Hello Jenny wachers.
I apologize for not posting lately, I've been writing but as a result of my recent computer reformat (NO MORE VIRUSES!!!!!) It seems the passkey to microsoft works key isn't valid or some such thing so I've been composing via notepad, which then must be reformatted to get onto the flash drives and onto the internet. Imagine that, something in Africa being difficult. So if anyone knows how to get a valid key or remedy this problem short of contacting bill gates let me know (i'm somewhat computer illiterate.)
So I am writing, just haven't had time to properly sit in front of a computer connected to the internet and get it all posted for the world to see. But let me assure you that I've been having some amazing experiences, seeing amazing things, growing like crazy, both in the painful and joyful ways, and will tell you all all about it as soon as I get my shit together (yet another reoccuring African theme).
But as I am at the internet now I wanted to give a few shout outs to those I've been less than able to contact and congratulate on their milestones. You are all held very closely in my heart on your special days. I apologize in advance for anyone I'm inadvertantly overlooking as I don't have my planner right here in front of me and it seems early onset is comig even earlier these days, but wanted to try to honor you in some small way.
Sarah and Martin, Andrea and Joe and Joe and Carly: congratulations on one year of marriage (each). Your commitment to each other and the bond of marriage inspire me from afar. Thanks again for allowing me the honor of being a part of your special days. I love you.
Happy Birthday to Grandma, Dad, Wendy, Jody, Kassapa, and early birthday to Naneek and B. B- I hope your recovery comes to be more speedy than it has been of late.
Thank you to Mom & Paul, Dad, Naneek, Karly, Katie, Annie, Lee, Andrea, Erica, Adryan and the Lightning family for your recent packages and letters. It means a lot and brings me tears of joy to see the love and care you've put into sending things to me from so far away. It gives me hope and peace to be reminded of home and to have a short break from the reality that is Africa. Thank you so much for the luxuries of home that I enjoy more than words can express.
Thank you so much and congratulations. I'm honored to have you in my life
Jen
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Botswana Birthday!
As with all Katchmark women (or at least the ones who at one point resided at 2438 in Coon Rapids) I tend to like to celebrate my birthday. A lot. I warn people about its approach from months off, and like to get at least a good 2 weeks to a month mileage out of “my special day”. As it turns out my time in Botswana has been no different.
It began when one of my PCV buddies came to Seronga as she had an event with her NGO and brought chocolate as a birthday present. We then had dinner with Simon and we mentioned that my birthday was coming and he a bit drunkenly wrote down the date, and muttered that we would “make a plan”. We then spent the weekend in the bush, complete with super close elephant and hippo sightings and barbeque and my friend V even made me a birthday cake. I was feted with bottles of African liquor and marshmallows and granadilla yogurt and it was a great party. They actually sang happy birthday with at least 5 different forms of the English accent (Australian, English, Irish, American, and southern African). It was cool.
Tuesday was my actual birthday- (it began with B calling to serenade me with Frank Sinatra singing happy birthday from his ipod.) and I had made brownies (no measuring cups again!!! And they were good!) and I was running around the village distributing m&m covered birthday brownies to all my buddies (and the extremely destitute man who always begs me for chibuku). The Kgosi in particular was amused with my attempt at cake. I had several different Setswana infused attempts at the happy birthday song and all the children who had given up on begging from me were pleasantly surprised at their half hearted attempts being rewarded with a sweet (although many of them got the oranges and various other remnants left in my fridge that had to be disposed of before leaving for such a long time. They were still happy as ripe oranges are a treat here too).
I been trying to hitch a flight to Maun to begin the journey to the Peace Corps In Service Training that I had to make the seemingly endless trip down to Kanye for. I checked the houseboats company who subcontract with the bush pilots out of Maun during the brownie tour of Seronga and ended up being in luck. There was an empty game flight going back to Maun that afternoon. I rushed home to get prepared to close up the house and get down to Maun. I checked the mail, cried over my birthday packages and then it was over to the “airstrip”. I got there early enough that I had time to sit with my buddy the air traffic controller (whose name means “judgment” in English and really just spends his time writing down the numbers and getting signatures of planes that land.) The plane landed to pick up the tourists and the pilot jumped out.
The accent hit me first. British. Scruffy dirty, and giving off the distinct impression of being hung over. He greeted the tourists who were going to take the game flight and I introduced myself. He was exactly the type of bad boy that I'd been known to fall for in a former life. As he walked to the end of the tarmac and turned his back to the crowd to pee, (in and of itself not extremely odd behavior in a land where toilets and pit stops are few, and the overpowering smell in the heat of the porta potties you do find is enough to make even those with the worst sense of smell cringe.) I realized I was potentially in big trouble. The beautiful thing about getting older is that I am sometimes wise enough to more clearly see the trouble that has always been completely visible to everyone but myself from a mile away. The other beautiful part about being older is that although I know better, I can still claim to be too young to care. And so although there was clear and present danger ahead, I tossed my head (now such a less effective move without hair) and walked right into it.... or rather climbed into it. As in the cockpit of the plane with this British devil. Happy Birthday to me. We chatted for a minute, (or spoke as much as two people can over the roar of a small engine taking off on a tennis court covered runway) and he told me his name (his name for these purposes will be "Bruise", for reasons to be revealed in a later blog entry.) and I immediately recoiled. It turns out V had been speaking of this very pilot earlier in the weekend, and as the saying goes, chicks before... well in the interest of not being completely vulgar online (hi grandma!) I'll let you fill in the blanks there the hint is that it rhymes. I immediately discretely (again as discretely as one can be being so close to the person next to you that you're constantly bumping each other... or was that an accident.. never mind) text v asking her if she was sure she wanted dibs (all the while thinking perhaps there might be a cultural confusion with the concept of dibs or at least a technological problem with v being out in the bush. No such luck). After my party this weekend I was increasingly coming to appreciate v as a friend, and in the interest of not losing her, (in a land of HIV gone wild and not a huge amount of reliable dating prospects, there are even less cool girls you can trust, the women of my village have a tendency to scoff at my attempts to "blend" as they seem to think I'm after their men. and let's be honest their men are proposing to me daily. I'd be pissed at me, too) so I toned down the flirtatious "Jen of the party" vibe and as is sometimes typical of men Bruise didn't seem to be able to read my thoughts and didn't realize he no longer had a chance.
The banter continued and eventually because I love my birthday I mentioned this fact to Bruise, also asking him where the party was in Maun that night. He speculated that because it was my birthday perhaps I'd like to fly the plane. Well hell yes I want to fly the plane if for no other reason than to brag about it on my blog! With that innocent question Bruise set off a month of "yes" the likes of which are seldom seen in the Jen in America which seems to come completely naturally to the Jen in Botswana.
