So, what next?

I’ve been in Botswana for six months now (woot!), yet it somehow feels like both a few seconds and an eternity. After two and a half months of pre-service training and three months of community integration, it’s finally time for me to start my projects. Yikes.

I’ve decided that I want to be as open as possible about this experience and share it with you all. I have experienced huge moments of self-doubt and yet at other times I feel like I’m on top of the world. The highs and lows of Peace Corps service are definitely real.

Anyway, the advice I’ve gotten from older volunteers and staff is to start by trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks. That way, you aren’t completely invested in one project and then devastated when it doesn’t work out. It also prevents you from pushing too hard on something that your community doesn’t actually want.

So here’s what I did this week:

At the clinic, I am currently working on putting together a computer literacy lesson plan. Several people I work with have expressed an interest in learning how to use computers, how to type faster, or how to use excel. We have four computers at the clinic (sadly, no internet) so I am putting together one on one lessons for staff members. Since the clinic tends to get really quiet in the afternoon, finding time for these lessons shouldn’t be a problem. I’m also trying to find a way to install Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on the computers because that’s what I learned to type with and it’s fun. Furthermore, I sat down with two of the nurses and we agreed that the pharmacy and dispensary could use a new organizational system to make finding pills and taking inventory simpler. I’ve been making new labels and brainstorming ideas that I hope to start implementing next week.

Secondary projects:

A few weeks ago, a young man named Moagi approached me about putting together a career fair for out of school youth. In Botswana, there is a big test you have to pass at the end of form 3 (I think that’s the equivalent of 9^th grade) in order to move on to senior secondary school. Unfortunately, in my village the passing rate of this test is quite low and many of the students who fail tend to just stop school altogether. Nonetheless, there actually are quite a few resources for young people in this country, out of school or not. Two years ago, Moagi took out a loan from the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture. He used that money to start a successful vegetable farm and now sells his produce to supermarkets in neighboring villages. Then, he used the profit from his business to build himself a house and buy a truck. Basically, Moagi is awesome and inspiring and he wants to inspire other young people to take advantage of the options they have and create successful futures. I went to his farm this week with a friend and we discussed the possibility of bringing in people from the different youth ministry services and from the technical schools to have a career fair. Now, Botswana culture is very big on consulting, so my next step was to set up a meeting with the ward chiefs and see what they thought of the idea. They turned out to be very supportive and said they would share the idea with the village chief and encouraged me to come and speak about the idea at this week’s village meeting. So I did. I was nervous and jittery, but I brought a friend to help translate (my Setswana is still nowhere near speech worthy) and talked about the career fair. Honestly, I’m still not 100% sure how people feel about the idea, but I think that they liked that I wanted to consult with the community about it. Afterwards, two girls who are currently out of school even came up to me to express their interest in the idea. Friday afternoon, I took the bus to my shopping village, found the offices of youth, sports, and culture and ran my idea by someone working there. He kindly walked me through what kind of proposal I would need to submit to get their support and encouraged me to come back soon! I am not getting my hopes up about being able to pull this off, but I definitely think I took some positive steps this week.

Other than that, I also decided to branch out a bit into the primary and junior secondary schools. As I mentioned before, the clinic is quiet after lunch and I want to get more involved with the rest of the community. I submitted a proposal to the vice-headmistress at the primary school about potentially helping with English or computer classes or even starting a debate club. In Botswana, school starts out in Setswana, but by the time they get to secondary school most classes and tests are in English. If students don’t feel comfortable using English it can make school especially challenging for them. I also really enjoy playing with kids and can’t wait to start using the Kings Pack with them.

Finally, I decided to set up some personal goals for my free time because it helps me stay focused and motivated.

1.     I started jogging a week ago at a small soccer field close to my house. I either go at sunrise or sunset because those are the only times it isn’t incredibly hot these days. So far, I’m feeling good!

