Dance Party:  I am often heartened by the ways the PCV’s find ways to keep their spirits up – especially the young ladies who live in the middle of nowhere.  If they want to go out and enjoy themselves as we could in America they are setting themselves up for endless sexual harassment as well as community elders/teachers thinking less of them.

I often see Facebook posts on Friday night saying they are having a great time at home with popcorn, wine and a solo Dance Party.  Good for them for finding ways to make the solitude fun!

The other night one of our friends came over and said the five of us should have a Dance Party.  Five?  He was including Rati and FiFi.  He put on some Meatloaf – and oh my goddess! we enjoyed dancing with those dogs!  Paradise By The Dashboard Lights was never so fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids Reading:  John and I love living in our neighbourhood.  There are hoards of kids that come over all the time.  They are in our yard all day everyday if we are home or not.  If we are inside and don’t want to play – they ask for books, puzzles, crayons and toys to play by their selves outside.  The other day I told them it was a reading day and those that didn’t know how to read English must read to those that did.  They all took their jobs seriously.  The picture below shows kids reading from books sent my many of you.

 

 

The readers all got lollipops sent by John’s Aunt.  The little kids can get a lollipop when they can write the alphabet in capital and small letters.

I often think the biggest impact we are making here is our interaction with the kids in the neighbourhood.  Many of you have helped us with your generous gifts of books, crafts, toys, sporting items and of course candies.  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do especially my parents, Nadine and Josh, Angela, Pat and Susan, Gina and Jason and Louie who have sent multiple boxes loaded with goods for the kids.

Donkey Races:  John’s office funded the Men’s Sector (Police men who encourage men to participate responsibly in the community to eradicate HIV/AIDS) Donkey and Horse Race in a little village called Kubung about an hour from our house.  There were cash prizes for the winners.  An HIV mobile testing van came to the site as well.  Lunch was provided for everyone who got tested for HIV/AIDS.  People were able to get the results on the spot.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the race and there were at least 100 people who stood in line for HIV testing.  It was a fun and productive day.

 

If you want to see more pictures of the Donkey Races check out the Newsletter John created for his office at http://kwenengeast.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/men-sector-donkey-and-horse-races/

You can see all the newsletters for John’s office here.  They are pretty cool.

 

 

Khombi Rides – Dad sent us masks to wear over our faces when we walk down the dusty dusty roads.  John sometimes uses the masks when he has to sit next to people who possibly don’t have running water at their home, or maybe they have lost their sense of smell.  (I just suck it up ((literally)) and take it as a state of the human condition).

The Dusty Road Update:  John and I have been working to get the village to address problems with the road outside the school.  Not only is the road so dusty it impairs all regular pedestrians health – it is also grated just enough to allow people to drive about 70 MPH in front of the school, often oblivious to the danger children face with speeding cars.

The teachers and students alike complain and the School Head said he would need some documentation before he took it up with the village counsel.  I volunteered to do a survey and write a report.  While doing that, John ran into the Paramount Chief at a wedding and mentioned the problems with the road.  The Chief gave John the name and number of the councilman who is responsible for the road.  I wrote the report and gave it to the school head.  John met with the councilman.

Nothing was done.

John and I started putting big 1 kilo rocks in the road forcing people to drive slow when they came down the road.  Amazingly, the councilman from the village 50K down the road found out who we were, where we lived, and who we worked for.  He met with my School Head and told him we were breaking the law and we be charged if we didn’t stop immediately.  It is amazing how resourceful these people can be when they want to stop something from happening.  Resourcefulness NEVER seems to be around when attempting to accomplish something!

It was aggravating to be chastised at the Senior Management meeting at the school and also to be called into the School Heads office for a warning about breaking the law.

However, John had also given my report to the District Commissioner (like a Governor) and she just sent a reply stating how useful my report was.  The District had already included paving the road in the next budget, but there were not funds to start the project.  However, she agreed with two of my other less costly suggestions to put in speed bumps and put up speed limit signs.

Right when you feel like giving up – something worthy always seems to happen!!!!  This joint project made John and I both feel good for a least two days.

Snakes in the house:  After we got our dogs John cut a doggy door into our screen door.  We leave the big hard door open and lock the burglar bars, which allows animals in and keeps people out.  For weeks I have been having nightmares that snakes are crawling in the doggy door.  John thinks it is funny.  Finally the other day, while sweeping I came across this freaking snake.  John says it was tiny, and they eat a lot of bugs and I should get down from the chair.  But he told me to keep the dogs away while he was corralling it out the door – in case it was poisonous.  WHAT?????

I will never be able to leave my bed and step on the floor in the middle of the night again.

 

Running the Tuck Shop:  A Tuck Shop is a little tiny store that sells candy, chips, and soda.  The school has a little tuck shop which the PTA is supposed to operate and proceeds are used for the good of the school.  There are many problems with the PTA running this – mostly that the PTA never meets and does not have officers.  As I have said many times, parents see little value in participating in their children’s lives, and many of them are poor and feel inferior to the teachers.

Last year the PTA hired a women to work full time running the Tuck Shop – and paid her P600 a month, which is about $80 – which is so significantly below the poverty level it is ridicules.  The Tuck Shop barely made enough money to pay her salary.  I suspect she stole a lot of food or money since we were not paying her enough to buy groceries for a week.

Teachers incredibly volunteered to run the Tuck Shop themselves.  Which  heavily cut into their time to grade, develop tests, and meet with students.

There is no inventory lists, no register, no receipts, no procedures.  During the day money is taken out of the vault (a bucket on the candy counter), to purchase supplies.  The person who volunteers to get the supplies is to receive P50 for transport costs.  Every teacher volunteers to do this and it is costing about P250 a week to buy supplies.  At the end of the day money is counted by recorded by how many of each bill/coin are in the vault/bucket and then calculating the value times the number of coins/pula.  They check their calculations, and not the money.  Total recipes, expenditures, and cash balance are recorded in a note book, which is passed around from teacher to teacher.  The teacher in charge for the day takes the money home at night and at the end of the fortnight (African for 2 weeks), the money is turned over to the PTA to deposit.  There does seem to be one rule:  If you are working in the shop, you can’t give yourself change if you buy anything.  I am glad to see at least one rule.

I was going to write book keeping procedures for them.  But I really don’t know how to start this project.  I have brought up several suggestions along the way – but there is always resistance to change.  They do seem to be making a little money – and they could probably earn a decent amount if only, if only, if only, if only too many things.   They are using a bucket,  for a cash register and vault…………

The Post Office:  Thought I would let you know where we go to get all those great boxes that you all send us:

 

Merry Christmas to our friends and all our family.  We will be celebrating with some friends later today.  They asked us to come cook the dinner together.  They are Indians so, if we are lucky, it will be a big Indian Christmas dinner.  We have our trees (sent by family) up and we plan to wrap little tiny presents under them!  

Christmas trees 2012

 

 

What else………….from Carol

 

The Dogs:  Rati seems to have fully recovered from her horrible experience with the home spaying.  However, I’m not over it.  I think I will forever be traumatized by the event.  Any female dog ever spayed again will be over my objection.  We should put all our efforts on getting the boy dog snipped instead!

To help make it up to Rati, we talked the owner of Rati’s sister into giving us Phoenix for the next year.  Little 3 pound cute Phoenix lived in a cage with two other mean dogs and had to stay under a chair so she would not get bitten.  We changed her name to FiFi (when she goes back I think she will still respond to Phoenix) and now Rati has a full time play mate.  We also found excellent babysitters.  They have a four year old daughter who comes to visit the dogs and she asks to keep them overnight sometimes – so we feel very comfortable when we have to leave them.   Finally – we are hoping the dogs will learn to bite all the people we don’t have the nerve to bite ourselves!  And we will say “Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry” – but not really mean it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food Fun – One of the most fun foods here is “fat cakes”.  Deep fried dough, sold in the many Tuck Shops for about $0.15 (A tuck shop is usually a tiny shack or perhaps a table with netting over it that sells candies or other treats along the road).  The local people eat these fatcakes pretty much every day during Tea Break and if they can afford it, they buy two or three at a time.  (The picture below portrays exactly how the women at my school cooks the fat cakes).

