For those of you following my blog, I finally, today, got my bank card, and pin. I think it's been a little over a month. I was at the bank for less than an hour. It was amazing. And they are both working, meaning I got fat PC cash and ate pizza. I'm not even sure what to do with myself in this happy state. I was wrong about Gumare, Maun is the New York of the delta. I got here by hitching hiking on a plane. Pictures to follow.
Much love
Jen
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
The internet is against me....
To all those who have been emailing me without response, I apologize, as it appears in a fun new twist of fate, that the internet in Gumare has decided that I shall only receive emails, not send any out. Of course. I will have to give it some time, but I may be retiring the jennyinlondon. For now, continue using it, just know that I am reading it and not able to respond.
Africa is tedious today.
Love you
Jen
Africa is tedious today.
Love you
Jen
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Of Mice and (Wo)Men... searching for the "Bright Side"
The bright side…..
I sit at my laptop at three in the morning and try to find this alleged “bright side” which to me seems to be on the dark side of the moon right now….
I’ve just returned from a weekend in Gumare, surrounded by internet and hot water and other luxuries I’ve been missing. I can actually remember sitting in the back of the ambulance that was late, but still miraculously taking me to the boat to get back home, and the sky was cloudy, it looked like rain, which was a nice change, I hoped it would, continuous sunny days often exhaust me…I seem to feel like my disposition needs to match the weather, and I was looking for a break in the action.So I was sitting in the back of the truck, feeling the cool breeze and experiencing gratitude for all the opportunities I have ahead of me in Seronga. It was the sort of clichéd bliss that should just warn you something is about the happen. But I was oblivious. I was trying to focus on some words of wisdom a former PCV who had served in Bots in the 90’s gave me, to pay less attention to my surroundings and more attention to the changes I was seeing in myself. Yes. I was ready and excited to realign my thinking as it were and focus more on myself and less on this histrionic ranting and ruminating about my surroundings, because they weren’t changing, so I am the one who is going to have to.
Until they did.
Simon happened to be near the boat launch and picked me up, once the boat arrived in Seronga and having noticed the water was out in town he offered me a hot shower, which I took him up on. Simon’s shower is outdoors, and though there was spiders the size of my fist all over the walls, I thought, “Nope this is not going to bother me; I am having a hot shower.” We had dinner and caught up on his trip and he brought me back home to my NEWLY WORKING FRIDGE!!!!!!
I heard the hum of the gas and reached my hand in and it was cold! Oh happy day! My life has just improved tenfold! But you must not focus on your surroundings, focus on you, I thought, trying desperately to retain the good or at least neutral feelings of focusing on myself.
I was probably humming to myself in happiness when I entered my bathroom, and noticed a tiny pile of shits under my loofah. Damn. Upon closer inspection I decided they weren’t lizard shits, as I have learned to identify by the slight whiteness that is on one edge, but the shits of mice.
When I became an expert on the droppings of various creatures I’ll never know, but somewhere along the way it happened.
I looked at the ceiling in vain, hoping it was just shits that had leaked through the duct tape border on the roof and had fallen down. No such luck, the seal was tight.
Further inspection revealed a big hole in the bread I had foolishly left on the counter and more mice droppings on the floor by the curtain.
Ok, this is fine. I thought. This will be fine. They’re probably gone by now, I desperately thought, I’ll just go to sleep. It will be fine.
I had no sooner turned off the light when I heard a scratching by the window. I turned on my headlamp, grabbed the broom, and swept all the boxes I had stacked over near the window with plans to burn or recycle out onto the patio. I called for My Choice, the compound dog to come, hoping he would scare the mouse out of the box and maybe kill it to teach any others lurking around a lesson (as with the lizards, it appears I’ve suddenly become a big proponent of deterrence methods and of leaving the victims of my capital punishment for unlawful entry outside my door as an example to others, despite my criminology degree foggily reminding me that DETERANCE DOESN’T WORK!!)
I crawled back into my bed when I heard more scratching from another corner of the room. Shit I didn’t get him! And he’s fast! The time was now after 10, an unreasonable hour to attempt to summon my hired assassins that live on the compound, they have school in the morning. I texted Simon, informing him of the recent events and asking him if there was poison to be found in the village. He text back “WE CAN BURN THE PLACE TOMORROW”. I didn’t know if this was some British euphemism slang for gassing the f-ers out, but I was slightly comforted. Until I heard the scratching across the carpet. Now it was time to call in the reinforcements. I texted my mom. Her suggestion was to call in the assassins, and then it was to bang on the oven- the most recent area from which I heard the still unseen scurrying- and open the front door and hope he went out on his own. No such luck.
I tried to console myself with memories of the hamsters and gerbils I had as pets growing up, and thought about how you couldn’t generally get them to come near you for anything. With, of course, the memorable exception of the time my sister was playing with one and it bit her on the finger. She flung it across the room. That memory immediately halted the theory of “they’re friendly, like lizards, they don’t want to bother you” I was trying to work through my head.
I continued this game of cat and mouse, (lame pun but I’m a little short on sleep) for the next few hours, occasionally falling into a schizophrenic sleep in which I would twitch awake certain something was crawling on me. I heard the bastards actually gnawing on the plastic corners of my bed at one point. I heard it, and then saw it by the light of my headlamp crawl up the curtains, which reminded me that my mosquito net was no match for these particular villains and longed for the days when it was just lizards I was rooming with (it seems they move slower and quieter and just less).
Finally at two in the morning the showdown came to a head. I heard it crawling near the bucket I use as a trash can and managed to turn my headlamp on in time to see a big brown mouse crawling along the edge of the rim and he fell in. I kept my light trained on him and grabbed the broom, hooked it through the handle of the bucket, and threw the entire mess outside, and sealed the bottom of the door with duct tape, for good measure. I was just sending my mom a victory text when I heard scratching in the bathroom and saw another mouse scurry across along the bathtub. I laid back down in bed to wait for the next move, keeping my headlamp on and saw this one jump out of the bathroom bucket garbage can. I decided I was no match for this one and immediately shut the door and duct taped the crack at the bottom. I can hear him scratching around doing god knows what in there and I think there might be one more in the room with me now, near the battery inverter. All I know for sure is that I’m extremely tired and have to pee.
So what is the bright side?
Here’s what I’ve got so far.
1.) Lizards sound like fun again.
2.) In the reality that lizards are not fun, the mice have shown the error in my ways in thinking I had figured out how to keep vermin out.
3.) Now that I know there is a straight up problem (No peace corps, I would not consider this an “opportunity for improvement”) I can go about stockpiling poison and traps and again sealing any holes that are apparently still here.
4.) I might just live through this night (you’ll know that I did if I managed to get to the internet again).
5.) The presence of mice indicates that there aren’t snakes near the house. (yet).
6.) This proves that I have been hallucinating less than I previously thought that things were crawling around my room at night.
7.) I’ll get plenty of practice holding my bladder-useful for long car rides, and also practice being up all night and functioning the next day-I’ve heard this is life after children.
8.) More hilarious fodder for my blog.
9.) I’ll be up there in the ranking of relatively bad ass Peace Corps stories at the reconnect.
10.) I’ll know what it’s really all about to live in Botswana- this last one is kind of weak but I’m tired… I think it’s time to attempt sleep again. Good luck.
What happened next?
I cried like a baby as the sun rose, a combination of exhaustion, irrational fear, and a full bladder. Unwilling to remove the duct tape seal from the bathroom door I used my front yard as a latrine (TMI, Jen, TMI) and went to my coworker’s house in tears, sans teeth brushing (there wasn’t water anyways). She couldn’t exactly understand why I was crying and I was too tired to explain much past the fact that I wanted to go to sleep at her house. The beautiful thing about the African culture is that this is a totally acceptable request and she didn’t blink twice before inviting me in and showing me to a bedroom. The explanation that I was crying because I was tired and there were mice in my house prompted a look of confusion, but whatever. Cultural EXCHANGE. Simon later set a mouse trap up for me (after having a hearty laugh about the situation on my behalf (whatever). Cultural EXCHANGE!!! And by that night I had a mouse cadaver on my front step. Life is again good (?) on the Isle of Seronga. AND I HAVE A WORKING FRIDGE!!!And I'm getting a kitten.
I sit at my laptop at three in the morning and try to find this alleged “bright side” which to me seems to be on the dark side of the moon right now….
I’ve just returned from a weekend in Gumare, surrounded by internet and hot water and other luxuries I’ve been missing. I can actually remember sitting in the back of the ambulance that was late, but still miraculously taking me to the boat to get back home, and the sky was cloudy, it looked like rain, which was a nice change, I hoped it would, continuous sunny days often exhaust me…I seem to feel like my disposition needs to match the weather, and I was looking for a break in the action.So I was sitting in the back of the truck, feeling the cool breeze and experiencing gratitude for all the opportunities I have ahead of me in Seronga. It was the sort of clichéd bliss that should just warn you something is about the happen. But I was oblivious. I was trying to focus on some words of wisdom a former PCV who had served in Bots in the 90’s gave me, to pay less attention to my surroundings and more attention to the changes I was seeing in myself. Yes. I was ready and excited to realign my thinking as it were and focus more on myself and less on this histrionic ranting and ruminating about my surroundings, because they weren’t changing, so I am the one who is going to have to.
Until they did.
Simon happened to be near the boat launch and picked me up, once the boat arrived in Seronga and having noticed the water was out in town he offered me a hot shower, which I took him up on. Simon’s shower is outdoors, and though there was spiders the size of my fist all over the walls, I thought, “Nope this is not going to bother me; I am having a hot shower.” We had dinner and caught up on his trip and he brought me back home to my NEWLY WORKING FRIDGE!!!!!!
I heard the hum of the gas and reached my hand in and it was cold! Oh happy day! My life has just improved tenfold! But you must not focus on your surroundings, focus on you, I thought, trying desperately to retain the good or at least neutral feelings of focusing on myself.
I was probably humming to myself in happiness when I entered my bathroom, and noticed a tiny pile of shits under my loofah. Damn. Upon closer inspection I decided they weren’t lizard shits, as I have learned to identify by the slight whiteness that is on one edge, but the shits of mice.
When I became an expert on the droppings of various creatures I’ll never know, but somewhere along the way it happened.
I looked at the ceiling in vain, hoping it was just shits that had leaked through the duct tape border on the roof and had fallen down. No such luck, the seal was tight.
Further inspection revealed a big hole in the bread I had foolishly left on the counter and more mice droppings on the floor by the curtain.
Ok, this is fine. I thought. This will be fine. They’re probably gone by now, I desperately thought, I’ll just go to sleep. It will be fine.
I had no sooner turned off the light when I heard a scratching by the window. I turned on my headlamp, grabbed the broom, and swept all the boxes I had stacked over near the window with plans to burn or recycle out onto the patio. I called for My Choice, the compound dog to come, hoping he would scare the mouse out of the box and maybe kill it to teach any others lurking around a lesson (as with the lizards, it appears I’ve suddenly become a big proponent of deterrence methods and of leaving the victims of my capital punishment for unlawful entry outside my door as an example to others, despite my criminology degree foggily reminding me that DETERANCE DOESN’T WORK!!)
I crawled back into my bed when I heard more scratching from another corner of the room. Shit I didn’t get him! And he’s fast! The time was now after 10, an unreasonable hour to attempt to summon my hired assassins that live on the compound, they have school in the morning. I texted Simon, informing him of the recent events and asking him if there was poison to be found in the village. He text back “WE CAN BURN THE PLACE TOMORROW”. I didn’t know if this was some British euphemism slang for gassing the f-ers out, but I was slightly comforted. Until I heard the scratching across the carpet. Now it was time to call in the reinforcements. I texted my mom. Her suggestion was to call in the assassins, and then it was to bang on the oven- the most recent area from which I heard the still unseen scurrying- and open the front door and hope he went out on his own. No such luck.
I tried to console myself with memories of the hamsters and gerbils I had as pets growing up, and thought about how you couldn’t generally get them to come near you for anything. With, of course, the memorable exception of the time my sister was playing with one and it bit her on the finger. She flung it across the room. That memory immediately halted the theory of “they’re friendly, like lizards, they don’t want to bother you” I was trying to work through my head.
I continued this game of cat and mouse, (lame pun but I’m a little short on sleep) for the next few hours, occasionally falling into a schizophrenic sleep in which I would twitch awake certain something was crawling on me. I heard the bastards actually gnawing on the plastic corners of my bed at one point. I heard it, and then saw it by the light of my headlamp crawl up the curtains, which reminded me that my mosquito net was no match for these particular villains and longed for the days when it was just lizards I was rooming with (it seems they move slower and quieter and just less).
Finally at two in the morning the showdown came to a head. I heard it crawling near the bucket I use as a trash can and managed to turn my headlamp on in time to see a big brown mouse crawling along the edge of the rim and he fell in. I kept my light trained on him and grabbed the broom, hooked it through the handle of the bucket, and threw the entire mess outside, and sealed the bottom of the door with duct tape, for good measure. I was just sending my mom a victory text when I heard scratching in the bathroom and saw another mouse scurry across along the bathtub. I laid back down in bed to wait for the next move, keeping my headlamp on and saw this one jump out of the bathroom bucket garbage can. I decided I was no match for this one and immediately shut the door and duct taped the crack at the bottom. I can hear him scratching around doing god knows what in there and I think there might be one more in the room with me now, near the battery inverter. All I know for sure is that I’m extremely tired and have to pee.
So what is the bright side?
Here’s what I’ve got so far.
1.) Lizards sound like fun again.
2.) In the reality that lizards are not fun, the mice have shown the error in my ways in thinking I had figured out how to keep vermin out.
3.) Now that I know there is a straight up problem (No peace corps, I would not consider this an “opportunity for improvement”) I can go about stockpiling poison and traps and again sealing any holes that are apparently still here.
4.) I might just live through this night (you’ll know that I did if I managed to get to the internet again).
5.) The presence of mice indicates that there aren’t snakes near the house. (yet).
6.) This proves that I have been hallucinating less than I previously thought that things were crawling around my room at night.
