After a past few months that rivaled my first two months at site for melancholy, hopelessness, irritation and plain old homesickness and angst, waiting it out has been the right answer yet again. I’ve got some projects that have made me feel a little bit of success, and also have the arrival of several visitors in the next year to look forward to.
Home Improvements…
In the past few months there have been great improvements to the hut (and surrounding areas) in Seronga. As follows:
The doctor is in. He has finally been moved into his accommodation at the police, and is fully relocated to Seronga. We now have ARV’s available to patients on a more regular basis, so now they don’t have to travel to Shakawe after their three month initiation period. Hopefully this will help less people default on their ARV’s. As both ambulance boats are still in the shop (along with the post boat since Jan of this year) the nurses are still having to get up at 4 in the morning to meet patients who have traveled from God knows where in the bush in the dark to get to the clinic to have their blood drawn. Everyone in Seronga is bumbling around at these insane hours because as the boats are in the shop, the road ambulances have to drive all the way around the delta- up through Shakawe and back down to Gumare, a journey that can take anywhere from 3.5 hours (best) to 7 or 8 (my worst nightmare days) one way. They have to leave by about 6 or 6:30 in order to get to Gumare in time to turn around and get back before the last ferry at 6:30. (It’s winter here now, so it gets dark earlier, which means there is less light by which to navigate crossing that dark, deep, churning, strongly flowing and cold water - which is just unsafe at night. Two words: Nvuvu/Kubu (Hippo) and Kwena (Crocodile) yup, you wouldn’t be wanting to cross that bad boy at night either). It used to be a bit more negotiable with the ferry operators and easier to convince them to go across just one more time, but not so much any more…
So in addition to the ngaka (Dr.) being able to dispense ARV’s, he can also deal with a bit more serious diagnosis and trauma. People also take his word more seriously than that of the head nurse, which is sort of dumb, but will help the patients in the long run. He is able to make more authoritative diagnosis and recommendation for the treatment of patients who have to be referred out of Seronga.
(In a previous incident the head nurse recommended that a patient be transferred at least to Maun as she suspected Gumare did not have sufficient resources to properly care for the patient. Because the protocol involves transferring a patient to Gumare first, the patient was airlifted out of Seronga to Gumare, where the patient lapsed into a coma, then the patient was transferred to Maun, and then onto Francistown when even Maun didn’t have sufficient resources to help the patient. It makes me shudder to consider not only the trauma the patient undoubtedly suffered through all that transport to places with insufficient resources but also the cost of the plane –someone paid for the following legs of airflights: Maun to Seronga, Seronga to Gumare, Gumare to Maun, again Maun to Gumare, Gumare to Maun, then Maun to Francistown and back. Not cheap for the government. I haven’t heard the outcome of this one.)
Although the ngaka is still on the road at least 2 days a week dispensing drugs to the other ARV clinics this side of the delta, it’s a helluva lot better to have him there more regularly. His arrival has caused the head nurse to rejoice (and say that she can now put in for a transfer- for which she is nearly due) and has greatly improved the availability of treatment for patients.
The Mural at the clinic. Is finished! I’ve noticed that community participation can often be hard to muster for these projects in Botswana, but I was determined to call in favors and even beg and plead if I had to. I am proud to announce that I didn’t lift a brush for this project. My job was all in the background legwork. For me it was more important to help empower the kids to design the words and carry the project from priming and sketching to completion.
One might argue that the idea of Peace Corps is to work along side of host country partners, but I find that it sent a powerful message to the kids when I got out the paints and brushes and said “go for it”. They looked at me incredulously, like isn’t she going to tell us what to do? I just tipped me chin at the wall and reminded them that they’re the artists and walked away. The adults at the clinic looked at me like I was crazy as well, but it proved an amazing time to teach a lesson in empowerment, that people will rise to a task put in front of them if you let them. It turned out beautifully, if not what I had originally envisioned. I’ve heard through various members of the community that the nurses and staff at the clinic are very proud of the mural, and I found it has been valuable in terms of people in the village see something tangible that they attribute to me, even though I continuously give credit to the children and the art teacher, and remind them that I only got the supplies.
Which had been a rather pain in the ass. I had started the background work back in December, and by the beginning of April the paint cans were ready to be busted open. I wrote no less than three versions of the same letter asking for permission to paint on the clinic which was faxed, hand delivered, and misplaced no less than 5 times. I made weekly calls and personal follow ups, and made a trip to Gabs and Maun that didn’t even end up with the supplies I wanted. My vision was changed several times as I had to convince the clinic staff to buy into the idea as well as try to get them to come up with a theme, which ended up being a play on the Bacon quote that was up not only at my high school, but also here at the Junior Secondary school (like a Jr. High or middle school back in the states). The mural proclaims “Knowledge is Power, Know Your Status”- in both English and Setswana, and the phrase O E Cheke which means get tested and happens to be this year’s theme from one of the major NGO’s that funds HIV projects.
