John is getting ready for Christmas Eve with some fun movies on our couch made from two bed mattresses, a great meal, and

enjoying some homemade ginger juice, which was a very nice Christmas gift from our neighbor!  (It tasted much better than our first attempt at making this traditional drink).  We are hoping to perfect it by the time we return to America and share the grown-up version of Kool-Aid.  It is very good!

Notice our little tree and other decorations (Thanks Mom and Dad). It is about 75 and balmy today.

Our first African Christmas.  No Santa,  no tree or presents under the tree.  The celebration is centered on Christ’s birth and family dinner.  Our neighborhood is nearly deserted since most teachers have returned to their home villages.

We have been enjoying the day with all our little chicken friends.  They follow us all over the yard, wait at our door for us to come out and even venture into our kitchen when we leave the doors open!  They are pretty fascinating and entertaining to watch and “play” with.  The large roosters here are very majestic and quite intriguing; we hope to send some more cool pictures of them when we have a chance.

 

 

Our yummy Christmas Dinner was home-made meatballs in tomato sauce and Velveeta cheese; pumpkin fritters for dessert and Ginger Drink!   Then we watched The Heathers (1989) and  were sorely reminded  why we didn’t watch it when it first came out, followed by a movie called 1, 2, 3, 4 (2010) – another bad choice I’m betting didn’t even make it to the theater.

Oh well.  It was a relaxing low-key Christmas Eve for the first time in 45 years.

If you have pictures of you and your family on Christmas day please send a few.  We love seeing those pictures on our screen saver and it allows us to feel a little closer to home.  BUT…. Please send them in small sizes, no bigger than 100k or so.  Each one can take 30 minutes to down load for us! We Love and Miss all of you.

We wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or whatever fun event you are celebrating, and  an Awesome New Year.  Know we are lifting our ginger juice filled glasses and toasting each one of you!

We had a nice weekend.  We had the opportunity to sit in our back yard and watch the sun set:

 and this

 

 Lindu and Precious came over and made Christmas cards with the crafts sent by my mom and my dad

 

 

And the obligatory posed picture:

Our host family invited us back to Kanye to celebrate Christmas and a special dinner they cooked just for us.  Lillian had all five of her sisters and all her children and grandchildren and many in-laws. 

 We are really starting to get the swing of life in Africa.  After you let go of the frustration of things not being efficent or like America the experiance is quite pleasurable.

You can click the pictures to see full size.

PS – It took 2 hours and 45 minutes to post these 5 pictures.  We would like to post  more – but it is hard with the internet restrictions.  Internet usage is NOT one of the things we are adjusting very well too – yet. 

 

 

WOW!   We thought Christmas was gonna be quite quiet and simple this year, but as of today’s first trip to the local Post Office, looks like it will be a bit more exciting!  Exciting to the tune of rich macaroni and cheese, smoked oysters, real M&Ms, Christmas decorations including a miniature Christmas Tree, new shirts, pants, shirts, socks, real brown sugar,  peeler, knife sharpener, medication, scratch pads, Fantastik, children arts supplies, scotch tape, duct tape, pens & pencils tools, tuna, sheets, a lighter, fly swatters and tons of great food! Food from America, with all its processed sugar, salts, and artificial flavoring!  I never knew how much I liked that stuff.  6 new boxes!  We are overwhelmed with your thoughtfulness and love, again!  What can we say!  Except of course THANK-YOU!!!  Rick and Karyl, Joyce and Bill, and Angela!!!

 We are rushing to update our Wish List before we end up with 3 fly swatters, but even if we do, please rest well assured that your very good and much appreciated intentions will not go to waste! 

 We can’t tell you how much we appreciate all the support and the items we ask for and especially the things you all throw in there that we didn’t think of but turns out we are really excited to have!  Like the tiny Christmas tree, mashed potatos, socks, and pizza dough mix.  We are so impressed!

 Rick and Karyl Reckamp, who are some of our biggest suppliers, have asked me to develop a system to let everyone know what is being sent so there is no duplications.  I see the sense in that, but it is so hard to get people on the same page with different ways of work, technologies and communication styles.  However, it order to avoid duplications of things we only need one time – if you let me know about those when you mail them I will do my best to take off the list as soon as possible. 

 Here’s some new information.   Our mails goes to the school works at and when the school is closed, items will just sit at the post office for up to 30 days after which, we have been told, they will be returned to sender.  So, to help everyone involved, we are asking that in  BIG BOLD LETTERS you please write our phone numbers and some an obvious way like:

 PLEASE CALL THESE CELL NUMBER FOR PICKUP:

767 44 115 – Gofaone

767 44 160 – Tiro

 

Please put both our names on the package so either one of us can pick up the package. 

 

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Now I know where they are:  Tiro/John made me the coolest map ever.  I have not been able to find a good map of Botswana.  I still don’t have a good grasp on the regions and/or where my new PCV/friends live.  John stayed up late one night and drew the map below.  He included all the game reserves, main road, big cities, and districts.  Then looked-up each tiny little village on Google Earth (about 10 minute wait per request) and added the homes of all the PCV people I know!  He is the greatest mmonna wame/husband ever! – I now call this “my love map”.