7.) I’ll get plenty of practice holding my bladder-useful for long car rides, and also practice being up all night and functioning the next day-I’ve heard this is life after children.
8.) More hilarious fodder for my blog.
9.) I’ll be up there in the ranking of relatively bad ass Peace Corps stories at the reconnect.
10.) I’ll know what it’s really all about to live in Botswana- this last one is kind of weak but I’m tired… I think it’s time to attempt sleep again. Good luck.
What happened next?
I cried like a baby as the sun rose, a combination of exhaustion, irrational fear, and a full bladder. Unwilling to remove the duct tape seal from the bathroom door I used my front yard as a latrine (TMI, Jen, TMI) and went to my coworker’s house in tears, sans teeth brushing (there wasn’t water anyways). She couldn’t exactly understand why I was crying and I was too tired to explain much past the fact that I wanted to go to sleep at her house. The beautiful thing about the African culture is that this is a totally acceptable request and she didn’t blink twice before inviting me in and showing me to a bedroom. The explanation that I was crying because I was tired and there were mice in my house prompted a look of confusion, but whatever. Cultural EXCHANGE. Simon later set a mouse trap up for me (after having a hearty laugh about the situation on my behalf (whatever). Cultural EXCHANGE!!! And by that night I had a mouse cadaver on my front step. Life is again good (?) on the Isle of Seronga. AND I HAVE A WORKING FRIDGE!!!And I'm getting a kitten.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
And she’s very wordy…..
This weekend I have added 15, 16? 17? new blogs, written over the course of the past two weeks. I apologize to those of you who like to skim through, nd whose inboxes I have compeltely spammed, as a result of their being subscribed to this nonsense...and I realize it was 20 some pages of word document. Maybe I should just start reworking this stuff into a book? A lot of it is angsty, and at this point I am feeling more balanced, but it is all true to my experience here.
So I’ve put them in reverse order, meaning start at the bottom with “Simon Says” if you are just wanting to read the most recent stuff, then read up. Actually I guess it doesn’t really matter as the content has been written kind of by theme? Oh bah. For the short update, things are more or less good. Thanks to Rick, Lightning, Lori and Don, Jack, Mom and Grandma for packages and letters. Happy belated birthday to Karly, Abby, Katie, Andrea, Nathan, Jo, and happy early birthday to Danika and Jack and anyone else I may have forgotten, if so, I’m so sorry!!!. I love you, and thanks to all the friends and strangers for reading my story, writing it is something that reminds me, in my own strange way, that I’m real.
I can't seem to edit that thing on the side anymore... so if you're in the mood, Please send:
letters. pictures. tell me how you are and about the magic of your life!!!!!
Post it notes
Parmasan cheese
Maple syrup-grade whatever I’m over it, I just want French toast!
New favorite Luna bar is berry almond-so good!!!
Solar flashlight or some sort of light- I just blew out the one I had, it seems American products don’t like Botswana battery inverters
I’ve found I need 2 additional rechargeable CR123 batteries to keep my water purifier always at the ready, more necessary than I previously thought!!
Duct tape
Blank cd’s
Stationary with envelopes of various sizes, I’m in the process of duping the Botswana postal service by sending several envelopes to the states in one envelope and having them mailed from there. It may take longer to get to you, but wtf it’s still from Africa!
Reusable shopping bags that fold up really small for easy transport- they have them at target in the dollar aisle or so I’ve heard.
Magazines! I’ve come to love vanity fair, and of course always love people, US weekly, Oprah, and really anything- I’ve been known to even read the economist.
I’m good for taco seasoning, as meat is harder to find here on the Isle of Seronga than I anticipated.
a travel tea mug
a laptop dust jacket
hand sanitizer
I love you all and miss you more than you can know. I'm grateful to have had the internet for two whole days so I could catch up on your emails, blogs, pictures, lives. Thank God for the internet!
So I’ve put them in reverse order, meaning start at the bottom with “Simon Says” if you are just wanting to read the most recent stuff, then read up. Actually I guess it doesn’t really matter as the content has been written kind of by theme? Oh bah. For the short update, things are more or less good. Thanks to Rick, Lightning, Lori and Don, Jack, Mom and Grandma for packages and letters. Happy belated birthday to Karly, Abby, Katie, Andrea, Nathan, Jo, and happy early birthday to Danika and Jack and anyone else I may have forgotten, if so, I’m so sorry!!!. I love you, and thanks to all the friends and strangers for reading my story, writing it is something that reminds me, in my own strange way, that I’m real.
I can't seem to edit that thing on the side anymore... so if you're in the mood, Please send:
letters. pictures. tell me how you are and about the magic of your life!!!!!
Post it notes
Parmasan cheese
Maple syrup-grade whatever I’m over it, I just want French toast!
New favorite Luna bar is berry almond-so good!!!
Solar flashlight or some sort of light- I just blew out the one I had, it seems American products don’t like Botswana battery inverters
I’ve found I need 2 additional rechargeable CR123 batteries to keep my water purifier always at the ready, more necessary than I previously thought!!
Duct tape
Blank cd’s
Stationary with envelopes of various sizes, I’m in the process of duping the Botswana postal service by sending several envelopes to the states in one envelope and having them mailed from there. It may take longer to get to you, but wtf it’s still from Africa!
Reusable shopping bags that fold up really small for easy transport- they have them at target in the dollar aisle or so I’ve heard.
Magazines! I’ve come to love vanity fair, and of course always love people, US weekly, Oprah, and really anything- I’ve been known to even read the economist.
I’m good for taco seasoning, as meat is harder to find here on the Isle of Seronga than I anticipated.
a travel tea mug
a laptop dust jacket
hand sanitizer
I love you all and miss you more than you can know. I'm grateful to have had the internet for two whole days so I could catch up on your emails, blogs, pictures, lives. Thank God for the internet!
Danika Rain
Congratulations my love, on achieving the great milestone of one year on the planet. I’m very proud of you and happy again to be able to count myself amongst the great women present at your birth one year ago! We’re spread across the globe now, sending you love on the breezes that touch your soft coconut buttered skin on the waves that kiss the beaches of Honduras. It hasn’t been easy, but then it’s best to learn early that it usually isn’t. But if you learn one thing from your aunty Katchy, it’s that I hope you can learn to see the beauty in life as you grow. It’s there if you look and search and fight like hell for it. I miss you baby girl, with an ache in my soul and give your Mommy a big hug and a slobbery kiss for me on this most momentous occasion. You’re a lovely little lady and we’d dance by the firelight and I’d sing you club tunes and lullabies all night long if we were together, as we will be again someday soon, along with the newest member of our tribe. I love you, I love you, I love you, sweet child. Happy Birthday!
Gumare… The wonderful land of OZ… over the delta, I mean rainbow....
After a five hour journey (one way) over land and sea, I arrived in Gumare, which after nearly two weeks, seemed like it might be heaven. I spent all day at the internet at the RAC (FREE!!!!!) and leisurely uploaded blogs and pictures, and read most of the 90 emails I had received over the course of two weeks (I loved every one). I walked home as the sun crept out of the sky, illuminating the horizon in pinks and flashing across white white sand to Richard and Stacy’s house, where I could smell the spicy pasta sauce cooking as I walked up to the house. I smiled to myself and thought, “this is bliss”.
Richard had cooked pasta sauce and bought nice pasta in Francistown, so it wasn’t all gummy and pasty like the stuff you get in bulk. He had made a salad with two kinds of lettuce (that was actually cold!!!! And there was dressing!!!! Also cold!!) and garlic toast in their toaster oven. We sat at a real table and I had a plastic cup of red wine, AND a glass of cold drinkable water. Straight from the tap!!! I later took a hot bath, no stove required and settled in to write these blogs to my heart’s content, as there was plenty of electricity.
I kept exclaiming about things, simple things, and was beginning to feel even more like the country bumpkin I was apparently becoming (Especially in the presence of Richard and Stacy- who hail from NYC anyway). Another clear instance of this extreme relaxation and happiness has been known to occur when I drink English tea with Simon in the setting sun on his veranda overlooking the delta and the tea’s got just the right amount of sugar and full cream milk in it, I’ve taken to sighing, kindof repeatedly and a bit out of control. Simon has recently pointed out that I sound a bit like a lunatic.
I’ve often been asked if I’ll visit home over the course of the next two years, and I think not, if I can barely handle the wonders that are Gumare, what would I do if there was toilet paper and hot running water all the time again and I had to leave it all to come back here? Or really, to Seronga, the place I love and hate, and maybe love to hate, and slightly miss, amongst all this luxury. There’s no place like home. But after a while where is home? Hmm….
Richard had cooked pasta sauce and bought nice pasta in Francistown, so it wasn’t all gummy and pasty like the stuff you get in bulk. He had made a salad with two kinds of lettuce (that was actually cold!!!! And there was dressing!!!! Also cold!!) and garlic toast in their toaster oven. We sat at a real table and I had a plastic cup of red wine, AND a glass of cold drinkable water. Straight from the tap!!! I later took a hot bath, no stove required and settled in to write these blogs to my heart’s content, as there was plenty of electricity.
I kept exclaiming about things, simple things, and was beginning to feel even more like the country bumpkin I was apparently becoming (Especially in the presence of Richard and Stacy- who hail from NYC anyway). Another clear instance of this extreme relaxation and happiness has been known to occur when I drink English tea with Simon in the setting sun on his veranda overlooking the delta and the tea’s got just the right amount of sugar and full cream milk in it, I’ve taken to sighing, kindof repeatedly and a bit out of control. Simon has recently pointed out that I sound a bit like a lunatic.
I’ve often been asked if I’ll visit home over the course of the next two years, and I think not, if I can barely handle the wonders that are Gumare, what would I do if there was toilet paper and hot running water all the time again and I had to leave it all to come back here? Or really, to Seronga, the place I love and hate, and maybe love to hate, and slightly miss, amongst all this luxury. There’s no place like home. But after a while where is home? Hmm….
The Crocodile Hunter
This week we went “that side” to Jao Flats, an island community in the delta where Seronga clinic services a mobile stop. We loaded into the boat (“water ambulance”) and set out for the island. Along the way we saw over 15 crocodiles, and on the way back I remembered I had my camera. I was lucky enough that the boat driver, who has over 29 years of experience shuttling tourists in boats and planes to do this very thing, scouted and slowed the boat enough for me to shoot some pictures. I’ve added them to Picasa.
Was that me, whining and complaining about something earlier? Yeah, I feel sorry for me too.
Was that me, whining and complaining about something earlier? Yeah, I feel sorry for me too.
In which I literally take candy from a baby…..
Sometimes it all sucks. I hate Africa, and I wake up and open my eyes and close them again, hoping this was all a bad dream. I hope to be away, anywhere from here.
Luckily usually on these days something like this happens….
I was walking to the clinic and a bunch of school girls were passing me in the distance. They noticed me, looked at each other and whispered in consultation. They keep looking at me and then talking behind their hands (thank God I was lucky enough to transcend that high school fear of everyone talking about me, because here it’s actually happening, and obviously, it’s not my imagination and it’s in a foreign language, so I’ll never know what exactly they’re saying about me.) But there is no doubt they are talking about me.
One of them finally gets the courage to yell “Lorato!” (ha! The villagewide training is working!!!!)
“Eem” sounds like aim (kind of “yes, ma’am”) I yell back somewhat cautiously. It’s been a long day. I’m probably not in the mood. They immediately come running over.
“Give me sweets!” They chorus.
“Give me sweets,” I tiredly sing back, and mimic them by holding out my hand.
One of them reaches into her backpack and frantically searches for something, which she finds and deposits in my outstretched hand.
A piece of 10 theibe (cent) candy from the general store.
I’ll be damned.
Luckily usually on these days something like this happens….
I was walking to the clinic and a bunch of school girls were passing me in the distance. They noticed me, looked at each other and whispered in consultation. They keep looking at me and then talking behind their hands (thank God I was lucky enough to transcend that high school fear of everyone talking about me, because here it’s actually happening, and obviously, it’s not my imagination and it’s in a foreign language, so I’ll never know what exactly they’re saying about me.) But there is no doubt they are talking about me.
One of them finally gets the courage to yell “Lorato!” (ha! The villagewide training is working!!!!)
“Eem” sounds like aim (kind of “yes, ma’am”) I yell back somewhat cautiously. It’s been a long day. I’m probably not in the mood. They immediately come running over.
“Give me sweets!” They chorus.
“Give me sweets,” I tiredly sing back, and mimic them by holding out my hand.
One of them reaches into her backpack and frantically searches for something, which she finds and deposits in my outstretched hand.
A piece of 10 theibe (cent) candy from the general store.
I’ll be damned.
My independence day….
Friday, July 4th, 2008. One of the first in a long line of holidays that will pass by without fanfair in Botswana. Simon actually asked me if I was missing “all the turkey and bits…” I laughed my ass off and could barely tell him that was Thanksgiving.
I’ve missed plenty f 4th of July’s before, I usually had to work, and so it’s a holiday I can remember usually watching the fireworks and festivities out of my rear view mirror. That being said I have also had many, many good years filled with fireworks and sparklers and magic. I’ve had my share. So it wasn’t odd to not have a big to do, and to have it be like any other day. I was at the clinic, and the day prior the supplies truck had come and delivered many, many boxes. Two of the nurses and I began the process of inventory, which in and of itself is a logistical nightmare in its current methodology (project one: identified). We inventoried everything from an outdated sheet, and I was able to truly see for the first time how little this clinic has in the way of drugs and supplies to offer its patients (a fact only made more clear on my trips to the mobile stops and health posts later the next week, but that’s another blog…). I was looking around the empty, dusty, spidery, dark (the generator that supplies power is off during the day) room in dismay.
Then Christmas happened. In July.
We began to unpack the boxes that were filling the hallway which I had failed to completely notice before. Female condoms and birth control pills and depo, oh my!!! It was an absolute smorgasbord of drugs!!! They received penicillin, and vaccinations and gloves, creams and ointments and bandages. They received 12 cases of condoms. I was so happy I was shouting with what can only cornily be described as glee as we unpacked medical miracle after medical miracle. All these drugs were going to finally be available to the people (and especially the women and children of Seronga-) to have the freedom of reproductive choices, and the freedom from easily avoidable illness.