The other day some of my colleges got fat cakes for tea, and a few others bought French fries or chips. I was shocked to see them pull out the insides of the fat cake (and eat them) and then re-stuff them with the French fries!  I cannot imagine how this concept has not reached downstate county and state fairs in Illinois!!!!

Tea:  Tea break is a sacred thing.  If you want people to attend meetings you must serve tea at 10:30.  Tea consists of tea or coffee and biscuits (cookies) at a minimum and more usually has spam sandwiches cut in fourths as well.  Tea is observed at every school, workplace, and social function.

To be fair, it is sort of a breakfast and considered the first meal of the day.  I recently looked up the how, why and history of tea breaks.  Botswana seems to follow the tradition of simply supplying food for the hungry, much more than the American/British version found in the closest Four Seasons with Miss Manners for ladies of leisure.

The other day I saw how serious tea is here.  I was with the Deputy District Commissioner (like a Lt. Governor) and we went to a meeting several villages away that started at 9:00am.  Miraculously, it really started at 9 and was done by 10!  We had brought tea in the trunk of the car to serve in the anticipated middle of the meeting, but the meeting ended before the tea time.  We started home, but at 10:30 we pulled over in the middle of nowhere, along the road, with a bunch of cows, and pulled out the hot carafe and pre-prepared bowls of tea, coffee and biscuits.  Five of us spent 30 minutes standing around the back of the car having tea, instead of going home and eating like civilized people or going to work and doing our jobs.  Everything will stop for a tea break.

Language Test:  Our language skills are tested four times in the Peace Corps.  Twice before swearing in, once at mid service and once before we leave.  There are 12 levels of proficiency   John and I both scored at level 2 (with 12 being high) when we swore in.  Of course, I have been relieved that my school is required to teach in English and teaching children English is very important here.  I get the adults to speak English by promising to take minutes at all the school meetings if the teachers and staff promise to speak in English.  I am usually chastised for not learning the native language.  My response is that I agree that is a significant fault, and then I tell them to go ahead and use Setswana, but I will have to decline my position as secretary.  So they all grudgingly agree to speak in English.  I live in an urban village and most everyone can speak English here.  Soooo I have never learned a word of Setswana since I left training.  John said he didn’t either and he said he didn’t care if he failed our mid-service test.  I took this as a cue (or excuse) that I didn’t need to care if I failed either.  I did learn how to say, “I have a dog named Rati and I love her.  Everyone loves her.” – but that was it. (Ke nna ntsa e bidiwa Rati.  Ke rata Rati.  Botha rata Rati).

After our recent grueling Mid Service Exam, we got our scores and I was still at level 2, but John, who insisted he was going to fail scored at level 5.  He swears he didn’t purposely learn without me – that it slowly snuck up on him and he had no idea he knew how to speak Setswana.  He swears he would have helped me learn more if he only knew that he actually could speak the language at the Intermediate Middle level.  Only one person scored lower than me and it was a person who refused to speak Setswana for the test, but I know she speaks much better than me in the community.  I have the lowest grade of everyone in my class.

While I hate that I failed this test, I am grateful to have been sent to a country that’s official language is English. I am so lucky or blessed that all my life failures are muted and the way to go forward is always laid out in front of me.  I still have one more year to get up to level 3 (Novice High), which is the minimum expected although not required. But I am making due at level 2.

(I put a bunch of fun pictures from Mid Service Training on Facebook – if anyone is interested.)

 

Gender Committee:  I was asked to join the District (like a state) Gender Committee.   Modern Botswana is only 45 years old and when the constitution was written men and women were given equal rights for education, voting, and other various things.  The constitution was far advanced of the culture.  It is interesting to be in a place where the rights were guaranteed before being demanded.  Most all the work towards equality is changing the culture instead of the law.

I often aligned with the men on the committee and one of the men tells me he knows God sent me to them.  Yes – I swear it is true!  The more progressive men in the community seem to  want there to be equality, but don’t know how that is supposed to work with the strong culture of men being the leaders and commanders in home and community.  When we go to community meetings the men regularly ask, “What do you want to take from us, so that you can be equal” – and it is a genuine question. While I often want to reassure their fear and say, “We only want you to castrate yourself.  You can keep your testes in a jar – it worked for the Eunuchs and the royal court in China and it will work for us here too” – but I don’t.

It wouldn’t be appropriate and they don’t really get sarcasm here.  These men are sincere and change takes a long time – I am happy to be a part of a real discussion on gender equality, with men willing to truly engage in a dialogue.

I have been asked to make several presentations and design media for many of the local events. I recently worked on an international campaign called 16 Days of Activism.  We sponsored two events that were well attended and got good writes-ups in the paper.  I love how many men participate in these events along with the women!

Parenting:  I often struggle to understand how or why people parent their children here.  In the USA there is rarely anything more precious than ones child.  If a parent doesn’t care about their own kids, society is supposed to intervene – and if another family member does not step in, government usually does.  Everything is …..”for the kids”.  Here, nothing is for the children.  (Oddly while there is little respect for children, children are expected to and do totally take care of their parents when they grow up. I mean entirely take care of them – pay all their bills, give them transport and build them a home).

There is one special place I like to walk to about 2K from my home that I call The Rocks.  It is beautiful and you can see all of Molepolole from the little cliff which is easy to climb.  The dogs love climbing the rocks and it is a breath taking scenel at sunset.  I took a few kids, along with the dogs one day.  The next day 10 kids wanted to come and the next day every single kid in the neighborhood wanted to come.

I told each kid to ask their parents.  Many parents came to talk to me about this.  The parents couldn’t believe I would take the kids on a walk.  They wanted to know how I thought of it and why I would want to do that.  They also wanted me to know they thought I was being kind when I took these kids. They speculated about how much I must miss my own children back home.  They would gush about how much their kids liked me and liked hanging out at our house.  They were being gracious and also curious about how we get the kids so excited and interested.  I could see these parents were happy that their children were engaged and that people liked their children.

I am flummoxed!  What I can’t see and I don’t think I ever will – is why can’t they take their own child for a walk?  What prevents this thought process?  I simply cannot grasp this part of the culture.  It is very very hard not to judge this and to try and believe it is simply something cultural beyond my grasp.  I try to stay focused on the seeds of love that are visible.

 

Culture:   Some things are the same in every culture.  When I worked at the probation office (28 years ago) I remember several girls said they got pregnant because their religion would not allow them to use birth control.  They didn’t seem to mind blowing off their religion when it came to pre-marital sex.  It’s the same thing here.  Everyone says they can’t get married because their culture requires that they pay 7 cows (or equivalent) before they can marry.  So they are forced to have children outside of marriage since they cannot afford the cows.  Of course, if you strictly follow cultural rules – there should be no sex outside of marriage as well.

A special dinner:  If PCV’s come to our house for a weekend we usually make them a special dinner.  It is easy for us with all the goodies we get from home.   We pretend it is a dinner party and occasionally even light a candle and ignore the chipped plastic plates, and pots instead of serving dishes.

Now that the holidays are here most people have left the neighborhood and we are basically alone.  However, two of the six boys that live next door had to stay here (by themselves) an extra two weeks because there was not enough transport money to take them to their grand parents home village.  John and I felt sorry for them and invited them over for their own special dinner.  They are in the cooking club, so they sort of know how to bake, but we planned and served a big and formal dinner, trying to teach them about social graces, and planning as well as cooking.