2.      I also started working on a personal garden. I have ten little cucumber sprouts! I’ve never gardened before and don’t exactly know what I’m doing, but it’s been a fun experiment and I love the idea of one day having my own fresh vegetables.

3.     Last but not least, I’m reading “I Write What I Like” by Steve Biko. I feel like I’ve been watching too many sitcoms and using TV as a crutch, so I want to focus more on reading.

I hope writing it all out here for the world to see will help keep me accountable and I plan to post updates, good or bad, about how it’s all going.

Oh, most importantly, I owe so many amazing people thank yous for the letters and packages! I am constantly blown away by how thoughtful and supportive you all have been. Whenever I can get to the post office, I always leave with a big smile on my face. Thank you so much to mom and dad, Steve, Adrian, Nico, Mrs. Roberts, Annelise, Daria, Mru, the Monroes, the Zellingers, and Tante Guillemette!!!

IST and Beyond

As mentioned in my last blog post, I recently spent two weeks in Gaborone for In-Service Training (IST). The two and a half months we spent in Serowe before going to site was meant to teach us about Batswana culture, language, and the Peace Corps methods of development aka capacity building and one-on-one approaches. IST however, was meant to bring us back together after our three months of integration and provide us with more concrete skills and information so that we can begin our projects.

First things first, let me write about the unbelievably exciting notion of being in a nice hotel with all the friends you haven’t seen in three months. I was a little nervous that IST would be as overwhelming and exhausting as PST, but the second I started running into friends and receiving dozens of hugs, I stopped caring. Add in the fact that this hotel had hot showers, free wifi, freen meals, and  AIR CONDITIONING, and I was pretty much in volunteer heaven. I started noticing how much we had all changed when my roommate and I began hoarding the complimentary hot chocolate and sugar packets to take back to our villages. (Hey, food is expensive, no judgment allowed.) I think the most noticeable difference in our cohort was in the appearances of the men. They’d pretty much all lost weight and about half of them were now sporting big beards.

Anyway, IST turned out to be pretty similar to PST in a lot of ways – Setswana lessons in the morning and long sessions on Peace Corps policies in the afternoons. However, some of the changes I enjoyed were: having passionate guest speakers from different NGOs in Botswana talk about their goals and strategies, and receiving training in specific tools Peace Corps uses for behavior change such as Kings Pack and STEPS films. Kings Pack training was a ton of fun. The Kings Foundation is an NGO from the UK that provides volunteers all around Southern Africa with a big red backpack full of fun. These backpacks have disks, ropes, tennis balls, hula-hoops, Frisbees, beanbags, and just about every other game you can think of. We spent an amazing morning playing many games and learning how to use these tools to teach different life skills such as hand washing or malaria prevention, and even using games to bring up issues like gender norms. At their core, Kings Foundation is about providing kids with the right to play and the right to be kids for as long as possible. That message feels particularly important when it seems as though children are forced to grow up too quickly. Over the last three months I have loved getting to know the children in my village. Their enthusiasm is contagious and even on my hardest days they make me smile. I cannot wait to use my Base Pack at the primary school in my village.

Finally, IST was really useful because everyone I could possibly want to talk to about project ideas and strategies was walking around in the same hotel. I had the chance to learn about what other volunteers plan to do, what older volunteers are already doing, and then talk to programming staff about what I would like to start in my village and ask how to go about doing that. We also had a couple of days where each volunteer’s counterpart was at the hotel for some training too. Mine, sadly, could not make it, but I had the opportunity to learn about cultural protocols and the different methods of consulting from the counterparts of other volunteers.

Seeing my friends and enjoying all the comforts of the hotel was wonderful, but after two weeks I was ready to get back to my village. It turns out I really enjoy my quiet village life and the bustling capital that is Gaborone was starting to wear me out. After 10 very long hours of buses and waiting for buses to leave, I made it home to my angry kitten and all my lovely neighbors. It’s good to be home.