 Maybe they do like me (at least some of them):  Last night we had dinner at a friend’s house.  After dinner we walked a quarter mile to the main road and then caught a cab that dropped us a half mile from our house.  Luckily one of the teachers saw us walking and gave us a lift home.  Several hours later I realized I lost my phone somewhere between my friends house and home.  I called my phone several times with no answer – then it started going right to voice mail.  I knew that was the moment someone “stole” the phone and took my SIM card out.  I didn’t sleep all night – our cell phones are our only communication and without them we are hopeless lost!    Also, they are not easily replaced.  This morning the teacher who gave us a lift home dropped my phone off at my house!  I had dropped it in his car!  I’m always so happy when I find out someone may like me – or at least does not want me to suffer and it’s fun to see good people are everywhere!

 

Little boys learn to cook:  I decided we could take a break from writing if the boys would agree to learn how to bake so they could help their wives when they grow up.  They giggled and giggled as much about “helping their wives” as the thought of being married one day.  Then they figured I would let them stay a little longer if they agreed to bake cookies.  We made sugar cookies and gingersnaps.  The gingersnaps were a disaster as one little boy put in a half cup of salt instead of a half teaspoon – but they wanted to take the cookies home anyway they were so proud of themselves.  In additions to teaching them how to be good family men I worked in some math too!

 Later that day the little boys’ big brothers came over and asked if they could have cooking lessons too!  While on break from school I will be holding a “boys only” cooking class each Monday!

Bonus:  And I got the laundry done in my new washer today too!  Mmonna wame (husband) brought it home as a surprise the other day!

 Another good day under the African sky!

 Notes about Packages: 

 We have not received any packages since we got to our new home.  I know mom, dad, Amy and Aaron have sent packages.  A few other people have said either they did or they would.  When or if you mail a package please send me or Tiro (John) an email including the date and address you sent the package and if possible a tracking number.  Please keep track of the contents and when we get the package we will confirm we received the whole thing with you (I don’t want to ruin the ridiculous fun 5-year-old-child Christmas present anticipation we get from the package by know the content ahead of time).    We do not have a solid mail system, and with school out and empty for the next month, I want to try and track down any packages we should be looking for.

 See “Contact Us” tab of blog to get proper address.

We just updated our wish list on this blog.  If you are looking for ideas of what would be helpful for us, please consider these items!  Thanks again for all your support and especiallly to those of you who have already sent us some packages! (Rick & Karyl, Eve and JR, Joyce and Bill, Aaron, Pat & Susan, Sarah & Jim).   We LOVE getting packages, and really really appreciate all you are sending!  You can’t believe how nice the littlest things from America are here!

While I am updating the Wish List here is a quick current update of our lives:

The weather is actually pretty nice.  We are in the middle of the rainy season, which basically means it rains a bit a few times a week, mostly at night.  It’s cooler (about 70) and basically just overcast most of the time.  This sure beats the extreme heat we had before, although even the locals are telling us that was an usual heat wave.   The hot season will start in another month or so and we are not sure what to expect.  Will keep you all posted on that.

My back is feeling better.  I am in almost zero pain, but it is weak and I am still quite concerned about it.   I have stopped taking pain pills daily and am taking Glucosamine instead.    My knees are also better, though still a concern.  I guess that’s just a result of extensive walking with backpacks  each day.  Hopefully my back and knees will get used to it and actually get stronger over the next couple years.

The internet continues to be an issue.  We have a USB modem for our PC that is rated at 7.2 Meg, but actually performs at an average of 20 to 20k (that’s right, 20 K).  It’s almost unusable for anything more than basic emails and light browsing.   We are looking into DSL service but they want a two-year contract and  only provide service rated at most at 512k, which means probably 100k in reality.  We are trying to get both Carol’s school and my office to sign up for the DSL service or the more expensive Satellite service, but I’m guessing it will be at least 6 to 12 months before anything happens there, if ever.  Wish us luck!

We are looking forward to Christmas here.  We will probably spend it just the two of us.  We are not allowed to travel during our first 3 months at our permanent homes.  All the grocery stores and other stores are playing American Christmas music and its a bit strange, but fun.   We will miss all our friends and family for sure, but this Christmas is a landmark for us, being our first Christmas away from everyone.

Now that we live in our own place we are able to eat what and when we want.  I love cooking with Carol,  but now it’s not quite the same. Since Carol’s school is out she has plenty of time to cook us really nice dinners and usually has it on the table by the time I get home, and since I’m still working 10 to 11 hours a day (hmmmm) I don’t get to participate as much.   We get lots of vegetables every day and she continually serves new African dishes with the recipes sent by Karyl, Eve, Joyce and Laura – all of which have been good.  She packs my lunches most every day now, since my experience with the restaurant that tried to give us used forks from the next table who recently finished their meal.  She makes the best sandwiches!

 

This picture is of our Spice Rack.  If you notice, the front row is all recycled products (we reuse everything from cellophane to twist ties to old nails).   Anybody recognize the familiar shapes?   We want to thank Sarah and Jim for sending the little bottles of Crown Royal which served us well and are now our spice jars!