After we emptied the boxes out, inventoried, cleaned and reorganized the entire supplies closet (during which, I noticed, the three people with me worked through their lunch breaks to finish) I walked out into the sunlight. I peeled a perfectly juicy orange (which miracle of miracles didn’t have big annoying seeds) and walked down near the fence that separates the clinic from the marsh and trees that becomes the delta. I closed my eyes, let the breeze cool my hot sweaty face, and listened to the sound of children splashing in the water.
The truck only comes every three months, and inevitably the supplies will run as low as they were before this day. There won’t be enough birth control pills and depo to last as the central medical supply has to ration these items throughout the country, and we will run out. The women will again have unplanned or unwanted pregnancies and the children will have wounds that the nurses gallantly improvise to cover. The condoms will run out and HIV will spread. The problem is not quite solved. Not by a long shot.
But for today, for one perfect day, we have all we need. It’s all we can ask for.
I’ve missed plenty f 4th of July’s before, I usually had to work, and so it’s a holiday I can remember usually watching the fireworks and festivities out of my rear view mirror. That being said I have also had many, many good years filled with fireworks and sparklers and magic. I’ve had my share. So it wasn’t odd to not have a big to do, and to have it be like any other day. I was at the clinic, and the day prior the supplies truck had come and delivered many, many boxes. Two of the nurses and I began the process of inventory, which in and of itself is a logistical nightmare in its current methodology (project one: identified). We inventoried everything from an outdated sheet, and I was able to truly see for the first time how little this clinic has in the way of drugs and supplies to offer its patients (a fact only made more clear on my trips to the mobile stops and health posts later the next week, but that’s another blog…). I was looking around the empty, dusty, spidery, dark (the generator that supplies power is off during the day) room in dismay.
Then Christmas happened. In July.
We began to unpack the boxes that were filling the hallway which I had failed to completely notice before. Female condoms and birth control pills and depo, oh my!!! It was an absolute smorgasbord of drugs!!! They received penicillin, and vaccinations and gloves, creams and ointments and bandages. They received 12 cases of condoms. I was so happy I was shouting with what can only cornily be described as glee as we unpacked medical miracle after medical miracle. All these drugs were going to finally be available to the people (and especially the women and children of Seronga-) to have the freedom of reproductive choices, and the freedom from easily avoidable illness.
After we emptied the boxes out, inventoried, cleaned and reorganized the entire supplies closet (during which, I noticed, the three people with me worked through their lunch breaks to finish) I walked out into the sunlight. I peeled a perfectly juicy orange (which miracle of miracles didn’t have big annoying seeds) and walked down near the fence that separates the clinic from the marsh and trees that becomes the delta. I closed my eyes, let the breeze cool my hot sweaty face, and listened to the sound of children splashing in the water.
The truck only comes every three months, and inevitably the supplies will run as low as they were before this day. There won’t be enough birth control pills and depo to last as the central medical supply has to ration these items throughout the country, and we will run out. The women will again have unplanned or unwanted pregnancies and the children will have wounds that the nurses gallantly improvise to cover. The condoms will run out and HIV will spread. The problem is not quite solved. Not by a long shot.
But for today, for one perfect day, we have all we need. It’s all we can ask for.
Just another day at the office……
In which a child is born. Or in some cases, several.
During my first site visit to Seronga, I witnessed the birth of my first African child. It was an intense experience, watching that little soul fight his way into existence. I nearly passed out and the time was recorded by my watch. It was crazy. Little did I know.
Last week, as I was observing a child teething on some rocks she found while playing near the open sewage drain while her mother looked on bemusedly I heard some soft grunting coming from the “delivery room”. I walked in on a mother in hard labor, and as I turned to try to find something, anything, to wipe the sweat from her brow I heard the sharp first gasps of a child. She lifted up the blanket and the child lay in a pool on the bed between her legs. I tried to tell the mother in extremely broken Setswana that I would get someone (else, I guess I meant, possibly someone qualified to actually do something….) and yelled across the yard for the nurse, who casually muttered that he told her he would check her at 2:00 and these women never want to have a man help them deliver…
The time of birth was again by my watch. As I was the only witness to the birth who was luckily wearing one.
This week we were traveling around the delta to the mobile stops and health posts, areas so remote they made Seronga look like New York City. I think if you have a health emergency in one of these places it might be best to just take yourself out back in some cases, because they generally have one young and hardworking nurse and extremely limited supplies. I literally gave the nurse the pen I was using as he had nothing to write in the patients charts with.
We arrived in Gudikwa after traveling for two hours down bumpy winding paths that were the only roads that went to these places, and hadn’t been graded since the rainy season (or so the driver told me). I haven’t traveled on trails like this since I was a very small child when my dad would take me hunting and we would drive down two ruts in the forest. And occasionally those hunting trails were in better shape than these roads.
On the way out I rode in the back of the “ambulance” really just a truck with a topper. I was bouncing up and down in a manner such that I was nearly green with carsickness as I stumbled out and nearly kissed the ground upon our arrival. Shortly after our arrival at the health post, a woman arrived accompanied by a handful of elderly women who can really most accurately be described as “shriveled”. They were speaking Sasarwa (the “click” language) and the nurse from the health post informed me that these were the “midwives”. One of the group would occasionally look over at me and return my smile with a gummy or gap toothed grin. They were literally clucking around like a bunch of worried mother hens- the nurse informed me that this woman “had been pregnant for 10 months and no child had been born.” Even I have to admit, having seen an African woman give birth and immediately afterward look like she had just gone for a run after a big meal (they are very thin and usually don’t really show) this woman was as big as a house. She went into the “exam room” and the mother hens tried to follow her, but Nurse “Nightengale,” the dour faced (but generally caring and compassionate if often serious and strict) nurse from my clinic was having none of it. She allowed one woman, who was allegedly the mother of the pregnant woman and appeared to be older than dust to go in the room. They weren’t in there more than ten minutes when the door opened and a band of what appeared to be rope was tossed out onto the ground and the door was slammed shut again. One of the hens furtively scrambled over to retrieve the discarded object which the nurse informed me was intestines when I stage whispered (in English, I don’t know why I bothered) my inquiry as to its identification and purpose. Traditional medicine. I didn’t bother to ask where on the woman’s body it had been.
A few hours later we loaded up the ambulance to go back. The woman still hadn’t given birth. So we took her with us, back down the bumpy road-path to Seronga. We had to stop the truck several times along the way for the Nurse Nightengale to check how far the woman was dilated and several more times for the driver to do a few minor electrical surgeries to the truck. We arrived at the clinic and the orderly pushed the woman into the delivery room (first one on the new bed!!!) and we were there not more than ten minutes (I think it was probably 7, but my watch wasn’t the magic one this time) when she delivered. Then not more than five minutes later she delivered again, the second boy was breach, almost as if he were being pulled by foot by the first one (reminded me of a bible story the Rev told me once about twins and breach and birthrights that I unfortunately can’t remember all the details to.) I had no idea twins could come that fast!
Birth is indeed a miracle, and the one detail I have absorbed, quite fully, as a result of all this amazing birthing experience, is that I no longer have any desire to be a doula. I guess it’s something else to cross off the list. I’m pretty sure I’ll get more than my share of experience here over the next two years…
During my first site visit to Seronga, I witnessed the birth of my first African child. It was an intense experience, watching that little soul fight his way into existence. I nearly passed out and the time was recorded by my watch. It was crazy. Little did I know.
Last week, as I was observing a child teething on some rocks she found while playing near the open sewage drain while her mother looked on bemusedly I heard some soft grunting coming from the “delivery room”. I walked in on a mother in hard labor, and as I turned to try to find something, anything, to wipe the sweat from her brow I heard the sharp first gasps of a child. She lifted up the blanket and the child lay in a pool on the bed between her legs. I tried to tell the mother in extremely broken Setswana that I would get someone (else, I guess I meant, possibly someone qualified to actually do something….) and yelled across the yard for the nurse, who casually muttered that he told her he would check her at 2:00 and these women never want to have a man help them deliver…
The time of birth was again by my watch. As I was the only witness to the birth who was luckily wearing one.
This week we were traveling around the delta to the mobile stops and health posts, areas so remote they made Seronga look like New York City. I think if you have a health emergency in one of these places it might be best to just take yourself out back in some cases, because they generally have one young and hardworking nurse and extremely limited supplies. I literally gave the nurse the pen I was using as he had nothing to write in the patients charts with.
We arrived in Gudikwa after traveling for two hours down bumpy winding paths that were the only roads that went to these places, and hadn’t been graded since the rainy season (or so the driver told me). I haven’t traveled on trails like this since I was a very small child when my dad would take me hunting and we would drive down two ruts in the forest. And occasionally those hunting trails were in better shape than these roads.
On the way out I rode in the back of the “ambulance” really just a truck with a topper. I was bouncing up and down in a manner such that I was nearly green with carsickness as I stumbled out and nearly kissed the ground upon our arrival. Shortly after our arrival at the health post, a woman arrived accompanied by a handful of elderly women who can really most accurately be described as “shriveled”. They were speaking Sasarwa (the “click” language) and the nurse from the health post informed me that these were the “midwives”. One of the group would occasionally look over at me and return my smile with a gummy or gap toothed grin. They were literally clucking around like a bunch of worried mother hens- the nurse informed me that this woman “had been pregnant for 10 months and no child had been born.” Even I have to admit, having seen an African woman give birth and immediately afterward look like she had just gone for a run after a big meal (they are very thin and usually don’t really show) this woman was as big as a house. She went into the “exam room” and the mother hens tried to follow her, but Nurse “Nightengale,” the dour faced (but generally caring and compassionate if often serious and strict) nurse from my clinic was having none of it. She allowed one woman, who was allegedly the mother of the pregnant woman and appeared to be older than dust to go in the room. They weren’t in there more than ten minutes when the door opened and a band of what appeared to be rope was tossed out onto the ground and the door was slammed shut again. One of the hens furtively scrambled over to retrieve the discarded object which the nurse informed me was intestines when I stage whispered (in English, I don’t know why I bothered) my inquiry as to its identification and purpose. Traditional medicine. I didn’t bother to ask where on the woman’s body it had been.
A few hours later we loaded up the ambulance to go back. The woman still hadn’t given birth. So we took her with us, back down the bumpy road-path to Seronga. We had to stop the truck several times along the way for the Nurse Nightengale to check how far the woman was dilated and several more times for the driver to do a few minor electrical surgeries to the truck. We arrived at the clinic and the orderly pushed the woman into the delivery room (first one on the new bed!!!) and we were there not more than ten minutes (I think it was probably 7, but my watch wasn’t the magic one this time) when she delivered. Then not more than five minutes later she delivered again, the second boy was breach, almost as if he were being pulled by foot by the first one (reminded me of a bible story the Rev told me once about twins and breach and birthrights that I unfortunately can’t remember all the details to.) I had no idea twins could come that fast!
Birth is indeed a miracle, and the one detail I have absorbed, quite fully, as a result of all this amazing birthing experience, is that I no longer have any desire to be a doula. I guess it’s something else to cross off the list. I’m pretty sure I’ll get more than my share of experience here over the next two years…
In which hope is reignited…..
Although my world has been amazingly expanded by the steep and constant learning curve that is living in Seronga, it has been hard here. For reasons I didn’t anticipate. But then I guess if you could foresee the lesson plan of your life and the way in which the tests would be administered, you’d be much less likely to take the classes offered. (And you certainly wouldn’t join the f-ing Peace Corps!!)
After one of the more depressing weeks on record, thanks to a one two punch from the larium I’m required to take as a malaria prophylaxis (nightmares and scary hallucinations, I thought there was things and people in my room, bed space ect. and slept very little for three nights in a row) and my period, I was a weepy, emotional mess. The honeymoon of being at site wore off quickly.
At my lowest points, which can always be argued may simultaneously be my highest; I realized that I usually don’t feel this despondent unless I’ve had a major relationship fail. I cheered myself slightly be realizing that I need no man to help me to the depths of this kind of misery, which was strangely comforting. I can achieve copious amounts of melancholy by and for myself, as a result of my choices alone, rather than as a result of two people flinging themselves at the windshield of life and hoping for the best and failing. When you’re depressed strange things are enlightening.
Being in the mind-fuck that is living in a foreign country in a pretty alone kind of way, the me that I used to be questioned if I was just having a good old fashioned pity party. Doubt became my closest and constant companion. I struggled to determine if I was being unreasonable in these thought patterns that emerged from the sludge of the darkness in my mind; of wondering if I could really do two years here. I mean come on, I joined the Peace Corps to learn about myself, and learn to be self sufficient, independent, have adventures, which is exactly what was happening. So what was my problem?
There wasn’t a problem. I was just sad. And scared. And lonely. And somewhat bored. And pretty annoyed. A little bit stressed. Overridingly confused. These conditions cease to be problems when you begin to accept them as your reality. And realize that they will inevitably pass.
Sometimes I get caught in a web of trying to be this perfect version of myself, who is always self confident and certain of herself and her decisions. I’m harder on myself than I would be on anyone else, and in this instance wasn’t giving myself a break in realizing that although yes, there are plenty of people who live like this every day, and who have their whole lives, I am not one of them. Going without reliable electricity, no hot running water ever, and random running water at all and never being drinkable are things that might take a little getting used to. It’s hard on anyone being in a new place, much less one so different in every major way.
I come from a people who are by nature highly inquisitive, and to put it kindly, need to have constant reason for everything. I learned there is a major difference between making excuses for something and gracefully accepting your reality for what it is and moving forward. Rather than being a weakness to acknowledge the difficulties at hand for what they are, to give them credence in turn alleviates some of the power they hold.
In a place like Seronga, of so much want and need, it’s an interesting canvas from which to paint my own personal picture of these concepts and how they apply in my life. There is a difference between wanting people and needing people around, and there is a difference between giving and taking. Independence, interdependence and dependence are also different, and in this place it’s a little easier to get quiet enough to learn the subtle nuance. I am indeed learning the lessons I came here to learn, they’re just literally in different languages and shades of light and color than I expected.