So after a bit more mild flirting and plane flying we landed in Maun, a glorious 45 minutes after taking off on a drive that takes between 10 and God knows how many hours. I went immediately across the street from the airport to Bon Arrive' a little restaurant coffee shop and really bar that is the place where the who's who of Maun hangs out because it's the first thing that you see when you come out of the airport. So it's the quintessential place to scope and be scoped; a combination of the people who basically run the town, the flyboys, the tourists, and those who want to be seen with (or become acquainted with, I've found that when you're poor and in the Peace Corps it helps to have friends with connections) one or all of the above. Eventually P arrives and we get to having a few drinks and talking, and I'm running my mouth about my latest and greatest ideas about fish in Seronga, and soon enough we've made friends with a good number of pilots and such. As we get home the international birthday well wishes ensue, and by the end of the night I was drifting off to a happy 27 year old sleep. The festivities of course continued for the next week at least, with birthday packages and cards waiting for me when I got back to site a few weeks later. I have to say that all in all, my first African birthday was a smashing success.
It began when one of my PCV buddies came to Seronga as she had an event with her NGO and brought chocolate as a birthday present. We then had dinner with Simon and we mentioned that my birthday was coming and he a bit drunkenly wrote down the date, and muttered that we would “make a plan”. We then spent the weekend in the bush, complete with super close elephant and hippo sightings and barbeque and my friend V even made me a birthday cake. I was feted with bottles of African liquor and marshmallows and granadilla yogurt and it was a great party. They actually sang happy birthday with at least 5 different forms of the English accent (Australian, English, Irish, American, and southern African). It was cool.
Tuesday was my actual birthday- (it began with B calling to serenade me with Frank Sinatra singing happy birthday from his ipod.) and I had made brownies (no measuring cups again!!! And they were good!) and I was running around the village distributing m&m covered birthday brownies to all my buddies (and the extremely destitute man who always begs me for chibuku). The Kgosi in particular was amused with my attempt at cake. I had several different Setswana infused attempts at the happy birthday song and all the children who had given up on begging from me were pleasantly surprised at their half hearted attempts being rewarded with a sweet (although many of them got the oranges and various other remnants left in my fridge that had to be disposed of before leaving for such a long time. They were still happy as ripe oranges are a treat here too).
I been trying to hitch a flight to Maun to begin the journey to the Peace Corps In Service Training that I had to make the seemingly endless trip down to Kanye for. I checked the houseboats company who subcontract with the bush pilots out of Maun during the brownie tour of Seronga and ended up being in luck. There was an empty game flight going back to Maun that afternoon. I rushed home to get prepared to close up the house and get down to Maun. I checked the mail, cried over my birthday packages and then it was over to the “airstrip”. I got there early enough that I had time to sit with my buddy the air traffic controller (whose name means “judgment” in English and really just spends his time writing down the numbers and getting signatures of planes that land.) The plane landed to pick up the tourists and the pilot jumped out.
The accent hit me first. British. Scruffy dirty, and giving off the distinct impression of being hung over. He greeted the tourists who were going to take the game flight and I introduced myself. He was exactly the type of bad boy that I'd been known to fall for in a former life. As he walked to the end of the tarmac and turned his back to the crowd to pee, (in and of itself not extremely odd behavior in a land where toilets and pit stops are few, and the overpowering smell in the heat of the porta potties you do find is enough to make even those with the worst sense of smell cringe.) I realized I was potentially in big trouble. The beautiful thing about getting older is that I am sometimes wise enough to more clearly see the trouble that has always been completely visible to everyone but myself from a mile away. The other beautiful part about being older is that although I know better, I can still claim to be too young to care. And so although there was clear and present danger ahead, I tossed my head (now such a less effective move without hair) and walked right into it.... or rather climbed into it. As in the cockpit of the plane with this British devil. Happy Birthday to me. We chatted for a minute, (or spoke as much as two people can over the roar of a small engine taking off on a tennis court covered runway) and he told me his name (his name for these purposes will be "Bruise", for reasons to be revealed in a later blog entry.) and I immediately recoiled. It turns out V had been speaking of this very pilot earlier in the weekend, and as the saying goes, chicks before... well in the interest of not being completely vulgar online (hi grandma!) I'll let you fill in the blanks there the hint is that it rhymes. I immediately discretely (again as discretely as one can be being so close to the person next to you that you're constantly bumping each other... or was that an accident.. never mind) text v asking her if she was sure she wanted dibs (all the while thinking perhaps there might be a cultural confusion with the concept of dibs or at least a technological problem with v being out in the bush. No such luck). After my party this weekend I was increasingly coming to appreciate v as a friend, and in the interest of not losing her, (in a land of HIV gone wild and not a huge amount of reliable dating prospects, there are even less cool girls you can trust, the women of my village have a tendency to scoff at my attempts to "blend" as they seem to think I'm after their men. and let's be honest their men are proposing to me daily. I'd be pissed at me, too) so I toned down the flirtatious "Jen of the party" vibe and as is sometimes typical of men Bruise didn't seem to be able to read my thoughts and didn't realize he no longer had a chance.
The banter continued and eventually because I love my birthday I mentioned this fact to Bruise, also asking him where the party was in Maun that night. He speculated that because it was my birthday perhaps I'd like to fly the plane. Well hell yes I want to fly the plane if for no other reason than to brag about it on my blog! With that innocent question Bruise set off a month of "yes" the likes of which are seldom seen in the Jen in America which seems to come completely naturally to the Jen in Botswana.
So after a bit more mild flirting and plane flying we landed in Maun, a glorious 45 minutes after taking off on a drive that takes between 10 and God knows how many hours. I went immediately across the street from the airport to Bon Arrive' a little restaurant coffee shop and really bar that is the place where the who's who of Maun hangs out because it's the first thing that you see when you come out of the airport. So it's the quintessential place to scope and be scoped; a combination of the people who basically run the town, the flyboys, the tourists, and those who want to be seen with (or become acquainted with, I've found that when you're poor and in the Peace Corps it helps to have friends with connections) one or all of the above. Eventually P arrives and we get to having a few drinks and talking, and I'm running my mouth about my latest and greatest ideas about fish in Seronga, and soon enough we've made friends with a good number of pilots and such. As we get home the international birthday well wishes ensue, and by the end of the night I was drifting off to a happy 27 year old sleep. The festivities of course continued for the next week at least, with birthday packages and cards waiting for me when I got back to site a few weeks later. I have to say that all in all, my first African birthday was a smashing success.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
One of my heroes....
Among many that I have been lucky to have been acquainted with in my life, has again recently become my friend Jo. She has been since the moment we met, but what she has been through lately makes what is left of my hair curl.
For those of you who don't know, she was serving as a PCV in the Republic of Georgia and was evacuated due to the danger and uncertainty surrounding the recent invasion and attacks by Russia. She has since returned to Georgia and although not officially anymore a PCV has chosen to stay in the wake of the conflict to help the people who, as she says, "need help more than ever."