Our house has come a very long way since we got here.  We have put much heart and soul and a little bit of money into it and it is now our HOME.  We actually like it quite a bit and are proud of it.  We get continual envious comments about all the niceties we have like a hose for a cold shower,  a fan bolted to the cement wall above our bed for air conditioning and a rough wood built shelf covered in cheap flowered contact paper in the kitchen above our counter tops that serves very well as storage.  We are quite happy with our house except for one little thing.   We have seen, and are getting quite used to, some fairly strange bugs in our house.   But last night Carol claims to have seen a single cock-roach-asaurous.  She has instructed me to get my bow and arrow out for the next time.   We immediately deployed 6 nuclear reactor powered roach traps  and expect the epidemic to be quarantined shortly.

I am still waiting for Carol to buy me a pet goat.  We have a perfect yard for one, and I have been begging for one for almost a month now.  I want to get a very small, black and white one that reminds me of my Mr. B, who I sorely miss and hope you all will go visit at Bettie Gongs house.  It would be fun to have a little goat to come home to and have him (or her) waiting for me at our gate each day (with what’s left of my slippers in its mouth). Our yard has lots of grass for it to eat and I would build it a small Goat House.  Please encourage Carol to get me one!

A few quick fun stories.

One of our colleagues, Jan, who is in the middle of nowhere (Kong) wanted to get some money from the single local ATM at the “grocery store”.  When she went to the ATM, she found out the process is a bit more complicated.   She has to tell the store manager how much money she wants.  He then calls the bank that owns the ATM machine who then calls her bank to make sure she has that much money in her account.  If she has her requested amount in her bank and if the grocery store owner has enough cash of his own on the premises, he then irons (yes IRONS, as in with an ironing  board) the money (so it wont jam) and puts it in the ATM machine and then she makes her withdrawal.  Talk about a great Checks and Balances System!

 

Our friend Nate does not have a bathroom or running water in his house – but he does have a brand new bathtub sitting on the floor of his spare bedroom.  His nearest water source is about 3/4 miles away and he has to take large plastic containers of water there to fill and store for bathing, cooking and watering his weeds.

 

Our other friend Rachael had a small party one day.  She told us a story about a woman who needed to use the bathroom and she obliged.   A couple of hours later Rachael realized that all of her toilet paper – the paper from the holder plus all the extra rolls in the closet were missing.  She has no idea how the thin women smuggled all the rolls out of her house.  This explains why there is never any toilet paper in ANY public places (outside the main city of Gaborone) and everyone caries a small roll of toilet paper with them all the time!

 

 

This is a typical scene from almost everybody’s’ front yard.  A nice tree with a huge termite hill all around it.  The 15 foot high dirt mound you see is dirt from under the surface that has been brought up to the surface by the billions of flying termites that live under the hill.  It’s pretty gross to think about bull dozing one of those hills and seeing what crawls out!

 

 

This is a picture from a small shack that I pass each day on our street on my way to work.  Kinda reminds me of home….

Ok, that’s all for now!

We miss all of you and wish an awesome Happy Holidays!

 

 

When we left training we were told to immediately into the community.  For example, we were to go to the Police station, social services, HIV/AIDS clinics, the local school, and the village Kgosi (Chief) and find out what they do and how we can work with them ASAP.  We are to draw a community map, interview people on the streets, in the stores and at our work and then assess the community needs which will define our mission for the next few years.  We have two months to complete this task.

This is pretty hard to do in a Village of 70,000.  There was talk back in Kanye of our counterparts organizing an orientation day for the four of us moving to Molepolole.  Of course that was too good to be true.  However, my counterpart had requested “two feedings” (called breakfast and lunch in America) and transport to be paid for by the Ministry of Education for the orientation day.  The request was approved – but no trip materialized.

I told Osi (my counterpart) I would try to do the work to get it done.  He gave me 16 organizations I was to plan on visiting.  He didn’t think we needed to send notice of our arrival, or make a map providing a route or set a time for the visit to occur.  I had drafted a letter to each organization stating I would call to work out a time in a few days.  He was adamant that I not set times for the visits.  Of course he knows we can’t visit 16 places with 5 volunteers in one day and the schedule would be messed up.  I knew that we would be lucky to get 6 places to commit and we should lock it in.

We went to visit the Peer Education Officer for AIDS/HIV who had approved the funding for the trip at the main Education Center to brief him on the planned event.  He said he thought it would be a good idea to do some follow-up with the sites.  You don’t understand how rare this thought process is.  I was initially very happy.  Over the next week I lost my joy though.  Most phone numbers don’t work.  I found it was worse when the phone was answered as phone communication in a second language with people who are not that interested in helping you is beyond madding.  So every day I would try to stop by a few places on the list and set up meetings.  This is fairly difficult without a car and good language skills.  No one ever knows who is in charge or can help you.  No one will commit to anything and no one will give a name or a phone number.  If I persist they often act as though they can’t understand English, which is a requirement for the job they hold.  I was also surprised that the confirmations rarely needed a known time for the meeting.  I was very dubious about the day working out.

