A story of my eternal African pessimistic optimism.
I recently returned to Seronga from training and holiday and have basically been away from my little village for somewhere near a month. Coming back has never been easy for me, and it’s the end of the Botswana winter, so despite the “lake effect” temperature regulation of the world’s largest inland delta outside my door, it still damn cold. People are sick with colds and flu and the clinic is pretty busy.
Not only has the clinic staff been busy but recently it seems as though I, too have been spending more time at the clinic than I particularly care to. Many of my projects at this point take place more in the community with various villagers and other organizations in Seronga. Perhaps the clinic is trying to tell me they miss me. Or perhaps they just realize I’m basically free labor and have decided to take more advantage of my skills. Either way it seems I’ve been put in charge of the World Breast Feeding week activities at the clinic.
As always I dislike being in charge of anything here, which is of course ironic given my tendency to love to control and be in charge of things in my former life. Here it is so clear to me that if I do things for people it ends up disempowering them more than helping. Teaching is another hurdle to overcome with cultural differences making it a bit difficult for me to try to teach those who may be older than me and unwilling to learn or admit they don’t know how to do something. I usually try to find a way to help people do things for themselves in such a way that they don’t have to lose any face.
The good news in all this is that in some ways I’m improving my listening skills. Sort of. I’m getting to a point where I can listen on average about ten seconds longer than I used to be able to before butting in with commentary, opinions and my personal favorite, solutions to whatever statements the speaker has yet to even make. It seems that my headstrong idealism rears its ugly stubborn head on occasion with less alarming frequency but what is likely increased intensity. I try and tackle it and keep quiet and smile politely like I know would be the better idea, but often fail. In attempting to keep myself in line I usually lose the battle quickly and end up pounding my fist on the nearest somewhat solid structure for emphasis while making an impassioned point attacking whichever injustice I’m observing (or imagining). I don’t blame the people here for thinking I’m crazy.
The aforementioned habits make me less than optimal for leading such campaigns which must be based in teamwork in order to be successful, but there is also my small personal issue rooted in the matter of the mixed messages about breast feeding being sent by the administration in this country. It’s one of those development things wherein the research and studies being done on (and to and in) this country to determine the best ways to prevent HIV takes forever to actually get disseminated. Botswana is one of the richest and more developed countries in Africa, yet we still suffer from a slowness in both movement supplies and information that is brain rattlingly frustrating.
Right now Harvard is working in partnership with hospitals in Gaborone performing studies about on the transmission of HIV through breast milk and the preliminary findings are that it may not be as big of a risk as previously thought. As Peace Corps volunteers we’ve been hearing about these trials for a year, although the information is not yet published. As various places in the country (read: rural and including Seronga) are often suffering from distribution problems with getting the formula where it needs to go, it seems a reasonable solution might be to encourage women who have a record of good adherence to ARV’s to breast feed.
Obviously the research isn’t complete and hasn’t been published (One of the frustrating things about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is that we have trainings wherein the best and the brightest are brought in to speak to us about the latest and greatest in the research and projects being launched to determine the best practices aimed at the reduction of transmission of HIV in Botswana. While I’m grateful to have such valuable information, it’s very, very difficult to attempt to convince any of my colleagues at the clinic to consider the possibilities. I’m not asking them to change anything, but even to consider our responsibility in not perpetuating misinformation is nearly impossible. It’s a very “written-rule/by-the-book” sort of culture, which can sometimes stand in the way of innovation, which I truly believe to be essential to this country slowing the spread of this virus. But I digress.) and I’m not about to suggest anyone do anything that might potentially put babies at risk of contracting HIV, but I feel we have a certain moral responsibility to honestly education women on their options, using the most up to date research we can give them in a land of no other resources through which a woman could do her own independent research to help her make a decision.
The official government sanctioned and distributed message is that HIV positive women are counseled on the advantages and disadvantages of breast feeding and are allowed to make the choice in the end for themselves. They are then in theory provided with formula with which to safely feed their babies should they choose. The reality I’ve found is that mothers are basically forced- through clinical coercion combined with public stigma- to formula feed. Again the importance of rule following as part of the culture prevents certain levels of critical questioning and open discussion, women just do as they’re told.
Formula feeding can be a risky endeavor when the supply of formula is often interrupted, the water and sanitation are difficult to maintain, and depending on the mother’s level of health, access to nutrition, adherence to ARV’s and other measures of PMTCT during pregnancy, breast feeding could be a way to at least help the baby along through its first few months when those vitamins and immunities are so essential. Just a few more pieces of this problematic puzzle.
So despite my general refusal to be in charge, and in addition to my incredibly extensive (read: ga gona siepe- which means there is nothing.) knowledge about anything related to breast feeding, I’m the boss. A bit reluctantly.