We had Mexican night with burritos (thanks to many people back home for sending Mexican fixings).

Most of the food in Botswana is on the bland side.  But these boys  have learned to appreciate some of the spices and often ask to borrow some of my hot spices and recipes to make more textured and tasty food.  They were very excited about all the hot sauces, hot peppers and hot spices.

I warned them to be careful – they were creating something I would not be able to eat – but they are 11 and 12- the invincible ages.  They told me they could handle it.  After Jay drank about 10 glasses of water and sucked on 10 ice cubes he admitted his throat was burning pretty bad.  A few minutes later he said he was getting scared about how much it hurt and acquiesced to the yogurt I suggested he substitute for the rest of his meal.

I asked him if he knew what was happening.  When he said he didn’t, I told him, he was learning a lesson right now.  I was glad he laughed and agreed.

After dinner John showed them some card tricks, we all played Concentration and then watched movies. John won at Concentration and he told them he was the biggest winner because he was spending every second of the game and every atom of his brain Concentrating.  He said he concentrated his butt off – and they would have to learn to do that too if they wanted to win at anything.  He taught them many good memory tricks.  Their mother told me they said it was one of the best nights of their lives!  I think it was a darn good night in our life too!

Friends Celebrations:  We have met some wonderful friends here and have been invited to celebrate some milestones with them.  Kelone and Jez run the NGO, Non Governmental Organization, we both do secondary project work at.  I tutor girls from minority tribes in Commerce and John takes care of their computer needs.  If you want to learn more about the NGO you can do it here:  http://springboard-humanism.org.  They had a very nice 25th wedding anniversary that we were both invited too and greatly enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Variety Show:  My school had a variety show on the last day of school.  The boys all sang and danced and the girls dressed like little tramps and “modeled”.  My school is so strict about everyone being in school uniform and so conservative about the students behavior and dress – I was a little shocked by how easily the staff allowed the girls to dress this way.  It was one of those transcendental moments when I realized there are as many similarities as differences in people.  Girls love having an opportunity to show off what they have –

 

 

 

 

 

Double click any pictures to see them full size.

 

Both of us have “adapted” well to the significantly lower level of expected hygiene here in Africa.  No more daily showers or weekly laundry and much less concern about our physical appearance in general.  As a result,  our hair has lost it’s priority.

In my case, I was half discouraged about the full day’s vacation travel and expense to go get a haircut and half intrigued with having long hair again (like my high school days in the 1970’s).  I just decided that I would let it grow for the two years I was here and then cut it when we came back.  After the heat of last summer and continual disappointment looking in the mirror each day, I decided I had had enough.  I asked one of our friends who used to work in a hair salon to cut it, but I was tortured by the thought of a dramatic cut, so I requested just half cut off.  That left me with something better than before, but still a mess.  A few weeks later, I bit the bullet and took a vacation day to travel to the big city and get it cut professionally.  Again, tortured, I requested the girl to use her imagination and do “something” fun with it.  For $30 (about 10% of my monthly living allowance for food and transportation) I got a very pretty, GIRLS haircut.  Uuggghh!

There are plenty of “barbers” right here in our village, however, not a one of them has ever cut “strait hair” (white people’s hair), so I was not too excited about that option.  I ended back at the same professional salon again 2 weeks later in hopes of getting a credit for my own mistaken directions, but to no avail.

However, I did end up with Clyde, who was a very good cutter and he got me back to my old short-hair self! What a relief!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of our friends was nice enough to send Carol some Do-it-Yourself Hair Coloring and she was feeling over confident in my abilities one evening and asked me to give her just “a few highlights”.  Seemed easy enough and I read the directions and went to town on her hair.  You can guess the results.  Orange hair. Everywhere.  What?  I didn’t know it would do that!  So that is how we met Clyde.  He was happy to help us fix my miserable mess and it came out fairly well, but once you start with the hair coloring, the roots grow out and there’s a lot of maintenance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our garden appears to be a bit more of a success this year than last.  Last year, our first garden, we dug up a bit of sandy, rocky dirt and planted all kinds of great things that had been given to us by our friend Jason, the Master Gardner.   Unfortunately, with a combination of no rain, too shallow digging, little to no nutrients and no top soil whatsoever, it failed pretty miserably.  At the end of the season we decided to compost for the next season.  We got two 5 gallon buckets and took all our left over vegetables and peels and all kinds of great stuff and layered dirt in the buckets and then buried it all in piles as the buckets got full.  We figured this new dirt would have lots of good nutrients and be much better for our next garden.  So this year we planted the rest of the seeds that Jason gave us in little seedling containers and raised them with all the tender loving care we could give them.  Most of them grew, although weakly.  We hired someone to dig our garden plot down nice and deeply and made it much bigger than last year.  We built a new chicken and bird proof structure covered with the extra PC-issue mosquito netting we had (because we are two PCVs) and churned all that great compost into our new garden bed, marveling at how sumptuous it looked!  We planted the seedlings and watered well and waited.  All of the seedlings that we had planted died almost right away, leaving us bitterly disappointed   However, soon after that tons of sprouts came bursting through the earth and we quickly deduced that the compost we had created apparently had tons of tomato and squash seeds from food we had thrown away!  We accepted our fate and pruned like mad.

Now we have many tomato plants and squash plants bearing little fruits and we are hopeful that they will continue to grow to some eatable size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few months back the Soccer season started.  I had promised the neighbor kids a year ago that I would take them all  to a Zebras Game.  The Zebras are the Botswana National Football Team.   They are pretty good, but  not really world class.  As it turns out our village of Molepolole has the most modern and news stadium in the country, so the Zebras play here very frequently.   Again, the stadium is difficult to get to for us and there is no published schedule of games so planning a night out to see the game is not easy.  The team is made up of 7 divisions ranging from the professionals to the youngest team which is for ages 16 and under.

A few weeks ago we heard from a taxi driver that the Zebras were playing the next Friday for a free game. Of course it turned out that it was the youngest team, but Carol and I grabbed the opportunity and arranged with the parents of 17 kids for them to provide 8 pula ($1.00) for taxi fare to the game and back.Friday came and I took off work early and we called two of our taxi friends who we were sure we could convince to squish 7 or 8 kids in each taxi.  Of course, 5 of the kids did not show up at all, and another 5 of them showed up with no money.  Nevertheless, we piled the 12 of them into two taxi and went to the game. It appeared to be the highlight of their lives as only 1 or 2 of them had ever been to a game before.   We brought snacks for everyone and bought them all water at the stadium.  We tried to show them the Buddy System to help keep Carol and I from panicking when we could only count 11.  It was a fun event and very gratifying to see how happy and grateful the kids were.

 

 

 

 

Hello Everyone!

We wanted to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and let you know that we will be enjoying a special meal (although not a Turkey – in fact, Carol is currently boiling a giant, family sized cow tongue) and enjoying our screensaver as it whips through the thousands of great pictures of all of you!   We are living vicariously through Facebook posts and emails letting us know how Thanksgiving is still celebrated back home.

 

Rati is improving slowly – with several fits of pain a day – but still improving – and we are grateful for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wish you all the best!

Jm and Carol

 

PS>  The giant, family sized boiled cow tongue is NOT for us!

I just couldn’t resist.  Especially after today.  The last couple of days have been particularly difficult.   A couple tough events occurred and I’m feeling a bit dejected.   I decided I would just write down some of the stories , if for no other reason then just to remember them all someday, and to be reminded that our 2 year stay in Africa had many uncomfortable sides.

