We have not posted much lately, because we are getting more and more integrated into everyday life.  One of my friends wrote to me saying that maybe if she blogged about her life it would feel way more interesting to her.  She provided a sample paragraph talking about her spectacular child getting an A in a very difficult class.  She and her fabulous husband took stated spectacular child to a new little organic restaurant which was run by some incredible kind people with great work ethics.  After the great meal all three got on the train, and they realized they were lucky to have access to public transit as they watched a beautiful sunset out the recently scrubbed clean window on the way home…………

I laughed my head off!!!  It does seem like everything is somehow spectacular in either a good or a bad way when it is new and different from how we lived before, even when it is day-to-day life.

Some recent little things that come up from time to time:

Tipping:  Here you are not supposed to tip.  If you do tip you are asking to be played as a rich/guilty chump of whom should be taken advantage.  When services are provided in Gaborone (the capital) the server can be tipped as much as 5%, but one should NEVER tip in a village.  At first this seemed stingy and mean.  But then I got used to the size of my pay check and the whole thing seemed much more doable.  I was always a good tipper at home and I hope I will pick that habit back up after my service.

Hair: There is little opportunity to take care of straight hair here.  I only wash my hair once or sometimes twice a week.  I never get my hair cut, and when desperate I will take the scissors to my own head ever though I know, I should never cut my hair.  Never.  I asked some of my girlfriends back home to send a do it yourself highlights kit.  When the highlights arrived I realized I didn’t really have mirrors, or clips or brushes like I did at home and John offered to help.  I found out you should NEVER LET YOUR HUSBAND COLOR YOUR HAIR.  Never.  I now have orange hair.  Like the color hunters wear to avoid being shot.  I at least, got to get a cute new hat out of the deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snitching:  In the US snitching is very bad.  Children who snitch are often viewed as being as bad as the kids getting snitched on.  We all know this concept is taken to extreme sometimes when people won’t cooperate with the Police in cases of murder or rape.

Here snitching is a good thing.  People put a much much higher value on the good of the community than the protection of a single person.  I had told John how the kids will immediately rat out someone if a teacher wants information.  I mean the whole class will clamor to be the one who tells.

 

The other day John was with me at the school when I saw some kids skipping class and I called them to come to me.  They ran like the wind.  But some other boys saw them and went on a chase.  Each boy was tracked down and brought in front of me for punishment.  The chasers stayed around to make sure the skippers knew what I was saying (some can’t speak English) and to help me “find the truth and give appropriate punishment”.  The chasers not only helped me understand the situation they often threw in their own 2 cents about if the children were lying and generally were just let me know the skippers were “bad boys”.

John couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing.  He asked me if the chasers were not afraid of being beat up.  They are not.  It is expected that everyone will pitch in to “make things right”, and in fact they are never beat up and are often rewarded.

Teddy Bears:  A non-for-profit organization in the USA sent 100 homemade Teddy Bears to some grade school children at a school another PCV friends works at.  She asked us to come and help pass them out.  While the kids seemed to think these homemade bears were ugly (I think they are adorable), they loved getting anything from America.  It was fun to be able to take part in such an event.

 

Another adventure starts with us committing to some friends two months earlier that we are serious about travelling an unknown very long distance for one night of a Heavy Metal Music Fest in another village. As our date of reckoning approached we came up with lots of good reasons why we should stay home this particular weekend, driven by the silent thoughts of nightmare travel conditions and utter exhaustion at the end of a short trip. I checked vehemently into finding out bus schedules and even plane availability, with almost no success as everyone who “knew” had a different story for the schedules. We did manage to ascertain one certain time which was a 6:00 am bus from Gaborone, which lies 1 to 2 hours east of us, depending on how we get there. Our destination was 8 to 9 hours west of us, so with the serious added time and effort to get to the bus station early enough to avoid the possibility of having to stand the entire time, we considered hitch hiking. That has been a pretty good alternative here in our little village where there is an abundance of cars. This was to be a whole different story going a very long distance.

here were 4 of us, and Carol and I elected to go the hitching route, while the other two would go in to Gaborone the night before and sleep on someone’s cement floor and get up at 4:00 am to get to the bus station. We waited until late to avoid the freezing cold standing that we might have faced in the earlier hours. As it turned out, the hitching got off to a good start. We got a ride immediately from our home to the main road. 15 minutes later we got our 2nd ride for an hour to the last town shown on the map going on our Westerly route.

When we got dropped off we were in the only “hitching” location and alongside 10 other “hitchers”. We were banking on being the only older couple and looking like the most likely to have money to pay.  We had a large sign I

handmade that we waived in front of everyone that indicated our desired destination. As it turned out, the sign was more of a hindrance as we learned no one was going that far and we really needed to take many small hops to get there.

Most of the locals there hitching decided they had waited too long after we had been there about 30 minutes and sought for other routes and luckily we were left almost alone to hitch on our own. Just then, a Khombi (minibus that is rated for 16 but usually carries 25 people) came by and was going to a small town not on our map but on the only road there was going our direction. We jumped aboard with 23 others and barely drove off down the tar road with all the weight.

Fortunately, every mile or so someone got off the Khombi and we enjoyed more and more leg room. An hour later the Khombi was taking a right onto a dusty road that we had no intention of following, so we reluctantly left the Khombi on a long stretch of barren highway, along with a nice woman and her little girl.  She comforted us and said she hitched this road a lot and never had to wait more than a couple hours. It was noon or so and we were about ¼ of the way to Ghanzi.

After about only 30 minutes or so our 4th ride came along and we gladly jumped in. They were some cool local artists and we had a good conversation, but only for an hour when they reached their destination and let us out, this time alone. For 2 hours we strained to see a vehicle going either direction. We walked a bit in the bush, ate lunch and read books. I found this skull nearby and

we hoped that this would not be a Before and After shot.