So after a full day (which is really a half day as per the culture of Botswana---man is it going to be hard to come back to the States after this) of World Breast Feeding Week planning activities [(I’m sure I’ll write more later, but all I’m saying right now is that when I’m in charge it means the babies are gonna race, two categories-runners and crawlers- to determine which baby is healthiest. I know there is almost no correlation but the people at the clinic seemed confused and intrigued when I suggested it, and so here we go. American culture exchange day!!!!) which is incidentally the first week in August for those of you who may be interested in commemorating] I was a little tired and frustrated and struggling to decide how I would spend the rest of my day.
It was a warm day, but windy, typical July weather which is the sort of cold warm confusion that I’ve come to think of as typically African winter. The sun shines with a lessened intensity and the wind is enough to keep you on your toes. The nights are extremely cold and yet the days get just hot enough in between the nights that one almost forgets the cold which has come before and will come behind each day. The dead of the Botswana winter is very much like a Minnesota fall or spring, so it feels very familiar in a confusing way to me, which is, when I think about it, how I’ve come to feel about Seronga.
As I’ve said, being that it is winter, it’s also cold and flu season in Seronga. One of the nurses, seeing that I had that bored look on my face which usually means I’m about to come up with an excuse to leave the clinic to go work on one of my other community projects, asked me to pack ascorbic acid (vitamin c).
The clinic is both the hospital and the pharmacy for the people of Seronga. The clinic is divided into several areas according to function. There’s an injection area, and area to dress wounds, a small maternity ward, and another room that would be like urgent care. In the consulting room one nurse consults the patients to determine what is wrong with them, and then in the dispensary the other nurse reads what is written on the patient’s health cards and dispenses the drugs that the first one recommends. The drugs come in in huge bulk containers like you would get at Sam’s club, which are then divided into small seed bags in common numbers of doses and labeled accordingly. The task of pill counting and packing is undertaken by anyone who happens to be around and not doing anything, and is mind numbingly boring, and most definitely not what I had in mind when I agreed to come to Africa to work with HIV, but something I often find myself asked to do.
I quickly packed a few hundred pills to show I was doing something the clinic staff considers to be “useful” while I plotted my escape. I decided to go next door to Okavango Community Trust to see what, if anything, was happening there.
A few weeks back I had stopped by the OCT office to try to send a fax and had promised one of the women I would come back again and try to help her feel more comfortable speaking English by chatting with her. I walked through the gate to find all of the staff at the Trust sitting in a circle in the yard. How they justify getting paid for this I will never know, but I try not to spend too much time around it because it makes me a little mad, as I know they are getting paid a decent salary to do just that, when that money could be used for so much more, or they could at least be doing something tangible to benefit the community. But how do you convince someone who is getting paid to do nothing that they should increase their workload to something, which then might potentially come with responsibility and dare I say actual stress of some sort?
I greeted everyone and sat down. I tried to make a little conversation and nobody was really interested in speaking English, which was what I explained I was here to do. The woman I had met a few weeks back was “tired” which seems to be a constant ailment in Seronga. “Tired” to me can generally be roughly translated to mean “bored”, which was what I was about to become in this crowd. For my hyperactive American brain this is something to be avoided at all costs, but I’ve found within Seronga this is often an only slightly negative state of being, and preferable to suffering through its alternative, which is being “too busy”.
So I quickly racked my brain for something to occupy and amuse me while not feeling such an incredible waste of time. I vaguely remembered that there was a lemon tree back by an abandoned house on the property (which is in and of itself a sad remnant of another community project which was sort of neglected and then basically destroyed by the very community it was put there to benefit, but that again is another story). I asked if perhaps there were any lemons growing right now. A small squabble broke out amongst the six of so people sitting in the circle about who was going to take me back to the lemon tree, or if they should just tell me there were no lemons (the little Setswana I can hear just comes in very handy sometimes.) I smiled and told them that I knew there were lemons and could someone please just take me back there?
My Setswana amused one of the old men, and he jumped up to take me, dragging along with him a reluctant younger woman. We walked back through the gates and past the abandoned house and toward the lemon tree. It was down a hill a ways, just short of the delta, so the wind that came over the hill was warmer in the sun. The smell of lemons wafted through on the breeze. I was briefly confused by the smell I always associated with summer coming at me in the dead of an African winter, but have come to know this constant slight sense of confusion to be normal.
I looked at it and was amazed at how many lemons were growing there, and quickly realized that this was a great resource that the community was just wasting. Not to mention a great source of cold preventing vitamin c. All my remaining shit attitude drifted away of the lemony breeze and I became excited at the potential I had uncovered to “build capacity” in my favorite sort of way, which was to help the community take better advantage of something already plentiful in their community. My eternal militant optimist busted forth from the darkness of my mind, and I became more and more excited to a point where I had eradicated flu (and probably HIV and TB) in Seronga in my little brain. Wishful thinking ;-).
I filled my bag with lemons and explained to the people in the circle that I would go home and make some foods with these lemons and come back the next day to have them taste them and teach them how to make some things with lemon, and by the way have you all ever tried lemons on fish? My enthusiasm was slightly catching, and the woman who had wanted to speak English was excited and I bounced off in a cloud of lemony scented pleasure and eager fervor.