Osi was supposed to pick 4 of us up at 6:45 AM, but he didn’t show up until 7:30 AM.  I was glad to see the Peer Education Officer angry at Osi as the whole schedule was messed up now!  But miracles never cease here.  We had several incredibly informative meetings.  Many things didn’t work out – but if you get one thing a day to work out you are doing GREAT here.  The Education Officer was so very very helpful!  He stated his support for our mission and empathized with how trying many interactions are here – and he said he would do anything to help us.  He acknowledged the very low teacher moral and said if we could develop team building workshops he would make sure we got the resources to implement.  This is huge!!!!  If I could just do this one thing here it would be monumental.  Several other PCV’s have already stated their interest in working on this too.

So, I am asking my friends, if anyone knows of good resources, web sites, ideas, names and email addresses of people who have done team building workshops, especially for teachers, and especially for employees who have been though strikes to please send that information as soon as possible.

 

We met with several NGO’s who clearly articulated ways we could work together.  We also met with the biggest HIV/AIDS testing center in the village and got great information, names and phone numbers.  We went to the Social Services office and were able to identify a big problem with keeping orphan children in the system when the child changes schools which often results in the termination of education.  The Peer Officer told me he would definitely appreciate my help in reviewing the process  and coming up with some better procedures.  I also think Osi ended up doing a lot to facilitate the day even though we initially disagreed about the best way to do it.

We had several other good visits too!  I am telling you – it is unimaginable that you could have so many good meetings providing so much useful information as well as providing direction for our work here.  The other volunteers congratulated me several times on getting the day together.

I was sure it was going to be a disaster and I was being highly inefficient taking combis all over town and walking 3 or 4 kilometers a day for days and days trying to arrange this one single day – but it worked!  I made something work in Africa!  I feel like I actually may be able to tackle world hunger sometime over the next decade!!!!

–       I’m looking forward to hearing from anyone who has team building experience/idea or contacts.

Take care of yourselves – and know I am taking good care of us.

Huge Bummer!  Somehow this post was missed!  Not sure why, but it was sitting in a Drafts folder for almost two months!   This is very disturbing to us, but we are publishing it anyway.  It is entirely anti-climactic, but we want it recorded here for our own memories, so know before you read it, that it is two months old and you may want to skip it!  Sorry for not getting it out there appropriately!

Today was a great day! It was Monday.  The first Monday after a really good relaxing weekend.  The first weekend that we had a break from the training we were all growing to tire of.   We spent a week doing “shadowing” and really enjoyed ourselves.  Then we got back on Friday and spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday relaxing, internetting, and drinking and eating with our friends, exchanging interesting stories. Then came Monday.  Today.  It was great!  We arrived at class, and although we spent pretty much the whole day in a couple of specialized classes “learning” stuff we pretty much already knew about safety and security, and about Monitoring and Evaluation techniques, a whole bunch of great things happened today. First, and foremost, Carol and John received 5 (yes FIVE!) separate care packages in the mail! We were the envy to end all envy!

No one could believe we knew that many concerned people serious enough to spend the time and money!  We got one box from Aaron, one from Eve, one from Joyce and two (yes TWO) boxes from Rick Reckamp!

We we’re overwhelmed with joy and after class debated whether to bring home all 5 boxes or ration them for one per day for next 5 days.  We decided there was no way we were gonna wait, so we took them home and ripped into them all.  It was truly Christmas in October in our small home!  We will be sending personal Thank-You’s to each of you, but we want to say Thank You here too! Next, I received my Motorola Droid Pro back after almost 5 weeks of absence.  I arrived in Botswana with my “global” Smartphone, that Verizon assured me would work just fine here with a local SIM card.  The phone is advertised as a Global Phone; it has choices of networks that include GSM and CDMA and other Global network protocols; and Verizon assured me it would work.  Well, it doesn’t.  It is SIM locked.  So, I met with the top IT guy her at the PC and explained to him the situation and he said he would look into getting it fixed or otherwise figuring out what the problem was.  After 5 weeks and 5 or 6 conversations about how it was “in fact” SIM locked, it was finally determined that the phone was in fact, SIM locked.  So, it was returned to me in final defeat, however, thanks to Marion Mobley, my PC “mentor” I found several places on the internet who claim to be able to unlock my phone for a small $10 fee.  This sounds good to me, and it leads me to the third great thing that happened today… Internet!   The PC finally came back, as promised, with a final ruling on the usage they would allow to us Trainees of their wireless Internet at our school.  They decided that we could use their Internet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from EXACLTY (you’ll see why this is important in a moment)12:30 pm to 1:30 pm., which is our daily lunch hour.  This is quite an acceptable compromise considering it would have been somewhat justified on their part to prohibit the use completely based on the argument that we, as trainees, need to spend our time doing activities other than Internetting. So, I was quite happy with that and immediately got connected when the lunch bell rang, and answered some emails and other business while in the background searching out the Droid Unlock sites for the best deal.  I found one, but with only 15 minutes of lunch hour to go.  Since the afternoon session was an informal one (more on that later too)  I was pretty sure they might extend the internet usage time a bit, or at least sure that 15 minutes should be adequate to get my shopping done.  I entered my CC info and it was a race against time to download the codes to unlock my Droid before the lunch hour ended.  I lost.  The internet was shut off at precisely 1:30 pm with no warning and my download never occurred.  L Oh well, I will have to just wait until Wednesday to resume the Unlocking process, but that is ok. Next, on our list of great things to occur today was the informal start of our afternoon session.  That was because today was PAYDAY!  Yee haa!  Another 300 Pula!  (that’s $46 US).  2 Weeks pay!   Seems like very little, but actually, we really have very little expenses, so it is quite adequate.  We will get paid a bit more than that once we move to our final homes, but we will also have more expenses to pay ourselves, so in the end we come out just about even. Lastly, and probably leastly, today we finally got our long awaited and much anticipated grades from our recent Language Test.   I guess this wasn’t really all that great of a thing to happen, but it was something we had been curious about for a couple weeks and now the moment of truth.  As I slowly opened the paper just handed to me that contained my grade, all of my life’s Spanish classes flashed through my mind at once, and every grade I had ever gotten in a Foreign Language all averaged out to just about A+.  D.  Yes, D.  As in a, b, c, D!  That was my grade.  I guess I did even worse than I thought.  Carol had already told me she had gotten a D, and I knew I would not do much better.  This is a dang hard language! Don’t panic!   We have all been told many times that they have never yet kicked even one person out of Botswana for doing sub-par in the language!  That test was a practice test for the real proficiency test that will be administered in a couple weeks towards the end of our training.  We are both hoping to do much better by then! So,  today was a great day! JM