 

 

The first car that came by, did so at 100 miles an hour and didn’t slow to our pleading gestures. A second car did the same and we suddenly found ourselves on the phone (fortunately there was good cell coverage – not sure what we would have done had that not been the case!) calling some of the local other PCVs that lived on that road.  They were quite far from where but suggested if we got stranded they could look for friends with cars to probably come get us. It was now 3:00, and we were not even half way there and it was looking hopeless. We called the hotel and cancelled the room out of courtesy. We were going to stay somewhere, but not in Ghanzi!

Finally we flagged a car that was going the other direction from ours and they reluctantly offered to accept 10 times the normal amount of money to take us the estimated 25K to the main road, where we figured we’d have a better chance of catching a ride. First, they had to go up the road 1 mile to drop off something and then would come back. We were in!  To our luck, another car came our direction just then but drove by us very fast as we frantically waived for it to stop. After passing us, however, the brake lights went red and our hearts skipped a beat! A ride! Yeehaa! We felt a small tinge of sorrow about the other guys who promised to come back, but we remembered the price they were going to charge and felt it really was ok.

This woman was going more than just the 25 K to the main road, and was even turning on the main road in our direction. She took us another couple hours to Kang where she was ending her journey, but she was able to drop us off at a location where we were lucky enough to catch an instant ride heading all the way to our destination! We couldn’t believe it. Now it was 6:30 pm and dark and we had 2 more hours to go. The only problem was that there was no cell coverage for the next two hours and we had cancelled our hotel at the only place to stay in Ghanzi on the biggest tourist attraction weekend of the year! Uuugh! If they gave our room away, we are screwed! So we just waited and waited, continually pressing the redial button on our phones until it went through, just 30 minutes outside of town and so very fortunately for us, our room was still available!

So 6 rides and 11 hours later we arrived in Ghanzi, very happy to be there and marveling at the good fortune that had come our way all day. The weekend had begun! The hotel was VERY nice. Hot showers with great pressure and nice beds and a great restaurant and all walking distance from everything.

We met up with our friends who had their own stories about the bus ride and losing their phone (alarm clock) the night before and not waking up on time for the only bus at 6:00 am, only to find there is also an 8:00 bus that worked out  fine.

So we all had a nice meal and enjoyed the evening and a good night’s sleep. We woke late in the morning and spent all of thirty minutes completely exploring the “town”. Ghanzi is very remote and situated in the middle of tribal peoples called the Sans People. They are primitive and being pushed more and more out to the dessert as the small villages and towns become more and more progressive. There was some decent artsy jewelry made by the Sans People in a store that we all enjoyed.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at a very nice lodge 7K outside of town. We went there on recommendation and because it was the only thing to do  while we waited for  the bands to start at the Metal Fest.

The lodge had many large (some 80 acres or more) cages that housed 9 lions, a bunch of cheetahs, the almost extinct wild dog and a bunch of other animals.

We figured this might be our only opportunity to actually see a lion in Africa. We only saw one cage that had one lion in it and it was quite far away, but it was fun anyway.  A bit curiously though, right next to the that lions cage was the cage of donkeys, which we learned were fed to the lions each Monday. LIONS The wild dogs were the coolest animals. They had such a ferocious and intimidating growl that we were all scared to death to get close to their heavy cages, even for a good picture. They seemed to have dark blood-red eyes that pierced your soul as

they growled and flashed their teeth. Truly something evil right out of a horror movie. Even in the middle of the day!

 

On the way there we had gotten a ride from a man who mentioned  he was going to Molepolole, our home town, on Sunday morning and had room for 3 people! He was planning on leaving around 8 to 10 the next morning and gave us his number! This was music to our ears, as the only bus out of Ghanzi was a 6:00 am the next morning, which we all dreaded, knowing we were going to be up late at the Metal Fest. We ended up walking the 5 K back to the main road because there were no vehicles going our way, but it was a nice day with time to kill. Back at the Hotel we had some food and prepared for our big night!

We got to the festival around 9 and what a sight. Others there were seriously into their Metal Fest Spirit! It was like Halloween with everyone wearing the same theme. All black leather suites with studs and accessories that left nothing to the imagination.

There was plenty of energy in the air and everyone was very nice and happy to be there. We got lots of attention, as we always do everywhere we go, but it was a very comfortable atmosphere and there was no thoughts of worry or fear. The bands started playing and it was pretty loud, fast, trashy Heavy Metal music played on inadequate equipment with a sub-par sound system that was not properly microphoned. But the sights were cool and fun and the whole thing came off  well and we all had a really great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the night, the MC acknowledged the prestigious presence of us Peace Corps members and brought some of us on stage. Carol enjoyed some

solo dancing and singing on stage while my friend and I got the honor of performing a drum solo! That was the highlight of my Peace Corps experience so far! I was onstage, behind miked up drums, in front of 100 people all clapping and waving their arms at my drumming fun! I enjoyed about 1 minute of mediocre drum soloing on a drum set that left a huge amount of room for improvement, and then the drum stick completely crumbled in my hand! I was quite satisfied!

 

 

So, as all good things must come to an end, so did our fun that night. We went home to a heavy sleep and woke in a panic at 9:00 am! We tried calling our ride and got no answer. Plan B! Send Nate for some  food then hit the road hitching  and pray for a ride the full way home!

In the middle of our showers we got a call from Nate saying he was at the bus rink and the only other bus was leaving for Gaborone in 15 minutes! We raced through the checkout process and made it in the nick of time. We got seats and once again sat marveling at our good fortune. We wondered why no one knew there was a 10:00 am bus. Even the locals have no idea.

Anyway, we were set, with the only issue now being that we would arrive in Gaborone about dusk and it would be difficult to hitch back to Molepolole. We figured we had no options and were grateful just to get closer to home in 10 more hours.  Just as the bus starts to move out to the road, the phone rings and it is our ride asking us if we are ready. Not having been able to get a hold of him for 20 phone calls, we thanked him for his offer and told him we were on the bus. After a few minutes of thought we discussed the fact that if we get off at Kang in 2 hours, he could pick us up we would have a nice ride all the way to Molepolole, which would be just too awesome. When we tried to call him, we were out of cell range again and now had the dilemma of leaving the bus in Kang and hoping to hook up with him or staying on the bus and facing whatever sleeping demons we would encounter later that night. As we approached Kang, once again inside cell range, we finally got a hold of him and arranged to get picked up.  He was 80 K behind us. We nervously watched the bus leave us in Kang.