I got through this past week, and now am more assured I will continue to do so, quite possibly for the next two years. I am very lucky to have great people. When I found myself unexpectedly crying I was often blessed to get a call from one of the fine people who care about me, or a piece of mail or a package. Kagiso, the Peace Corps volunteer who served in Seronga directly before me has taken to checking up on me, and his words mean so much in a way no one else’s on Earth possibly can, as he’s truly “been here.” Simon the British ex patriot has been absolutely essential. I also found comfort in listening to this song by Ingrid Michaelson over and over
“Keep Breathing”
The storm is coming, but I, don’t mind,
People are dying, I close my blinds
All that I know,
Is
I’m breathing now.
I want,
to change the world,
Instead, I sleep.
I want,
to believe,
in more, than you and me
All that I know is I’m breathing,
All I can do is keep breathing,
Now
All we can do is keep breathing
Sometimes, it’s enough to just be. The world will still need saving tomorrow. And I’ll still be in this place, where I have so many prime opportunities to work on that little task.
After one of the more depressing weeks on record, thanks to a one two punch from the larium I’m required to take as a malaria prophylaxis (nightmares and scary hallucinations, I thought there was things and people in my room, bed space ect. and slept very little for three nights in a row) and my period, I was a weepy, emotional mess. The honeymoon of being at site wore off quickly.
At my lowest points, which can always be argued may simultaneously be my highest; I realized that I usually don’t feel this despondent unless I’ve had a major relationship fail. I cheered myself slightly be realizing that I need no man to help me to the depths of this kind of misery, which was strangely comforting. I can achieve copious amounts of melancholy by and for myself, as a result of my choices alone, rather than as a result of two people flinging themselves at the windshield of life and hoping for the best and failing. When you’re depressed strange things are enlightening.
Being in the mind-fuck that is living in a foreign country in a pretty alone kind of way, the me that I used to be questioned if I was just having a good old fashioned pity party. Doubt became my closest and constant companion. I struggled to determine if I was being unreasonable in these thought patterns that emerged from the sludge of the darkness in my mind; of wondering if I could really do two years here. I mean come on, I joined the Peace Corps to learn about myself, and learn to be self sufficient, independent, have adventures, which is exactly what was happening. So what was my problem?
There wasn’t a problem. I was just sad. And scared. And lonely. And somewhat bored. And pretty annoyed. A little bit stressed. Overridingly confused. These conditions cease to be problems when you begin to accept them as your reality. And realize that they will inevitably pass.
Sometimes I get caught in a web of trying to be this perfect version of myself, who is always self confident and certain of herself and her decisions. I’m harder on myself than I would be on anyone else, and in this instance wasn’t giving myself a break in realizing that although yes, there are plenty of people who live like this every day, and who have their whole lives, I am not one of them. Going without reliable electricity, no hot running water ever, and random running water at all and never being drinkable are things that might take a little getting used to. It’s hard on anyone being in a new place, much less one so different in every major way.
I come from a people who are by nature highly inquisitive, and to put it kindly, need to have constant reason for everything. I learned there is a major difference between making excuses for something and gracefully accepting your reality for what it is and moving forward. Rather than being a weakness to acknowledge the difficulties at hand for what they are, to give them credence in turn alleviates some of the power they hold.
In a place like Seronga, of so much want and need, it’s an interesting canvas from which to paint my own personal picture of these concepts and how they apply in my life. There is a difference between wanting people and needing people around, and there is a difference between giving and taking. Independence, interdependence and dependence are also different, and in this place it’s a little easier to get quiet enough to learn the subtle nuance. I am indeed learning the lessons I came here to learn, they’re just literally in different languages and shades of light and color than I expected.
I got through this past week, and now am more assured I will continue to do so, quite possibly for the next two years. I am very lucky to have great people. When I found myself unexpectedly crying I was often blessed to get a call from one of the fine people who care about me, or a piece of mail or a package. Kagiso, the Peace Corps volunteer who served in Seronga directly before me has taken to checking up on me, and his words mean so much in a way no one else’s on Earth possibly can, as he’s truly “been here.” Simon the British ex patriot has been absolutely essential. I also found comfort in listening to this song by Ingrid Michaelson over and over
“Keep Breathing”
The storm is coming, but I, don’t mind,
People are dying, I close my blinds
All that I know,
Is
I’m breathing now.
I want,
to change the world,
Instead, I sleep.
I want,
to believe,
in more, than you and me
All that I know is I’m breathing,
All I can do is keep breathing,
Now
All we can do is keep breathing
Sometimes, it’s enough to just be. The world will still need saving tomorrow. And I’ll still be in this place, where I have so many prime opportunities to work on that little task.
How can you expect someone to demand or expect or even hope for better for themselves when they can’t even drink the water?
I recently learned that despite the fact that water in seronga does indeed occasionally run, many of the nurses from the clinic have their drinking water brought back in jugs from somewhere else.
I guess in some ways this isn’t that different from people drinking bottled water in the states, if people have access and money to do so, why not? But then I realized that what often causes the children to be sick is contaminated water and bad hygiene, which is, as a fellow American recently pointed out, a condescending euphemism for a number of social problems. After experiencing my own sickness and frustration with this, water and the lack thereof has taken a heightened place on my radar.
The water can be imbibed safely right from the middle of the delta that surrounds us. The same delta which flows haphazardly, cutting us off from most other places and making obtaining nearly any other supplies expensive and impossible. This luxury of clean water is available, for those of course, who have a boat to get to the middle of the delta, where the sea grasses purify and clean it. Despite popular tourist attractions that make it appear to the contrary, most Africans in and around the delta have been “developed” and westernized enough that they no longer have or use traditional makowas (boats) to travel the delta.
The water at this point has become a pretty strong metaphor for me. I’ve been suffering a bit in the sea of substance abuse and sense of defeatism present in this village (this culture?) to find the purpose in some of this. To understand why the people of the “Eden of Africa” are willing to suffer so much. To know how there can be so little in a land of plenty. It’s hard to help people who want something for themselves less than you want it for them, or when you think they deserve it more than they do.
Not a day goes by without someone (almost always a Motswana) trying to tell me how I need to “fix” something happening here, or implement change or essentially try to force it on people. And being an American, it’s nearly part of my nature to want to analyze and fix the “problem” of HIV, the lack of electricity, clean water, ect. and it’s a constant personal mental retraining process to remember why I’m here, how sustainable change happens, and that cultural shift must come from within the community and will take more time than I will be here.
I’ve tried explaining to those who are a little more sophisticated in their communication abilities (read: not constantly asking me and begging me for stuff) that I would give the people of Seronga the sun, moon and stars if they could figure out that that is what they want. I seriously have a drive to help “these people” like what. It’s so hard to remember that they have to want it themselves, and that part of my purpose here is to help the people of Seronga identify what could and would make their lives better. To help them develop and implement change and ideas for change. I would dig a ditch alongside the people of Seronga with a rusty can under the hot sun for the rest of my days here if I thought that would get this village clean, constant running water, but it’s just not a priority, or at least enough of a priority that people want to actively do something about it. So perhaps the water will be one of the things that bends me, as I constantly try to change it….
I guess in some ways this isn’t that different from people drinking bottled water in the states, if people have access and money to do so, why not? But then I realized that what often causes the children to be sick is contaminated water and bad hygiene, which is, as a fellow American recently pointed out, a condescending euphemism for a number of social problems. After experiencing my own sickness and frustration with this, water and the lack thereof has taken a heightened place on my radar.
The water can be imbibed safely right from the middle of the delta that surrounds us. The same delta which flows haphazardly, cutting us off from most other places and making obtaining nearly any other supplies expensive and impossible. This luxury of clean water is available, for those of course, who have a boat to get to the middle of the delta, where the sea grasses purify and clean it. Despite popular tourist attractions that make it appear to the contrary, most Africans in and around the delta have been “developed” and westernized enough that they no longer have or use traditional makowas (boats) to travel the delta.
The water at this point has become a pretty strong metaphor for me. I’ve been suffering a bit in the sea of substance abuse and sense of defeatism present in this village (this culture?) to find the purpose in some of this. To understand why the people of the “Eden of Africa” are willing to suffer so much. To know how there can be so little in a land of plenty. It’s hard to help people who want something for themselves less than you want it for them, or when you think they deserve it more than they do.
Not a day goes by without someone (almost always a Motswana) trying to tell me how I need to “fix” something happening here, or implement change or essentially try to force it on people. And being an American, it’s nearly part of my nature to want to analyze and fix the “problem” of HIV, the lack of electricity, clean water, ect. and it’s a constant personal mental retraining process to remember why I’m here, how sustainable change happens, and that cultural shift must come from within the community and will take more time than I will be here.
I’ve tried explaining to those who are a little more sophisticated in their communication abilities (read: not constantly asking me and begging me for stuff) that I would give the people of Seronga the sun, moon and stars if they could figure out that that is what they want. I seriously have a drive to help “these people” like what. It’s so hard to remember that they have to want it themselves, and that part of my purpose here is to help the people of Seronga identify what could and would make their lives better. To help them develop and implement change and ideas for change. I would dig a ditch alongside the people of Seronga with a rusty can under the hot sun for the rest of my days here if I thought that would get this village clean, constant running water, but it’s just not a priority, or at least enough of a priority that people want to actively do something about it. So perhaps the water will be one of the things that bends me, as I constantly try to change it….
These are the people in the neighborhood, in the neighborhood, in the neigh-bor-hood
There are definitely as many bright stars on the horizon of Seronga as there are in the African sky, it seems it’s just a matter of finding them!!! An astronomer I will become!!!
Several of the nurses I work with appear to be lit up by the fire of my enthusiasm, and seem to be genuine in their willingness to engage my banter of change and hope. They have been to additional schooling and have developed some great critical thinking skills, and generally speak pretty good English- which makes it easier for me. They are usually foreigners in this land themselves (often medical professionals in Botswana are from neighboring Zambia or Zimbabwe, or if they are Motswana, they are usually not living in their home village, so while they can give some insight into the culture, there are often cultural/village particulars that are difficult to pick up on or begin to understand directly.) and thus have been very understanding about my various bouts of homesickness (and there’s no people I’d rather be surrounded by than medical professionals for some of the physical sickness as well.) This “stranger in a strange land” condition effortlessly leads to a little bit of the “these people” mentality that is so dangerous, yet so easy to adopt when working with people, (and is extremely easy for me to fall into myself). I often have to employ those wonderful woodland hills redirect skills I developed when working with kids (I swear sometimes I could turn verbal water into wine….) When I can catch myself and them “these people-ing” I try to point out that no matter what, “these people” are human beings who deserve to live outside of the shadow that this HIV crisis, and appeal to their pride as Africans, it’s generally when the conversation can keep moving forward.
Standing on the shoulders of giants as I am in the Peace Corps who have come before me, sometimes I question if there is very much more I can do in the Seronga clinic, and the nurses and staff have expressed that they wholeheartedly support me in whatever community project I want to undertake. This is huge, in that sometimes the relationship between Community Capacity Builders and their clinics can be quite precarious, as the role is so broad that everyone is often left wondering what the PCV is doing (including, it may seem the PCV themselves).
In addition to the wonderful, dedicated people at the clinic here’s also the woman who lives on my “family” compound. The first day she stopped by my house with a “ko-ko” (rhymes with yo-yo, what you say when you enter someone’s fence or compound, even though they’ve already heard you approach, there are no doorbells where there are no doors….) and informed me of an event at the Kgotla, which is the governmental center of the village. She is my age and has no children, which in this country is generally a sign of some sort of self awareness, and really self value when you consider that engaging in the sexual politics and practices that come in this culture can mean a death sentence in the HIV roulette. She is very active in the community and although I’m not sure what precisely she’s saying about local politics in Setswana, the kind of passion she exhibits when she talks about the VDC (village development committee) needs no translation. She sings every night with the community choir that will be performing at some sort of competition in July-(now rescheduled to August) I go to the practices some evenings, there’s something so heartwarming and amazing about a culture in which no one is tone deaf and everyone has rhythm and can dance. They’ve written the music themselves in 4 and occasionally five part harmonies, and get very adamant about which movements should go with which lyrics. The choir is men and women of an impressive age range, and they all seem to listen and respect each other’s opinions, or at least don’t display the kind of “type a” pissing contests and inability to function that was a hallmark of my Peace Corps pre service training (love you CCB’s). Details and pictures and maybe, if I ever figure it out, video! to follow.
The captain of my Peace Corps Dream Team was drafted the other day, when I finally met the man whose name literally means help, and helpful he is! Thuso was born and raised in Seronga, and has a lot of big plans for his village. He’s a teacher and an internet man, he’s the one trying to get Seronga wired, and for that alone I should kiss the ground beneath his feet, as right now I make a minimum 3 hour one way trip over land and sea to get internet every other week in Gumare… He did some schooling in the states and Canada and thus speaks amazing English. He’s inspired and has organized a chess club and various other activities to keep the youth of the village busy or at least safe and occupied. He wants to start a pond near the school to bring specimens of the local fish and plants for the children to identify with the English names, the scientific names and the Setswana names. He has dreams of starting his own internet business, and with the government struggling to achieve a better balance between private sector and public assistance, this is a very real and exciting possibility. Meeting him completely revitalized my energy and focus, and I added finding him under successes on the huge piece of flip chart paper I keep up for exactly that purpose.
As I discover these people, who want to change the face of their community, I then search for the people who have the potential to benefit, both now and in years to come. There are tons of bright young children, and teenage girls, who look at me as I pass them in the roads and smile shyly, or better yet boldly, with confidence and maybe a little defiance, which I love. I can tell they have what they need to succeed and become the generation to change the course of their nation’s story, if given the proper tools and outlets.
It is for these people, and this potential for change and good that I can see that help me put up with the somewhat difficult hand I’ve been dealt. The challenge lies in reminding myself of this each and every blinking day….