 

I will start with the most significant event, that of someone close dying.   When we prepared for leaving for Africa a couple of years ago, one of the things we considered was the possibility of something bad happening back home while we were away.  Marriages and babies might bring us back early, but at least happily.   But family or friends befalling misfortune was going to be a tough issue.  A few days ago I got the news that one of my very best friends’ dad had passed on.  His dad was also a good friend of mine.  Of course he and his family are devastated and fully unprepared as it was a sudden event.  It’s hard to be prepared for something like this and its next to impossible to imagine all the emotional, financial and logistical issues that must be faced as a result.  No matter who you are or how tough you are, when someone close unexpectedly passes, it hurts.  A lot.  Needless to say, I am sorry and in mourning.  I am sorry to mourn alone, and I am suffering the loss without being able to console and consort with all the others that loved Jim.  Carol is also mourning.  I feel bad knowing how much that family is hurting and I can not do anything from here.

While trying to get a handle on the grief and helplessness of Jim’s death, I had another event that felt like a kick in the gut while down.  Yesterday marked the saddest and most disturbing day of our experience here in Africa so far.   We have had the wonderful blessing of our little Maltese puppy about 2 months ago.  We both fell completely in love with Rati, and we love taking good care of her.  Because there are many large, nasty mongol dogs around here, we made the somewhat difficult decision to have her spayed.  Much research on the internet agreed with this.   Checking with several vets we decided on a local one as it would be very hard to get her to and from Gaborone, and the procedure costs twice as much there.  The local vet also volunteered to come get our puppy and take us to his clinic and back, which was a huge benefit.

However, that morning, he couldn’t organize transportation and said he would take a cab to our home and do the surgery here.  We were hesitant but somewhat in a jam.  He came to our house  with his assistant and a patio box of tools and medications.  He is the local vet for the Department of Agriculture and licensed as a Veterinary Surgeon.  His primary job is taking care of the many cattle and goats and horses in this area and he sees to many dogs and cats on the side from his home.  He was nice enough, and we (us and our two PCV friend who had stayed the night with us) were eager to see how this was going to go.

It was a two hour surgery and the whole time we 4 were giving each other looks of questionable remorse.

 

The surgery took place on our dining room table, with some newspaper to cover it and the IV bottle hung from an old rusty nail in the cement wall that currently holds up the mosquito trap.  The surgeon had all his equipment and a sterilization liquid but my living/dinning room is not really a sterile environment  and I was  concerned about the “operating room” environment.  It was 90 degrees in our house and I had the job of wiping the surgeons’ brow every time he said “brow”.  None of us had ever witnessed this kind of operation before nor did we know much about it.  The doctor talked as though it was a very routine procedure, and many of the cats and dogs we had as children in my family had been spayed or neutered, so we were not prepared for this major operation.  He gave Rati a shot that knocker her out in my arms and then prepped her for surgery.   Next was a large needle of anesthesia and then he made a 3 inch cut (on her 5  inch stomach.   That is when the looks began.

 

We had assumed that a small incision would be required and adequate.  We were wrong.  He then pulled out most of her guts and set them aside while trying eternally to find her little ovaries.  Once located they were tediously tied and then cut out.   I was quite disappointed in the way this “surgeon’s” hand was not nearly as steady as the ones you see in the movies and also concerned about his lack of organization of his tools.  The whole time I was wiping the brow of the surgeon and holding a flashlight, along with Adam holding a second one so he could see better.  After 40 minutes or so, Rati made a small noise and we all just about collapsed.   They rushed to give her a second shot of anesthesia through her IV but there was an air bubble in the line that had to be sucked out backwards with the needle before the anesthesia could be injected.  This took an additional 10 minutes during which we were all praying the dog would not wake up with her insides on the outside.   Once the two ovaries were removed, all the insides were stuffed back in and again we were all thinking the same thing; hoping they were put back in the same functioning order.  Two inside layers of stitches were applied over the next hour, using absorb-able line that was as thick as 100 lbs. fishing line.  The final outside stitching was done with line that will have to be removed in 2 weeks and the whole sewing project seemed very much like it must have been done in the 1800’s Wild West.

 

We spent the rest of the day nursing our poor Rati while she was in terrible pain and shock after the anesthesia wore off.  We both feel terribly guilty as she is laying there weak and wounded and we couldn’t help but wonder if we should have spent the day of travel and double the money to take her to a different vet.  Or maybe we should have built an impenetrable fortress around our house so the mongrel dogs couldn’t get to her and let her keep her tiny, hard to find ovaries and avoid the entire ghastly traumatizing event.

The four of us sat in stunned silence for a while not knowing how to digest what we saw or how to comfort each other.  Carol was/is especially scared the dog will get an infection.  We all wanted to ease her mind but could not not come up with any words of conviction.  I can only hope that everything was put back inside adequately.  We questioned the vet afterwards about all this drama and about how it’s not like this in America, and his sensible reply was simply that in America we just drop the dogs off at a vet and come back the next day and they are done.  No one ever sees the effects that we witnessed today.  I sure hope this is true.

One tragedy and one slasher movie starring our little puppy in the same week puts me in a bad place.   These events, coupled with our day to day challenges and discomforts, makes me want to record some things for future reference.    Please indulge my complaining for a short while.

 

Its 90 degrees in our house all day long.  It does finally cool down to 80 in the  evening, so sleeping with two heavy fans on us is bearable for the moment.  An even hotter summer is still around the corner as December through February will be the very hot months.  There are many moments when I seriously question my devotion to what I am doing here, due to the miserable discomfort.  I cannot even imagine our fellow PCVs who deal with even more heat in the northern part of the country along with swarms of mosquitoes and the constant real threat of Malaria, and some of whom do not have the running water and electricity that we have.  I am fortunate enough to have AC in my office and have often thought of sleeping there, but that would be absolutely culturally unacceptable.  I would spend the $800 in a heartbeat to install an AC unit in our little house, despite only being here for maybe one more year, but there is no way we could get away with that kind of luxury item sticking out the side of our house while the other 35 identical houses go without.   Both the Peace Corps Admins and the school staff would have something serious to say about us putting ourselves so far “outside” the community standard of living.   I am seriously terrified about the coming summer months.  I can barely remember, but I’m pretty sure that last summer should have been the same, and although we somehow made it through, on a day to day basis, it is getting harder and harder to accept the cumulative discomforts we are living with.

The dust continues to plague me as there is just no escape.  Even on the tar roads, when the wind blows strong, there is no avoiding the grit in your teeth and the instant filthy hair.

The electrical power in this country is a huge issue.  It goes off for just a moment several times a day, every day.  Sometimes its only off for 5 seconds, which is just enough to ax another notch in the health of our computers, and destroy the current unsaved documents we are working on.  Sometimes it’s off for an hour, and sometimes for longer.  It’s constantly annoying and difficult to deal with.  I am worried about our computers and records, and our work disappearing and corrupting all the time.  I have pulled my hair out on several occasions trying to copy very large computer files, only to be interrupted 4-5 times in a row during the last couple minutes of a 3 hour copy job and having to start over, again and again.  Uuugh!

Want to go somewhere on a bus or train?  Want to see a Botswana Zebra’s soccer game at the stadium?  Or a movie at the theater which is ½ a days’ travel away?  Be prepared to be turned away no matter the tremendous effort to get there.  Nothing is planned properly, and communication about dates and start times are never available.  Don’t count on their web pages.  Although there are webpages, and although there are schedules posted, they are NEVER correct.  Not even close.   The only way to do it is just go to the station or the theater and wait for the next event to happen.  There is absolutely no reliability in what ANYONE says.  5 people will tell you they are sure, but you will find they are very wrong.  If you are lucky enough to find a phone number for some place and then to have someone answer it, they will just tell you their website is wrong, but they are not sure what is right.  It is so difficult to travel here and scheduling anything just bring frustrated waiting and wasted time, over and over.