His name was Peter and he had some experiences with Peace Corps people and liked them and so he wanted to help us and had offered to take us for free. That was a relief to us, as our money was down to nothing and no way to get more. When he pulled up to the gas station in a brand new, 2012, giant 18 wheeler, all decked out with the latest electronics and comforts inside, we knew we were in for another adventure. He was hauling a double trailer with 61 cattle going to slaughter. After some great conversation, mostly fun stories from him, we found him to be a South African (white) that had been here for 30 years and owned a huge trucking company. He had 48 big rigs and his biggest was a double-decker, double trailer, that carried 108 cattle every week across the country. He had a fridge and was putting a microwave and coffee machine in. He travelled with his wife and you could see her taste in the $200,000 USD cab we were riding in.

Two thing didn’t go as planned. First he told about how he  put a governor on all his trucks to stop his drivers from driving too fast. So all the trucks drive at a maximum of 90 KPH (roughly 56 MPH), and most of the time we did about 80. This almost doubled our trip time! Now we would be totally screwed getting into Gaborone after midnight! Worse yet, the second plan that went afoul is that we had neglected to understand that his route was taking him through Lobatse, a town far South of our destination, and Molepolole was on his plan for Tuesday! OMG! We were so stuck! This nice comfy, free ride was turning into trouble for us.

With no other options, we kept our woes to ourselves and accepted  fate. At least we were comfortable and in good company. About 6:30 pm we passed a point that was the closest, geographically, we would come to our home, so we asked him to drop us there and we would take our chances with another hitch.

We bid farewell and climbed out of the massive truck and stood in the cold along with a couple dozen others all trying to hitch to somewhere. As luck would have it, a nice woman offered to change her route and go out of her way in order to take us to our home village, one hour a way. The only catch was that she had a very small pickup truck and we would all have to ride in the back. We put on every stitch of clothing we brought with and climbed in to the freezing steel back and laid down together like the guys in the movie “Alive”. It was cold! Every now and then we would climb a bit of high hill and the air would warm just enough to keep us encouraged, but we finally made it home around 8:30 pm and collapsed with a giant bowl of hot oatmeal followed by a long nights rest. Never let it be said that a little bit of luck won’t go a long way!

A few more pictures of the fest:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The situation: One of the students at school had what I believed to be a pretty bad epileptic seizure. She was limp and completely unresponsive to touch, talk and people moving her body. She was having medium convulsions, swallowing weird and was cold to the touch. While I was freaking out about it – several teachers told me she sometimes does this when she is angry and can’t get her way. This girl is the one of the best highest achieving students in the school and the teachers sounded completely absurd.

One teacher insisted this was an African curse. She didn’t deny to me that she may be seriously ill, but suggested that a traditional healer could dip her in water or fire and “cure” her.

There are no ambulances or I would have called one to take her to the hospital. Her parents eventually came and told me this has happened before and a doctor told them it was nothing.

She was at school today although she looked drained and puffy. I explained what epilepsy was and told her she should go to the doctor and go home. She asked if I would go to the doctor with her because no one ever explains things right to the doctor. After getting permission from the Peace Corps, her parents, and the school (3.5 hours) we walked down the road (no transport offer from anyone) and I paid for a cab to the hospital.

 

Free Health Care: We stood in a queue to check in, about 15 minutes. We got yelled at by the check in host and every single other medical person we saw, because she did not have her medical records. In Botswana each patient is responsible for keeping their medical records and people are supposed to bring the records to the doctor/hospital/clinic.

Intake sent us to see a doctor. The intake to see a doctor queue was 20 minutes. They told me we must go to the youth clinic instead. They would not listen to what we needed (there are only nurses at clinics) and refused service. We left for the youth clinic.

The queue at the clinic was only 15 minutes. The nurse in charge told us they only treat medical problems nurses can treat and the girl will have to go back to the doctor queue. This time they also yelled at us for not bringing a parent. While the same sort of rules exist for parental/guardian consent and confidentiality as the United States, none of these rules/laws are adhered to. So I wasn’t that concerned and told the nurse I would work it out with the doctor. (Can you imagine a teacher from school taking your child to the doctor for medical treatment and everyone agreeing it is ok to talk to the teacher instead of the parent?)

I asked that she take the time to write-up the incident as that would be my “official medical record”. I suggested that the girl had epilepsy, and the nurse wrote it down. The nurse became angry when she heard the girl was unconscious for 5 hours and her parents did not bring her to the emergency room. She told me I was a good person and the doctor would probably work with me.

Back to the doctor queue. We are number 67. The doctors are now seeing number 21. It was 12:00 PM. I was told, by another patient, it was unlikely I would get service today, but those of us that did not get service today would be first in the morning queue.

The Order: Someone else told me to talk to the head nurse about “the order”. The head nurse explained that if a patient has a job he/she can cut into the line at the sixth space. Also if a patient is a student he/she can cut at the sixth space (even when the people from the day before are still waiting). However if you are a prisoner you can go first because no one wants to wait in the room with the prisoners. I was glad to hear there is one place that being a student has a value!
When we tried to get into the sixth space in the queue, all chaos broke out with people furious that we were cutting. They yelled that I should have come first thing in the morning!!! The head nurse had to restore order and physically make space for us in the queue. (Total 1.5 hour wait)

Finally we get to see the doctor. She reads the nurses “report”, which was my description of events and says, “Ok, she has epilepsy.” While I was feeling pretty good about getting this girl some medical treatment, I am starting to get a lump in my throat. No doctor in America has ever, EVER confirmed my own amateur diagnosis. In fact they often laugh at my outrageous assumptions. Now, without tests they are going to give her the diagnosis that I suggested/guested.