Several of the nurses I work with appear to be lit up by the fire of my enthusiasm, and seem to be genuine in their willingness to engage my banter of change and hope. They have been to additional schooling and have developed some great critical thinking skills, and generally speak pretty good English- which makes it easier for me. They are usually foreigners in this land themselves (often medical professionals in Botswana are from neighboring Zambia or Zimbabwe, or if they are Motswana, they are usually not living in their home village, so while they can give some insight into the culture, there are often cultural/village particulars that are difficult to pick up on or begin to understand directly.) and thus have been very understanding about my various bouts of homesickness (and there’s no people I’d rather be surrounded by than medical professionals for some of the physical sickness as well.) This “stranger in a strange land” condition effortlessly leads to a little bit of the “these people” mentality that is so dangerous, yet so easy to adopt when working with people, (and is extremely easy for me to fall into myself). I often have to employ those wonderful woodland hills redirect skills I developed when working with kids (I swear sometimes I could turn verbal water into wine….) When I can catch myself and them “these people-ing” I try to point out that no matter what, “these people” are human beings who deserve to live outside of the shadow that this HIV crisis, and appeal to their pride as Africans, it’s generally when the conversation can keep moving forward.
Standing on the shoulders of giants as I am in the Peace Corps who have come before me, sometimes I question if there is very much more I can do in the Seronga clinic, and the nurses and staff have expressed that they wholeheartedly support me in whatever community project I want to undertake. This is huge, in that sometimes the relationship between Community Capacity Builders and their clinics can be quite precarious, as the role is so broad that everyone is often left wondering what the PCV is doing (including, it may seem the PCV themselves).
In addition to the wonderful, dedicated people at the clinic here’s also the woman who lives on my “family” compound. The first day she stopped by my house with a “ko-ko” (rhymes with yo-yo, what you say when you enter someone’s fence or compound, even though they’ve already heard you approach, there are no doorbells where there are no doors….) and informed me of an event at the Kgotla, which is the governmental center of the village. She is my age and has no children, which in this country is generally a sign of some sort of self awareness, and really self value when you consider that engaging in the sexual politics and practices that come in this culture can mean a death sentence in the HIV roulette. She is very active in the community and although I’m not sure what precisely she’s saying about local politics in Setswana, the kind of passion she exhibits when she talks about the VDC (village development committee) needs no translation. She sings every night with the community choir that will be performing at some sort of competition in July-(now rescheduled to August) I go to the practices some evenings, there’s something so heartwarming and amazing about a culture in which no one is tone deaf and everyone has rhythm and can dance. They’ve written the music themselves in 4 and occasionally five part harmonies, and get very adamant about which movements should go with which lyrics. The choir is men and women of an impressive age range, and they all seem to listen and respect each other’s opinions, or at least don’t display the kind of “type a” pissing contests and inability to function that was a hallmark of my Peace Corps pre service training (love you CCB’s). Details and pictures and maybe, if I ever figure it out, video! to follow.
The captain of my Peace Corps Dream Team was drafted the other day, when I finally met the man whose name literally means help, and helpful he is! Thuso was born and raised in Seronga, and has a lot of big plans for his village. He’s a teacher and an internet man, he’s the one trying to get Seronga wired, and for that alone I should kiss the ground beneath his feet, as right now I make a minimum 3 hour one way trip over land and sea to get internet every other week in Gumare… He did some schooling in the states and Canada and thus speaks amazing English. He’s inspired and has organized a chess club and various other activities to keep the youth of the village busy or at least safe and occupied. He wants to start a pond near the school to bring specimens of the local fish and plants for the children to identify with the English names, the scientific names and the Setswana names. He has dreams of starting his own internet business, and with the government struggling to achieve a better balance between private sector and public assistance, this is a very real and exciting possibility. Meeting him completely revitalized my energy and focus, and I added finding him under successes on the huge piece of flip chart paper I keep up for exactly that purpose.
As I discover these people, who want to change the face of their community, I then search for the people who have the potential to benefit, both now and in years to come. There are tons of bright young children, and teenage girls, who look at me as I pass them in the roads and smile shyly, or better yet boldly, with confidence and maybe a little defiance, which I love. I can tell they have what they need to succeed and become the generation to change the course of their nation’s story, if given the proper tools and outlets.
It is for these people, and this potential for change and good that I can see that help me put up with the somewhat difficult hand I’ve been dealt. The challenge lies in reminding myself of this each and every blinking day….
Saturday, July 12, 2008
On happiness, on sorrow, on perspective…..
I’m constantly amused by how happy I can feel here, in the presence of so much sorrow and suffering. It seems completely ridiculous to my thinking brain when I realize how little I have, at least in contrast to what I’m used to having, and then considering exactly how much this is in comparison with those around me. It’s like I can somehow feel the happiness, or maybe it’s contentment, so much easier here, as there is less to distract from it. Perhaps it’s the contrast, or as M calls it, “living closer to the bone”. Life and death and water and Earth are so present here, there is no glossing over them or ignoring or cleaning and sanitizing them away. I have to learn to exist in their presence. Or maybe I have to learn to let their presence exist more fully in mine.
In some ways I’m living the life I always envisioned for myself, surrounded by somewhat diverse people who generally give a shit and are actively doing something to at least begin to speculate about how to change the world, make it a touch better. In other ways my generally healthy sense of cynicism becomes a mad crazy rabid beast fighting to kill any innocent idealism I may have been harboring as I am confronted with the reality of the situation here in Seronga. AIDS didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Behavior change is tough, and made even more so here in Botswana as the culture (and unfortunately the color of my skin) dictates that when I ask a question or speak, the people here nearly always answer in the affirmative, or at least give you an answer, whether based in fact or not, so as not to disappoint you. I don’t believe anyone is deliberately trying to be difficult, but there is also a general lack of education and sense of intimidation that I battle against with every smile and greeting I try to give.
I often think about Maslow’s hierarchy here, and I’ve noticed that it’s when my needs and what is available to me move down on the pyramid that I feel closer to some sort of actualization. When I have to focus on how to get water in a purified enough state to drink without spontaneously vomiting, I feel more evolved, or actualized. When a woman comes into the clinic speaking a language I generally don’t understand and through some combination of miming, sign language and each of us repeating the few words of the other’s language we know and understand, I can get her something she needs, I feel supreme accomplishment. It seems when everything is harder, things are also simpler.
When I lift up a piece of clothing to not find a lizard or spider scurrying from underneath it I feel kind of ecstatic. When I feel a breeze against my skin that’s not filled with dust I am grateful. When I twist the knob and on the faucet and I see and feel the stream of water coming out, rather than hearing the hissing and gurgling of air which means no water, I am happy for the simplicity this offers over having to collect water from outside across the yard in the dark. I still can’t directly drink it, but it’s closer to easy.
When something simple goes awry, I find that I can sometimes have more patience with it, as it is so clear to me that there was and is nothing I can do to change it. When something simple actually happens that I would normally take for granted, like the post woman being at the post office when she says she’s going to I smile so fully, and if she actually has mail for me I nearly cry with joy.
These are all things that happen when I feel blessed. There are also times when I sink into depths of self pity, and feel rage against the difficulty in the simple things. A woman who speaks only Sasarwa who walks three kilometers to have her wounded foot bandaged at the clinic by people who don’t speak her language. A baby dying for lack of simple hygiene or a medicine that would be plentiful most other places on Earth. A woman with five children contracting HIV because there is no way for her to support herself other than to sleep with a man without a condom, as he will pay more for her to have sex with him this way. The apathy that runs rampant in this culture, and can be the only thing one sees if you don’t look harder, and search deeper for something more. And why can’t I just drink the water!!!???
And these feelings could take over, and sometimes do, but I’ve found my life is much more bearable if when these thoughts and experiences come to the forefront of my mind I just let them continue on through, and out the other side. I can usually mange to think back to why I came here, and I can summon some excitement for the opportunity that exists in the presence of so much sorrow. Simple things can change lives. And if I can’t conjure up excitement for that I can at least feel pleasure in the moment of knowing that I am living in the presence of the integrity of doing what I said I was going to do.
In some ways I’m living the life I always envisioned for myself, surrounded by somewhat diverse people who generally give a shit and are actively doing something to at least begin to speculate about how to change the world, make it a touch better. In other ways my generally healthy sense of cynicism becomes a mad crazy rabid beast fighting to kill any innocent idealism I may have been harboring as I am confronted with the reality of the situation here in Seronga. AIDS didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Behavior change is tough, and made even more so here in Botswana as the culture (and unfortunately the color of my skin) dictates that when I ask a question or speak, the people here nearly always answer in the affirmative, or at least give you an answer, whether based in fact or not, so as not to disappoint you. I don’t believe anyone is deliberately trying to be difficult, but there is also a general lack of education and sense of intimidation that I battle against with every smile and greeting I try to give.
I often think about Maslow’s hierarchy here, and I’ve noticed that it’s when my needs and what is available to me move down on the pyramid that I feel closer to some sort of actualization. When I have to focus on how to get water in a purified enough state to drink without spontaneously vomiting, I feel more evolved, or actualized. When a woman comes into the clinic speaking a language I generally don’t understand and through some combination of miming, sign language and each of us repeating the few words of the other’s language we know and understand, I can get her something she needs, I feel supreme accomplishment. It seems when everything is harder, things are also simpler.
When I lift up a piece of clothing to not find a lizard or spider scurrying from underneath it I feel kind of ecstatic. When I feel a breeze against my skin that’s not filled with dust I am grateful. When I twist the knob and on the faucet and I see and feel the stream of water coming out, rather than hearing the hissing and gurgling of air which means no water, I am happy for the simplicity this offers over having to collect water from outside across the yard in the dark. I still can’t directly drink it, but it’s closer to easy.
When something simple goes awry, I find that I can sometimes have more patience with it, as it is so clear to me that there was and is nothing I can do to change it. When something simple actually happens that I would normally take for granted, like the post woman being at the post office when she says she’s going to I smile so fully, and if she actually has mail for me I nearly cry with joy.
These are all things that happen when I feel blessed. There are also times when I sink into depths of self pity, and feel rage against the difficulty in the simple things. A woman who speaks only Sasarwa who walks three kilometers to have her wounded foot bandaged at the clinic by people who don’t speak her language. A baby dying for lack of simple hygiene or a medicine that would be plentiful most other places on Earth. A woman with five children contracting HIV because there is no way for her to support herself other than to sleep with a man without a condom, as he will pay more for her to have sex with him this way. The apathy that runs rampant in this culture, and can be the only thing one sees if you don’t look harder, and search deeper for something more. And why can’t I just drink the water!!!???
And these feelings could take over, and sometimes do, but I’ve found my life is much more bearable if when these thoughts and experiences come to the forefront of my mind I just let them continue on through, and out the other side. I can usually mange to think back to why I came here, and I can summon some excitement for the opportunity that exists in the presence of so much sorrow. Simple things can change lives. And if I can’t conjure up excitement for that I can at least feel pleasure in the moment of knowing that I am living in the presence of the integrity of doing what I said I was going to do.
My heart breaks every day....
Every day my heart breaks. Not a day goes by for me without seeing a child suffering, and every day it breaks my heart. It’s something that is beyond my range of understanding, and I suffer as I mentally go back and forth between accepting it, as it is the reality that is happening, and wanting to stop it, prevent it, run and hide from it. I’m torn between wanting to hold these children and acknowledge all the suffering in their little bodies and wanting to erase the visions from my mind, from my world, from my dreams.
I see children starving, dehydrated, HIV positive, dying from diarrhea and the victims of the traditional healer’s medicine. They sometimes don’t even resemble humans, so small and limp, with their eyes bulging out of their tiny heads, the hair gone, looking like baby pigs or kittens. They are so dehydrated that the bumps on their heads are often sunken in, and their plaintive cries fill the air as the nurses pump their wiry arms, searching for a vein in which to insert a rehydration IV.
Sometimes their veins are too small and too dry, and the nurse must have the mother attempt to orally rehydrate the baby using the IV drip liquid, the baby’s immature digestive system fighting to reject the fluids that could save the child’s life. The gurgling from deep in the babies protruding stomach is interrupted by its attempts to wail, which are so subdued and sound like a kitten mewing if you close your eyes. When you open them again you see the drama of the baby trying to flail and attempting to squirm. None of this lasts long as the child quickly exhausts, and resigns itself to becoming limp in its mother’s arms, allowing the nurses and the mother and the fates to do their biding.
These scenes are juxtaposed with others, with those of hope. Scenes that quietly wash over my broken heart and soothe it a bit, like a cooling menthol. Moms quietly giving birth on a table with no stirrups in a room with no lights and later bringing back fat, healthy babies. Noticing a nurse slip one of the few candies I’ve given to her to a child crying after a vaccination injection. Seeing a toddler feeding an infant, sharing what little food they have as they sit on the dirt on the ground outside the clinic. Watching a young girl testing HIV negative, and taking the condoms offered to her. Hearing the children at the daycare singing and knowing they are dancing as well. Watching the nurses be so caring as they rebandage the boy’s leg who comes in every third day.
It is only these scenes of hope that can carry me on, for if I were to dwell on the sadness I could not manage. I must look for them and search for them, and observe the beauty of simple moments or I feel I could not stay. And even this seems ridiculous, because what would I do, where would I go? I’m not the one who is so inflicted. My leaving would not end the suffering here, it would only compound it in my mind. Seeing it and bearing witness to it, and watching and working for change to slowly creep in are the only ways to alleviate my own angst. Now that I’ve seen it, I must do what I can to help change it. I, like those surrounding me, am destined to be in this place, for better or for worse. I can only hope for better.
A broken heart is not the worst thing in the world. As it breaks it grows back stronger, or at least this is what I’ve heard to be true.
I see children starving, dehydrated, HIV positive, dying from diarrhea and the victims of the traditional healer’s medicine. They sometimes don’t even resemble humans, so small and limp, with their eyes bulging out of their tiny heads, the hair gone, looking like baby pigs or kittens. They are so dehydrated that the bumps on their heads are often sunken in, and their plaintive cries fill the air as the nurses pump their wiry arms, searching for a vein in which to insert a rehydration IV.