Now I know that I bitch and moan about the roughness of my life in Seronga, but at least I have peace and general stability. I cannot imagine how my heart would break if something like this were to happen in my village/country. Please keep reading her blog http://www.jomrrl.blogspot.com/ for updates and help support her cause in any capacity you can, including but not limited to sending good vibes. Her strength is a source of inspiration for me, and please remember that along with our friends down south in light of the recent hurricane, just because the immediate danger is over doesn't mean anyone is out of the woods-rebuilding takes a lot.
Peace, Love, Hope
Jen
For those of you who don't know, she was serving as a PCV in the Republic of Georgia and was evacuated due to the danger and uncertainty surrounding the recent invasion and attacks by Russia. She has since returned to Georgia and although not officially anymore a PCV has chosen to stay in the wake of the conflict to help the people who, as she says, "need help more than ever."
Now I know that I bitch and moan about the roughness of my life in Seronga, but at least I have peace and general stability. I cannot imagine how my heart would break if something like this were to happen in my village/country. Please keep reading her blog http://www.jomrrl.blogspot.com/ for updates and help support her cause in any capacity you can, including but not limited to sending good vibes. Her strength is a source of inspiration for me, and please remember that along with our friends down south in light of the recent hurricane, just because the immediate danger is over doesn't mean anyone is out of the woods-rebuilding takes a lot.
Peace, Love, Hope
Jen
You know you're 27(or at least closer to becoming a real adult.....)
When you actually wait until your real birthday to open your birthday cards that say “wait until your birthday to open this!” Thank you everyone for your cards, packages, calls, text messages and facebook salutations for my birthday. I haven’t yet received all that I have been informed were sent, but will have a smorgasbord waiting at the post when I get back to Seronga. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, all your well wishes mean the world to me in celebrating another year of life (and so far from home). I love you and am so grateful for your support!
Save the cheerleader, Save the World....
Yes.
I realize this is an incredibly cheesy (but you have to admit-catchy) slogan from season 1 of Heroes- a show I certainly never watched at home but could see myself indulging in for hours at a time here in Botswana, given the electricity and the chance… but bear with me…
I was, in high school and generally much to my chagrin when I admit the fact now, a cheerleader. I was of the middle generation of cheerleaders. We existed right on the cusp of cheerleading becoming a sport, and competitive cheerleading becoming an actual athletic event. We also remained a part of the seemingly archaic system of a tradition whose main goal was to look cute and yell for boys, the only activity available for girls pre-Title IX and the implementation of women’s competitive sports in schools. Cheerleading was in the in-between world where it would innovate, evolve and move forward or fall into obscurity. It was a concept and group that struggled to maintain its integrity yet redefine its goals and aims in a modern and changing world.
I can’t tell you exactly why I wanted to dress in a tiny little outfit and jump around cheering for boys athletics other than that it might perhaps get me a boyfriend? Because I loved being the center of attention? Because I like telling people what to do and having them follow my lead? Maybe I was delusional enough to believe that all the screaming in the world could actually impact the game being played on the field in front of me by boys who couldn’t hear a word I was saying, much less obeying my ignorant to the rules of the game and tackily rhyming shouts? I did it for all four years of high school and other than knowing I wanted to be on the Varsity Football squad it’s one of my more unexamined life choices.
Regardless, cheerleading is part of my past, and like every part of my past, I’ve learned a thing or two from it. The first thing I’ve learned is something I’ve come to realize as being my role in Seronga. The purpose of having cheerleaders in the traditional sense is theoretically to encourage the players of a team to do something good, or score or achieve a goal, and to lead the masses in screaming encouraging yet often incoherent rants at the field. In relation to my work here, this sort of ends up being the main task I perform on a daily basis. It may the only act I perform in my two years here that feels like it makes any iota of change.
I run around the village trying to join and support committees that already exist and create ones where there is a lack. I wear a skirt at the kgotla and have cut my hair short to blend in with the people here, to make them believe and understand I’m part of their “team” despite my white skin and lack of much Setswana. I use simple, easily translated language to spread a message that has been repeated countless times in an effort to get people here to do something good for themselves, to make them believe they can perform the tasks of using a condom, get tested to know their status, and demand respect and faithfulness from their partners. Instead of rhyming couplets of sports jargon I shout sexual health encouragement and instead of pompoms I shake condoms and pamphlets. In place of pep fests I perform my routine at sexual health events or really anywhere there is a group of people who might possibly listen to me. I attempt to create events people will attend designed to get people excited about the cause. Rather repeating the same “go team go” cheers I engage in generally ill fated but repetitive conversations about “faithfulness”. Instead of cheering for the “number 1 team” people in the village have taken to holding up their index finger when they see me and shouting “one” as I do to emphasize my point of “one partner” being a key to reducing the spread of HIV. This is their favorite joke with me, second only to yelling “Lorato” and waving and laughing.
In some ways I know I’m cheering for a purpose and game that may or may not be successful. Like being a cheerleader for boy’s sports, you win some, you lose some, often through no lack of effort on your part. Sometimes futility is obvious, and I can see heads nodding with empty eyes behind them, the point is lost. Sometimes I see the struggle behind those same eyes that is the mind of someone possibly being changed. Score one for team life. Yeah Team. I guess I can better understand why it brings you all such joy to send me stuff. Maybe by saving the cheerleader you really ARE saving the world;-)
I realize this is an incredibly cheesy (but you have to admit-catchy) slogan from season 1 of Heroes- a show I certainly never watched at home but could see myself indulging in for hours at a time here in Botswana, given the electricity and the chance… but bear with me…
I was, in high school and generally much to my chagrin when I admit the fact now, a cheerleader. I was of the middle generation of cheerleaders. We existed right on the cusp of cheerleading becoming a sport, and competitive cheerleading becoming an actual athletic event. We also remained a part of the seemingly archaic system of a tradition whose main goal was to look cute and yell for boys, the only activity available for girls pre-Title IX and the implementation of women’s competitive sports in schools. Cheerleading was in the in-between world where it would innovate, evolve and move forward or fall into obscurity. It was a concept and group that struggled to maintain its integrity yet redefine its goals and aims in a modern and changing world.
I can’t tell you exactly why I wanted to dress in a tiny little outfit and jump around cheering for boys athletics other than that it might perhaps get me a boyfriend? Because I loved being the center of attention? Because I like telling people what to do and having them follow my lead? Maybe I was delusional enough to believe that all the screaming in the world could actually impact the game being played on the field in front of me by boys who couldn’t hear a word I was saying, much less obeying my ignorant to the rules of the game and tackily rhyming shouts? I did it for all four years of high school and other than knowing I wanted to be on the Varsity Football squad it’s one of my more unexamined life choices.