I asked if they would be doing any tests, and the doctor said my description of the event and the girls’ assertions that this was the 6th or 7th time this has happened, made it sound exactly like Epilepsy. Now I was sorry I had read all about Epilepsy on the internet just hours before coming so I could give such a good description. I said I would feel a lot better if there were tests.

The nurse checked her pulse, temperature, blood pressure and weighed her. Then the doctor wrote what she called a “very strong prescription”. I again asked about a blood test and just threw in that we get blood tests done nearly every time we go to the doctor in the U.S. She told me the girls parents should have brought her last night during the 5 hour-long seizure – that would have been the best time for the test. Ok – but is that it? No other chances? Should we just hope the meds are fine and bring her in during the next seizure?

She said she will schedule a blood test for the next day. Then the girl asked if she could get a heart test too – because she thinks she has a bad heart. The doctor tells her that her pulse was fine. The girl says, “When I get scared my heart beats very fast.” The doctor then agrees to an EKG. By this time the lump in my throat is beyond huge. I am fearing my good deed is turning into a medical nightmare. I didn’t have enough of a doctor/science mind to have taken high school chemistry.

I say a little prayer – a pleading to God – please don’t let anyone take me serious. I remembered I always exaggerate all medical incidents in the US because the doctors there put things into the correct and trained perspective. But here it seems my word is Gospel.

The problem: This is another culture problem for me. In America I can say anything, and everything, and people just take what I say as “something Carol thinks”.  Here people are respectful and they listen and act like if you had the nerve to say something it is probably well thought out and meaningful. Especially if you say it with confidence and authority.

I must learn to step down – be quiet, be more humble. “Thinking out loud” is never taken as speculations.

The Pharmacy:  We go to the pharmacy queue, another 45 minute wait, to get the medication and the pharmacist says the prescription has to be wrong and gives us the pamphlet in 6 point font from the pharmaceutical company and tells us to go back to the doctor.

We get to skip the queue, which only makes everyone angry a second time. The doctor we saw is gone and so we see another one. He ponders the prescription for a while and asks a lot of questions, which were not asked before, about history and intensity and details of the seizure. He declares the first prescription completely wrong and writes a totally different thing (Please God, Please God – be watching down on us). Back at the pharmacy, she again says it is wrong and we go for a third re-write (cutting in the queue for the third time). Finally we get the pills I have no faith in what so ever and I take her home to her parents.

Good Parents:  She has good parents, but they are not very educated. I explained everything to the mom, and she asked why the doctors never told her about the epilepsy and instead told her that her that her daughter had too much wind in her lungs. I am afraid to say that I think the doctors affirm what you tell them you think is wrong. Her mom will take her to the rest of her appointments, and I am so glad that her parents will take care of her from here. Maybe their silence is better for her than my guesses.

The one good thing: We didn’t pay for any of this. But I am worried about that saying that goes, “You get what you pay for”, is right.

I hope I did the right thing. I again, wish I had the resources that are always available everywhere in the USA. I could have taken her to the emergency room and got “free treatment” there too. They send a bill, and maybe a collection agency – but she would have care, and a diagnosis from someone besides a person that couldn’t hack a chemistry class.

My desperate conclusion:  Please, God, make it be ok.

Chickens:

As you may have read on Carol’s post, there was a problem at her school with chickens messing up the school garden.  Many of the 35 houses on the school campus have up to 15 free roaming chickens.  Well, not exactly free roaming since most teacher have a dilapidated chicken coop looking shelter for night rest.  The chickens that don’t have these luxury accommodations fly into the trees and try to make it through the freezing nights.  The chickens are raised for eggs and food.

Unfortunately the chickens are not treated well and almost never have water and are literally never fed.  They must fend for themselves by scratching around and digging up yummy bugs and worms.

The school has an unwritten and completely ignored rule that basically says no one is allowed to have livestock on school property, and if they do, it must be kept in pens.  Teachers that don’t have chickens (which includes those earning a lot of money, meaning the upper management) “complained” and teachers were ordered to get rid of their chickens or be fined.  Most got rid of the chickens, but then everyone realized there would be no fines, because that requires an administrative process the school admins are simply too lazy to fulfill.  So the chicken raising teachers built better coops and have made a better effort of keeping chickens in their new chicken jailhouses 24/7.  This makes it really hard for those poor chickens to scratch up much food – so they found a way out and started roaming again.

The school administration then made a blanket statement to the 900 children (who are already terribly mean to the little snack food chickens) that the problem is out of control and the new brilliant solution is to break the legs of the chickens if they are out and about – because that would stop them from walking.  This is a horrible solution, but evidently our neighbors think it will work.  So I have had to endure the last 2 weeks with sadness viewing my favorite rooster standing stationary with just one working leg, and the other bent at an ugly 45° angle.

At least the chickens disappear rather quickly, so their tortured little lives are fairly short.

Donkeys:

Speaking of horrible animal stories:  There are donkeys everywhere.  There is not supposed to be any livestock in the village proper (down town).  However, no one pays even the slightest attention to that law and there are chickens, donkeys, cows and goats all over.  The donkeys just stand there, in one place, waiting to be harnessed and used to pull carts.  Sometimes they wander a bit looking for some thorny bushes to chew on.   One of the sadly common local solutions to wandering donkeys is to tie a heavy rope around their front hooves with just 4” of slack.  This essentially hobbles them and they are unable to walk.  They do frequently try to “hop” on their two bound front feet, and it’s very sad and pathetic to see.

Dogs:

All the dogs here are very skinny, because they don’t get fed other than table scraps.  People don’t name their dogs and they like them to be vicious to scare other people away from their home.  They beat them mercilessly for the slightest misbehaving.   I often put my hand out to pet them and am sorry at seeing them wanting so badly to be pet and loved, but so scared that they will get beat.  I have called to dogs that plant their front feet to keep from coming near while their back feet push them forward to get the smallest human affections.