We have internet at our house.  We pay roughly $90 US per month for .5 Meg speed.  By comparison, in the US most business have 10 or 20 Meg service.  That speed we have is adequate for the most part to do basic emails and browsing.  It is very slow for remotely accessing another computer, or streaming  video.  We could purchase faster speeds, but it takes months to get it done along with dozens of very angry calls to people who couldn’t care less when it happens, and it is quite expensive.  We have to worry every time there is a weather event that the internet will be out for hours or days.  We recently had a problem with our Capital One Credit Card.  It took a full month of unimaginable frustration with emails and shouting matches on expensive paid Skype audio calls to get it resolved.  Every conversation starts with, “I am calling from Africa; this is costing $2.00 a minute.  Can you hear me?”  They often say they can – but the conversation continually gets bogged down with “you are breaking up – I can’t hear you” or “Can you please say that again” – and my favorite – “can you please enter your number into the keypad” – which is maddening because there is NO KEYPAD!  The agitation is beyond words.

Being in a foreign country with people whose official primary language is English takes some serious caution.  It’s a daunting task to continually step back during conversations and appreciate that English may be their official language, but that doesn’t mean they use words the same way we do – and many many people still struggle to communicate at in English at all.  Many things have no direct translation and so the closest way to it is used, often times coming out significantly different than meant.   The native Setswana language is what is called a “command based” language.  There is no concept of please or thank you or other gratuities in the written language.  So every time someone would like to borrow a pen or ask if you want to go somewhere or would like to know if you have seen Carol recently, you have to put up with “GIVE me that pen!” and “LETS GO!”, or “WHERE is Carol?”.  This wears on us daily and accounts for a tremendous amount of bitterness and frustration.

Meetings here are the most frustrating and maddening part of all of our work experiences.  The Botswana people are infatuated with protocol and so afraid of change, that there appears to be no common sense whatsoever.  During a typical meeting of 20 to 70 people, you will see people reading and writing text messages, sleeping, and slouching in their chairs to the point of amazement.  Everyone keeps their phones on during meetings and when a call comes ringing in at full volume they immediately stand up and exit the room while taking the call.  It is more disruptive than you can possibly imagine and the reason they do it is because all incoming calls are free and they are all too cheap or poor to turn off their phones during a meeting and then call someone back later.  It is truly amazing that the chairpersons of these official meetings tolerate this on one side of their mouths  while talking out the other side about how poor it seems to come to a meeting late.   There are no consequences in this country for anything.  Drunk driving, theft, rude behavior  not coming to school, fighting, anything!  It all gets dealt with a small and courteous verbal reprimand.  People are so afraid of confrontation that they cannot even consider raising their voice or demanding explanation or accountability.  It is more than maddening to work so hard here to be efficient and productive and continually be beaten down watching others behave this way.

I could go on and on about the things we very much dislike in this country and about the many frustrating and angering issues we all deal with every day.  But I have gotten enough out of my system to spare you that, at least for now).  Please understand this post is a bit of a vent for the first two bad experiences that I am currently lamenting.  I hope you will all take it for just that.

Also, if you know Tom Boyd or his family please reach out to him now.

Tommy – I am praying for you and your family.  I am so so sorry I can’t be there in person.  I am doing everything in my power to be there in spirit.

 

 

 

Warning!   This is a bit of a long post!   Sorry!  

If you want to skim through it and just check out the pictures we will certainly understand.  

Double clik a picture to see in full size – some of the dunes are impressive!

There is a fun Seal Video Link towards the end too!

 

We just returned from a five day trip to Namibia (the country just west of Botswana).  Namibia is a relatively new country having received its independence from South Africa in 1990.  Before it was administered by South Africa it was a German colony.  Most recently, Namibia was in the news because Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt decided to have their baby and now often visit.

We decided to attended the Oktoberfest in Windhoek and then head to the beach at Swakopmund.  We couldn’t decide if we were going to drive, hitch or fly.  Flying is expensive on our budget, driving would be 18 hours on the wrong side of the road and somewhat dangerous – and hitching is always very time consuming, unpredictable, and extremely uncomfortable.

We booked a direct flight.  The day before we were to leave, Namibia Air lines changed our flight to include a layover in SA adding 4 hours more to our travel schedule.    There were only 14 people on a plane for 100 people – but the air lines did provide free lunch with drinks for our 45 minute flight.  We enjoyed a few art shops at the SA airport and made a plan to purchase some ostrich eggs on our way home.  After we left the airport we remembered we would not be returning this way – but we did get good pictures which are hundreds of dollars cheaper than the actual eggs.

The flight to Namibia was packed, and there was another free dinner with drinks (including alcoholic) served in economy.  Africa airline companies provide significantly better customer service than American airlines companies, but I doubt they are earning more money.

In Windhoek we landed in the middle of nowhere!  You can’t see a village or anything looking like it might lead to a country capital anywhere around.  There is one small two lane road that seems to meander – I hope to the countries capitol.  As we made arrangements to enter the country, I realize now that I am not nervous, afraid or timid about any of this – I am truly getting to be an experienced world traveler.

The airport is about 50K from the capitol.  Windhoek is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area. The population of Windhoek is 300,000.  The city is nestled between some beautiful mountains.  The view reminded me of Telluride – except it went on 10 times longer.

In Africa many of the hotels offer rooms from campsite up to luxury – which seems like a good idea and I wonder why it is not more prevalent in America or Europe, especially Europe.

We had booked at one such place for economy accommodations, but they let us upgrade for nearly nothing since we told them we are celebrating our honeymoon!  As most of you know, we got married to join the Peace Corps and the Peace Corps was our planned honeymoon.

We met our friends at the Festival later that night.  There were at least 1,000 people and only 1% was non-white.  People were dressed in German garb and drinking out of Africa steins, which mean they were plastic instead of glass, and had stickers instead of printed designs.  There was only one band – but they played a lot of international songs, and many people were dancing and enjoying.  There was good German food there including pork, dumplings, sour kraut, and pretzels. There was one sort of hangy ornament from the tent top that you would not recognize to be a decoration unless you knew it was supposed to look like the bier tents in Munich.  They also had cookie hearts on strings with little love messages just like Munich.

The band eventually started playing less popular songs – and the crowd slowly left.

The next day we checked out Windhoek.  We stopped at the Maurau Mall – which was a unique indoors/outdoors multi-level curving and turning around mall.  Most of the stores were the same as in Botswana or Durban – but the setting was unique.  I was surprised by the percent of white people, which seemed to be about 60%.  Upon further research I found the actual percent of white people in Windhoek is 16%.  Apparently white people like hanging out in the malls as well as going to festivals. We did not trust there would be much of a downtown – and lingered at the mall for quite a while.

Finally – we started walking for downtown and came upon the “Las Vegas Strip” of Windhoek – which had about 6 or 7 “casinos” comprised mostly of slot machines.  We did win 29.00 Namibian Dollars!    The only disappointment was that most shops closed at 1:00 PM (on Saturday).  It is so strange to see so little value put on making money.  We could hardly believe the capitol city of the country closed nearly all it shops on Saturday afternoon! We found a nice park and there were a few traditional women covered in clay and mostly naked selling souvenir junk that was reasonably priced on Fidel Castro Road – which I found slightly ironic.  We wanted to take pictures but it seemed way to exploitative    However, they would let you take their picture for N50.00.  Instead of pay these extortion prices, we decided we would download a picture for the blog.  The clay is meant to protect their skin and hair, and these women did have flawless skin.

We tried tapas at a restaurant owned by a Venezuelan married to a Spaniard.  The food was definitely tapas – but with many weird Indian/African twists and accents.  After we adjusted our expectations it was enjoyable – and now we know what African/Spanish tapas taste like.