Regardless, cheerleading is part of my past, and like every part of my past, I’ve learned a thing or two from it. The first thing I’ve learned is something I’ve come to realize as being my role in Seronga. The purpose of having cheerleaders in the traditional sense is theoretically to encourage the players of a team to do something good, or score or achieve a goal, and to lead the masses in screaming encouraging yet often incoherent rants at the field. In relation to my work here, this sort of ends up being the main task I perform on a daily basis. It may the only act I perform in my two years here that feels like it makes any iota of change.
I run around the village trying to join and support committees that already exist and create ones where there is a lack. I wear a skirt at the kgotla and have cut my hair short to blend in with the people here, to make them believe and understand I’m part of their “team” despite my white skin and lack of much Setswana. I use simple, easily translated language to spread a message that has been repeated countless times in an effort to get people here to do something good for themselves, to make them believe they can perform the tasks of using a condom, get tested to know their status, and demand respect and faithfulness from their partners. Instead of rhyming couplets of sports jargon I shout sexual health encouragement and instead of pompoms I shake condoms and pamphlets. In place of pep fests I perform my routine at sexual health events or really anywhere there is a group of people who might possibly listen to me. I attempt to create events people will attend designed to get people excited about the cause. Rather repeating the same “go team go” cheers I engage in generally ill fated but repetitive conversations about “faithfulness”. Instead of cheering for the “number 1 team” people in the village have taken to holding up their index finger when they see me and shouting “one” as I do to emphasize my point of “one partner” being a key to reducing the spread of HIV. This is their favorite joke with me, second only to yelling “Lorato” and waving and laughing.
In some ways I know I’m cheering for a purpose and game that may or may not be successful. Like being a cheerleader for boy’s sports, you win some, you lose some, often through no lack of effort on your part. Sometimes futility is obvious, and I can see heads nodding with empty eyes behind them, the point is lost. Sometimes I see the struggle behind those same eyes that is the mind of someone possibly being changed. Score one for team life. Yeah Team. I guess I can better understand why it brings you all such joy to send me stuff. Maybe by saving the cheerleader you really ARE saving the world;-)
In which I learn that there's more to be scared of in the dark in Seronga than mice, lizards and spiders.....
When I first came to Seronga, I had a generally difficult time integrating into the village. I think it’s hard whenever and wherever you’re the new kid in town, but it’s even more so when you are one of the only white faces, from a different culture completely and barely speak any of the language. I had a tough time specifically distinguishing amongst all the people constantly greeting me and being introduced to me, and identifying who in the village would be helpful to undertake and collaborate on projects, who glimpses my white face and sees me as an open bank, and who actively wants to harm me in some way.
On my first visit before I moved here at the end of June, I was walking through the center of the village with my counterpart and a man came up to me, seemingly drunk but speaking excellent English, though murmuring, as is occasionally the custom here. He asked my name, as most people do, and when I told him “Lorato” he scoffed and asked for my “real” name, which has since become a sign that sets off warning bells in my head.
I looked at my counterpart for help, but as we had met the day before and I had spent the entire day not knowing he was my counterpart, he was pretty tough to try and read. I didn’t want to be rude to someone who could end up being important, (or just as crucial to note in African culture-related to someone important) but this guy gave me the creeps. He kept leering at me and then began talking about us being together, which really began to worry me, and I gave my standard issue lie that I was married. He babbled on, increasingly incoherently and animatedly about how I was so pretty I should have many boyfriends, and he would be mine for this village. We just needed to get to know each other.
At this point my counterpart, oblivious to my discomfort, began laughing and I slowly tried to but more space between myself and this man. When he grabbed my arm, I wrenched it away, and walked quickly away, into which direction I didn’t know but I knew I needed to get out of here. My counterpart eventually followed, laughing about how I didn’t need to worry about that one, he’s “psychotic.” Which made me feel a LOT better, or really, not so much.
When the man showed up at the clinic the next day, and walked straight up to the caravan where I work, one of the nurses began yelling at him and chased him away, explaining that he always harasses women and especially white ones, and that another volunteer who had been here before me had had a great deal of trouble with him. She explained that he was “psychotic” (at which point I began to question if there was a language translation problem, or why they were tossing that word around so freely) and also that he had fried his brain from using too many drugs. Apparently the nurses at the clinic gave him an injection once a month that calmed him down. Great.
When I got back to training I spoke with the security people at the Peace Corps, and asked what had happened with him previously, the answer I was given was that he was a nuisance, but considered to be harmless. Other than occasionally following me around the village and sometimes grabbing my arm, which I generally responded to by yelling at him or ignoring him, I haven’t had very much of a problem with him, until now.
In many ways I was caught up in a moral dilemma, having a psychology degree and understanding that the behaviors of a mentally ill person should not be addressed in the same way as those of a “normal” person. Being a generally non-violent person it was hard for me to envision following all my male co-worker’s advice to “kick him” and “beat him” and chase him away. I was stuck between trying to be a role model for how to treat those who are mentally ill, and having a stalker.
Having never really been one to take to much shit from guys (I’ve been known to swing at men that I thought were disrespecting my friends, and also to scream that "I pity the fool that tries to f*ck with me...." there are plenty of witnesses to this ladylike little display...) and having very briefly trained with a friend’s dad who is a boxer, I generally don’t have a lot of apprehensions about my safety or ability to defend myself if push came to shove. I’ve often claimed to be “scrappy”. I’ve gotten right back up in the face of men who have tried to intimate me in foreign languages in foreign countries. I’ve taken some sucker punches in my day, and feel generally confident in my ability to react to most given situations. That being said, I’ll generally do nearly anything in my power to keep it from coming to a confrontation. Although my key ring has a pocketknife on it, I would really hesitate to use it for the risk of exposing blood in such an HIV infested area. All this is, of course coming from the me who has never had a constant and grating mentally ill stalker.
I hadn’t seen much of the guy for a while, apparently the nurses at the clinic drive around and find him around the 20th of every month and give him the injection that keeps him calm. It’s high tourist season in the delta, which means there are lots of white people everywhere which seems to generally agitate him. These factors together produced the perfect storm of conditions that caused my week to go from bad to worse.
I had been having a bit of a rough week (see last entry) and had been running pretty often to quiet my mind and let off steam. I was walking through the village from the internet that had gone out as I was trying to read (never mind respond to) my email for the third time in two days. I stopped by the bakery and purchased a 50 pula cell phone recharge card that didn’t work, and was very near my limit of being very pissed off. I focused my entire mind on the run I was planning. I was interrupted from my last chance at mental solitude when my stalker friend came up to me in front of probably 50 white tourists and began the whole “I want to get to know you” routine complete with arm grabbing.
I pulled my arm away and began screaming all sorts of things I’m unwilling to repeat here and stomped away. When he followed me one of the male tourists asked if I was having a problem, and I said some more less than demure things to him as well.