Cats:

Cats are simply kept as mousers, and they are all flea bitten feral creatures, but cats seem to be just slightly better taken care of than the donkeys or dogs.  Except the black cats.  They are viewed as a part of witchcraft and therefore chased and beaten whenever seen.

Although these things are inhumane and cruel, they are an integral part of this culture and a necessity to survival and preservation.   Cultural differences are sometimes very hard to accept.

 

On a lighter side, some miscellaneous, but noteworthy things …

This morning when I woke up it was 1°C outside, which is roughly 34°F.  This afternoon when I left work it was 28°C, which is roughly 82°F.   With at 50 degree swings in temperature it is difficult to dress for the day.  Winter is coming and it is supposed to get colder, but allegedly it never freezes, so I’m not sure how much colder it can get.

Ironically we still sleep with a fan on in our room, mostly for the nice rooster drowning sound, but also because for some reason we both go through these hot and cold spells throughout the nights.  It’s weird how you just have little sweat attacks for 15 minutes or so and then cool down until cold, then another sweat attach….. it keeps us off balance.

 

Next weekend we are travelling to a faraway village to see, of all things… The Overthrust Winter Metal Mania Fest!  This is a huge music festival that focuses on Heavy Metal Music for 24 hours.  I’m so excited!  We will travel 8 to 9 hours each way by hitchhiking or possibly an overstuffed 5:00 am bus for one day at the fest!  That’s just what we do.

http://metal4africa.com/gigs/ghantsi-western-botswana-02062012-gantsi-community-hall-botswana-overthrust-winter-metal-mania-fest/

 

With the colder weather, we are forced to forego the nice morning showers we have come to enjoy (and really appreciate) and now have to bathe at night.  This is difficult for me as my hair is out of control.  I will soon resort to wearing a hat to look presentable without a shower, but I’m worried about the hot afternoons.  The biggest problem with morning showers is not so much the cold in the house, but having lengthy wet hair on my long walk to work in the morning chills me to the bone.  In addition to this, the road is roughly a mile of extremely dusty gravel and each time a big truck comes raging by at ridiculous speeds it puts up inescapable clouds of dust that immediately and entirely negates the morning shower.  I can taste the dust and grit in my teeth by the end of the road.

 

Tomorrow we are getting Binks!  He is supposed to be an indoor/outdoor cat, but I’m guessing it won’t be long before he decides that he is exclusively an indoor cat.  Between the colder weather and all the attention he is about to get, I can hardly blame him.  I’m hoping in return for our hospitable offer that he will provide a bug and critter free home for us all!

The name Binks will probably morph into Mr. Binks, which will inevitably lead to Mr. B.  I sure hope the real Mr. B doesn’t think I’m cheating on him!

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Student Teachers: are my sense of inspiration!

I have consistently been thinking this country is 50 years behind the USA in terms of cultural/social, education and business development.  I believe they are making slow but sure progress.  I have had many nay sayers try to warn me away from this hope.  I know they are trying to protect me from the sort of hope that distorts reality and pushes one to waste time and energy, so I don’t outright dismiss the message.  However, today I feel my hope and belief have been confirmed.

 

As all readers of this blog know, my school has consistently and persistently deprived 900 students of a required computer education.  The school won’t maintain or buy computers, provide text books, provide notebooks, and finally just started calling the required computer class – free time.

 

So now, two student teachers are sent to Kwena Sereto to teach computer awareness.  I ask them how they are going to do this in light of all missing materials.  They say they don’t know, but they will do their best – which almost always means they will do nothing.

 

The first day of class the students come and stand around because there are no chairs in the computer lab.  The student teachers send them to their previous classroom to get chairs.  Then the teacher realizes the students can’t take notes because they were not provided notebooks for the class (notebooks are issued by the school).  So the teachers make handouts to give the students, but are told they can not make copies because there is not enough copy paper to give handouts to the students.

 

I’m just waiting – hoping they will get mad and cause a commotion and demand justice be done for these students, but I fear they too will give up. BUT NEITHER THING HAPPENS – INSTEAD

THEY FOUND A WAY TO TEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I felt like I was in one of those teachers movies I have on my wish list  (if anyone has one of those teacher movies I would really really like to have them here).

 

The student teachers wrote their lessons in Power Point, got a projector and used their own computer to show the lessons.  They searched high and low to find 23 books so two students could read and share a book in class.  They were extremely high energy and found ways to get the students to call back answers that was significantly more meaningful and likely to stick than just answering a question in a class. They had one student at a time come up to the projector/computer station and were teaching Excel.  They were teaching how to write formula’s and the kids were on the edge of their chairs begging if they could be the next one to work on the computer.  This from a bunch of kids that would rather have their leg broken than go in front of a class and perform.

 

I am practically in tears writing this because I am so so happy to see student teachers coming here with an idea to teach!  Universities here are really teaching teachers how to teach!  These two young men were persistent and they are succeeding.

 

I am the person who gets to be inspired today!   These student teachers have given me new energy and directed me to go back and rethink how to help here.  I know it can be done now.

 

THANK YOU – Vusimuzi Bauka Muchipela and Ttshepho LeKau for your excellent work and your good attitude.  Botswana future looks much brighter with you as teachers in our Botswana schools!

Carol told me about some discomfort in her teeth.  Just a couple of months ago I had called Dr. Tenaka, the Peace Corps  Doctor charged with responsibly for the health of 160  PCVs in Botswana.  I had asked him about seeing a dentist since I traditionally clean my teeth every 6 months.  He told me the PC would pay for one cleaning per year, which wasn’t until September or so.  I resolved to wait it out and go just once a year while here.

