A Measure of Success.....

When I arrived in Seronga, due partially to my inexperience in living alone, and also to my former shortcomings in the field of planning and preparation, there were quite a few items I didn’t have, many of which it didn’t occur to me I might need. Nowhere was this deficiency more evident than in the kitchen.

When I visited my hut in during the weekend in which we viewed and took inventory of our future new homes and villages, (an exercise in which many of my Bots classmates were able to wander around their comparatively spacious accommodations- and really how much is there to explore in a one and half room hut- for somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 days, I myself had about 1 due to the fact that I Seronga is just so damn FAR from…. everywhere. I t took me two days to get there from Moleps and two days to get back) I have to be honest and admit that I spent a majority of that time cowering in the corner (or really rather not—round room-no corners), or later, when I realized the creepy crawlies that resided in the corners, huddled in the middle of my bed (possibly in tears) eating my processed cheese slices and bread which seemed to be the only logical thing that might be properly kept through a journey of that many miles (or really, Kilometers).

In the midst of my quivering period of self doubt, I managed to observe that there were about four plates and a few half sets of cutlery which I assumed should be fine as it seemed unlikely that I would have any houseguests. The few sauce pans and glasses and two coffee mugs that rounded out the happy cupboard seemed to sufficiently cover what would be necessary for me to (learn to) cook.

A few weeks later in the altogether overwhelming experience of shopping in the mall in Gabs for the supplies that were to furnish our homes for the next two years, ( I blew a quarter of my moving in allowance on a down comforter and would do it again in a heartbeat… somewhere in my head was a line from what was undoubtedly an old Martha Stewart ”Living” magazine from my grandmother’s house extolling the virtues of nice bedding… or perhaps that was an advertisement… whichever) I did manage to remember to spend altogether too much money on a non-stick (yeah right) cake pan and cookie sheet. And with that I survived happily enough. I didn’t even have proper pot holders until this past July (which I got from someone who was moving away) but they’re those crazy silicon bird beak looking things, the technology of which must just be beyond me….

I give these examples of my culinary shortcomings as an overly detailed account of how inept I am when it comes to matters of the kitchen. You can see the direction this would be going when I resorted to taking up baking as a hobby.
Busy the hands to quiet the mind? Feed the stomach to empty the brain? I have no idea what pseudo fortune cookie theory I was operating under at that particular time.

But discovering I had no measuring cups was likely one of those charming little mishaps that defined those first few months at site (and likely sent me crying to that overly-expensive-down-comforter-covered-bed. I cried enough in those first few months to certainly last me the next two years…) Depressed, determined and most of all, hungry, the perseverance I’ve found in myself (and has jumped in to save me through much more trying and traumatizing shit than I can name) kicked in and I decided that measuring cups were going to have to be a luxury for the moment (incidentally I now have two sets;-).

So I baked. I eyeballed and felt the weight of the ingredients. I experimented and tried new things. It probably wasn’t always exactly right, but at least sometimes, it worked. Things tasted generally ok. I ate them. I didn’t poison myself or others (that I know of). I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of pride I experienced, and the amount of confidence in myself I developed, and the hope that was fostered that I could indeed do this Peace Corps thing.

Because what does it mean to measure? How can one determine exactly how much of something one has in different situations, under different conditions? How does one measure things, especially abstract things like success? Or behavior change?

I think about this often, even more so when it comes time to fill out our quarterly Peace Corps reports, those nightmarish visions in excel friendly format (allegedly) wherein we’re supposed to compile numbers and write a short synopses to describe what it is we do and how many people we’ve “saved” from the scourge that is HIV in Botswana.

So every three months I find myself in a tailspin of self doubt and feelings of inadequacy and failure when I face the difficult task of quantifying the work I do into an easy-to-read numerical format.

I often find myself envying people serving in other Peace Corps countries, where the goals appear (although I’ve learned nothing here if I haven’t learned that appearances can be deceiving…) to be attached to programs with tangible outcomes.


“What did you do in the Peace Corps?” a Question I anticipate enjoying almost as much as the one about “Why are you joining the Peace Corps?” or “What will you do in the Peace Corps?” To be able to simply answer, “I dug wells.” Or “I grew gardens”. Some of the members of a former cohort often said (only partially in jest) “I saved babies”.

What does it mean to have lived a year and a half of your life in a place and still not completely have a handle on it?

What have I done in the Peace Corps….?


Ummmm…



Crickets chirping….

(I mean really, I’ve been writing this lengthy, overly wordy blog which many people swear they’ve been reading for a year and a half and they still ask me what I do… and I don’t blame them a bit. Personally, I like to think there’s been some growth, and professionally, I’ve got ideas, and some energy still, I’ve got a helluva lot of goals, and things I’d love to see happen… but it’s also really tough to explain in a way that seems meaningful to the average onlooker. When I try to describe what have been some of the more meaningful moments and life changing experiences I've witnessed and had myself here, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it can all start to sound a little kum-bah-ya and lame. I realize that. People say I'm doing good work over here, and I struggle sometimes to believe that is true, but it's the hope that I'm doing something that will incite change that gets me out of bed in the morning.)

As Americans (and especially as Americans with mostly American funders) we want results. We want numbers, we want hard facts, and we want success. We want gorgeous, Excel generated charts and graphs and spreadsheets that we can take back to show other Americans how successful we’ve been. These are our measuring cups. We want everyone to marvel at the cake we’ve baked, and we want to give them the recipe for success with exact and replicable ingredients.

But this is Africa. And more specifically, Botswana. And even more than that it’s Seronga, a tiny village in the heart of the Okavango delta and peoples whom even their own government often overlooks. We don’t eat cake here. And so I’m sorry. Success looks and tastes differently here. The measurements vary.