When I got home I did not pass go or collect 200 dollars, pula or anything but got straight into my running gear and put on my occasionally working ipod. Today I was lucky and it did. I went on my run, noting that the guy was at the tuck shop at the end of my path. He followed me a bit of the way, and I ignored him and kept going. When I returned from my run he was at the tuck shop further from my house. The sun was setting and dusk was falling as I reached my compound. My phone rang and I was so happy to talk to my sister that I went into the gate of my compound, into my house, opened the window and sat in the breeze while we chatted. I forgot about the guy completely.
Until I heard a knock on my door. I had a feeling I knew who it was without looking. I was still on the phone with my sister, and called out to see who was there, and couldn’t hear the response. I opened the door.
There he stood, on my doorstep, flanked by the two teenaged boys who seem to live on my compound and whom I hire to beat the sand out of my huge carpet and formerly to kill lizards. He smiled a creepy smile and began muttering about someone in the village selling chickens. I began bellowing that he couldn’t be here and needed to get the hell out, and yelling at the boys (who speak very, very little English) that he was not allowed to come to my house, and they needed to tell their father (who luckily enough was staying in Seronga this week- prior to Monday I didn’t even know I had a host dad). I slammed the door and realized my poor sister had heard everything on the phone, and was millions of miles away, and how terrible that must be to overhear something like that over an ocean and several thousand miles.
I heard the gate opening and closing and got off the phone with my sister and went immediately into the “dealing with the situation” mode that was only possible rather than crying because I had already filled my quota for tears this week. I tried calling the police, a number that rang and rang without answer. I called my counterpart and heard my voice rising to a pitch of near hysteria and told him to come over. I heard the gate again and it was my host dad, fastening a chain and padlock on the gate. He came to my door apologizing that the man had come in, and saying that he had been absent. He told me his mother lives next door and that the neighbors had been instructed to chase him away if he comes around again. My counterpart showed up and reminded me that I should “kill” the guy if he came back. He called another guy at the clinic who said we should deal with it tomorrow. I called the PC safety and security officer who finally got the police on the line and they came to my house, encouraging me to call them on the main line and they would pick up next time, and the younger officer gave me his number, which made me wonder again if he was trying to help me or wanted me to “check him”.
After all the commotion and my sister calling back to make sure I was ok, I sank deeply into a combination funk of feeling helpless and sorry for myself. I reasoned and screamed with the powers that be in the Universe in my head. I pouted that I’d like a moment, just one hot minute break from these challenges. Although I’m grateful for all that I’m learning here, I’d like a day off. One day when I can just go through even a few hours without a major pain in the ass moment, free of crazy stalkers, and not filled with unlimited amounts of disappointments in the form of people not doing basic tasks that would make the world, the organization involved, the way things run a little easier. Or even something occurring at its scheduled time, following a protocol that makes actual logical sense. Where things happen as expected for just a few minutes, and when I can know that a call from home won’t have a completely shitty connection and cut out after 45 minutes. I cried and grunted and moved the heaviest piece of furniture I can move by myself in front of the door. Eventually I exhausted myself of feeling sorry for myself and fell into a fitful sleep. In the morning I realized I should be thankful it was a night without hallucinations.
As with everything that happens here, there are lessons to be learned, and they are as follows:
1) It really pisses me off that men have the power to intimidate women this way, and in relation to men we have to always be thinking about the question of what are they capable of, how much danger am I in, what will I do? When people wonder why women tend to over think things it seems clear to me that it comes at least partially from these sorts of situations.
2) It angers the shit out of me that other men think they can be the knight and “save” or “protect” a woman in this sort of situation, and
3) I was pissed at myself for being caught between desperately just wanting some man to come in and take care of me and kick this guy’s ass and desperately not wanting to feel like some damsel in distress, and know how to once and for all take care of this situation myself. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to feel pity and patience for this man or kick him with all I had.
4) I realized how much I was truly in love with Seronga and how much I would fight to stay here, and how difficult I would find it if the security people had to pull me out of here, to restart in another village.
5) Finally I realized that from here, things can only get better…
On my first visit before I moved here at the end of June, I was walking through the center of the village with my counterpart and a man came up to me, seemingly drunk but speaking excellent English, though murmuring, as is occasionally the custom here. He asked my name, as most people do, and when I told him “Lorato” he scoffed and asked for my “real” name, which has since become a sign that sets off warning bells in my head.
I looked at my counterpart for help, but as we had met the day before and I had spent the entire day not knowing he was my counterpart, he was pretty tough to try and read. I didn’t want to be rude to someone who could end up being important, (or just as crucial to note in African culture-related to someone important) but this guy gave me the creeps. He kept leering at me and then began talking about us being together, which really began to worry me, and I gave my standard issue lie that I was married. He babbled on, increasingly incoherently and animatedly about how I was so pretty I should have many boyfriends, and he would be mine for this village. We just needed to get to know each other.
At this point my counterpart, oblivious to my discomfort, began laughing and I slowly tried to but more space between myself and this man. When he grabbed my arm, I wrenched it away, and walked quickly away, into which direction I didn’t know but I knew I needed to get out of here. My counterpart eventually followed, laughing about how I didn’t need to worry about that one, he’s “psychotic.” Which made me feel a LOT better, or really, not so much.
When the man showed up at the clinic the next day, and walked straight up to the caravan where I work, one of the nurses began yelling at him and chased him away, explaining that he always harasses women and especially white ones, and that another volunteer who had been here before me had had a great deal of trouble with him. She explained that he was “psychotic” (at which point I began to question if there was a language translation problem, or why they were tossing that word around so freely) and also that he had fried his brain from using too many drugs. Apparently the nurses at the clinic gave him an injection once a month that calmed him down. Great.
When I got back to training I spoke with the security people at the Peace Corps, and asked what had happened with him previously, the answer I was given was that he was a nuisance, but considered to be harmless. Other than occasionally following me around the village and sometimes grabbing my arm, which I generally responded to by yelling at him or ignoring him, I haven’t had very much of a problem with him, until now.
In many ways I was caught up in a moral dilemma, having a psychology degree and understanding that the behaviors of a mentally ill person should not be addressed in the same way as those of a “normal” person. Being a generally non-violent person it was hard for me to envision following all my male co-worker’s advice to “kick him” and “beat him” and chase him away. I was stuck between trying to be a role model for how to treat those who are mentally ill, and having a stalker.
Having never really been one to take to much shit from guys (I’ve been known to swing at men that I thought were disrespecting my friends, and also to scream that "I pity the fool that tries to f*ck with me...." there are plenty of witnesses to this ladylike little display...) and having very briefly trained with a friend’s dad who is a boxer, I generally don’t have a lot of apprehensions about my safety or ability to defend myself if push came to shove. I’ve often claimed to be “scrappy”. I’ve gotten right back up in the face of men who have tried to intimate me in foreign languages in foreign countries. I’ve taken some sucker punches in my day, and feel generally confident in my ability to react to most given situations. That being said, I’ll generally do nearly anything in my power to keep it from coming to a confrontation. Although my key ring has a pocketknife on it, I would really hesitate to use it for the risk of exposing blood in such an HIV infested area. All this is, of course coming from the me who has never had a constant and grating mentally ill stalker.