Sometimes their veins are too small and too dry, and the nurse must have the mother attempt to orally rehydrate the baby using the IV drip liquid, the baby’s immature digestive system fighting to reject the fluids that could save the child’s life. The gurgling from deep in the babies protruding stomach is interrupted by its attempts to wail, which are so subdued and sound like a kitten mewing if you close your eyes. When you open them again you see the drama of the baby trying to flail and attempting to squirm. None of this lasts long as the child quickly exhausts, and resigns itself to becoming limp in its mother’s arms, allowing the nurses and the mother and the fates to do their biding.
These scenes are juxtaposed with others, with those of hope. Scenes that quietly wash over my broken heart and soothe it a bit, like a cooling menthol. Moms quietly giving birth on a table with no stirrups in a room with no lights and later bringing back fat, healthy babies. Noticing a nurse slip one of the few candies I’ve given to her to a child crying after a vaccination injection. Seeing a toddler feeding an infant, sharing what little food they have as they sit on the dirt on the ground outside the clinic. Watching a young girl testing HIV negative, and taking the condoms offered to her. Hearing the children at the daycare singing and knowing they are dancing as well. Watching the nurses be so caring as they rebandage the boy’s leg who comes in every third day.
It is only these scenes of hope that can carry me on, for if I were to dwell on the sadness I could not manage. I must look for them and search for them, and observe the beauty of simple moments or I feel I could not stay. And even this seems ridiculous, because what would I do, where would I go? I’m not the one who is so inflicted. My leaving would not end the suffering here, it would only compound it in my mind. Seeing it and bearing witness to it, and watching and working for change to slowly creep in are the only ways to alleviate my own angst. Now that I’ve seen it, I must do what I can to help change it. I, like those surrounding me, am destined to be in this place, for better or for worse. I can only hope for better.
A broken heart is not the worst thing in the world. As it breaks it grows back stronger, or at least this is what I’ve heard to be true.
The Venice of Africa.....
The Venice of Africa…
In the Okavango Delta, generally far from anything you would really consider civilization, and yet not quite out in the bush, lies a gorgeous area I can only describe as pristine (a description that is cliché, yes, but appropriate and made more accurate by the fact that I could drink directly out of it, and did so, and was not sick at all, in contrast to when I subsequently drank water from the tap that had been through the Peace Corps provided filter and puked my guts out. The PC medical officer’s response to this quandary, brought to her awareness because I additionally puked up my anti malarial med and was generally in a state of feeling extremely sorry for myself and was looking for comfort, was to not go trying to drink water on an empty stomach. Drink tea first, eat something, give your stomach a chance to warm up. Shit. Seriously!!? I now boil, then filter, then UV light anything I attempt to drink. Lesson learned.) with the type of clear water I’ve only seen in Lake Superior on a early spring day, before the warming waters cause everything to grow crazy green algae.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. After Simon invited me on this adventure and we picked up the two people from the Polers, we arrived at a small clearing/camp that appeared to have a sort of boat landing. The reeds and swampy sea grass appeared to cover all available water, and I couldn’t figure out where a boat could come from, unless it was one of those fan powered ones you see in the deltas and bayous of the southern United States or in the rivers of the Amazon. In my mind and I daresay extensive experience with water and lakes (hey I’m from the land of 10,000) there was no way a standard boat motor could get through the thick foliage I was witnessing.
Despite the thickness of the grasses, the gorgeous breeze betrayed the apparent stillness and kept the air from carrying the acrid smell of decay common in swampy or still bodies of water. I resigned myself to the confusion that has become commonplace to me here, when I think that I know how something is going to work or should work and it turns out completely differently. The learning curve is steep.
We waited on the shore of the delta with all our gear and could hear the cows and hippos mooing from within the deep grasses of the delta. In the distance the mechanical whine of a boat motor could be heard coming towards us. Suddenly Ronnie pulls up in his big aluminum boat weaving through the previously unseen paths in the marshy weeds. It was indeed an outboard motor propelling the boat forward. Hmmm.We load the boat and are off on our journey.
We pass through occasional open flowing water around and across the delta, but mostly we travel through canals of papyrus and reeds that I’m told were initially cleared by hippos and then helped along by Ronnie and his workers, clearing the extra reeds and sea grasses off the top so the boat could get through. The papyrus is very tall and densely settled in the water, producing a bit of a canal effect as we slowly motored through. The colors in the papyrus are stunning, the tops ranging from a fresh green to an autumn orange and red and exploding in a firework of blossom on the top. As I look out into the water on the side of the boat I could see down 20 or thirty feet to the sandy bottom where the hippos had cleared the path for themselves. The water ranges from an amazing green tea shade to nearly perfectly clear, with the type of clarity I haven’t seen since I was a child at the cabin in Minnesota. I quickly realize I’m in a cathedral of nature, the Venice of Africa, and suddenly feel giddy with excitement for the rest of the journey.
We motor through this wonderland for about an hour, stopping along the way to spy on a herd of hippos sunning themselves in an out of the way lagoon and passing various birds and a crocodile that dives under the water as we pass. We get to a very swampy area cleared by the hippos onto land, the soil black with nutrient rich rotting vegetation and hippo dung. We unload and boat and Ronny and one of his employees walk off and return with a huge truck with tires the height of me and chairs on the top nearly 15 feet off the ground. We pack all of our stuff onto this monster and drive jarringly into the bush, where although there are the tire tracks of the path we are following, it’s hard to believe humans have ever been through here.
We lumber along, the machine belching diesel into the air and the motor grinding away loud enough to alert the animals of our presence, but not enough to frighten them away. We come upon our first elephants, not more than 100 meters away, looking at us quickly, their curiosity quickly fading into disinterest. We continue on and discover a herd of giraffes, at which point my camera battery dies, and Ronny kindly lends me his. We see several species of deer/antelope type animals as well as zebras, wildebeests, and warthogs. It starts to look like something out of “the Lion King,” minus the lions (next time). Ronny takes us to a beautiful spot where we are able to swim in the delta where the clear, clean water is drinkable, and out of which Simon pulls several fish for dinner. We continue on and as we reach the edge of another area of water we turn back, and after traveling not more than 1 kilometer, there is an extra large lurch and a crash and the wheel of the lumbering giant falls clear off with a thud. We spend some time in the bush and are later rescued and I am able to see the delta at dusk, the sunset providing even more spectacular views of this cathedral of nature we are traveling through. It seems nature is becoming my new art museum…
I think I am beginning to realize one of the reasons I am here, to relearn and respect the power of nature and its healing properties. I have often considered myself a city girl, and although I continue to love and appreciate yearn for the fast pace, and flashy lights whist eschewing the countryside as boring, I often manage to find myself living in the presence of some of natures most awe inspiring vistas, first along the shore of Lake Superior and now this. I’ve found that it’s difficult to get as wrapped up in your problems as you can in the city when you’re in nature. I’ve also grown to appreciate camping out as somewhat of an upgrade from the way I live on a daily basis. I’ve come to understand nature and the way you can come back to it, the quiet calm and serenity it offers.
Most importantly, I am finally coming to relate to nature in ways I couldn’t relate to some of the people in my life who have loved it. In some ways transcending this block that I now realize was always put up by me, I am coming to feel closer and at least understand those people from my past and my life more.
In the Okavango Delta, generally far from anything you would really consider civilization, and yet not quite out in the bush, lies a gorgeous area I can only describe as pristine (a description that is cliché, yes, but appropriate and made more accurate by the fact that I could drink directly out of it, and did so, and was not sick at all, in contrast to when I subsequently drank water from the tap that had been through the Peace Corps provided filter and puked my guts out. The PC medical officer’s response to this quandary, brought to her awareness because I additionally puked up my anti malarial med and was generally in a state of feeling extremely sorry for myself and was looking for comfort, was to not go trying to drink water on an empty stomach. Drink tea first, eat something, give your stomach a chance to warm up. Shit. Seriously!!? I now boil, then filter, then UV light anything I attempt to drink. Lesson learned.) with the type of clear water I’ve only seen in Lake Superior on a early spring day, before the warming waters cause everything to grow crazy green algae.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. After Simon invited me on this adventure and we picked up the two people from the Polers, we arrived at a small clearing/camp that appeared to have a sort of boat landing. The reeds and swampy sea grass appeared to cover all available water, and I couldn’t figure out where a boat could come from, unless it was one of those fan powered ones you see in the deltas and bayous of the southern United States or in the rivers of the Amazon. In my mind and I daresay extensive experience with water and lakes (hey I’m from the land of 10,000) there was no way a standard boat motor could get through the thick foliage I was witnessing.
Despite the thickness of the grasses, the gorgeous breeze betrayed the apparent stillness and kept the air from carrying the acrid smell of decay common in swampy or still bodies of water. I resigned myself to the confusion that has become commonplace to me here, when I think that I know how something is going to work or should work and it turns out completely differently. The learning curve is steep.
We waited on the shore of the delta with all our gear and could hear the cows and hippos mooing from within the deep grasses of the delta. In the distance the mechanical whine of a boat motor could be heard coming towards us. Suddenly Ronnie pulls up in his big aluminum boat weaving through the previously unseen paths in the marshy weeds. It was indeed an outboard motor propelling the boat forward. Hmmm.We load the boat and are off on our journey.
We pass through occasional open flowing water around and across the delta, but mostly we travel through canals of papyrus and reeds that I’m told were initially cleared by hippos and then helped along by Ronnie and his workers, clearing the extra reeds and sea grasses off the top so the boat could get through. The papyrus is very tall and densely settled in the water, producing a bit of a canal effect as we slowly motored through. The colors in the papyrus are stunning, the tops ranging from a fresh green to an autumn orange and red and exploding in a firework of blossom on the top. As I look out into the water on the side of the boat I could see down 20 or thirty feet to the sandy bottom where the hippos had cleared the path for themselves. The water ranges from an amazing green tea shade to nearly perfectly clear, with the type of clarity I haven’t seen since I was a child at the cabin in Minnesota. I quickly realize I’m in a cathedral of nature, the Venice of Africa, and suddenly feel giddy with excitement for the rest of the journey.
We motor through this wonderland for about an hour, stopping along the way to spy on a herd of hippos sunning themselves in an out of the way lagoon and passing various birds and a crocodile that dives under the water as we pass. We get to a very swampy area cleared by the hippos onto land, the soil black with nutrient rich rotting vegetation and hippo dung. We unload and boat and Ronny and one of his employees walk off and return with a huge truck with tires the height of me and chairs on the top nearly 15 feet off the ground. We pack all of our stuff onto this monster and drive jarringly into the bush, where although there are the tire tracks of the path we are following, it’s hard to believe humans have ever been through here.
We lumber along, the machine belching diesel into the air and the motor grinding away loud enough to alert the animals of our presence, but not enough to frighten them away. We come upon our first elephants, not more than 100 meters away, looking at us quickly, their curiosity quickly fading into disinterest. We continue on and discover a herd of giraffes, at which point my camera battery dies, and Ronny kindly lends me his. We see several species of deer/antelope type animals as well as zebras, wildebeests, and warthogs. It starts to look like something out of “the Lion King,” minus the lions (next time). Ronny takes us to a beautiful spot where we are able to swim in the delta where the clear, clean water is drinkable, and out of which Simon pulls several fish for dinner. We continue on and as we reach the edge of another area of water we turn back, and after traveling not more than 1 kilometer, there is an extra large lurch and a crash and the wheel of the lumbering giant falls clear off with a thud. We spend some time in the bush and are later rescued and I am able to see the delta at dusk, the sunset providing even more spectacular views of this cathedral of nature we are traveling through. It seems nature is becoming my new art museum…
I think I am beginning to realize one of the reasons I am here, to relearn and respect the power of nature and its healing properties. I have often considered myself a city girl, and although I continue to love and appreciate yearn for the fast pace, and flashy lights whist eschewing the countryside as boring, I often manage to find myself living in the presence of some of natures most awe inspiring vistas, first along the shore of Lake Superior and now this. I’ve found that it’s difficult to get as wrapped up in your problems as you can in the city when you’re in nature. I’ve also grown to appreciate camping out as somewhat of an upgrade from the way I live on a daily basis. I’ve come to understand nature and the way you can come back to it, the quiet calm and serenity it offers.
Most importantly, I am finally coming to relate to nature in ways I couldn’t relate to some of the people in my life who have loved it. In some ways transcending this block that I now realize was always put up by me, I am coming to feel closer and at least understand those people from my past and my life more.
It’s not always as easy as black and white……In which I try to learn to live in the gray area…..
One day, back in training in Molepolole, my friend Caitlin and I were walking, and a man walked past us, did a sort of double take, and desperate to convey something to grab our attention and unsure of the proper English yelled, “ hello black people!” as we passed. This small exchange, the vocabulary of which was skewed but the meaning of which was clear, made me again aware of the race and differences as I see it in every day life here in Botswana.
I noticed it in myself for the first time in a mall in Gaborone. The Peace Corps had let us loose for one reason or another and so there were already 50 some white people around, but I was also aware that there were several others, and as Gabs is the capital and somewhat near South Africa this makes sense. There’s plenty of Afrikaners and ex pats of various other persuasions. It happened again in Ghanzi. I found myself staring and rubbernecking at them, just as most of the Batswana stare at me, wondering what they were doing here.
Although in the United States we are taught the politically correct mantra that everyone is the same, and race doesn’t matter, here in Africa, it just does. It’s constantly surprising me, as I foolishly anticipated that in a place of predominantly black people, I would find black pride in ways I hadn’t seen in the US. However, Botswana, bordering South Africa, still feels the effects of their relatively recent battle with apartide in ways you don’t hear about on the news. I’ve had intelligent, educated people of color adamantly insist to me that black people and white people are just too different, and that we should all just accept it. This goes against everything I’ve been taught and have subsequently grown to believe in some pretty big ways…
People here constantly ask me about the political events going on in the United States (people here manage to remain embarrassingly up to date on the goings on in my home country, often more aware of what’s going on than I am, and certainly they are more aware than most people living in America.) and I’m always being asked if I think America is ready for a black president. I’ve been asked this same question several times, usually with the slightly resigned or incredulous belief that there’s no way America will vote for a black man, and many express the belief that they shouldn’t. I’ve read studies about the impact of racism on those who are oppressed and this internalization of decreased worth is something that is real and that I never thought I’d find on this part of the globe. I never thought that I would hear people that are black telling me that black people aren’t as good as white people. (An additional note on Obama, many other Africans I've spoken to think of him as their "Kenyon brother" and his potential influence as a uniting figure around the world, not just amongst the United States that so badly needs his unifying influence. (so much for my impartialism....) Many are wait hopefully to see the results of our election in Novemeber....)