Because what can these numbers possibly mean? If it’s about numbers I can give you numbers all day, numbers that have been ascribed to me or to my accomplishments. I can give you my weight, my date of birth, my social security number, my high school and college GPAs, the score I got on any number of tests throughout my life, the number of stamps in my passport, any number at all that is supposed to have some meaning that in some way describes me. But do they? Can they tell you if I’m a success?

Ok then, lets talk experiences. If I gave you the name, presenters, brochure, location, duration, program from every class, speech, lecture, workshop, seminar, poetry slam, open mic night or reading I’ve ever attended that was supposed to in some way influence me or change my mind, could you from that calculate my risk behaviors?

Maybe. But probably not.

But it doesn’t exactly predict how I’ll act. And thus whether I’ll act in a way that might lead to me acquiring HIV.

So how can I report, honestly, that the guy over there that attended the workshop I’ve put on has been at all informed, has taken in the information presented to him in a meaningful way, that he relates to himself the benefits and risks of male circumcision and that his decision around this matter for himself might be changed. Can I report this quite honestly when I know for a fact he came for the free lunch?

And what about the woman over there, who just sat through the clinic health talk on multiple concurrent partnerships? Can she conceptualize what this means for her (sure she can repeat what has just been said, and she can tell me all day long what it is I want to hear.)? Does this mean that I can safely assume that she’ll have the sexual negotiation skills and confidence to confront her partner, and the independent financial resources to leave her partner should he refuse to give up his other wives, or even to go to the clinic to test for HIV with her? Is all this a success if it just ends up getting this woman a fresh beating?

You can see where the numbers and reporting are just the first wave of angst.

It’s hard to look at a report designed for the duel purpose of keeping track of what we’re doing (this is indeed the only evidence we submit that we are really doing anything-for those of us this far out it’s not like the Peace corps is just going to randomly wander through our villages-I’ll say it again, it’s a mission to get here) and reporting to funders (one might expect that it’s sort of in everyone’s best interest to produce high numbers of those reached- and thus effectiveness as it’s these funders who keep us in jobs-this has been a moral dilemma to me, as I had always envisioned the Peace Corps as a place in which the goal would be to “work myself out of a job…” And the HIV rate in this country has done nothing but go up since I’ve been here) and not feel a sense of confusion, and I daresay, failure?

Because really in the end, all the paperwork and reporting and questioning leads to one bigger, more personal end.

If the Peace Corps is my life (Which arguably it is, at least for these two years. It’s pretty difficult to separate the personal from the professional when you live in these circumstances, with these sorts of goals) and these are the predetermined measurements of my success, and I feel this much confusion and uncertainty over reporting my “accomplishments” and whether I’ve achieved success, then what am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? Must my goals and feelings of success as a person in an individual be intrinsically tied to the level of success present in this village-ie the increase or decrease in the number of HIV infections? Has this been worth it? Am I successful?

These are questions I ask myself everyday. And the answers have never come to me via the reports I agonize over and resignedly hand in every three months. I’ve had to redefine success. Again and again. And it rarely comes in a numerical form.


Because success has come to look and feel differently to me.


Do I know that making art projects around the village is going to have any impact whatsoever on the prevalence of HIV in my village, or in Botswana? Nope. But I do know that several children have taken a project through from design to completion and can see their efforts on the walls of their hometown. I can see in them a sense of pride in their accomplishment. Some of them have made a connection between the use of alcohol and HIV. Some have been inspired by the notion of recycling objects to make art.

Can I foresee if reading books in English and discussing the themes and watching the movies and journaling about their reactions is going to keep five precious girls from contracting HIV? I wish to God I could. But I can tell you that I have seen their comfort level of reading, comprehending and expressing themselves in English increase, for some of them, dramatically. And I am willing to bet that these skills will help them enormously when they’re in medical school, a plan that half of them have, with their primary goal to be to find a cure for HIV and to help their people.


So how do I measure success? I know it when I feel it.


I consider it a success when I see one of the nurses, after watching me practice reading aloud in English with some school children for 45 minutes while they waited for him to finish with patients so that he can help them complete a questionnaire they’ve been sent to complete, take real time to help them finish their assignment and make certain they understand. Last week a nurse shouted an answer at them from a doorway.

I consider it a success when the woman who sells me airtime texts me after I’ve given her some magazines because she’s expecting a child and wants to know more about healthy eating and how she should prepare health wise for the baby. Prior to my suggestion she had never before taken advantage of the library within 100 meters of the door of her shop.

The children with whom I practice writing their names and multiplication tables in the dirt have steadily decreased the time it takes them to answer my quiz like questions and increased their willingness to look me in the eye. Learning is becoming something that is fun for them. They’ve come to trust me and know I won’t beat them if they get the answer wrong.

And there’s no box on the form for that.

How much credit can I take for any of these things? Probably not much. But for me that’s the definition of Peace Corps. We don’t come here to achieve success in the typically American sense. We have to find it in other ways, to search and dig and redefine it for ourselves. For me that has meant that my feeling of success comes when others achieve something, when I see that they are becoming closer to their best selves, and that they are improving the way in which they interact with and manage their worlds and what they want from it, when they raise their own expectations of themselves and others.

Did I come here to solve HIV? Nope, that one is way bigger than me. Did I come here to personally have an impact on a massive reduction of HIV? Even at my vainest moments I’m not that delusional. Might I have helped someone who could potentially do these things for their own country? That’s the dream. Have I been successful? That’s the one I take to bed with me at night, and hope that in the end, the answer will come out to be a resounding “yes”.