But, now that Carol had an excuse to spend $60, and we made an appointment with the dentist  and went to town this morning for a checkup.  We had scheduled the appointment to coincide with another meeting which I had volunteered to help.  The Peace Corps  was hosting a meeting for a University from South Carolina with the good fortune of having enough money to send 19 people to Botswana for 3 weeks, all expenses paid, to see another culture.  The Peace Corps asked me and 3 other PCVs, all representing the 4 basic job functions (Life Skills (that’s Carol), Community Capacity Building, Non-Governmental Organizations and District/Community Liaisons (that’s me)) to come to the big city to share our experiences and perspectives with the hopes of getting these people to potentials to sign up for the Peace Corps.

So I went to the PC office for the workshop while Carol enjoyed a morning of shopping for a sweater with both of our ATM cards.   After the workshop we met for lunch and then headed off to our first Botswana dentist appointment.  When we arrived at the clinic, we were welcomed.   I went first as Carol sat in the room with me, surveying the environment.   The room was quite up to specs with modern dentist chairs, signs on the wall about using clean tools and health concerns, and a dentist with a mask and gloves.  We were pretty comfortable.

This was only a cleaning, so no X-rays were in order.  When I sat in the dentist chair and she started poking and probing I couldn’t help but be consumed with thoughts about this being an AIDS stricken country and wondering about the quality of the dentistry I was about to experience.   She had told us that she studied dentistry in Nebraska and had been to Chicago, and she made us feel quite good.

The next thing I know there is a loud grinding sound and dentist and her assistant are going to town in my mouth with the suction tube and some tool that seemed in every way like an electric stone grinder. I was concerned that  they had learned to clean teeth by grinding tauter off the tooth with a stone grinder, oblivious to the removal of enamel.  I was torn between stopping her and asking what was going on, or just trusting the Peace Corps recommendation.

After 15 minutes of mental debate it was done and I either had nice clean teeth or they were ruined for the rest of my life with no one to sue.  When I asked her what tool she was cleaning with, I was pleasantly surprised to see her produce an Ultrasonic Cleaning Tool that was in no way a grinder.  State of the art, painless and efficient.  What a nice relief!  Carol and I both got a clean bill of health and left happily, vowing to return again between the regular annual Peace Corps dental issues.

 

On our way home we had some time to kill and passed by Time Square.  Not quite like New York, but worth a picture.

 

 

 

 

Then we passed by the world-renowned Gaborone Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Actually it’s just a small, but nice little museum called the Gaborone Art Museum.  So we decided to make a visit and it had some interesting stories, pictures of the 2500 year old wall art in the Salt Pans part of Northwestern Botswana, cool animal scenes and some fun metal art on the outside.  We felt good to have visited probably the only cultural center in the country.

 

 

 

 

It was just another fun interesting day in our Botswana lives…

Mothers Day: – Happy Mothers Day to all my friends that are Mothers – you have all made the world a better place for all the loving you put in the world!

Especially  to mom and Grandma!

The Garden:  Has not been going so good.  Not only is it the eye sore of the

neighbourhood, and there are a lot of big eye sores here; it has been fairly unproductive.  Each plant only produces one small stunted vegetable or maybe nothing.  I think it is because the soil doesn’t have enough nutrients – and hopefully our winter worth of composting will help next year.

 

 

 

 

 

The kids:  We are the funnest people in the neighborhood to play with.  Yesterday there were about 12 kids that came over to draw, play ball, jump rope, play Frisbee or just crawl around on our laps.  Last night I enjoyed it –

and I do most of the time – but sometimes I just don’t want to play with the kids.  But they always always always want to play with us.  When they want to play and I don’t we generally have talks like this:

Kid:  Can you come out and play?

Me:  No – I don’t feel like playing today.

Kid:  Can I come in and read?

Me:  No, I am busy today and I don’t have time.

Kid:  Can I please colour by myself?

Me:  Not today – I have a lot of work to do.

Kid:  Can I come in and clean the bathroom?

Me:  OK – (about 25% of the time I say yes to that).

I am not kidding – they regularly ask if they can scrub the tub, sweep/mop the floor, weed/water the garden or help with dishes.

So when we are not in the mood we often don’t answer the door.  If we don’t answer the door they pound on the door for five or ten minutes screaming, “Carol!!!  John!!! Gofaone! Tiro!! –  I heard you talking!!!!”  We have tried to explain how we knock on people’s doors in America – but it has not sunk in yet.  Hence the sign:

 

We will see if this works.

University of Louisville:  The University has an International Business Studies program as well as a Pan-African studies program.  One of its programs is using sports to teach development.  The School has a program that integrates several different disciplines to come up with a weeks’ worth of education programs in an Africa school, specially involving the children in the sports development.  UofL works with the University of Botswana Education Program and together they target schools or NGO’s to visit.  Kwena Sereto was selected for the third year.

Four UofL students came to the school and introduced their sports programs and other issues that affect the kids such as “Anti-Bullying” and “Learn to Listen”.  The children were very receptive and really enjoyed the presentations.  They especially enjoyed the sport activities and I don’t think they noticed the games were geared towards team building and competition.

The best part of all was they invited us all to a free dinner at one of the nicer restaurants/bars in Gaborone.  A couple of teachers from school drove us and a fun time was had by all.  I told some school people I was interested in pursuing a MPH when our service was done and they strongly encouraged me to apply there as they believe Peace Corps service is one of the most outstanding educational programs which one can participate and they said they were always looking to employ good IT guys – so who knows – maybe we will end up in Louisville when this is done.  (It is an excellent town to enjoy the arts in as well).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends: Two of my friends from the Peace Corps came over this weekend to make me a special belated Birthday dinner.  We had LAMB, pita bread and Tzatzike made from scratch, ginger carrots, a salad and Betty Crocker Carrot Cake (sent by Dad and Karyl).  It took the three of us about 4 hours to cook the dinner and we spent hours  enjoying the dinner and talking about life.  It almost felt exactly like an American dinner party.  It is nice when we can put together a few minutes of our life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jack Wagon:  Louie, formally known as “The Jack Wagon” figured out how to send a box!  He did report “illegal contraband” directly on the customs form and they made him open the box and remove it, so it was only half full – but hey, he got it done! (We weren’t sure Louie would ever figure it out.  We thought we would have to get the box when we got back to America).   So we now want to publicly retract the public name calling.  He is suspended from the Jack Wagon list (for now) and is now just a dear friend!  Thanks for the box Louie!