I hadn’t seen much of the guy for a while, apparently the nurses at the clinic drive around and find him around the 20th of every month and give him the injection that keeps him calm. It’s high tourist season in the delta, which means there are lots of white people everywhere which seems to generally agitate him. These factors together produced the perfect storm of conditions that caused my week to go from bad to worse.
I had been having a bit of a rough week (see last entry) and had been running pretty often to quiet my mind and let off steam. I was walking through the village from the internet that had gone out as I was trying to read (never mind respond to) my email for the third time in two days. I stopped by the bakery and purchased a 50 pula cell phone recharge card that didn’t work, and was very near my limit of being very pissed off. I focused my entire mind on the run I was planning. I was interrupted from my last chance at mental solitude when my stalker friend came up to me in front of probably 50 white tourists and began the whole “I want to get to know you” routine complete with arm grabbing.
I pulled my arm away and began screaming all sorts of things I’m unwilling to repeat here and stomped away. When he followed me one of the male tourists asked if I was having a problem, and I said some more less than demure things to him as well.
When I got home I did not pass go or collect 200 dollars, pula or anything but got straight into my running gear and put on my occasionally working ipod. Today I was lucky and it did. I went on my run, noting that the guy was at the tuck shop at the end of my path. He followed me a bit of the way, and I ignored him and kept going. When I returned from my run he was at the tuck shop further from my house. The sun was setting and dusk was falling as I reached my compound. My phone rang and I was so happy to talk to my sister that I went into the gate of my compound, into my house, opened the window and sat in the breeze while we chatted. I forgot about the guy completely.
Until I heard a knock on my door. I had a feeling I knew who it was without looking. I was still on the phone with my sister, and called out to see who was there, and couldn’t hear the response. I opened the door.
There he stood, on my doorstep, flanked by the two teenaged boys who seem to live on my compound and whom I hire to beat the sand out of my huge carpet and formerly to kill lizards. He smiled a creepy smile and began muttering about someone in the village selling chickens. I began bellowing that he couldn’t be here and needed to get the hell out, and yelling at the boys (who speak very, very little English) that he was not allowed to come to my house, and they needed to tell their father (who luckily enough was staying in Seronga this week- prior to Monday I didn’t even know I had a host dad). I slammed the door and realized my poor sister had heard everything on the phone, and was millions of miles away, and how terrible that must be to overhear something like that over an ocean and several thousand miles.
I heard the gate opening and closing and got off the phone with my sister and went immediately into the “dealing with the situation” mode that was only possible rather than crying because I had already filled my quota for tears this week. I tried calling the police, a number that rang and rang without answer. I called my counterpart and heard my voice rising to a pitch of near hysteria and told him to come over. I heard the gate again and it was my host dad, fastening a chain and padlock on the gate. He came to my door apologizing that the man had come in, and saying that he had been absent. He told me his mother lives next door and that the neighbors had been instructed to chase him away if he comes around again. My counterpart showed up and reminded me that I should “kill” the guy if he came back. He called another guy at the clinic who said we should deal with it tomorrow. I called the PC safety and security officer who finally got the police on the line and they came to my house, encouraging me to call them on the main line and they would pick up next time, and the younger officer gave me his number, which made me wonder again if he was trying to help me or wanted me to “check him”.
After all the commotion and my sister calling back to make sure I was ok, I sank deeply into a combination funk of feeling helpless and sorry for myself. I reasoned and screamed with the powers that be in the Universe in my head. I pouted that I’d like a moment, just one hot minute break from these challenges. Although I’m grateful for all that I’m learning here, I’d like a day off. One day when I can just go through even a few hours without a major pain in the ass moment, free of crazy stalkers, and not filled with unlimited amounts of disappointments in the form of people not doing basic tasks that would make the world, the organization involved, the way things run a little easier. Or even something occurring at its scheduled time, following a protocol that makes actual logical sense. Where things happen as expected for just a few minutes, and when I can know that a call from home won’t have a completely shitty connection and cut out after 45 minutes. I cried and grunted and moved the heaviest piece of furniture I can move by myself in front of the door. Eventually I exhausted myself of feeling sorry for myself and fell into a fitful sleep. In the morning I realized I should be thankful it was a night without hallucinations.
As with everything that happens here, there are lessons to be learned, and they are as follows:
1) It really pisses me off that men have the power to intimidate women this way, and in relation to men we have to always be thinking about the question of what are they capable of, how much danger am I in, what will I do? When people wonder why women tend to over think things it seems clear to me that it comes at least partially from these sorts of situations.
2) It angers the shit out of me that other men think they can be the knight and “save” or “protect” a woman in this sort of situation, and
3) I was pissed at myself for being caught between desperately just wanting some man to come in and take care of me and kick this guy’s ass and desperately not wanting to feel like some damsel in distress, and know how to once and for all take care of this situation myself. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to feel pity and patience for this man or kick him with all I had.
4) I realized how much I was truly in love with Seronga and how much I would fight to stay here, and how difficult I would find it if the security people had to pull me out of here, to restart in another village.
5) Finally I realized that from here, things can only get better…
In which I come into a state of grace....
I run. Down the hard dirt road, the other direction than usual, as much for my mind as for my body. I run to chase the thoughts from my head, the tension from my body and the angst from my broken heart. I run. To feel the pieces of me that are still there, and which ones are now gone, to feel the familiar pains in my knee and shins that remind me who I am. I run. I listen to the raspy sound of my own breathing, filling and emptying my lungs of air, dust, light and darkness. I run. I wonder if the tears will come today, or if they’ll give it a rest, I wonder more out of bemused curiosity than in panic or fear, an evolution from the day before. I run. I need to smell the sweat on my skin, the dirt from the car that drives by too fast, and the shit from all the livestock along the road. I run. I need to feel the proof that I’m still here, and really where would I have gone, there’s no where to be other than where you are, and yet it feels a bit unreal. I run. I need to feel my physical presence and the strain and strength in my muscles and bones and blood, as often lately I am failing to find the strength of my spirit and my will, and sometimes my mental stability. I run. The road I take is the one out of Seronga, rather than my usually route further into the village, filled with the people who have come to know my name, and will call out to me. Their lives are the same as they were yesterday, and the same as they will be tomorrow, give or take the presence of water, and the knowledge from their test results as to the presence of HIV in their bodies. Mine is not. I run. I know I’ll never make it far enough to calm my heart, but I run faster at the very idea of it. If I just, If I just. If I can just.
It runs, as I run, through my head, like a mantra.