I walked back through the village to my hut with a big Disney Princess smile, as opposed to what can occasionally be my Icabod Crane tendency towards shoving my nose quite antisocially and culturally insensitively into a book. I will not apologize for this habit as sometimes you do what you gotta do to get through the day as Seronga’s local celebrity (read: white person). For a long time there has been no such thing as anonymity for me in this village and sometimes I need to be mentally somewhere else to attempt to ignore this fact (I feel ya, Britney;-). The book reading used to occasionally become a really interesting habit that often caused me to risk my life when I would be reading something as I walked and nearly walked into one of the randomly placed grave sized holes that had been dug for the electricity poles. It was a close call more times than I care to admit. The things would pop up out of nowhere, completely unexpected when you consider how long anything usually takes here, these holes would appear quickly each day in different locations. Needless to say I made it through that little minefield with no major incidents. Just another little love tap from Seronga.
I got to my house and busied myself with sifting the tiny bugs out of the flour (a practice which disgusts and appalls me, and which I would avoid at nearly any cost except that the last five bags of flour I purchased already had them in it, and I cannot afford to keep throwing the shit out. I’m grossed out but am told that this is what most of the locals do-I guess the others just cook with them in there. I try not to think about it and keep repeating to myself, “When in Rome, when in Rome, when in Rome.”) to the beats of some new music that I had recently pirated from a friend (no shame, I’ve got no shame). I screwed up two batches of lemon bread nearly completely (Botswana has taught me to salvage, salvage in any ways possible) but was able to get something together to bring the people at OCT the next day.
I arrived bearing lemon bread pieces which in the States would have been sampled by a whole office but here in Botswana covered three and a half people (likely three but I begged one of the women to save a piece for the old man who had taken me back and climbed the tree to get the lemons down for me, but I very much doubt that happened. Whenever there is food present it is taken as custom that as much of whatever is there is supposed to be consumed immediately, I believe I’ve gone into the policy with leftovers before ie; there are none…ever. There is never any concern as to make sure there is enough for anyone else, and the idea of being rude by grabbing half of whatever is offered to you regardless of how many other people may be present is completely and totally foreign). I heard the Setswana words for “tastes good” while hearing the critiques of the item (too sweet) kindly stated for me in English, followed immediately by the inquiries as to why didn’t I bring more and when will I be bringing it again? “Thank you” is a statement I’ve come to not even dream might be heard.
I smiled through what were very close to gritted teeth and repeated my promise to teach whoever wanted to learn once they got hold of a bread pan and measuring cups (which can be purchased in the nearest town of Shakawe, and where a majority of the residents of Seronga go at least occasionally for some sort of supplies, or could even be borrowed from neighbors). Where there had been enthusiasm about the idea yesterday, today there was again the glazed over boredom and excuses as to why this baking project would be an impossible undertaking, why can’t I just make the bread again for them, I already know how to do it. I politely took my leave and went back to the lemon tree, this time collecting lemons to attempt to make lemonade for the staff at the clinic.
I bought some sugar at the co-op and mixed up several batches of lemonade for the staff at the clinic, touting it as “an American drink that we have in the summer,” while also babbling about the different uses of lemon and local honey (available care of our resident bee-keeper through the small store in town) in tea and as health improving “muti” (Setswana word for medicine, particularly “traditional” which in my culture would be “homeopathic” except here there doesn’t seem to be any requirement of any sort of evidence of these particular remedies working for what they are reported to heal, but then I suppose that is true of some things in the States as well.) with as much charm and enthusiasm as a “seen on T.V.” host of some late night infomercial. The response towards this effort was as enthusiastic as that reception at OCT, and I was again struck at how much I appreciate good old American polite dishonesty when it comes to my cooking slash drink making skills.
The whole episode reflects something I’ve found here, which is my seemingly never ending ability to cultivate hope and excitement, at least in myself, in this village that seems to so desperately lack both. I’ve often thought of myself as a pessimist, due to the fact that I can some up with 17 reasons your idea won’t work before you completely finish explaining it without blinking an eyelash. But here in Botswana it seems I’ve found new and formerly untapped wells of optimism, I often finding myself blatantly refusing that there are aspects of this or that idea or project that can’t work, and my problem solving skills have become frightening on occasion. I can “make a plan” to get things that might seem impossible on the surface accomplished or completed. It’s a quality I’ve come to admire in myself (but am, of course still very intimately in touch with my less endearing qualities-see above), and hope I can continue to harness it more effectively (and appropriately) when coupled with my newfound habit of patience (repeat to self: “will into reality, will into reality, will into reality”) which has come a long way in my time here.
We’ll see how it all goes after Breast Feeding Week ;-)
Showing posts with label jennifer katchmark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jennifer katchmark. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Successful in Seronga!!!!
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.
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.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Mice are not Nice....
A new and interesting twist on the same old murder.....
