A Meeting of Note....

--------I wrote this one after a meeting we attended in Mid-August in Maun. The Seronga Men’s Sector had been invited (which is another word for commanded in Botswana) to give a report on the activities that we had carried out in the past year and the ones we planned for the next year to the National Men’s Sector Commissioner, who is the Commissioner of Police for Botswana. It was a big deal meeting and I went along mainly as a show of support and solidarity with the guys I’ve been working with, who have repeatedly been my inspiration here in Seronga. Many of the other village Men’s Sectors basically admitted they’ve done nothing, so Seronga was sort of the star of the show;-)---

We sat in the overheated conference room, despite rushing to be promptly on time we’re delayed as the Commissioner of police (whom I recently noticed in a photo in the national newspaper shaking the President of Botswana’s hand, I think he must be sort of a big deal) had forgotten the location of the meeting that he called. He arrived an hour late, taking the time to magnanimously greet each of us personally. He sat down and we yawned though the typical introductions, each person being acknowledged with an amount of clapping proportional to his position. The rest of us minions were relegated to self introductions, which sent my mind scurrying to recall all the formalities of the details I’m supposed to recite in order to properly do so.

It’s funny to me that no matter how many people appear to be in any given group I attend in this region of the country I’m generally somehow singled out. This time it was for the announcement that the meeting would be conducted in Setswana, followed by the joke that I would surely be fluent by the meeting’s end. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this particular one, and I smiled and he repeated the joke in English for my benefit. ( I don’t know why it was even discussed, as it ended up that the commissioner gave his speech in English and it was then translated into Setswana.)

The other piece of notoriety, besides of course the staring, which in a bigger village like Maun is usually at least somewhat cloaked in stolen glances rather than straight out gawking like it would be in Seronga, was the photography. The photographer, who had been introduced at the beginning as the something something of marketing went around the room taking sort of group pictures of the different villages who had sent representation.

Throughout the speeches and presentations she would take occasional pictures as well as filming, although in a land where there are few TV’s much less cable access on which to broadcast these boring meetings much less recording it for some sort of posterity, (and I certainly didn’t hear the “this meeting will be recorded for training purposes” disclaimer, although it certainly could have done some serious good) I couldn’t necessarily see the point.

The weird part came right in the middle of the commissioner’s speech, which she had previously been recording with the video camera. The photographer suddenly walked away from the tripod, grabbed her still camera, and began taking pictures of me. Like obviously taking pictures. Of me. Several of them.

I often joke about the paparazzi, so naming all the tourists who nearly reflexively take my picture from their hulking overland vehicles as they drive through Seronga. It seems they are shocked by the presence of my white skin, as though I am some sort of rare (albino?) animal in the bush. I generally like having my picture taken, but this was straight up weird. I tried to smile whilst looking at least mildly interested in the speech.

One of my personal greatest successes of the past quarter for me was to help the chairman-Mr. Khumalo, a police officer- of the Seronga Men’s Sector create a report of the activities we had done and were planning to do. It’s the next entry on the blog. It was a simple enough thing, just a word document that I inserted some pictures I took from various events we’ve had. It was one of those things that took very little time on my part, but meant a lot to him. It’s something so easy, and yet to see his face light up and his chest puff out when the pages came out of the printer made me realize it was going to be a bigger deal to him than that.

Through the course of my time here I’ve realized that capacity building is not just about teaching people to do things, as with most of these things we work on, the people know how to do what needs to be done. In my situation I’ve found it’s also important to help people chronicle their accomplishments, and in helping them acknowledge and feel pride in what they’ve done, to hopefully inspire and encourage them to do more.

So when the time came for Seronga to present its report most eyes in the room turned to me as though waiting expectantly for my presentation. Mr. Khumalo and I had previously agreed that rather he would give the report, and I whispered a few reminders and words of encouragement as he stood up to walk to the podium.

It’s typical in Botswana for people to just read exactly what they’ve got in front of them when they give a “report”. If then there are any questions, which are always repeatedly requested, if it can’t be quoted directly from the report, the question will be deferred. Mr. Khumalo and I have discussed this tendency at length, and talked about ways he could give a more enlightening presentation. He knows just as much if not more than me about what we are doing as the Men’s Sector, and thus we decided he should be the person to present (And there’s also the little part where I sort of subliminally refused. I don’t think I would be building anyone’s capacity but my own to present at an important meeting like this.)

It was more than enough reward for me when Mr. Khumalo went up to the podium to give his report. He handed a copy to the Commissioner of Police, who is the national head of the Men’s Sector for this year, and began. Khumalo positively sparkled. He made eye contact around the room, didn’t read from the report or repeat irrelevant information. He was confident and even made a few jokes. It was definitely the best presentation of the day, (and it helps that our Men’s Sector is one of the most active in the district) and the other Seronga Men’s Sector representatives we were with made several other relevant points about the importance of involving churches and traditional healers with Men’s Sector campaigns. It was definitely a day of pride and success for Seronga, the Men’s Sector and me.