Mothers Day: – Happy Mothers Day to all my friends that are Mothers – you have all made the world a better place for all the loving you put in the world!

Especially  to my mom and Grandma!

The Garden:  Has not been going so good.  Not only is it the eye sore of the neighbourhood, and there are a lot of big eye sores here; it has been fairly unproductive.  Each plant only produces one small stunted vegetable or maybe nothing.  I think it is because the soil doesn’t have enough nutrients – and hopefully our winter worth of composting will help next year.

 

The kids:  We are the funnest people in the neighbourhood to play with.  Yesterday there were about 12 kids that came over to draw, play ball, jump rope, play Frisbee or just crawl around on our laps.  Last night I enjoyed it – and I do most of the time – but sometimes I just don’t want to play with the kids.  But they always always always want to play with us.  When they want to play and I don’t we generally have talks like this:

Kid:  Can you come out and play?

Me:  No – I don’t feel like playing today.

Kid:  Can I come in and read?

Me:  No, I am busy today and I don’t have time.

Kid:  Can I please colour by myself?

Me:  Not today – I have a lot of work to do.

Kid:  Can I come in and clean the bathroom?

Me:  OK – (about 25% of the time I say yes to that).

I am not kidding – they regularly ask if they can scrub the tub, sweep/mop the floor, weed/water the garden or help with dishes.

So when we are not in the mood we often don’t answer the door.  If we don’t answer the door they pound on the door for five or ten minutes screaming, “Carol!!!  John!!! Gofaone! Tiro!! –  I heard you talking!!!!”  We have tried to explain how we knock on people’s doors in America – but it has not sunk in yet.  Hence the sign:

 

 

We will see if this works.

University of Louisville:  The University has an International Business Studies program as well as a Pan-African studies program.  One of its programs is using sports to teach development.  The School has a program that integrates several different disciplines to come up with a weeks’ worth of education programs in an Africa school, specially involving the children in the sports development.  UofL works with the University of Botswana Education Program and together they target schools or NGO’s to visit.  Kwena Sereto was selected for the third year.

Four UofL students came to the school and introduced their sports programs and other issues that affect the kids such as “Anti-Bullying” and “Learn to Listen”.  The children were very receptive and really enjoyed the presentations.  They especially enjoyed the sport activities and I don’t think they noticed the games were geared towards team building and competition.

The best part of all was they invited us all to a free dinner at one of the nicer restaurants/bars in Gaborone.  A couple of teachers from school drove us and a fun time was had by all.  I told some school people I was interested in pursuing a MPH when our service was done and they strongly encouraged me to apply there as they believe Peace Corps service is one of the most outstanding educational programs which one can participate and they said they were always looking to employ good IT guys – so who knows – maybe we will end up in Louisville when this is done.  (It is an excellent town to enjoy the arts in as well).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends: Two of my friends from the Peace Corps, (Mia and Celia) came over this weekend to make me a special belated Birthday dinner.  We had LAMB, pita bread and Tzatzike made from scratch, ginger carrots, a salad and Betty Crocker Carrot Cake (sent by Dad and Karyl).  It took the three of us about 4 hours to cook the dinner and we spent hours  enjoying the dinner and talking about life.  It almost felt exactly like an American dinner party.  It is nice when we can put together a few minutes that feel like a piece of America!

 

 

The Jack Wagon:  Louie, formally known as “The Jack Wagon” figured out how to send a box!  He did report “illegal contraband” directly on the customs form and they made him open the box and remove it, so it was only half full – but hey, he got it done! (We weren’t sure he would ever be able to figure it out – and we were just planning on getting the box upon return to America).  So we now want to publicly retract the public name calling.  He is suspended from the Jack Wagon list (for now) and is now just a dear friend!  Thanks for the box Louie!

The problem with writing these blogs is that often they are written way after the fact and many of the fun and more interesting stories are lost from my memory leaving them as somewhat dry.  I try my best to write down the key points just after a trip or event so that I can share them, but more often than not, I get home exhausted and put it all off for too long.

So, this is just a chronological recount of the past couple weekends and some little adventures that Carol and I went through recently as interesting as I can make them, and if for nothing else, they will be added to our long list on this blog.

We start with a couple weekends back when a plan was made for a bunch of us PCVs  to get together on the upcoming Saturday night in Gaborone (the big city!) to celebrate Carols upcoming birthday along with a couple others who have b-days around then.   There were three b-day girls and a crew of 10 people  or so all looking forward to a fun dinner somewhere and a night on the town.  As the weekend approached, everyone watched their local bank accounts closely, waiting for the Peace Corps’ meager allowance to show up, but alas, as Friday came around, it had not.  So our cell phones were flooded with text messages begging forgiveness for having to bow out of the weekend plans due to a severe  lack of funds.  This was not entirely unexpected and certainly understood, as we all received exactly, to the penny, the amount of money we need to eat, sleep and get to and from work.  So most everyone is living literally from payment to payment, which is only made at the end of each month.  It was no big deal, since Carol and I had resolved to go spend a nice evening together, anyway,  regardless of company, at the 2^nd best hotel in the country for her b-day.  The top manager of the hotel is married to a former PCV and is very happy to please his wife by giving us all 50% discounts on the rooms, which brings it from $100 to $50 a night.