Like so many starlets at the academy awards who tearfully promise themselves they wouldn’t cry, I swore I wouldn’t write about killing mice again. I thought I had covered the whole genre, from trapping to poison to blunt object traumas to the head. I was certain that there was nothing left to say. And generally there wasn’t. Until of course last night.
I was sitting on my bed in a benedryl induced haze, waiting for the drugs to completely put me to sleep. I had been sick with some terrific stomach bug that had left me weak and tired, but as I had laid around for several hours already that day I was finding it tough to sleep despite being tired, so had taken the benedryl to knock me out. I was writing letters home which will inevitably arrive after the event I’m meaning to write about when I heard some soft tapping coming from near my door. I thought perhaps it was the little boy who lived on my compound coming to greet me. I had heard that he had come home earlier, and despite us not speaking any common language, we’ve become buddies.
I shouted a greeting at the door three times to no response. Finally I hauled myself off my bed and opened the door. What greeted me on the other side was not a smiling little boy but a mouse crawling up the inside of the netting I’d wrapped through my burglar door to prevent mosquitoes in the warmer seasons. I pushed open the door and he was dangling like Tom Cruise in one of the “Mission Impossible” films. I grabbed the dustpan from the floor and flicked him off the door into the night. Little did I know that would set the tone for the night…
Around eleven thirty I woke up in from a deep sleep in a big confusion. I heard splashing around in my bathtub. At first I thought perhaps the cork had come out of the piping I’ve been using to shower and the sound I was hearing was the water rushing out into the pipe into the bathtub. Upon closer inspection I saw a dark something in the corner of the tub. I had left a small amount of water in the bottom to rinse some of the laundry I had soaking in the morning as the water has been out. I didn’t remember leaving anything in the tub and as soon as I turned around to grab my headlamp the splashing began again and I had a strong suspicion as to the nature of the intruder.
When I shone the light in the tub it was indeed a mouse, attempting to climb out of my bathtub. A quick survey of the situation determined that he had probably come in through the slightly open window climbing in through a hole in the netting that surrounded the piping. Strangely enough this was not the first mouse I’d seen in a bathtub, the other one was in Maun at Anna’s house. She being a vegetarian and an animal lover that mouse was trapped and released. As I am not a vegetarian or an extreme animal lover, this mouse would not be experiencing the same fate.
I thought that the fact that I had not taken any drastic measures to disturb whichever animals were living in my ceiling making noise and waking me up all the time had been an appropriate enough attempt at hospitality. When I mentioned the intruders to my landlady she suggested that perhaps it was the mice that fly (bats) that had gotten up there and she would look for the hole which they were using to get in and block it. As there are holes all over I very much doubted the success that this mission would bring. She then asked if I had any poison to kill the mice in her house. I told her that I had something better and lent her one of my traps, secretly smug in my current lack of a mouse problem, due to what I considered good management techniques: read two traps and a shitload of poison.
KARMA. (sing-songy voice)
Once I got the headlamp out I was able to catch the little bastard between a shallow wash basin and a deep bowl, using his inability to properly swim to my advantage. I took my improvised trap out in the yard to make a plan. Every time I heard him scramble I yelped a little bit as well. I knew at that moment that bashing him wasn’t going to be an option, as last time that had ended badly. I had been nauseous and generally sick a majority of the week and wasn’t in the mood to lose what little might have remained in my stomach over yet another gory murder in my front yard.
Suddenly the bit of water in the bottom of the basin gave me an idea. Drowning! I’m not certain it was the recent studying I’ve been doing for the GRE about angles and geometry or if it was a drug induced hallucination of some sort. But I quickly decided drowning would be the most effective form of capital punishment. I grabbed a brick to place on top of the upturned bowl and ran for a bucket and the outside standpipe.
I opened the tap only to hear an unsatisfying hiss. No water. Well this would make drowning a more difficult option, but yet not impossible. There was also a bucket full of water in the bathroom, waiting for morning that I would usually use to wash my face. I was going to have to wander around with a dirty face in the morning but it seems knowing this mouse would be dead was worth it. I grabbed the water and went back to where my captive was held.
I carefully poured the water into the basin. Nothing. The water couldn’t get up in the bowl because of the air inside. I still cannot imagine what inspired me to attempt to defy the laws of physics or gravity or whatever scientific truth means that I had effectively created a little submarine bubble for this little bastard but that is exactly what happened. I tried a few times to tip the whole production to get the water up inside the bowl but my hands weren’t big enough to grasp the basin and hold down the bowl. The mouse would escape and swim around desperately, and I would squeal, and it was generally bad. So now I had a trapped mouse, a basin full of mouse shit water, and a brick on top. Prior experience told me crying wasn’t a helpful option in this scenario.