We proceeded to the festival for the second night, that was much the same as the first, except there were more PCV’s there.  In total, 16 of us came to the festival.  It took some people 2.5 days to get there using hitches, buses, and khombi’s.  It took another 2.5 days to get home too.  I’m sure glad they had the energy to do that – because they made the festival a lot more fun for us. At the end of the night we got a baked chicken and dumplings.  We sat at a table with a man who had passed out on the table – which indicated it had been a good party, but was coming to the end.

The next day started off with a challenge.  We were to leave for Swakopmund, about 400K from Windhoek to enjoy the rest of our vacation on the beach.  While making plans to pick up a rental car we realized we had not brought a driver’s license.  We don’t carry DLs anymore!  The hotel had good Internet service and John was able to remote into Aaron’s computer system and retrieve a copy of his license he had left for Aaron.  Of course the hotel computer did not have a PDF reader so we were not able to print the document.  So we saved to a flash stick and hoped we could see it on my computer and maybe print it at the rental place???? When we got to the car rental place they did in fact require a driver’s license – but the image from the computer was good enough!!!! It is in these small moments I love living in Africa.

We got a Nissan with automatic transmission – which was twice as much as manual – but we thought it was necessary as it was going to be hard enough to navigate with the steering wheel on the right and the cars on the “wrong” side of the road.  It is a 5 hour drive to Swakopmund.  It was BEAUTIFUL.  It was the sort of picturesque stuff we see and read about in Africa.  Mountain ranges all around – and a new shade of green previously unseen in Botswana made us think it rained a little more here. About 2 hours into the drive we came to a little town called Usako, and there appeared to be a restaurant – or a cafe    It was called The Tree House.  There was a beautiful bier garden, and five nicely decorated rooms.  They served German food as well as pizza, burgers, tea and coffee.  It was just like real cafe in Europe – in the middle of nowhere on the way to Swakopmund.  I ordered the curry wurst – which was not quite as good as Munich, but better than all my attempts to duplicate the dish.

 

Another deli in town sold what they called the “Best Biltong” in Namibia .  Biltong is supposed to be a kind of beef jerky – but for some reason this jerky was very wet – and we decided there were probably a lot of eyeballs or other parts ground into this meat so we simply could not bare to try a second bite!

About 20K from Swakopmund we saw a sign for a Camel Farm.  An elderly German woman was running the place with about 20 camels, one crazy dachshund, one cat, 50 chickens and 10 geese.  She had carved a little oasis in the dessert with special plantings here and there as well as a bunch of beautiful animals.  She would charge N125.00 for a 20 minute ride – and we asked how much too just climb on one and take a picture.   She said it was the same costs – because the hardest part is getting the saddle on the camel and then the human on the saddle.  But she did let us take any pictures of the place – and gave us a good history and botany lesson and offered us a cup of coffee.  We paid her N50.00 – which probably is not enough – but it is all we had at the moment.

 

A friendly Camel

On the plane ride we had read an article about when donkeys mate with zebras.  The article said it is a rare mating and even more rare that it results in offspring (which are all sterile).  The off-spring are called different things by different folks.  Coincidentally we saw one of these creatures on the Camel Farm:

As we approached the ocean from the East, we could now clearly see dark clouds ahead – and it looked like a giant waterfall in the sky was ahead of us. When we arrived Swakopmund seemed deserted and overcast.  It was cold and windy outside!  John and I cannot believe what bad travelers we have turned into.  We can’t believe we forgot our drivers license and we can’t believe we forgot to check on the climate conditions –we later found it is only warm one month a year!  And I was feeling so good about my travel skills just a few days ago at the airport!  This was disappointing – but we tried to make the best of it.  We met with a smaller group of 10 PCV’s that had also continued on to the beach via hitchhiking.

We started every morning well.  The free breakfasts in Africa make American and European hotels look like cheap insults.  I believe the restaurants in America and Europe are making money and I suspect the restaurants here are supported by the government.

We had troubles making plans because one of the more active persons was very sick, and he was hoping we would save the fun stuff until he felt better.  We were procrastinating as large groups tend to do before John and I decided to take advantage of our car and drive 30K south to Walvis Bay in a desperate hope there would be sunshine and warmth there.  Another couple drove with us.

It was a nice 30 minute drive with the cold, grey/blue Atlantic Ocean on one side and the huge golden sand dunes on the other side.  The dunes are pretty unique looking and they just go on and on with little vegetation or any signs of life.

Alas, Walvis Bay was also cold and windy – with even fewer things to do.  Of the 10 of us, only 3 of us had spent the few dollars to get a Namibian Cell Phone SIM card for our phones, so communicating with anyone was next to impossible.  After hours of driving around and trying to hook up with other group members we finally found a small Catamaran Cruise business that was open and had “seal excursions” and would take us out in the late afternoon.  For about 75% of the other excursions costs we would get two hours on the water, get to see seals, get two bottles of wine and a dozen oysters.  Perhaps it was cheaper because it is much colder in the late afternoon on the beach.

We learned that our white captain grew up in Nigeria, but his family was from Australia, and he had gone to school in Texas.  He had a big scare on his face and told us of a recent return from jail.  He seemed like a character out of a book.

He explained how oyster farms are made and grow.  They take long cable lines in the sea and sink large plastic containers filled with small purchased baby oysters about 30 feet down.  It takes about 8 to 10 months to grow a little oyster into something eatable.  They have to retrieve the containers every few months for cleaning and pruning out the bad ones.   There were dozens of the 1/2 mile long lines growing oysters on our way out to see the seals.   We finally made it out to the peninsula where there were at least a 1,000 seals.  They had told us there would be 50,000 – but the 1,000 was impressive.  We saw flamingo’s dining in front of the light house.  There were tiny little baby seals, and big huge sloughs seals with extra fir all around their necks.  Seals frolicking, and fighting, loving and biting – seals everywhere.  We took about 100 pictures.

When we had had enough we headed back home and the Captain poured us some sherry, which was very warming.  We got back to shore about 6:30 pm and felt like we had won the tourist prize for the day.

Next up was our free dinner included with the “Sun Downers” special at our hotel.  As soon as we sat down I felt the bug in my stomach.  I told John I knew I was going to puke later that night. I could barely get down the appetizers before I raced to the bathroom.  I felt it was so unfair for this to happen on my free dinner night.  I refused to admit I was sick and returned to the table and tried to eat my salad and even took a few bites of fish.  But it was not meant to be.  I left John to dine alone and went upstairs to start a night of alternating ends.  It was exhausting and it hurt my whole body most of the night. I was done with the puking by morning, but still had some issues at the bottom.  I was tired, but didn’t want to miss out on our vacation.  John suggested we drive to Cape Cross – about 120K north to see more seals because we would be able to sit in the car for a few hours.

I took my bucket and cautiously agreed.  We drove up the Skeletal Coast – which looked like a place people come to die.  It was ancient and desolate. Called Skeletal Coast for all the sunken Portuguese warships, I believe.  There is persistently nothing for miles and miles.  And then out of nowhere is a small town.  Each house had a water storage tank and there were no power lines.  We wondered how or why anyone in the world would want to live is such desolation.  In another 50K is another village.  It looked like a nice town.  Electricity, power lines, and there was even a golf course.  It was all sand with little grass greens around the hole.  The buildings were nice and the coast was gorgeous, but still grey and cold.  While this did look like civilization – it was still just too far from anything for us to think of as a pleasant place to live and really to even visit.

About 10K from Cape Cross we started seeing little rickety, rusty broken down tables.  Each table had 10 – 15 big chunks of salt crystals and a sign that said N100.00 , N50.00 or  N30.00.  We shook a few cans and none appeared to have money – I can’t imagine how people could make money – but there were about 100 tables.