 

At the bus rink in Gaborone you will often see street musicians. Yes, those are

car hub caps for cymbals and the snare drum head is entirely ripped!  But they jammed away regardless…

 

 

 

Earlier that week, we had made arrangements to visit the owner of a pottery studio on that Friday and I was going to actually throw some pots for her.  For me this was very exciting because I had not thrown for over a year.  Rika and her family were a delight to meet and I ended up throwing a dozen or so pots for her and getting my fix.  She put us up in her very beautiful home and fed us very well.   We became friends with her husband and kids and now have another fun couple in our lives.  We spent the night and most of the next day there, finishing up some pots and enjoying the tortoises, snakes, dogs and wild birds along with their company.  That evening Rika dropped us off at the Metcourt Hotel and Casino and we met up with our friend Abbey, a PCV who is finishing up her service in June and has a scholarship to Harvard!  Also, Nelson, our Botswana taxi driver who we have come to know well and who we like very much.  So the 4 of us went out for Chinese food and that was a treat!  We spend the rest of the evening at the Bull and Bush Bar, dancing, playing pool and enjoying all the ex-pats and locals.  That was weekend #1.

We went back to work on Monday but on Wednesday we took a long (1 ½  hours) Eastbound bus ride into Gaborone to catch an even longer (5 ½ hours) Westbound bus ride to Kang.  Kang is home to another PCV friend of ours who has a very good friend, Aabrim, who owns a large Hunting Lodge next to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.  The CKGR is one of the world’s very best safari parks, although Aabrim’ s 20,000 acre farm borders the Southern edge of the park, and the Lions and other big game are all on the Northern part of the park.   Aabrim’s family is wonderful.  The three young kids are so well mannered and courteous we just could not stop complimenting them.   They fed us very well and our first meal was freshly cooked Wildebeest with bacon wraps.  It was incredibly good!  We were there while a Father/Son paid hunting party was just finishing up their last night.  So carol and I got to go out for free on a night game drive which is just where you drive around and shine a bright spot light looking for night animals for a couple hours.  While this is highly illegal in the US for poaching reasons, it is a tourist attraction in Botswana while on private land.  We saw some cool animals like spring hares which are these cool little critters that look like tiny kangaroos and hop all over the place.  You can catch them by hand and they are pretty tame, supposedly.  We also saw Honey Badgers (and yes, it’s true, they didn’t care about anything), porcupines, jackals, some strange rabbit/weasel like animal,  owls, an aardwolf (which is an interesting looking ant eater), zebras and wildebeests.  Aabrims’s 16 year old son was guiding us and he did a very good job as a knowledgeable, courteous, caring and professional guide.  The hunters were trying to shoot the jackals with a 22 rifle with a silencer on it.  They got off three shots but it was very hard to hit them while they were moving, and with the silencer I’m sure the bullet was as slow as a BB gun.

 

We returned to a large bon-fire and then slept in a nicely provided hut,  complete with scorpions and probably all kinds of other fun co-inhabitants.

The next morning the hunters went on their final hunt at 6:30 am and invited me to go with for free too, which I gratefully accepted!   They were shooting a .375 and wanted to hunt Eland, and after an hour or so we saw a heard of Eland but we could not flank them.  All the herds spook easily with the truck.  We saw Impala and some Kudu and tons of Zebras and Wildebeest.   After a couple hours they decided to hunt Wildebeest and we came up on a heard and the hunters left the truck and ground stalked them for an hour or so.  Two of us went with the truck trying to redirect the herd towards the ground hunters so we didn’t see the shot that we heard.  The shooter was a 15 year old kid and he swears it was 70 yards and that he hit the animal, but his dad says it was 170.  Everyone agreed they thought they heard the bullet hit.  We looked for blood and found none after only 5 minutes of searching.  Aabrim told us he had two good trackers who would come out later and find the dead beast. They were all very confident about this.    Im not so sure it was really hit.

Then an hour later we came onto three single ones in a field that were not with aheard.  When they are alone like that, they don’t run as soon as they hear a vehicle, they just stand there.  So the kid got out to stalk while we drove around to flank again, and this time the kid dropped it easily.  So they field dressed it and we took some pictures and loaded it in the truck.   It was a pretty fun morning but not much of a “hunting” experience.  Most of the hunters who come here spend tens of thousands of dollars and don’t want to go home empty handed, so killing something is an end to an expensive means.  I was happy to hear that everyone was also very conscious of only shooting bulls and never shooting into a pack where a pass through could wound another one and a bunch of other decent things.  The only bad part is the use of a rifle which makes it just too easy.  It will be a fun challenge to shoot something with a bow when Aaron comes!

 

On our way back home we passed by a 20 acre corral that held some beautiful horses and a couple of white camels.  The story is that one of these camels’ mother’s died during its birth and Aabrim’s family raised the camel on a bottle all of its life.  This became abundantly clear as we

approached the corral with the truck from 500 yards and the camel started a full run to meet us, smiling, burping and gurgleing the whole way.  It was more affectionate than most puppies and would not stop trying to lick our faces!   It was pretty gross and he had very foul breath, but it was a bit fun anyway.  That was our mid-week adventure.

 

 

The next day, we again took off work a bit early and hitched into Gaborone to meet up once more with Rika and throw some more pots.  It was another enjoyable experience and she introduced us to two more couples in the art world;  one a painter and the other an owner of a throwing school.  We enjoyed all these people immensely and are starting to join a network in a world quite different from our local environment of only occasional running water and unreliable electricity.  After leaving Rika’s home on Saturday morning, we set out for our friend Dana’s house at the other side of town, for a large PCV belated b-day celebration that went til late in the night.    That was weekend #2.

This weekend we are travelling a short (2 hours) distance back to Kanye, the village where we did our initial Peace Corps Training.  A new group of 40 PC Trainees arrived a couple weeks ago and we have been invited to speak to them about our experiences and jobs and answer questions.   This was an invaluable part of our own training back in September, so we are eager to help these newbees ease their anxieties a bit.  We will also go visit the older couple, Lillian and Morgan, who were our host “mom” and “dad” for two months.  We have kept in touch with them, and they really value our continued contact and friendship.

On Saturday Night, one of the guys in our band has an American friend who lives in Gaborone (he’s 22 and owns his own trucking company here!) and he has offered to drive our band and it’s equipment to his house for a large house party he is having!  He even offered to pay us, despite having heard our less than professional sound!  This should be a great time for us.

It’s been a fun bunch of weekends and this one should be no exception!