My benedryl addled mind could do no more. I was worried about leaving the whole production either too close to the house as he would inevitably try his little breaking and entering scheme again, or too far into the yard as I have a highly curious four year old little boy who is currently staying on the compound and had visions up him upending the thing and the mouse escaping in the morning. In my drug induced stupor of a brain the idiot mouse clearly had rabies as it was crazy enough to repeatedly try to enter my house (somewhere in my mind the exact diagnosis and suggested rehabilitative treatment was crawling it’s way out from the depths of my criminology and psychology degrees as I’m cross referencing my time at a law firm for the statues on capital punishment that I’d already sentenced this monster to.) and was going to attack the child before I got up and how would I live with that? It seems these bloody things are bent on making me lose sleep whether they’re dead or alive!
So I did something slightly crazy.
I went into my house and grabbed a pen and a post it.
I wrote on the note:
“Please kill the mouse”
And drew a sort of stick figure mouse drawing on it.
I have absolutely no idea whom I was appealing to, as the little boy likely cannot read Setswana much less English. I began to laugh hysterically and exhaustedly in my yard in the moonlight. Perhaps some Tokaloshi or an bilingual African spirit would take care of the job.
I woke the next day and looked at the whole set up in my yard and knew I couldn’t deal with that just then. When I came home from work the girl on my compound upended the whole mess and the mouse was indeed expired.
It just struck me that perhaps it was hypothermia. Eish.
Like so many starlets at the academy awards who tearfully promise themselves they wouldn’t cry, I swore I wouldn’t write about killing mice again. I thought I had covered the whole genre, from trapping to poison to blunt object traumas to the head. I was certain that there was nothing left to say. And generally there wasn’t. Until of course last night.
I was sitting on my bed in a benedryl induced haze, waiting for the drugs to completely put me to sleep. I had been sick with some terrific stomach bug that had left me weak and tired, but as I had laid around for several hours already that day I was finding it tough to sleep despite being tired, so had taken the benedryl to knock me out. I was writing letters home which will inevitably arrive after the event I’m meaning to write about when I heard some soft tapping coming from near my door. I thought perhaps it was the little boy who lived on my compound coming to greet me. I had heard that he had come home earlier, and despite us not speaking any common language, we’ve become buddies.
I shouted a greeting at the door three times to no response. Finally I hauled myself off my bed and opened the door. What greeted me on the other side was not a smiling little boy but a mouse crawling up the inside of the netting I’d wrapped through my burglar door to prevent mosquitoes in the warmer seasons. I pushed open the door and he was dangling like Tom Cruise in one of the “Mission Impossible” films. I grabbed the dustpan from the floor and flicked him off the door into the night. Little did I know that would set the tone for the night…
Around eleven thirty I woke up in from a deep sleep in a big confusion. I heard splashing around in my bathtub. At first I thought perhaps the cork had come out of the piping I’ve been using to shower and the sound I was hearing was the water rushing out into the pipe into the bathtub. Upon closer inspection I saw a dark something in the corner of the tub. I had left a small amount of water in the bottom to rinse some of the laundry I had soaking in the morning as the water has been out. I didn’t remember leaving anything in the tub and as soon as I turned around to grab my headlamp the splashing began again and I had a strong suspicion as to the nature of the intruder.
When I shone the light in the tub it was indeed a mouse, attempting to climb out of my bathtub. A quick survey of the situation determined that he had probably come in through the slightly open window climbing in through a hole in the netting that surrounded the piping. Strangely enough this was not the first mouse I’d seen in a bathtub, the other one was in Maun at Anna’s house. She being a vegetarian and an animal lover that mouse was trapped and released. As I am not a vegetarian or an extreme animal lover, this mouse would not be experiencing the same fate.
I thought that the fact that I had not taken any drastic measures to disturb whichever animals were living in my ceiling making noise and waking me up all the time had been an appropriate enough attempt at hospitality. When I mentioned the intruders to my landlady she suggested that perhaps it was the mice that fly (bats) that had gotten up there and she would look for the hole which they were using to get in and block it. As there are holes all over I very much doubted the success that this mission would bring. She then asked if I had any poison to kill the mice in her house. I told her that I had something better and lent her one of my traps, secretly smug in my current lack of a mouse problem, due to what I considered good management techniques: read two traps and a shitload of poison.
KARMA. (sing-songy voice)
Once I got the headlamp out I was able to catch the little bastard between a shallow wash basin and a deep bowl, using his inability to properly swim to my advantage. I took my improvised trap out in the yard to make a plan. Every time I heard him scramble I yelped a little bit as well. I knew at that moment that bashing him wasn’t going to be an option, as last time that had ended badly. I had been nauseous and generally sick a majority of the week and wasn’t in the mood to lose what little might have remained in my stomach over yet another gory murder in my front yard.
Suddenly the bit of water in the bottom of the basin gave me an idea. Drowning! I’m not certain it was the recent studying I’ve been doing for the GRE about angles and geometry or if it was a drug induced hallucination of some sort. But I quickly decided drowning would be the most effective form of capital punishment. I grabbed a brick to place on top of the upturned bowl and ran for a bucket and the outside standpipe.