My original vision was to get acrylics and have the art teacher design a proper mural with pictures rather than words on the side of the building, but I ended up with house paint and a smaller space on the front of the building. I’m not giving up on the actual picture mural idea, but the next big space that will fall prey to my attack will hopefully be the two walls on the corner of the main area in the town on the jail of the kgotla. It will probably take me the rest of my time here to get supplies and permission to carry out the design the art teacher has begun with the kids (he’s using aspects of the Sistine Chapel for inspiration-how incredibly cool is that!!!!) but if I can get it accomplished that would be one of the crowning achievements of my service. Wish me luck.
I’ve also recently heard that the teacher I’ve been working with these art projects on (who when we met used to come to work drunk a good portion of the days I saw him, but nonetheless is an amazing artist and really helps the kids become better artists as well by demanding a lot of them) has been working with some of the kids he described as “not so dumb” to have them write essays about what “knowledge is power” means to them. He’s offered a prize of 200p of his own money to encourage them. I had nothing to do with this, but am amazed at both his generosity and his willingness to go above and beyond the project to really get the kids thinking and expressing themselves. I’m very proud of him.
Other Art Projects!
Working with some of the teachers at the primary I have come up with a committee to work with the kids to use the remaining house paint (nothing gets wasted on my watch in Seronga!) to create a world map mural on the wall of the primary school. So far we’ve primed the spot with white, the map has arrived and been gridded (THANKS MOM!) and we will start painting this week. It’s going to be amazing to literally show the kids the world!
Along with that my long awaited project of creating a mosaic at the junior secondary has begun. I have been collecting different colors of glass for months in preparation for this and the area is primed and the sketch has been done. I realized a bit too late that brown glass can be collected and turned in for cash as they recycle the bottles and thus brown bottles were going to be a little harder to come by, but after several dumpster diving slash appeals to the village drinking crowds, I think we’ll have enough. (Everything you need to in Seronga is available if you ask enough people-see village chicken).
I was of course getting a little emotional as the artist, GB (he’s got a crazy long Setswana name and luckily goes by the nickname GB) sketched his design on the wall. I kept exclaiming how happy I was for him and he, being a typical teenager, rolled his eyes and called me crazy. But the wall is there, it’s sketched, and we’ll start breaking bottles this week. Pictures to follow!
Warmish Shower! I think when one is in the Peace Corps and adaptability becomes the only way in which to keep going, it has some deep effects on your personality. In some ways I’ve learned to either just put up with a lot of shit, or adapt. Once the decision is made to adapt, the idea of trying to work of improve something can occasionally be absurd. It becomes difficult to envision or hope for something better, no matter how easy it may be to accomplish.
This is how I had begun to feel about my bathing situation. When there is water in the village (an event that is occurring incredibly more frequently as a result of the old water guy-who is responsible for finding the fuel and transport to get to Teekae (about 15-20 kilometers outside of Seronga) being replaced by someone who apparently takes his job more seriously, or at least that’s what I’m hoping as it’s been a lot more consistent lately) I’ve taken to just heating up a kettle on the stove, mixing it with some cold from the tap, and splash or bucket bathing. It’s not optimal, but over the course of a year, I’ve come to accept it and even excel at it. You would be amazed how the girl who used to draw an entire Jacuzzi style bathtub full of hot steaming water every night for an at least 15 minute soak has come to be able to bathe completely with less than half a bucket of water. (And I feel pretty clean). So with acceptance came complacency in this case.
Until the Aussies came (see “Hostess with the Mostess”). They rigged up a series of black pipes found in Simon’s back yard to flow from my faucet out of my bathroom window, onto the roof next door, back onto my tub and to be plugged with a cork at about knee level (this set-up has recently been improved again by another visitor, a former Peace Corps who hung the pipe from the ceiling so it’s more like a proper shower. Amazing! You still have to use it in the middle of the day in order for it to be properly warm (forget trying to have a warm shower after an evening run) but is has also helped make me clothes seem cleaner when I do my laundry with slightly warmer water. Since the water is unfiltered as it comes in the house, heating it up in a plastic hose can tend to make it smell… interesting. At the end of the day (or really, make that the middle) it’s warmer and it’s wet. I’m happy.
Pack your bags!
My mom, Paul and Karly have booked their tickets to visit! They got an amazing deal on the flight and they arrive right in Maun. I’m already going nuts planning their upcoming adventure which will include the bush, the delta, Kasane and CAPE TOWN!!!! More on that but I am sooooo pumped!
It’s Electric?
Power is sort of, allegedly, kindof, maybe coming to Seronga. There’s all sorts of toxic smelling poles that the children have a great time playing on barefoot (and just make me cringe at the idea that as they climb on them they are inhaling those fumes but there’s no chasing them off, I’ve tried.) Word on the street, or really, the dirt road, is that they will be up and running by July. Righhhht.
No comments:
Post a Comment