 

• Livers & gizzards in Africa don’t taste like in America.  They really taste like animal innards.
• Children can be useful and helpful
• Everybody does need at least a drill, screwdriver and hammer to live
• Clothe dry much faster in dry heat
• Roosters really do crow at the literal crack of dawn
• The wheel was the greatest invention of all times (and I wish I had four)
• It is alcohol (and not money) that is the root of all evil
• Bugs really don’t hurt anything (although mosquitoes can kill you)
• Cleanliness is seriously underrated
• Christmas can be celebrated without being proceeded by massive shopping

 John had to work late the other night and I was excited to get some real “African” food from the grocery store that John would never eat.  I picked the gizzards although they looked a little weird.  In fact, they tasted like rubber with little bits of ground dirt and gravel.  I had some livers a couple of day ago that were the same way.

 The children next door ask me what they can do to help me every day.  They are so happy when I give them chores and even the 5 year old boys can sweep and mop floors.  They are quite excited that I asked them to clean the huge nasty filthy computer room at the school this Saturday, and all five boys (ages 3 to 16) came and worked and the older ones worked for several hours before asking if they could play with the computers.

 We tried to use borrowed tools from the school instead of spend precious money on our own.  It turns out you simply must have a few tool staples as they are needed every single day when you live in a concrete houses, with lots of bugs, and weird plumbing options.  We need them to reseal the screens every day, hang fans from different vantage points from the ceiling, make showers and washing machines exchange with tubs and sinks, hang pictures and mirror, and fix broken furniture (we regularly borrow the wrench saw and ladder – but they are not needed daily).

 While I really really hate hand washing clothes in the tub, drying on the line is quite nice.  The clothes dry immediately and smell and feel sunny healthy fresh after.

 The stupid roosters must all be angry that the sun wakes them as they crow at a volume 11 times louder than their little feathery bodies would seem capable of emitting.  They scream/crow for about an hour – just long enough to permanently wake one up starting the second the very tip of the sun rises above the horizon.  It generally stops just about the time the entire neighborhood is up.  I have started to hate roosters more than any other animal.

 We spend about 25% of our meager meager income on taxis.  We live at least 3 miles from a grocery store, and 4 miles from John’s work and 5 miles from our favorite mall/grocery.  The road is narrow and the cars are many.  The shoulder is rocky and cracked and filled with walkers.  It is hazardous to walk down the road, and very hot, and dusty too.  So we must take taxis or combis (about the same price), especially when we have groceries we have to walk back with.  If we want anything beyond the most basic needs we need to go to the Capital, Gaborone (Gabs), which is 40 miles away.  It is quite common to hitch hike (called hitching here).  You pay the driver the same price as the bus, and usually his/her car is much nicer and the driver gets his gas paid for.  I don’t know what we would do without the transport, and I don’t know how civilization excited before the wheel.

 There is one hospital, 8 clinics, 6 grocery stores, 5 hardware stores, and at least 7000 bars.  When I walk by the bar in the morning (7:30 AM) – people are outside drinking the shake shake (Chabuku – for 5P a quart – a regular size beer is normally 8P a bottle).  People drink to get drunk and do many bad things while drinking.  It is the root of so many bad outcomes it is impossible to count.  People give up their food, homes, children, spouses, health, and ultimately their lives to drink.