I opened the tap only to hear an unsatisfying hiss. No water. Well this would make drowning a more difficult option, but yet not impossible. There was also a bucket full of water in the bathroom, waiting for morning that I would usually use to wash my face. I was going to have to wander around with a dirty face in the morning but it seems knowing this mouse would be dead was worth it. I grabbed the water and went back to where my captive was held.
I carefully poured the water into the basin. Nothing. The water couldn’t get up in the bowl because of the air inside. I still cannot imagine what inspired me to attempt to defy the laws of physics or gravity or whatever scientific truth means that I had effectively created a little submarine bubble for this little bastard but that is exactly what happened. I tried a few times to tip the whole production to get the water up inside the bowl but my hands weren’t big enough to grasp the basin and hold down the bowl. The mouse would escape and swim around desperately, and I would squeal, and it was generally bad. So now I had a trapped mouse, a basin full of mouse shit water, and a brick on top. Prior experience told me crying wasn’t a helpful option in this scenario.
My benedryl addled mind could do no more. I was worried about leaving the whole production either too close to the house as he would inevitably try his little breaking and entering scheme again, or too far into the yard as I have a highly curious four year old little boy who is currently staying on the compound and had visions up him upending the thing and the mouse escaping in the morning. In my drug induced stupor of a brain the idiot mouse clearly had rabies as it was crazy enough to repeatedly try to enter my house (somewhere in my mind the exact diagnosis and suggested rehabilitative treatment was crawling it’s way out from the depths of my criminology and psychology degrees as I’m cross referencing my time at a law firm for the statues on capital punishment that I’d already sentenced this monster to.) and was going to attack the child before I got up and how would I live with that? It seems these bloody things are bent on making me lose sleep whether they’re dead or alive!
So I did something slightly crazy.
I went into my house and grabbed a pen and a post it.
I wrote on the note:
“Please kill the mouse”
And drew a sort of stick figure mouse drawing on it.
I have absolutely no idea whom I was appealing to, as the little boy likely cannot read Setswana much less English. I began to laugh hysterically and exhaustedly in my yard in the moonlight. Perhaps some Tokaloshi or an bilingual African spirit would take care of the job.
I woke the next day and looked at the whole set up in my yard and knew I couldn’t deal with that just then. When I came home from work the girl on my compound upended the whole mess and the mouse was indeed expired.
It just struck me that perhaps it was hypothermia. Eish.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Ballet on the Beach....
Here they are.
I was just down on the beach. It still wasn't sunny, but it had been raining for days and I needed to do something. I needed to move.
So I did some handstands. Stretches. Cartwheels. Yoga poses. Ballet turns.
Leaps and jumps.
Just something to remind me of my body's strengths and capabilities. That I'm alive.
Then I noticed him.
He was sort of mimicking me. And I think at first it was a joke. But he sure was trying hard.
So I showed him what I was doing. I exaplined in broken Spanish, which was nearly a match with his native Portugese. Between that and his broken English we were in business.
At first his friends mocked him. I could tell even across languages and colors that this kid was being teased in a major way.
But then they joined in.
And he kept on going.
There was none of the usual. No begging. No whining. They asked for nothing but to learn.
I taught what my body knew. No music. Few words. Movement. Connection.
All of a sudden, on the beaches of Mozambique, I'm teaching classical ballet. I haven't practiced for years, but it's all still there.
I forgot I knew it but it came right back. I didn't know I had anything to give, but I found something. I forgot I had it, but it matters to them.
We danced. It was breathtaking.
They were amazing. Moments like these are why I remain in Africa. I am so grateful.
Photography by Adryan Caron.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
From the Land of 10,000 Lakes to the Land of 150,000 Islands.
We drive over the floodplain, bouncing violently along on a road, or really a trail blazed by someone who left their tire tracks on this particular path previously. The ruts in the path are large, and toss the little white pickup up and down, back and forth as it nobly attempts to navigate along the path that seemed steady only from a distance. The pink sun sinks into the haze, making its final encore until the morning. It leaves the stage that is the sky to the full moon that rises opposite.
In a few months all we drive over will be gone, held hostage by the rains and drowned completely in the subsequent floods. The ground here is mostly dry, sandy, yet boggy in the most unpredictable places. Some of the mud is obvious, a thick black mess created by a combination of the water from the occasional lagoon and the refuse of the animals that drink from it. They have left their footprints and the indents of their bodies where they sleep and roll in the mixture to cool down at night. Simon points this out to me.
We drive on. We must take caution as we continue to not become stuck. The sand beneath us betrays what in a few months time this expanse will become; a glassy swiftly flowing river. The grasses, which once waved in the calm yet deeply flowing currents have been chewed down to short tufts by the livestock that have made this place their refuge from the dusty, dry, barren village field further up the gently sloping riverbank.
The village children have also made this their haven, no longer afraid of the crocs and hippos that will inhabit this very acreage when the rains come; they have erected goal posts for a futbol field. Patches are charred by fires set by the villagers after they’ve come to collect the long, dried reeds for their traditional roofs and fences. They do this so as to make net fishing easier when the rains come. Long wood makoro boats lay abandoned on the shores; they too await the rains, which will render them useful again.