My response to these political inquiries (which in themselves inherently present a problem as the Peace Corps is supposed to be politically non-affiliated) is that I would choose a candidate for president based on his or her political platform and energy, not their skin color. People mostly smile thinly at me as though they think that’s what I was programmed to say, similarly to what they think I was programmed to say about HIV and AIDS. I can only hope that my credibility will increase with time.
I’ve actually had a man tell me that black people are just not the same, their wiry hair is screwed into their brain in ways that makes them incapable of sound reasoning and good decision making, which is why Obama should never be president. The women at the clinic were upset when I cut off my hair, and were reticent to teach me how to wrap my head as they do, because they “have bad course hair that should be covered,” while mine is “nice and soft and should be out so people can see it.”
In Seronga, as a white person, I’m often treated differently-sometimes the product of curiosity, sometimes as what people see as a wealthy donor. There are many white tourists in Seronga, as we are near the delta and the Poler’s trust. I often find myself getting annoyed at the white tourists, coming to visit the children of the daycare/orphanage, taking pictures, teaching the children songs in English. I can easily imagine myself as one of them, on a mission trip or service vacation of some sort and hell, I speak to the children (and everyone else for that matter) in English, and take their pictures all the damn time! (I don’t really know what this irritation on my part is about, but I have a lot of time to think on it, and at night, under my mosquito net in my bed somewhere in the dark of my heart of hearts I have to ask myself if I’m jealous that they get to leave after a few weeks.) Another theory is that my reactions are a result of some screwed up attempt at bonding with and developing a sense of pride in and protection about my community. Sometimes I feel like the elephant in the Dr. Seuess book “Are you my mother?” -who keeps asking all sorts of wildly inappropriate animals and- I think, objects- if they are his mother as he doesn’t know he’s an elephant. I delusionally forget that I’m white and American and different and thus become annoyed at those like me. Some sort of reverse Stolkholm syndrome? Who knows? I clearly have way too much time to think about these things…..
Many wealthy people (you have to have some level of wealth just to get into Botswana with their high price, low traffic policy of ecotourism) come through the village and will often indulge the adorable black shoeless children by granting them the pula ($) they so sweetly ask for in English. This “beggar mentality” has caused many of the children here greet me by asking for a sweet or money, not realizing I am their new neighbor. I am constantly vigilant in my efforts to rework their greeting of “Lekgowa” to “Lorato” as they encounter me in the street, this being the first Setswana phrase I have mastered, that I am called Lorato, not Lekgowa. Occasionally I will ask them for money or a sweet right back, or yell Motswana back at their exclamation of Lekgowa (these phrases are not insults unless you take them that way. In this culture it is like calling someone French, or Canadian. This can be hard to remember on really long days.)
I try to never give them what they are begging for as I’ve come to understand that when they learn begging as a way of life, it will be the only means through which they know to achieve and obtain things and relate to others. It’s annoying because when I have so many oranges that some are about to go bad, I would love to hand them out like the candy the children are asking for. And God knows that there are children here who could use the nutrition and vitamins (I have to admit, I’ve given them the oranges. Now kids scream after me as I walk asking for money, candy and oranges. I don’t know if I’ve won or lost this battle.) But it’s a dangerous habit to reinforce. I’ve even had people who work for the clinic ask me to buy them shoes, when I’ve watched them come home from their offs (vacation days) with nicer stereos than I have in the states. The woman at the post office asks me for my shoes every day. When I gave my colleges at the clinic some of the sweets I had received in the care packages they know I got I was sure to clearly state that the sweets were a thank you for all the hard work and patience they had all had with me in the past two weeks. I want to share with my coworkers as I would my friends, but I don’t want to be seen as the “wealthy” American who is just around to give stuff.
It’s exceedingly difficult to know who your friends are (or will be) in this type of environment, as it’s tough to achieve the balance of power and mutual beneficially of bond that is necessary to form friendships. How can I know what people really want from me? People are constantly asking me for sex, candy and money, and what I’m here to give is my time, energy, skills, knowledge and assistance. And how do I reconcile what they are asking for with what I have to give? And how do I go on without losing myself in this hierarchy of power and start thinking I AM inherently better than those around my in some way? Or that I have some unexplained additional gifts as a result of my skin color or nationality? How can I mentally keep wealth and skin color separate in my mind as I live in a community in which they are very often the same? These are challenges that have come completely unanticipated, and I would imagine will take more than two years to answer.
I noticed it in myself for the first time in a mall in Gaborone. The Peace Corps had let us loose for one reason or another and so there were already 50 some white people around, but I was also aware that there were several others, and as Gabs is the capital and somewhat near South Africa this makes sense. There’s plenty of Afrikaners and ex pats of various other persuasions. It happened again in Ghanzi. I found myself staring and rubbernecking at them, just as most of the Batswana stare at me, wondering what they were doing here.
Although in the United States we are taught the politically correct mantra that everyone is the same, and race doesn’t matter, here in Africa, it just does. It’s constantly surprising me, as I foolishly anticipated that in a place of predominantly black people, I would find black pride in ways I hadn’t seen in the US. However, Botswana, bordering South Africa, still feels the effects of their relatively recent battle with apartide in ways you don’t hear about on the news. I’ve had intelligent, educated people of color adamantly insist to me that black people and white people are just too different, and that we should all just accept it. This goes against everything I’ve been taught and have subsequently grown to believe in some pretty big ways…
People here constantly ask me about the political events going on in the United States (people here manage to remain embarrassingly up to date on the goings on in my home country, often more aware of what’s going on than I am, and certainly they are more aware than most people living in America.) and I’m always being asked if I think America is ready for a black president. I’ve been asked this same question several times, usually with the slightly resigned or incredulous belief that there’s no way America will vote for a black man, and many express the belief that they shouldn’t. I’ve read studies about the impact of racism on those who are oppressed and this internalization of decreased worth is something that is real and that I never thought I’d find on this part of the globe. I never thought that I would hear people that are black telling me that black people aren’t as good as white people. (An additional note on Obama, many other Africans I've spoken to think of him as their "Kenyon brother" and his potential influence as a uniting figure around the world, not just amongst the United States that so badly needs his unifying influence. (so much for my impartialism....) Many are wait hopefully to see the results of our election in Novemeber....)
My response to these political inquiries (which in themselves inherently present a problem as the Peace Corps is supposed to be politically non-affiliated) is that I would choose a candidate for president based on his or her political platform and energy, not their skin color. People mostly smile thinly at me as though they think that’s what I was programmed to say, similarly to what they think I was programmed to say about HIV and AIDS. I can only hope that my credibility will increase with time.
I’ve actually had a man tell me that black people are just not the same, their wiry hair is screwed into their brain in ways that makes them incapable of sound reasoning and good decision making, which is why Obama should never be president. The women at the clinic were upset when I cut off my hair, and were reticent to teach me how to wrap my head as they do, because they “have bad course hair that should be covered,” while mine is “nice and soft and should be out so people can see it.”
In Seronga, as a white person, I’m often treated differently-sometimes the product of curiosity, sometimes as what people see as a wealthy donor. There are many white tourists in Seronga, as we are near the delta and the Poler’s trust. I often find myself getting annoyed at the white tourists, coming to visit the children of the daycare/orphanage, taking pictures, teaching the children songs in English. I can easily imagine myself as one of them, on a mission trip or service vacation of some sort and hell, I speak to the children (and everyone else for that matter) in English, and take their pictures all the damn time! (I don’t really know what this irritation on my part is about, but I have a lot of time to think on it, and at night, under my mosquito net in my bed somewhere in the dark of my heart of hearts I have to ask myself if I’m jealous that they get to leave after a few weeks.) Another theory is that my reactions are a result of some screwed up attempt at bonding with and developing a sense of pride in and protection about my community. Sometimes I feel like the elephant in the Dr. Seuess book “Are you my mother?” -who keeps asking all sorts of wildly inappropriate animals and- I think, objects- if they are his mother as he doesn’t know he’s an elephant. I delusionally forget that I’m white and American and different and thus become annoyed at those like me. Some sort of reverse Stolkholm syndrome? Who knows? I clearly have way too much time to think about these things…..
Many wealthy people (you have to have some level of wealth just to get into Botswana with their high price, low traffic policy of ecotourism) come through the village and will often indulge the adorable black shoeless children by granting them the pula ($) they so sweetly ask for in English. This “beggar mentality” has caused many of the children here greet me by asking for a sweet or money, not realizing I am their new neighbor. I am constantly vigilant in my efforts to rework their greeting of “Lekgowa” to “Lorato” as they encounter me in the street, this being the first Setswana phrase I have mastered, that I am called Lorato, not Lekgowa. Occasionally I will ask them for money or a sweet right back, or yell Motswana back at their exclamation of Lekgowa (these phrases are not insults unless you take them that way. In this culture it is like calling someone French, or Canadian. This can be hard to remember on really long days.)
I try to never give them what they are begging for as I’ve come to understand that when they learn begging as a way of life, it will be the only means through which they know to achieve and obtain things and relate to others. It’s annoying because when I have so many oranges that some are about to go bad, I would love to hand them out like the candy the children are asking for. And God knows that there are children here who could use the nutrition and vitamins (I have to admit, I’ve given them the oranges. Now kids scream after me as I walk asking for money, candy and oranges. I don’t know if I’ve won or lost this battle.) But it’s a dangerous habit to reinforce. I’ve even had people who work for the clinic ask me to buy them shoes, when I’ve watched them come home from their offs (vacation days) with nicer stereos than I have in the states. The woman at the post office asks me for my shoes every day. When I gave my colleges at the clinic some of the sweets I had received in the care packages they know I got I was sure to clearly state that the sweets were a thank you for all the hard work and patience they had all had with me in the past two weeks. I want to share with my coworkers as I would my friends, but I don’t want to be seen as the “wealthy” American who is just around to give stuff.
It’s exceedingly difficult to know who your friends are (or will be) in this type of environment, as it’s tough to achieve the balance of power and mutual beneficially of bond that is necessary to form friendships. How can I know what people really want from me? People are constantly asking me for sex, candy and money, and what I’m here to give is my time, energy, skills, knowledge and assistance. And how do I reconcile what they are asking for with what I have to give? And how do I go on without losing myself in this hierarchy of power and start thinking I AM inherently better than those around my in some way? Or that I have some unexplained additional gifts as a result of my skin color or nationality? How can I mentally keep wealth and skin color separate in my mind as I live in a community in which they are very often the same? These are challenges that have come completely unanticipated, and I would imagine will take more than two years to answer.
What I've learned....
What I’ve learned….
There has been a steep learning curve on all the finer points of living completely alone and in a village where a variety of foods are very difficult to get. Cooking and new recipes have been a challenge; I’ve made “kind of like chilli” and “sort of like tuna casserole.” I firmly believe that without Simon I might die of starvation. My inability to gage boiling water, as I can’t see into the pot from the dark shadows cast by the one fluorescent light has caused the fingerprint of my left index finger to be possibly permanently damaged; perhaps removed completely, and it seems my blisters are now getting blisters. I’ve since learned that if you let it get hot enough, you can hear boiling water. I’ve learned that even really cheap toilet paper can be rescued and dried out and used after it falls in one of the many buckets of water I’m forced to have standing around for when the water goes out, which I’ve learned is in fact, every weekend.
I’ve learned what it takes to drain my solar panel completely (exactly 1.5 movies in a row in the dark, after which you can’t get the light to turn on, either.) I’ve learned that it takes mail two weeks to get here from the East coast, three from the Midwest, and up to four from the East coast. I’ve improved my “showering” techniques to include heating enough water to dump half a bucket over my head in the end, and I’ve learned the pain of scalding a newly bald head with this process. I’ve learned to save my bathwater as I will inevitably reuse it to either wash my clothes or my dishes, or to dump in the tank of the flush toilet when the water goes out. I’ve learned that my toilet is also my main drain. I’ve found that sanitation and cleanliness are such relative concepts, and I laugh to think of how anal I used to be about this shit, and boy do I owe some former roommates apologies.
I’ve learned a lot about every movie I have here as I’ve taken to watching them through with the director’s commentary on after I tire of seeing them in their entirety. I've learned that the following are considered perfectly fine toys or teething objects in Seronga: broken mirror glass, batteries, dirt, used condoms. Seeing this stuff breaks my heart. I’ve learned that I must boil, then filter, then use my UV light on any and all water I plan on having enter my body orally, including washing the fruit I plan on eating. I’ve learned sometimes it’s just easier to drink a coke. I’ve learned the joys of processed cheese and mustard sandwiches. I’ve come to enjoy eating any kind of meat, no matter how grisly or fatty or if it’s goat.
I’ve learned how much I appreciate and love and miss my family and friends back home, and around the globe, and what good people I’ve been blessed to know, and how much they care about me. I’ve learned what a lucky girl I am, indeed.
There has been a steep learning curve on all the finer points of living completely alone and in a village where a variety of foods are very difficult to get. Cooking and new recipes have been a challenge; I’ve made “kind of like chilli” and “sort of like tuna casserole.” I firmly believe that without Simon I might die of starvation. My inability to gage boiling water, as I can’t see into the pot from the dark shadows cast by the one fluorescent light has caused the fingerprint of my left index finger to be possibly permanently damaged; perhaps removed completely, and it seems my blisters are now getting blisters. I’ve since learned that if you let it get hot enough, you can hear boiling water. I’ve learned that even really cheap toilet paper can be rescued and dried out and used after it falls in one of the many buckets of water I’m forced to have standing around for when the water goes out, which I’ve learned is in fact, every weekend.