 I live in a house filled with bugs.  Every morning I sweep 10 – 20 bugs out and spray the place with Doom (Africa’s Raid) before I leave.  I come home at lunch and after dinner, and then I clean another 20 bugs out of the house.  Before I go to bed I vacuum another 20 bugs out of the house.  They are not in my food or my bed – and nothing bad happens because they are here. (At least nothing I have ascertained yet).  However, I continue to take the crazy malaria medicine due to the nasty mosquitoes – which I constantly fear.  We are regularly reassured the really bad ones, with the disease live 200 miles north of us. 

 John and I went to a “restaurant” for lunch the other day.  There really are no restaurants.  There are a handful of take out places; where a women cooks 2 or 3 big pots of food which is available until gone.  Food is served on a paper plate and you eat it on the steps outside or take it to your office.  John often tries to get the cook to heat it up for him and they act like he is crazy – I mean it was hot once a while back – why does he need that again????  Anyway – this one place has three tables inside so we went there.  Many people in Africa eat with their hands and no silverware.  Well – they know the Americans want silverware – so they took silverware off someone’s plate who had just finished eating and tried to put the forks on our plate.  John came to the rescue and caught her hand just inches from our plate. – He took the forks to the sink and washed his self.  However, he could not get over it and said over and over again – we can only eat food we prepare from now on.  He was so so sad thinking of his insides the rest of the day.

 There are Christmas trees everywhere and people are making holiday plans to visit with their families.  Our host family has invited us back home.  We understand small token gifts are acceptable, but not necessary.  It seems like Easter instead of freaky shopping until you drop.  We keep saying it doesn’t feel like Christmas – but Christmas is around without a shopping frenzy.  It must be all of you that we miss.  John for sure knows he does not miss the shopping, but he is missing Christmas – and we are both missing all of you.

Please Note:   This Post is Long, since we have not been able to be on the internet or upload pictures for a long time.  We may often have to combine several weeks of posts into one post because we have limited access to the internet.   There are 5 posts in one.  The 5 stories are in chronological order with the oldest ones being at the bottom, and they are marked 1 of 5, 2 of 5, etc.,   so you may wish to read from the bottom up if you want to enjoy them all in order.   Sorry for the inconvenience, and we will try to keep up as much as possible but we really want to post picture with the stories and the pictures are what are stopping us now.  Enjoy!

Post 5 of 5

 22-Nov-2011 – By John This county is full of TLA’s.   That stands for Three Letter Acronyms.  My work office is the DAC office.  This is the District AIDS Coordinating office.  I work directly with/for the District AIDS Coordinator. She is a very nice woman with a lot of clout.  She has a very important job position and is known by many people.  She likes me, mostly because I can fix just about anything in her decrepit office, but also she likes the way I show her respect.  The more I respect her the more ways she helps me make my job and my life more enjoyable.

The country is divided into 15 District AID/ (HIV) Coordinating offices and each District has a DAC who is responsible for the administration of all issues involving the AIDS epidemic in this country.  This includes allocating the billions of dollars of aide that is given each year by the US and other foreign countries, accepting and reviewing grant requests from organizations in their district, organizing and implementing the hundreds of AIDS education and prevention activities that go on each year and all kinds of other stuff.  My basic job description is to assist the DAC with as much of this as possible and to compliment it with IT support.

Unfortunately, as in many under privileged countries, there is never enough money to go around and there is always a reason not to get something done, so everything is slow and could be deathly frustrating if you don’t radically change your expectations.  I have been able to do this pretty well, but there remains an amount of frustration in seeing a 25% efficient environment. More to come soon….

Post 4 of 5

21-Nov-2011 –   Settling In – By John

It has been almost one week that we are here in our new home.  Everything is just fine.  We have a functioning kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.  Combined we are well above the “basic” human requirements.  Notice the shelf above the stove?  It is a top level grill!  How many of you in America have a top level grill!  We are so very very lucky:

 

Except we still have no hot running water, and now it is settled that they are not able to repair the water heater on the roof.   This is not a problem right now, since it’s very hot and I have rigged up a shower device in the bathtub and the cool water showers are pretty welcome.  However, when winter comes here next June it will be very cold.  I plan to Mcguiver something for some hot water in the bathroom.  There is no electrical in the bathroom, or even close, so I’m not sure what I will do yet. I did call someone from the Gabs to come look for 300P – but when he got here he told us of a teacher he had as a child who was a peace corps volunteer.  He remember her fondly and said there were not many teachers around then.  He waived the 300P change and is now looking for a used geezer for us.  The PC does have a lot of good will here.

We are slowly getting the house organized and all our stuff put in sensible places.  I ended up buying a drill and some tools, which turns out to be a tremendous investment.  Concrete walls and ceilings make for tough decorating!

We have mounds of papers from the Peace Corps and from our jobs and Carol was smart enough to bring file folders, even though the standard paper size is slightly different and things don’t always organize efficiently.

Pens seem to be a commodity in this country.  Everyone has roughly one, and they covet it like cash.  The 20 nice pens we brought from the US have all managed to walk off somehow.  Not sure if it might be the 10 fun little kids that come to our house each day to get orange juice and practice writing one English word a day.