If I can just. If only I. If I could. If it were. If, If, If.
Nothing.
There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can change. Would I if I could, I don’t know. I used to think I did, but I don’t. Confusion reigns and has taken up permanent residency in my heart, right next to this calm clarity that is giving it hell in a struggle for power.
On a grander scale I vacillate wildly between empty and fullness, between numbness and a rapture that’s nearly painful, and sometimes actually is. I easily tire of people and yet crave connection and communication. I swim in rivers of uncertainty and float on an ocean of assurance. I shake my fists at the gods in one moment and fall to my knees thanking them the next. All the while knowing that I have control of little to nothing, yet fighting for it. Knowing in my heart if not my mind that time is the ruler of this and all worlds and states of minds. It is the only thing with the power to take away this pain, both mine and that of those around me, if ever, likely replacing it with a new one, interspersed with moments of joy and happiness that give the sadness it’s power and perspective.
And then I realize I’m experiencing the human condition.
Which is all one is guaranteed, or can expect from life.
And I relax, content to find the calm that lies within the storms, knowing that it will all happen again, in a cycle with no end. These feelings will come and go and continue until I take my last breath, and together the joy and pain and all the rest are the marker of being alive. I stop running. I start crying. I turn around and walk home.
It runs, as I run, through my head, like a mantra.
If I can just. If only I. If I could. If it were. If, If, If.
Nothing.
There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can change. Would I if I could, I don’t know. I used to think I did, but I don’t. Confusion reigns and has taken up permanent residency in my heart, right next to this calm clarity that is giving it hell in a struggle for power.
On a grander scale I vacillate wildly between empty and fullness, between numbness and a rapture that’s nearly painful, and sometimes actually is. I easily tire of people and yet crave connection and communication. I swim in rivers of uncertainty and float on an ocean of assurance. I shake my fists at the gods in one moment and fall to my knees thanking them the next. All the while knowing that I have control of little to nothing, yet fighting for it. Knowing in my heart if not my mind that time is the ruler of this and all worlds and states of minds. It is the only thing with the power to take away this pain, both mine and that of those around me, if ever, likely replacing it with a new one, interspersed with moments of joy and happiness that give the sadness it’s power and perspective.
And then I realize I’m experiencing the human condition.
Which is all one is guaranteed, or can expect from life.
And I relax, content to find the calm that lies within the storms, knowing that it will all happen again, in a cycle with no end. These feelings will come and go and continue until I take my last breath, and together the joy and pain and all the rest are the marker of being alive. I stop running. I start crying. I turn around and walk home.
Botswana Baby Shower!
A few weeks after I got to site I was on one of the runs I take through the village that end up hurting my knees and confounding those around me. The sand is deep and awkward to run in, and with the heat blasting you from above, and from the aforementioned sand below, there just seems to be no logical reason to be running ANYWHERE. People in the village laugh at me, ask me what am I doing, if I’m training, what for, where I’m going, if I’m thirsty, if I’ll die from this craziness?
I generally make it sort of near the police station which is at the other end of town, and stop in there to say hi to them and to see what’s happening. As this is Seronga, the answer is generally nothing. On this day however, the two female officers I have come to know were wrapping up baby items in cloth diapers. I had heard there was a baby shower in the village this weekend, but I had thus far failed to procure an invite (although to be honest, I hadn’t tried very hard). I managed to get one by asking them what they were wrapping. D explained that there was a baby shower on the teacher’s housing tonight, and would I accompany her?
We arranged to meet at the bottle store (a nice central location) in town after I had gone home to shower and get ready. On my way to the bottle store I text all my PC friends in Bots, proclaiming a victory of integration for myself.
I met D and we arrived at the house which the party was being held. I walked in to the usual situation of when I walk into any room here, which is people staring and whispering about the Lekgowa who has crashed their party. A few girls embraced me and welcomed me in English. I tried to offer my improvised gift of some lavender soap and chapstick, but they didn’t understand what the magazine paper wrapped object was, so I just added it to the pile of diapers, muttering something about gift for the mother.
There were men on the porch, and they soon joined us in the house. This surprised me as in Botswana gender roles are pretty well defined, and male involvement in parenting is not very common. As a matter of fact, the men rarely stay in the same house as the women, and the man is not allowed to sleep in the same room as the woman and baby for the first three months of a baby’s life. Marriage isn’t super common in Botswana due to a number of cultural factors. One is the custom of LaBolla (dowry) which is often many cows, (a lot of money for someone from a communal culture wherein people are obligated to take care of their entire and often extended families, and who don’t often have lots of outside sources of income and jobs) regardless of if a woman wants to participate in the tradition, she doesn’t have a lot of say, as her father and uncles are the ones who do the negotiating. There are additional “damages” that must be paid by the father per child out of wedlock, or even to marry a woman who has children by another man. The Batswana who do have a certain level of education and have gotten trained positions with the government (nurses, teachers, police, ect) are placed wherever the government assigns them without any respect to their spouse. The scarcity of jobs causes those ambitious enough to go after them to make sacrifices, namely having their family raised together with both parents. There are many nurses who may have met their partner during their education and who now live very far away from their spouse. Many of these cultural details of which have also incidentally led to Botswana having the highest rate of HIV in the world…
But back to the shower. I was offered a drink (there was tons of alcohol present) and tried to find a corner on the floor to sit in. I looked around at all the women’s bellies, trying to determine which one was the mother to be. None of them looked far enough along to be holding a baby shower for, and so I asked the woman next to me, whom I had met in the village and knew to be one of the police officers wife. She said that the mother was “shy” and was hiding until all the guests arrived. I should note that the shower was scheduled to begin at 2:00 and it was now 5:30. People continued to show up throughout the night, thus is the concept of time in Botswana.
Finally a woman came out of the closed hallway door in a pink terrycloth bathrobe with a white powdery substance on her face and a necklace of condoms (the joke being that she didn’t know what they were and thus fell pregnant) around her neck. All the women began to hoot and holler and more men who had been drinking outside on the porch came in. I had heard stories of the mother to be being bare breasted during these events but apparently that’s not how it works among the social elite, or showers where men are also present. It’s completely normal for any woman to breast feed publicly here, but those in the government worker categories are often from the cosmopolitan cities of Gaborone or Francistown are often behaviorally and sometimes appearance wise extremely western.
So now the mother was present and the games would begin. In Setswana. The first game was one in which everyone was given a piece of yarn (each of varying lengths) and had to wrap it around their finger as they told introduction details about themselves. They had to keep talking for as long as the string was or else they were “punished”, or at least this is what I could pick up with the limited amount of Setswana I can understand. The “punishments” were either to have baby powder smeared all over your face (punishable offenses also included coming late, talking out of turn, or really anything that pissed the host woman off, as far as I could tell.) or to have to put out one’s hand and have a blob of what I think was some sort of baby food put in to eat. When it came to my turn I blurted out all the details about myself I knew how to convey in Setswana, which was a definite crowd pleaser.