Huge termite mounds create what will become thousands of small islands when the river floods, trees take advantage of this elevation and dense rich dirt to put down their roots. The trees act as a filter for all the dusty waste that settles in this area while the lands are dry, while also providing ready food for the termites to continue building their empire. It’s just another of the symbiotic relationships that make the delta the unique ecosystem it is.
Simon casts his fishing pole into one of the larger lagoons; I peer into the pond and am surprised to see what looks like small jellyfish. This area is so beautifully mysterious, it never fails to produce something to amaze me when I am quiet and examine it closely enough. The delta and the floodplains especially are magic, striking a balance as delicate as the dragonflies’ wings that hover like fairies in the vanishing daylight.
In a few months all we drive over will be gone, held hostage by the rains and drowned completely in the subsequent floods. The ground here is mostly dry, sandy, yet boggy in the most unpredictable places. Some of the mud is obvious, a thick black mess created by a combination of the water from the occasional lagoon and the refuse of the animals that drink from it. They have left their footprints and the indents of their bodies where they sleep and roll in the mixture to cool down at night. Simon points this out to me.
We drive on. We must take caution as we continue to not become stuck. The sand beneath us betrays what in a few months time this expanse will become; a glassy swiftly flowing river. The grasses, which once waved in the calm yet deeply flowing currents have been chewed down to short tufts by the livestock that have made this place their refuge from the dusty, dry, barren village field further up the gently sloping riverbank.
The village children have also made this their haven, no longer afraid of the crocs and hippos that will inhabit this very acreage when the rains come; they have erected goal posts for a futbol field. Patches are charred by fires set by the villagers after they’ve come to collect the long, dried reeds for their traditional roofs and fences. They do this so as to make net fishing easier when the rains come. Long wood makoro boats lay abandoned on the shores; they too await the rains, which will render them useful again.
Huge termite mounds create what will become thousands of small islands when the river floods, trees take advantage of this elevation and dense rich dirt to put down their roots. The trees act as a filter for all the dusty waste that settles in this area while the lands are dry, while also providing ready food for the termites to continue building their empire. It’s just another of the symbiotic relationships that make the delta the unique ecosystem it is.
Simon casts his fishing pole into one of the larger lagoons; I peer into the pond and am surprised to see what looks like small jellyfish. This area is so beautifully mysterious, it never fails to produce something to amaze me when I am quiet and examine it closely enough. The delta and the floodplains especially are magic, striking a balance as delicate as the dragonflies’ wings that hover like fairies in the vanishing daylight.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sting Operation. A Tutorial on actions to be taken when a Scorpion has entered your bed....
I knew when I put my arm back above my head that it wasn’t a bee, a wasp or any kind of small bug. I had just had the pleasure of being stung by a rather large wasp that had invaded my mosquito net the previous Monday, and so was quite familiar with the lovely feelings and particular curse words that accompany that particular experience. This pain was new and strange. It was near my left shoulder, and went both up and down my arm simultaneously, and was both stinging and numbing, with twinges of sharp pain and burning. Although it sounds like the general symptoms of a pretty horrific STI (if not in the proper geographic place on the body), due to the rapidity of its onset, I concluded it was a scorpion sting.
We were lying on J’s bed, singing along with his newly purchased pirated copy of “Rent” (damn I love that movie!) waiting for the apple pie to cool. All was right with the world. Whichever law of the universe says that when things are too good, something bad must happen was suddenly enforced. Either that or karma, actually.
About a month back K and I had gone out to the bush for my birthday celebrations. In the processing of zipping the tent she was stung on her finger by an elusive and fast departing enemy, which we were unable to find in the darkness to positively ID. At the time, this seemed to me to be shades of slightly hilarious. We consulted our host, a guy who had lived in and around the bush for most of his life, but due to having a few drinks in him was more than slightly unhelpful. K took some antihistamine and we went to sleep, although I did periodically wake up throughout the night and than wake her up to make sure she was still alive (what a good friend I am). She did not appreciate this. Her hand was sore for a week
As the sensations of burning, shooting, stinging and slight numbness that K had described were now running up and down my arm into my fingers, I had a pretty good idea of which bandit had assaulted me. I yelped and grabbed my arm, disrupting J right in the middle of the duet we were performing while viewing Mimi’s first scene in the movie. I whipped back the duvet we had been laying on and saw him. About the size of my pinky finger and nearly translucent, he was scurrying for cover.
Since J is more afraid of creepy crawlers that I am, he darted towards the door. I grabbed his empty wine glass and upended it, trapping the intruder in a glass coffin. We put him on the desk, theorizing that we would kill him through either suffocation or starvation. Neither of which was, in the end effective. (We got him the next day when R, an Eagle Scout whose phone was of course off when I called in a panic, suggested that we gas him by throwing a few alcohol rubbing pads in there with him. That did the job. PCV’s are SO resourceful.)