I’ve learned what it takes to drain my solar panel completely (exactly 1.5 movies in a row in the dark, after which you can’t get the light to turn on, either.) I’ve learned that it takes mail two weeks to get here from the East coast, three from the Midwest, and up to four from the East coast. I’ve improved my “showering” techniques to include heating enough water to dump half a bucket over my head in the end, and I’ve learned the pain of scalding a newly bald head with this process. I’ve learned to save my bathwater as I will inevitably reuse it to either wash my clothes or my dishes, or to dump in the tank of the flush toilet when the water goes out. I’ve learned that my toilet is also my main drain. I’ve found that sanitation and cleanliness are such relative concepts, and I laugh to think of how anal I used to be about this shit, and boy do I owe some former roommates apologies.
I’ve learned a lot about every movie I have here as I’ve taken to watching them through with the director’s commentary on after I tire of seeing them in their entirety. I've learned that the following are considered perfectly fine toys or teething objects in Seronga: broken mirror glass, batteries, dirt, used condoms. Seeing this stuff breaks my heart. I’ve learned that I must boil, then filter, then use my UV light on any and all water I plan on having enter my body orally, including washing the fruit I plan on eating. I’ve learned sometimes it’s just easier to drink a coke. I’ve learned the joys of processed cheese and mustard sandwiches. I’ve come to enjoy eating any kind of meat, no matter how grisly or fatty or if it’s goat.
I’ve learned how much I appreciate and love and miss my family and friends back home, and around the globe, and what good people I’ve been blessed to know, and how much they care about me. I’ve learned what a lucky girl I am, indeed.
If you can't "duct it", f- it. a Treatsie on the amazing comfort a roll of duct tape can bring....
If you can’t “duct it” f- it. A treatise on the amazing comfort of roll of duct tape can bring….
After some time spent “blending” at the kgotla I went home to face the music (or really silence) and mess at my house. I again thought about the lizards lurking, and the need to get the furniture out to clean the floors. There were some teenage boys in the fenced in yard of the compound and so I tried speaking with them. No English. With much gesturing and the setswana word for help, I was able to get them to move the furniture out of the room.
Which of course revealed the lizards behind the wardrobe. My shriek and overdramatic motions indicated that they were to remove the beasts, of which at first they were able to only get the tail of one. Further searching and five pula ensured that they disposed of the rest of him. The other one hid very well, and I’ve only seen him inside the house again one time. I left the carcass on the front stoop for a few days as a warning to any others who might be considering moving in. Now the only time I see lizards anywhere near the house is that there is one that crawls up in between the screen I’ve put up and my constantly open bathroom window. He and I have made peace with this arrangement, I know that he’s not able to actually come into my house as a result of the screen and he can hang out and feast on the bugs that are drawn near the warmth of the house and the screen. So long as he doesn’t get any crazy ideas to try and avenge his brother’s death, we’ll be fine.
I’ve since covered every crack and crevice and possible point of entrance for both lizards and the bugs that are their food source with duct tape. My thinking is that if I cut off their food source I will also deter the lizards from coming in. The fact that I have to keep my door open when I’m home to let in light and air is a bit of a problem in my deterrence scheme, but I tend to watch the door and guard it carefully. The duct tape has lead to an interesting decorating schema in the house, but one I appreciate for its functionality rather than fashion.
After some time spent “blending” at the kgotla I went home to face the music (or really silence) and mess at my house. I again thought about the lizards lurking, and the need to get the furniture out to clean the floors. There were some teenage boys in the fenced in yard of the compound and so I tried speaking with them. No English. With much gesturing and the setswana word for help, I was able to get them to move the furniture out of the room.
Which of course revealed the lizards behind the wardrobe. My shriek and overdramatic motions indicated that they were to remove the beasts, of which at first they were able to only get the tail of one. Further searching and five pula ensured that they disposed of the rest of him. The other one hid very well, and I’ve only seen him inside the house again one time. I left the carcass on the front stoop for a few days as a warning to any others who might be considering moving in. Now the only time I see lizards anywhere near the house is that there is one that crawls up in between the screen I’ve put up and my constantly open bathroom window. He and I have made peace with this arrangement, I know that he’s not able to actually come into my house as a result of the screen and he can hang out and feast on the bugs that are drawn near the warmth of the house and the screen. So long as he doesn’t get any crazy ideas to try and avenge his brother’s death, we’ll be fine.
I’ve since covered every crack and crevice and possible point of entrance for both lizards and the bugs that are their food source with duct tape. My thinking is that if I cut off their food source I will also deter the lizards from coming in. The fact that I have to keep my door open when I’m home to let in light and air is a bit of a problem in my deterrence scheme, but I tend to watch the door and guard it carefully. The duct tape has lead to an interesting decorating schema in the house, but one I appreciate for its functionality rather than fashion.
Simon Says.....
Simon Says…
After what I would consider to be a fairly harrowing first night at site, I was thrilled when my host sister (the woman who lives in my compound) stopped by with news that there was an event at the kgotla, which is the cultural and governmental center of the village. I had been just wandering around amongst my possessions (it seems that in addition to ignoring the Peace Corps 80 lb weight limit I have no sense of what it means to “travel light” when relocating for the third time in as many months) trying to figure out where in the world “in it’s place” was for most of my shit and was happy for the distraction. Community entry and integration here I come!!!
So I followed the sound of music and singing as I couldn’t remember exactly where the kgotla was, and came upon what was most of the village seated around a sort of stage. I was able to fly kind of under the radar at first as shortly after I arrived, my phone began to buzz (why I put it on vibrate I’ll never understand as it’s no problem for cell phones to ring all the time here, and people will always interrupt what they are doing to answer it as incoming calls are free. Even if they are giving a speech. If you have to call someone back you have to pay for it.) and so I of course answered it.
It was Simon.
Introducing: Simon the British ex pat, also known as “Uncle Simon” and “crazy Simon”, or really, any combination therein, and who shall, I would imagine, play a central role in the saga that is my life here in Seronga. He’s a lovely British man who has been away from native English speakers for long enough that he’s prone to muttering, and occasionally talking to his dogs.
Although I have since grown accustomed to his particular accent and combination of speech and growling, at first I was having a tough time understanding him. During my first visit to Seronga as my counterpart showed me the town he was sure to point out the important locations of all the “white people” (not sure if this was to assure me that there were indeed other white people here or if he was operating under the assumption that I would feel more comfortable around white people or what. As it turns out a strong understanding and ability to communicate in English is what really does it for me regardless of skin color.) and I thus knew where Simon’s office was in relation to the clinic. I told him I would meet him there.
Simon looks a bit like a combination of Grizzly Adams and Fidel Castro, with piercing blue eyes and a cigarette constantly dangling out of his mouth, or threatening to burn down to a nub of ash on his fingers. He was shouting gruffly into the phone in that way the English have of not really shouting, and I waited patiently as he finished.
“Hello luv, how do you find Seronga?” he asked. I had text him the first time I came to Seronga and he had called me the night before but the ferry and the exceptional lateness with which I got in had put a screeching halt to that.
“How would you like to see the bush?” he growled. “We’ve got some Spaniard over at the Poler’s and her Brazilian husband and my friend Ronny has to move a truck and we have to use a boat and we’d do a bit of camping maybe throw together some food and see some animals how would you like that?”
Although the Peace Corps warns us about “the dangers of bitter ex-pats,” and the terrible effect they can have on your integration into the community, what I’d heard of Simon from both the PC’s that have met him and also my coworkers at the clinic is that Simon is very much a part of the community. He has many connections in the area and knows where to get nearly anything you need. He keeps the village drunks who hang out in the shibeens in line, gives the children lifts in his truck, and is invited to weddings and events and goes to the kgotla. I immediately decide rules and policies be damned, if I was going to be placed so far away from other Peace Corps and native English speakers, the hell if I’m going to say no to the first invitation I receive to see the bush and speak English, whether it be from an ex-pat or not.
Sidebar: written later- Simon has proved to be absolutely essential to my sanity and survival here in Seronga. (This is a fact I’ve confirmed with Kagiso, the PCV who was here before me.) For all his gruffness and roughness around the edges, he is a completely sensitive and caring soul, and has taken great care of me since I’ve been here. He’s been gone up the river for a few days and I miss him a lot, although I am faring better than I thought I would.
So we decide to meet at 1. I went back to the open air festivities at the kgotla and made my big debut. Although I like attention as much as (hell let’s be honest, probably more than) the average bear, I didn’t quite know what to do with so many people staring at me. Culturally, staring is not really rude here, so between 200 and 300 children and adults alike gawked openly at me, wondering why this new lekgowa was hanging out at their cultural event, rather than just passing through the village on their way to the delta as most white tourists do. It was a bit like that dream where you show up at school with no pants on, and can’t find them or cover yourself and people are staring at you. Except it’s real.
Determined to act “normal” and in the absence of the ability to really communicate with anybody as it’s tough to tell who can speak English and my Setswana sucks once I get past greetings, I picked up a baby. Just one that was wandering around. This seems a crazy and random and maybe even dangerous thing to do in American culture, but here it’s completely normal, and took the spotlight off a bit. The child stared at me in shock, but eventually got over the fact that I’m white and went back to gurgling. My host sister is a member of the community choir which I have subsequently kind of joined and they were performing, and there were skits and speakers. Finally a woman that works at the clinic offered me a chair and I was able blend into the crowd a bit more. I overall enjoyed the experience. And I soon learned that this is all only the beginning.
After what I would consider to be a fairly harrowing first night at site, I was thrilled when my host sister (the woman who lives in my compound) stopped by with news that there was an event at the kgotla, which is the cultural and governmental center of the village. I had been just wandering around amongst my possessions (it seems that in addition to ignoring the Peace Corps 80 lb weight limit I have no sense of what it means to “travel light” when relocating for the third time in as many months) trying to figure out where in the world “in it’s place” was for most of my shit and was happy for the distraction. Community entry and integration here I come!!!
So I followed the sound of music and singing as I couldn’t remember exactly where the kgotla was, and came upon what was most of the village seated around a sort of stage. I was able to fly kind of under the radar at first as shortly after I arrived, my phone began to buzz (why I put it on vibrate I’ll never understand as it’s no problem for cell phones to ring all the time here, and people will always interrupt what they are doing to answer it as incoming calls are free. Even if they are giving a speech. If you have to call someone back you have to pay for it.) and so I of course answered it.
It was Simon.
Introducing: Simon the British ex pat, also known as “Uncle Simon” and “crazy Simon”, or really, any combination therein, and who shall, I would imagine, play a central role in the saga that is my life here in Seronga. He’s a lovely British man who has been away from native English speakers for long enough that he’s prone to muttering, and occasionally talking to his dogs.
Although I have since grown accustomed to his particular accent and combination of speech and growling, at first I was having a tough time understanding him. During my first visit to Seronga as my counterpart showed me the town he was sure to point out the important locations of all the “white people” (not sure if this was to assure me that there were indeed other white people here or if he was operating under the assumption that I would feel more comfortable around white people or what. As it turns out a strong understanding and ability to communicate in English is what really does it for me regardless of skin color.) and I thus knew where Simon’s office was in relation to the clinic. I told him I would meet him there.
Simon looks a bit like a combination of Grizzly Adams and Fidel Castro, with piercing blue eyes and a cigarette constantly dangling out of his mouth, or threatening to burn down to a nub of ash on his fingers. He was shouting gruffly into the phone in that way the English have of not really shouting, and I waited patiently as he finished.
“Hello luv, how do you find Seronga?” he asked. I had text him the first time I came to Seronga and he had called me the night before but the ferry and the exceptional lateness with which I got in had put a screeching halt to that.
“How would you like to see the bush?” he growled. “We’ve got some Spaniard over at the Poler’s and her Brazilian husband and my friend Ronny has to move a truck and we have to use a boat and we’d do a bit of camping maybe throw together some food and see some animals how would you like that?”
Although the Peace Corps warns us about “the dangers of bitter ex-pats,” and the terrible effect they can have on your integration into the community, what I’d heard of Simon from both the PC’s that have met him and also my coworkers at the clinic is that Simon is very much a part of the community. He has many connections in the area and knows where to get nearly anything you need. He keeps the village drunks who hang out in the shibeens in line, gives the children lifts in his truck, and is invited to weddings and events and goes to the kgotla. I immediately decide rules and policies be damned, if I was going to be placed so far away from other Peace Corps and native English speakers, the hell if I’m going to say no to the first invitation I receive to see the bush and speak English, whether it be from an ex-pat or not.
Sidebar: written later- Simon has proved to be absolutely essential to my sanity and survival here in Seronga. (This is a fact I’ve confirmed with Kagiso, the PCV who was here before me.) For all his gruffness and roughness around the edges, he is a completely sensitive and caring soul, and has taken great care of me since I’ve been here. He’s been gone up the river for a few days and I miss him a lot, although I am faring better than I thought I would.
So we decide to meet at 1. I went back to the open air festivities at the kgotla and made my big debut. Although I like attention as much as (hell let’s be honest, probably more than) the average bear, I didn’t quite know what to do with so many people staring at me. Culturally, staring is not really rude here, so between 200 and 300 children and adults alike gawked openly at me, wondering why this new lekgowa was hanging out at their cultural event, rather than just passing through the village on their way to the delta as most white tourists do. It was a bit like that dream where you show up at school with no pants on, and can’t find them or cover yourself and people are staring at you. Except it’s real.
Determined to act “normal” and in the absence of the ability to really communicate with anybody as it’s tough to tell who can speak English and my Setswana sucks once I get past greetings, I picked up a baby. Just one that was wandering around. This seems a crazy and random and maybe even dangerous thing to do in American culture, but here it’s completely normal, and took the spotlight off a bit. The child stared at me in shock, but eventually got over the fact that I’m white and went back to gurgling. My host sister is a member of the community choir which I have subsequently kind of joined and they were performing, and there were skits and speakers. Finally a woman that works at the clinic offered me a chair and I was able blend into the crowd a bit more. I overall enjoyed the experience. And I soon learned that this is all only the beginning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)