There are about 15 hardware stores in town, all selling exactly the same thing for all different prices.   They have most of the basic bare bones necessities I have needed so far.   There are no department stores, but there are 30 stores called China Shops.  These are shops owned by Chinese who speak nothing but Chinese, not even Setswana!   They come here to live and do business because they have an export connection back in China and it’s a decent living.  But they all sell exactly the same stuff!  They are all arranged in side in exactly the same way and they all respond to each customer with the exact same disdain.  It is humorous to walk from shop to shop comparing the marginally different prices for the same low quality, cheap stuff. We must travel to the state capital to get tools and other non everyday things like a washing machine, water heater, real coffee, real maple syrup, electrical cords and computer equipment.  We are not allowed to go to Gabs for three months.  However, my boss also has work related issues that luckily take me there.

We have arranged the adequate old dorm-like furniture and put up some small wall decorations like a map of the US, but there won’t be any wall art like we were used to!

The water for the whole town is an issue and most everyone goes without running water for one day or so a week.  It seems to reliably come back on, but it’s a bit disconcerting for us so far.

Our friends Pat and Susan sent us a nice care package the other day and two of the items were plastic bottles of Listerine, which we had requested on our Wish List.  I have been using the Listerine for 3-4 days now thinking “man, the flavor of this Listerine is really strange.  I don’t remember it being this strange”.  I thought to myself “hmmm,  I know that stuff taste different in different countries so I must just be getting used to African stuff and ….oh well….maybe  it is a little old or something”.   Then this morning, after 3 or 4 days of gargling, I had a sharp realization!   This Listerine tasted just like Whiskey!  Whooooa!   It IS whiskey!  HA!  Me and Carol had the biggest crack-up we have had in months!  How sneaky and thoughtful!   So, thanks to all of you who have sent us a care package and brightened our lives immensely!

For anyone who didn’t see it, our Contact US info is updated to reflect our new mailing address of:   Carol Reckamp – Gofaone John Ratkovich – Tiroyaone Peace Corp Volunteer Kwena Sereto CJSS Private Bag 0018 Molepolole, Botswana   Please notify us by email if you send anything so we can be on the lookout for it.

Post 3 of 5

November 21, 2011 – Settling in and Starting Work – By Carol Our House:After 60 hours of cleaning, 6 cans of spray-paint,

10 rolls of steel wool, and another 20 hours of carpentry the house is now livable.  Not exactly nice – but at least as good as any really cool college campus apartment.  We have Autumns pictures and maps as art, a rigged spare bed for a couch, and a garden hose for a shower.  What more could a person want?  I have provided a few pictures below

The Snake:  I did have one bad freak out moment when we came home and there was a two foot snake curled up between the screen door and our

front door.  John keeps insisting it was a garden snake – but I think it was a black mamba.  Now I check the house every time I come home and when I wake up.  I open all cabinets and closets very slowly.  I can’t wait to get over this fear.

 

Children:  Everyday when I come home, two to 8 children are waiting for me or they come to my door shortly.  As I have said many times the African children are so very different than American children.  All the girls that come over want to clean my house or help me clean the house.  They also want to help cook dinner and work in the garden. I play with them by reading, writing and spelling things in English.  They try to help me with Setswana, but they too get frustrated at my pronunciation.  However, they love the lessons.  When they come to the door they ask if they can come in and write with Gofaone! I spend 10 to 30 minutes with them and then tell them they have to go home and they all leave quite peaceably. These children make me feel good every single day.

My Job:  As I stated before, the school I teach at was in its final week and teachers are preparing for break.

However, I have been sort of disappointed (maybe a lot disappointed) that everyone was not here waiting to hear my ideas and start collaborating immediately.   I was becoming angry that all the teachers speak Setswana to me and around me – even though they are perfectly fluent in English and in fact the School requires all classes be taught in English.  Some teachers would say the same thing to me 5 times getting slower and louder each time.  I ask them to tell me in English and they will not.  I have been trying to convince myself this rudeness is for my own good as it will make me learn the language quicker – but seeing the silver lining does not stop the rain in a black cloud.

I also didn’t like that John seems to have a job I would be excellent at doing and he likes his job and they love him.  (He is reviewing programs and budgets in our district to send to the national government for funding as well as his computer work). I kept trying to tell myself to be patient and to just let this roll out how life always does.  I remind myself of the changes and the simple things I wanted when I came and how good I felt in my plans to come.  However, on Friday I sat in the office and read a 250 page book about helping teenagers built peer support clubs to help each other and went home furious that I spent my day sitting in an office reading a book.

But as Life continues to unfold as it should – I found that is exactly what I should have done.  There is a club at the school for teen girls called “Girls Club”.  They asked me to come and stated they needed some adults to help them work through life problems.  It was awesome!!!!  They really truly did want adult guidance.  I was so grateful I had read that whole book on Friday!  I helped discuss many different issues related to maturity, parents, and of course relationships and sexuality.  Several girls stayed after to discuss other issues.  I really truly felt like they listened and they wanted my support and approval.  They wanted and needed some answers.  I could see that everything I wanted was going to be available here.  A few other nice things worked out that day as well.

