one of our instructors as the 'groom' and one of the trainees as the 'bride'. The traditions they showed us are not really part of every day life here anymore, but many children still learn the dances, and people are proud of the culture. I imagine that it's a lot like the Native American traditions in the US, but I'm definitely no expert. We also made a stop at place that sells handmade pottery, and we struggled to remember that we are not tourists who are leaving in a week, but people who will be living here for 2 years and have that length of time to accumulate things to bring back to the US. It's still hard to get my mind around that!<br />5. Odds and ends<br />As usual, life at PST has a lot of ups and downs. After shadowing, I was a on a high for a few days, and was very excited about seeing more of the country, getting to know people better, finding out our site placements, and beginning service. I really feel like I should say something more about the people here, because they are that amazing. It is incredible that there are 57 trainees, and in the whole group, I can't think of anyone I don't like and couldn't get along with. While some people have naturally gotten closer to some than others, there are no cliques. Everyone is very accepting, and there is no sufficient way to describe how wonderful it is to have a group of people backing you up who know exactly what you are going through. Sometimes it's tough to remember what a diverse group we are because of our common experience here, but when we remember it, it only adds value to the connections we've made. Within this group, there are people that I can see myself being friends with for a long time, people that I know I could really talk to if I needed to. There are people that have already accomplished things in their careers that I hope to accomplish in my future, people that can serve as mentors (and maybe even stand-in grandparents!), and people that are excited about the same things that I am excited about. It's true that if a few of us are down, sometimes it can drag the whole group down, but that has been pretty rare for us. Mostly we're holding each other up, even when we're commiserating. <br />However, there are always the downs, too. I went to Catholic Mass on Sunday for the first time since moving here, and while the service was lively and wonderful, I walked out missing home more than I have in a while. Sometimes doing things that I connect with home hurts more than it helps, but it's usually worth it. I can get all caught up in the things that I gave up to come here- two years of seeing my family in person, 2 years of holidays as I know them, 2 years of going to the beach, 2 years of hanging out with friends, 2 years of talking to all the people that have known me for most of my life, 2 years of snow and changing leaves, 2 years of driving a car, 2 years of seeing my younger siblings grow up and reach new milestones in their lives- and I wonder if it's worth it. Then this afternoon we found out that we had our first ET (early termination)- one of our fellow trainees made the decision that Peace Corps wasn't for her and asked to go home. While we completely understand (and we really, really do) and wish her the best in whatever she decides to do (and will miss her!), I know it has at least made me step back and think how I would feel if I were going home tomorrow. While I do miss home and don't anticipate that changing anytime soon, I don't think I would feel good about a decision to go home. I know that I'm here for a reason, and that I'd be disappointed in myself if I went home at this stage in the game. This is still an adventure for me, and I think I can see this through to the end. I have a lot of support from home, and a lot of support here in Botswana from staff, current volunteers, and fellow trainees. There are things that I want to do here. I want to get to site and see if I can hack it there. I want to see if there's a way that I can help people make their own lives a little better. I want to get to know my fellow volunteers better, and make friends within this new culture I'm trying to adapt to. I want to learn new skills and see what I can really do if given the opportunity, and I don't think I would easily find such an opportunity in the US. And I refuse to leave Africa until I have seen a lion, a hippo, and a zebra. The end. I'm staying, at least til then.<br />Please don't let any of that keep anyone from sending letters and packages and reminding me of home- like I said, it's worth it! Letters and packages are the highlight of the week when we get them. I'm still working on getting to the post office here, but I promise to write back. Hope to hear from you!Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254133605139260860noreply@blogger.com0