Finally we come to the Cape Cross Lodge.  A huge, nice, elaborate lodge.  It nearly looked like a fort castle on the ocean.  It was built for a huge crowd of vacationers – but there were only 3 cars on the parking lot. We had a bowl of soup in the elegant dining area overlooking the cold immense Atlantic Ocean.  We could hear the roar of the ocean.  We were the only one’s dining there. A short way off is a famous seal sanctuary.  At the height of breeding season there are over a million seals.  We were 20 feet away from 1000’s of seals.  They stank to high heaven!  Much the same as the day before – but it was a nice activity for a sick person.  Just watching the seals.  We saw several large crosses that were replicas of what the Portuguese laid down nearly 500 years ago when claiming parts of Africa for European kings.

If you want to see a Seal Video, click here:  <Seals in Namibia Video>.

It is impossible to explain how immense this space is and how small we are as human beings.  It seemed foreign to even be there – like humans are not supposed to be there.  I slept in the car the two hours back.   After resting a bit and feeling mostly on the incline, I decided to try the dune bikes at Walvis Bay.  I had a lot of trouble steering and the guide had to stop several times to tell me things like I have to do more than move my knees or my head  to make the bike turn.  I felt good that I tried it and that in general I don’t just refuse to do things that don’t come natural to me, but it was not the most exciting part of my trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half way through the tour our guide stopped us and scrambled off his quad and thrust his hand deep under the sand and pulled out a fun little lizard!

I was grateful to see the incredible  landscape of big massive dunes and the pictures were great.  We were both exhausted when it was over.  Overall I feel like I accomplished something – and I am glad I pushed myself through the discomfort.

Our last day in Swakopmund was Halloween – but nothing feels like America here and we don’t even notice or give a single thought to dressing up.  We headed back to Windhoek in our rental car giving a ride to two other volunteers, while the others assured us they would make it home in a few days via hitchhiking.

We dropped Corey and TJ at the Cardboard Box hostel – which was cheap –N95.00 ($12.00 US), and included free internet, pool, and breakfast – but bathrooms are shared and there were six nasty bunks in each room.  No way for us – especially since I was still feeling a bit sick.  I felt confident I could get a room at the Kalahari Sands (an exclusive 5 star casino hotel in downtown)  for $100US and wanted to stay there.  John was skeptical   We went and they laughed in our face!  They were not filled up, but the thought of $100 room seemed more crazy than an empty room getting nothing.  Second choice was the Chameleon Backpackers for $50US a night.  We had our own sleeping room and bathroom and it was clean – so we were happy.

While souvenir shopping we walked by a hidden, private little club and went in to check it out.  It was a Snooker Club, with about 12 old German’s all sitting around classically drinking bier and playing a Snooker Tournament.  It was not exactly a basement – but it was below ground level.  It was small and dank.  Cigarette smoke hung in the air.  The people were most welcoming, and they had the largest pool table we ever saw in our lives.  We found out it was a snooker table and John was invited to play.  He made a good showing getting in several good shots, but they lost at the end and had to buy the other team a round of shots, never mind that that had not been agreed upon first!

The men talked of their roots in Namibia, and of the language and always threw in a few fun rules about the bar.  For instance if you cuss someone really bad (not including shit or even the f word) you had to pay N1 into the pot.  You could just pay and not say the word and the person being cussed could be equally insulted upon learning of your payment on his behalf.  We finally couldn’t breathe anymore and took a ride to a local sushi place which we not had an opportunity to enjoy the whole vacation.  The place was super nice and very Japanese – but we ordered dinner instead of sushi and were disappointed in our own choices.  John said he ate to excess and his stomach was hurting – so we went home to get a good night sleep before our early flight the next day.   About 11:00 PM John started vomiting and crapping too.  It went on all night and throughout the next day too.  John was super happy to be on a plane instead of a bus or hitching to get home. It really sucks to travel when you cant trust your butt!    We made it home by 11:00 AM.

 

Overall – it was an ok vacation with some decent pictures, but it would have been nicer to have sat on a warm beach, or spent much less money considering we were not in New York City.  At least we will enjoy a few good memories we made there.

It has not really rained here in about a year.  Maybe a total of ½ inch over the past 365 days.  It is as dry as can be, every day, with tiny “wannabe” dust storms popping up frequently.  About a week or so ago, on a Tuesday morning around 10:00 am a severe storm began.   It had been sunny and about 80 degrees so far that morning.   Now, all of a sudden our little village was the focus of a years’ long pent up weather anger.  I was at work as usual, working frantically on the upcoming National World AIDS Day festival where I have the responsibility for the design of the Billboards, Posters, Calendars, Programs, Press Conference Invitations and a whole bunch of other publicity materials.  It was already a high pressure morning when the power went out and the winds became a concern as the pelting rain turned to marble size hail.   We all watched tree after tree being blown down or uprooted in our office courtyard as what must have been 80 or 100 mph winds blew the huge hail sideways and even upward.  I was very concerned about the windows blowing in and advised everyone to stay away from them, but even I could not resist the need to observe the most severe storm I had ever been in the middle of.

The hail continued to accumulate all over the ground as the entire brown sandy/rocky ground became white.  As the accumulated hail melted it became what looked just like hard packed snow for just a brief 10 minutes or so before the storm ended.

The whole thing lasted only about 30 minutes and before an hour the sun was shining again and it was back to 80 degrees.

The only real difference now was that several buildings were missing their roofs, many giant trees had been uprooted and the roads were covered with hundreds of grapefruit size rocks that had been washed on to them by an ocean of flash flood waters, completely bringing traffic to a 5 mph crawl for the rest of the day.  Power in most of the village was out for at least 3 days.

Fortunately, the roads were cleared in one day, and the roofs and smashed structures that were impeding daily work were being attended to.

It’s not New York by a long stretch, but it sure caused some fun conversations here!

 

Here are some pictures taken during the storm that I am sorry wont do the story justice.

Hail Accumulating

 

 

 

That last post by carol with all the pictures and stories about the condition of the school where we live was highly accurate and an appropriate way to let folks back home get just a taste of how the poorer, but very real side of our everyday lives is.  As correctly assumed, this country is plagued with poverty and dirt and living conditions that would make most of our circle of friends cringe.  And although there are plenty of places in America where the environment is equally grotesque, living here, in the heart of poverty has created lots of interesting thoughts and conversations.

We, as Peace Corps Volunteers, have been fortunate to be provided with US Government policies that require high enough standards in our housing, food and transportation around town that we can’t really say we are living in poverty. Not by a long shot.  It’s a drastic step down for almost of all of us, but it’s all quite livable and tolerable and with the right attitude, our lives can be described as quite happy.

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Today, while walking down the mile long dusty road from the tar road to our house, fruitlessly trying to avoid breathing too much dust from passing cars, I arrived at the gate of our School and began the ¼ mile walk to our house #5.  As I looked around I noticed that the some of the bushes on the school grounds had just been trimmed and that the few Jacaranda trees along our short road were getting thick with beautiful purple flowers.  I also notices that most of the garbage around the two insufficient school garbage dumpsters was gone (probably just blew away into the fields of Africa – but maybe it was actually cleaned up). I noticed that one of the old school signs had been nicely re-painted and that a new metal sign had been installed with some promising messages and hope inspiring statements on it.

I started thinking about the good things about us being placed in this country instead of any of the other African countries; English, Peace and Potable Water right out of the ground.  These things are so hard to imagine living without.  As I continued walking I thought about our little house compared to most of the other PCVs who live without electricity or water or both.