After we had imprisoned the culprit and I had assured J that there were no more scorpions in the bed, I joyously began the next natural course of action in a situation like this. I text messaged K. She was of course thrilled to laugh at me, and I was laughing right along with her. We quickly went through our running tally of shitty things that had happened to us since being in country (including but not limited to scorpion stings, stalkers, site relocation, mice, bank issues, thefts, weight lost or gained, length of water outages, housing problems, and sicknesses, and decided that we were now equal and one of us would have to work on one-upping the other, so we could alternately tease or brag to the other about how much rougher or easier we have it).
Then I text the PCMO, my mom, and most of my close PC friends in country, and some that I’m not in regular texting contact with as it was a holiday and text messages were cheap that day. Leave it to me to want to have to best story of the weekend. J was doing the same, although not mentioning it was me that got stung, only that there had been a scorpion in his bed, so that his story would sound better. So there we are, side by side, my arm pulsing, the characters of Rent singing, and both of us ignoring everything to text everyone that wasn’t with us what was happening. Only in the PC. The next round of incoming texts were, of course from people we hadn’t even initially text who had heard the story from texts they had received from others and wanted details. Ah, the PC “network”.
The PCMO called several times, asking about the make, model and color of my scorpion, and advised me to take a benedryl. I did so, and then she called back, telling me not to go to sleep. We ate the apple pie, which did sort of take the pain away temporarily. As the first and main thing you want to do after taking a bendryl is go to sleep, I made a list of people J should call if he awoke to find me dead or otherwise not breathing and laid down to watch the rest of the movie. The PCMO called a few more times, we went to sleep, and I’ve lived to tell the tale of another African adventure. What Next?
We were lying on J’s bed, singing along with his newly purchased pirated copy of “Rent” (damn I love that movie!) waiting for the apple pie to cool. All was right with the world. Whichever law of the universe says that when things are too good, something bad must happen was suddenly enforced. Either that or karma, actually.
About a month back K and I had gone out to the bush for my birthday celebrations. In the processing of zipping the tent she was stung on her finger by an elusive and fast departing enemy, which we were unable to find in the darkness to positively ID. At the time, this seemed to me to be shades of slightly hilarious. We consulted our host, a guy who had lived in and around the bush for most of his life, but due to having a few drinks in him was more than slightly unhelpful. K took some antihistamine and we went to sleep, although I did periodically wake up throughout the night and than wake her up to make sure she was still alive (what a good friend I am). She did not appreciate this. Her hand was sore for a week
As the sensations of burning, shooting, stinging and slight numbness that K had described were now running up and down my arm into my fingers, I had a pretty good idea of which bandit had assaulted me. I yelped and grabbed my arm, disrupting J right in the middle of the duet we were performing while viewing Mimi’s first scene in the movie. I whipped back the duvet we had been laying on and saw him. About the size of my pinky finger and nearly translucent, he was scurrying for cover.
Since J is more afraid of creepy crawlers that I am, he darted towards the door. I grabbed his empty wine glass and upended it, trapping the intruder in a glass coffin. We put him on the desk, theorizing that we would kill him through either suffocation or starvation. Neither of which was, in the end effective. (We got him the next day when R, an Eagle Scout whose phone was of course off when I called in a panic, suggested that we gas him by throwing a few alcohol rubbing pads in there with him. That did the job. PCV’s are SO resourceful.)
After we had imprisoned the culprit and I had assured J that there were no more scorpions in the bed, I joyously began the next natural course of action in a situation like this. I text messaged K. She was of course thrilled to laugh at me, and I was laughing right along with her. We quickly went through our running tally of shitty things that had happened to us since being in country (including but not limited to scorpion stings, stalkers, site relocation, mice, bank issues, thefts, weight lost or gained, length of water outages, housing problems, and sicknesses, and decided that we were now equal and one of us would have to work on one-upping the other, so we could alternately tease or brag to the other about how much rougher or easier we have it).
Then I text the PCMO, my mom, and most of my close PC friends in country, and some that I’m not in regular texting contact with as it was a holiday and text messages were cheap that day. Leave it to me to want to have to best story of the weekend. J was doing the same, although not mentioning it was me that got stung, only that there had been a scorpion in his bed, so that his story would sound better. So there we are, side by side, my arm pulsing, the characters of Rent singing, and both of us ignoring everything to text everyone that wasn’t with us what was happening. Only in the PC. The next round of incoming texts were, of course from people we hadn’t even initially text who had heard the story from texts they had received from others and wanted details. Ah, the PC “network”.
The PCMO called several times, asking about the make, model and color of my scorpion, and advised me to take a benedryl. I did so, and then she called back, telling me not to go to sleep. We ate the apple pie, which did sort of take the pain away temporarily. As the first and main thing you want to do after taking a bendryl is go to sleep, I made a list of people J should call if he awoke to find me dead or otherwise not breathing and laid down to watch the rest of the movie. The PCMO called a few more times, we went to sleep, and I’ve lived to tell the tale of another African adventure. What Next?
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