The next game was words written on small slips of paper that one had to describe what it was used for to the new mother. I think the object of this game that was funny was the men trying to explain with much authority what things like “gripe water” are (which was all in the type of Setswana that leads to me still have no idea what gripe water is for, but I think it’s a traditional healing method for colic.) My word was “shawl,” which I took to mean what you strap the baby to yourself with, and I had to talk about in English because that was way beyond the scope of the introduction Sets we had learned in training. I’m still not sure if that’s right because at he end of the day I’m white and people here rarely tell me I’m wrong despite my constant insistence that the only way I’ll learn things is if people correct me when I’m wrong. Then came a lengthy session on advice from the elder women of the group on how to raise a child, and a discussion in which the mother and father to be had to disclose what time they through the baby had been conceived. This appeared to be hilarious to all present. Gift opening was much as it is in America, with the exception that they had to guess who the gifts wrapped all in identical nappies were from. Mine of course being wrapped in a magazine page stuck out and just confused them, but I think they appreciated it.
After all this there was a dance party in the living room and a Brei (barbeque of goat and cow meat) and fire in the front yard. I got a ride home at 10:30 and the baby shower was still going strong (although I was happy to notice that the mother to be did not have a drink in her hand- it’s not uncommon for pregnant women to drink alcohol here). I was tired from listening to so many hours of exclusively Setswana, but I had had a good time.
I generally make it sort of near the police station which is at the other end of town, and stop in there to say hi to them and to see what’s happening. As this is Seronga, the answer is generally nothing. On this day however, the two female officers I have come to know were wrapping up baby items in cloth diapers. I had heard there was a baby shower in the village this weekend, but I had thus far failed to procure an invite (although to be honest, I hadn’t tried very hard). I managed to get one by asking them what they were wrapping. D explained that there was a baby shower on the teacher’s housing tonight, and would I accompany her?
We arranged to meet at the bottle store (a nice central location) in town after I had gone home to shower and get ready. On my way to the bottle store I text all my PC friends in Bots, proclaiming a victory of integration for myself.
I met D and we arrived at the house which the party was being held. I walked in to the usual situation of when I walk into any room here, which is people staring and whispering about the Lekgowa who has crashed their party. A few girls embraced me and welcomed me in English. I tried to offer my improvised gift of some lavender soap and chapstick, but they didn’t understand what the magazine paper wrapped object was, so I just added it to the pile of diapers, muttering something about gift for the mother.
There were men on the porch, and they soon joined us in the house. This surprised me as in Botswana gender roles are pretty well defined, and male involvement in parenting is not very common. As a matter of fact, the men rarely stay in the same house as the women, and the man is not allowed to sleep in the same room as the woman and baby for the first three months of a baby’s life. Marriage isn’t super common in Botswana due to a number of cultural factors. One is the custom of LaBolla (dowry) which is often many cows, (a lot of money for someone from a communal culture wherein people are obligated to take care of their entire and often extended families, and who don’t often have lots of outside sources of income and jobs) regardless of if a woman wants to participate in the tradition, she doesn’t have a lot of say, as her father and uncles are the ones who do the negotiating. There are additional “damages” that must be paid by the father per child out of wedlock, or even to marry a woman who has children by another man. The Batswana who do have a certain level of education and have gotten trained positions with the government (nurses, teachers, police, ect) are placed wherever the government assigns them without any respect to their spouse. The scarcity of jobs causes those ambitious enough to go after them to make sacrifices, namely having their family raised together with both parents. There are many nurses who may have met their partner during their education and who now live very far away from their spouse. Many of these cultural details of which have also incidentally led to Botswana having the highest rate of HIV in the world…
But back to the shower. I was offered a drink (there was tons of alcohol present) and tried to find a corner on the floor to sit in. I looked around at all the women’s bellies, trying to determine which one was the mother to be. None of them looked far enough along to be holding a baby shower for, and so I asked the woman next to me, whom I had met in the village and knew to be one of the police officers wife. She said that the mother was “shy” and was hiding until all the guests arrived. I should note that the shower was scheduled to begin at 2:00 and it was now 5:30. People continued to show up throughout the night, thus is the concept of time in Botswana.
Finally a woman came out of the closed hallway door in a pink terrycloth bathrobe with a white powdery substance on her face and a necklace of condoms (the joke being that she didn’t know what they were and thus fell pregnant) around her neck. All the women began to hoot and holler and more men who had been drinking outside on the porch came in. I had heard stories of the mother to be being bare breasted during these events but apparently that’s not how it works among the social elite, or showers where men are also present. It’s completely normal for any woman to breast feed publicly here, but those in the government worker categories are often from the cosmopolitan cities of Gaborone or Francistown are often behaviorally and sometimes appearance wise extremely western.
So now the mother was present and the games would begin. In Setswana. The first game was one in which everyone was given a piece of yarn (each of varying lengths) and had to wrap it around their finger as they told introduction details about themselves. They had to keep talking for as long as the string was or else they were “punished”, or at least this is what I could pick up with the limited amount of Setswana I can understand. The “punishments” were either to have baby powder smeared all over your face (punishable offenses also included coming late, talking out of turn, or really anything that pissed the host woman off, as far as I could tell.) or to have to put out one’s hand and have a blob of what I think was some sort of baby food put in to eat. When it came to my turn I blurted out all the details about myself I knew how to convey in Setswana, which was a definite crowd pleaser.
The next game was words written on small slips of paper that one had to describe what it was used for to the new mother. I think the object of this game that was funny was the men trying to explain with much authority what things like “gripe water” are (which was all in the type of Setswana that leads to me still have no idea what gripe water is for, but I think it’s a traditional healing method for colic.) My word was “shawl,” which I took to mean what you strap the baby to yourself with, and I had to talk about in English because that was way beyond the scope of the introduction Sets we had learned in training. I’m still not sure if that’s right because at he end of the day I’m white and people here rarely tell me I’m wrong despite my constant insistence that the only way I’ll learn things is if people correct me when I’m wrong. Then came a lengthy session on advice from the elder women of the group on how to raise a child, and a discussion in which the mother and father to be had to disclose what time they through the baby had been conceived. This appeared to be hilarious to all present. Gift opening was much as it is in America, with the exception that they had to guess who the gifts wrapped all in identical nappies were from. Mine of course being wrapped in a magazine page stuck out and just confused them, but I think they appreciated it.
After all this there was a dance party in the living room and a Brei (barbeque of goat and cow meat) and fire in the front yard. I got a ride home at 10:30 and the baby shower was still going strong (although I was happy to notice that the mother to be did not have a drink in her hand- it’s not uncommon for pregnant women to drink alcohol here). I was tired from listening to so many hours of exclusively Setswana, but I had had a good time.
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