Of the 35 or 40 houses on the school property, we happen to live in the house that is closest to the school water storage tower.  That means we have fairly high water pressure all the time.  Unlike many of the other school houses, ours is almost never out of water.  In fact, for some unknown reason (that could coincide with me removing the one-way safety valve from the water heater about two weeks ago), our water pressure has been very strong, so taking a shower with our home made, hose shower contraption is actually quite a weekly pleasure!

Our house also happens to be right under the only lighted street light in the whole school.  There are a dozen more lights posts on the one street, but not a one of them has ever worked.  This is very nice when coming home after dark.  We also live in house #5.  Of 35 or 40 houses, ours is close to the front gate which really makes for a much shorter walk to and from home.  We also have two giant gas cylinders.  This is nice because when one runs out, it will take no less than two months to get it refilled and without that second one we would not be able to cook until it was refilled.  Last, but not least, I noticed that our house also has 3 of the only 5 nice tall trees on the whole school, which really makes for a nice, welcoming view as I approach our home gate each day.

Besides our house being quite acceptable for a Peace Corps Volunteer, we also now have a new addition to our comfortable little house.  A most wonderful little Maltese puppy named Rati.  She greets me at the fence each evening and bids me good-bye each morning.  Her sister, Phoenix comes to visit and stay with us for a week at a time, frequently.  Seeing the two of them playing constantly together and their constant need for our attention has added another very enjoyable element to our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I  just got some pictures from one the computer projects I did a while back that shows the 4 computers I fixed at a very remote village being used to teach typing. This is very gratifying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last weekend I built a new garden structure to keep the birds, chickens, goats, donkeys and our little Rati out of the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least currently, the days are a perfect 80 degrees with the nights a very pleasant cool 65 or so and that makes for some really awesome sleeping.

All of this combines together to create a home atmosphere of very satisfactory pleasantness and a glass that is quite a bit more than just half way full.

A life in the day of a student:

The students must walk at least 1K down one of the most horrible dusty roads I have ever seen.  John also has to walk down this road to get to work every day and he took these miserable pictures.

This is the entrance of the school – the sign used to read Welcome to Kwena Sereto – I doubt that it will ever be painted or readable again.

This picture is of the Head Girl with the school logo.  Most schools are trying to transition over to a student body instead of the old Prefect system – but it will probably take another 10 years.

The school day starts at 7:30 AM.  A teacher waits at the gate for the first 30 minutes and if a child is late he/she gets beat with the stick.  However, if said child can figure out how to crawl through the fence or walk to the other entrance about 3 minutes away he/she can easily sneak in.  The guard at the main gate may or may not think it is worth his time to enforce tardy issue.  So if you are going to be late – you might as well wait until after 8:00, when there is a 50/50 chance you can miss the beating.

 

 

The school day is as follows:

7:30 – 7:40 attendance

7:40 – 7:50 Assembly

7:50 – 10:30 – Four classes that are forty minutes each

10:30 – 11:00 – Tea – Served by kids

11:00 – 1:40 – Four classes that are forty minute each

1:40 – 2:00 – Lunch, served by kids

3:00 – 4:30 – Study – with no teachers

The school works on a 6 day class system instead of 5 days.

Children are required to wear uniforms.  About 20% of the student’s uniforms are in tatters.  The teachers, the parents and the children do not mind wearing tattered uniforms to school.   It is perfectly fine to show up in ripped, threadbare and worn down, clothes, belts, and shoes. Many children have shoes in which the soles are completely worn through, since there is little or no rain, it isn’t that big of a deal (as long as you don’t step on the thorn bushes).

There are no furnaces or air-conditioners.  In the winter when classrooms are freezing the children seek out sunshine and skip class to bask in the sun as much as possible.  In the summer, when the temperature is regularly over 100, they return to the classroom to seek the shade.

 

 

Kids are required to take 9 subjects of which 7 are tested.  Computer class and Guidance and Counseling class are required but not tested.   A passing grade is 40%, which obviously (to us Americans) indicates the student does not have enough knowledge to move forward, but they are pushed forward anyway – making it harder and harder to succeed.

Below are pictures of typical class rooms.  About 90% of the students have a very uncomfortable plastic chair to sit in – the others share.  The desks are all metal and about 20 years old.  Most look like someone took a ball-peen hammer to the top.  About 20% of the desks are in pieces and students must balance them all the time to keep them up.  About 95% of the students get desks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lockers are in bad disrepair and only 50% of the students get lockers.  The

others have to carry all their books all day back and forth and then to home.  It isn’t as bad as it might be since only half the students get books and no student has a set of complete books for all 9 classes they must take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a picture of the student toilets.  The toilets at Kwena Sereto are superior to most schools, which smell so bad gagging starts 10 feet outside the door.  The students are required to pay an extra 35 pula a month to have the bathrooms professionally cleaned.  There is one flush toilet at school for teachers, administrators and staff.  Lack of toilet facilities is one of the regular reasons many teachers go home during the day, including myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture below is our supplies office.  John gets about half the things he needs to fix or upgrade our home from there.

 

The eating conditions are the very very worst thing about the school.  Even the teachers constantly beg the school to do something to improve the “feedings”, which is what they call tea and then lunch.

They make the Prefects serve meals every day.  The school mostly serves palache (like grits), samp and beans (like hard corn and beans) or porridge (sorghum) for every meal.  Twice a week they get a piece of meat.  Once a week they get a vegetable, and twice a week they get a piece of fruit.  They must bring their own dishes, and they only bring a plate, which means they eat with their hands.

 

 

The lunch is served from dishes that are laid out on the ground.  Children are in charge of serving and many fights take place as everyone believes they are getting cheated.  No one wants the chicken leg because they consider it the smallest piece.

 

 

There is no cafeteria, no table or chairs and the children wonder around the school until they find a place to eat, under a tree or on a sidewalk.  When done they must take their dishes to the water pump outside and rinse them out.

Lunch is 80 minutes long because it takes that long for the students who must serve the food to get it out, serve it up, eat and then clean up.  While those students are working, other less responsible students finish their lunch in 15 minutes and remain mostly unsupervised for the remaining hour.  Again – lots of mayhem occurs during the lunch hour.

When students finish their meals they wash their dishes at the public sinks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is the picture of the famous computer lab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture below is of the Science Lab.  As you can see the science lab has a sink, which does not have running water, and outlet that has no electricity, and a gas valves that do not have gas.  Regardless of the function, the children still leave their regular classrooms and come to the Science lab for science class.  At least it allows them to walk around a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below are pictures of the school gardens.  Children taking agriculture must each plant a plot.  The children take the responsibility for the plot very very serious.  Most children come to school on Saturday and Sunday to water their plots and the plants grow pretty well.  It is obvious that this country still has a lot of agrarian roots.

 

While the teachers “offices” are much nicer than the classrooms – many professionals would be upset  to have to share this space and the lack of resources.  This is the “Senior” teachers offices and 22 teachers share this space.  As you can see there are no computers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite all this – I work at the second highest preforming school in the district.  80% of the kids score high enough on final exams to go to Senior School.  Sadly high enough is 50%.  But it is better than nothing.

On to a less serious subject:

The Dogs – For those of you that don’t have Facebook:  One of our friends wanted us to have a little Maltese puppy, which we didn’t really want and claimed allergy issues.  She told us to take her puppy for a week and if we liked it we would get the available sister.  Well – we loved her!  We got the sister that we didn’t think was near as cute, and she was also a lot bigger.  However, she was 10 times sweeter.  She almost never barks and took to potty training pretty well.  But we could see she is lonely.

So this week we went and got her sister so they could have a week long sleep over.  They love each other so much and we are the hit of the neighbourhood with these two cute cute cute little dogs.  We have spent weeks teaching children how to be nice and not have fear.  Below are some of pictures of the girls – Rati and Phoenix (Rati is our dog and she is brown)