Gratitude:  I don’t know why I am always amazed that things flow and fit and life just works.  I get too caught up in the day to day snags and I lack patience to fully enjoy the big picture.  Today I was reminded that while life is often hard – it is also good.  I am here in Africa with my wonderful husband in a house that gives me all the shelter and comfort a human being needs.  I was able to help several girls who asked for help.  I was able to teach a few kids some of the alphabet.  I have love, comfort and a purpose.  I can’t think of anything else I could want.  I will go to bed grateful again tonight.

Post 2 of 5

15-Nov-2011 – Official Now – By John

Well, it is official now!  We are officially Peace Corps Volunteers today.

We took an oath of allegiance and were sworn in by the Country Director and the US Ambassador.  Prior to today, we were not considered PCVs, but only Trainees, and therefore were subject to different rules and governing. The swearing in ceremony was exciting but quite drawn out.  The Botswana people are fanatical about proper protocol at meetings.  Every meeting is started and ended with an extensive, out loud prayer.  30 minutes is allotted on the program for this.  After the opening prayer each dignitary who is invited to speak on the microphone is dutifully bound to address, by name and position and smothered with praising

compliments, each of the other 8 to 15 dignitaries and then acknowledgement of all the absent dignitaries who were scheduled to be present but were not.  This is repeated for each person, so everyone is acknowledged as many times as there are dignitaries present.  This makes for a VERY  affair.  After the public notice they inform the audience “All proper protocol has been followed”.  I dread the day when they forget to follow proper protocol.

After the ceremony it was time to pack up and start the moving process to our new permanent homes.  This was a bit chaotic, but it all got done in the end. Carol wrote about the house so I won’t repeat most of it.  This is just some follow up thoughts that I’m not sure she had in her post. Our new home is in a town called Molepolole.  It is the 2^nd biggest village (not town) in Botswana with roughly 70,000 people.   We are located on the school property on the outskirts of town, about 5 miles from the village center. That means we can’t really walk to town, so we will have to take a taxi or kombi (a van that waits at one end of town until each seat is filed then it makes a route to the other end of town) each time we need to go to town. Carol gets a one minute walk to work and John has to walk a mile to take the kombi to work in the heat with a pressed suit.  That sucks.

In our home there is an electric meter on the wall with 54 units of electricity on it, which will run out shortly, so we will have to buy our own electricity and then submit receipts to the PC in hopes they will reimburse us some time in the next 6 months.  I went and bought 1000P to avoid this.  They were shocked!  People buy about a weeks worth at a time usually.  For 1000P I should have electricity for 5 months.

All homes here have only one outlet per room, sometimes two.  The outlets accept three square prongs, but the problem is that Botswana makes no electrical products.  All electrical products are imported from South Africa or the UK, which only make products with three round prongs.  So an adapter must be used for each device to be plugged in.  To aggravate this further, all the extension cords with multiple sockets on them are all South African style so an adapter must be used for each socket too.  This makes for bulky, cumbersome electronic stacks of adapters and plugs that not only look unsafe, but have to be kicked every now and then to reestablish the connection.

The house is a duplex which means we have a common wall with our immediate neighbors.  This is not too much of a problem on the inside, but the outside has some issues.   First the common fence we have is monopolized by their drying laundry, while their children climb the fence and constantly stick their arms through the fence in hopes of some connection with us.  This is not too bad, the kids are cute.  The neighbors also have a chicken coop with one wall made of our common fence.  The fence is quite deteriorated so the chickens roam freely under the fence and into our yard.  One particular chick seems quite intent on exploring the inside of our house and tries to enter whenever we leave the front door open and unattended.  It’s fun to tease it. But, overall, we are comfortable with the house, the village, the transportation, the food, the people, our jobs and just about everything else.

Post 1 of 5

November 12, 2011 – Sworn Volunteers and Our New Home – by Carol   Swearing In: We all met at the education center in Kanye for the last time.  Several of us wore traditional clothing, which is an “interesting” style of dress that the missionaries wore when they came to “save” the Africans.  In reality it is better to wear the missionary traditional clothes than the traditional dress wore for native dancing entertainment.  Many of the host families bought the outfits for their “kids” as a final going away present.  We paid 800 pula ($120 US) for our outfits below:

 

The whole ritual was pretty cool!  It felt good to hear the Ambassador and Peace Corps County Director thank us for our service.  Michelle Gavin, the Ambassador, reiterated Sergeant Shivers’ statement, that the Peace Corps represent the best parts of America and is everything America wants to be.

Several of the VIP Botswana dignitaries defined our task and asked us to please, please help them to fight this horrible epidemic in their country.  They asked as though they knew that we could and we would.

A couple of people in our class gave speeches in the Setswana language too.  More than a few of us got teary eyed during the oath.

After the event we celebrated Corey’s birthday with his host family.  They invited all of us and our families.  It was an incredibly nice party.

 

Mr. Khan, a very successful and generous Indian man, who previously had invited all of us to his house to watch and enjoy a religious slaughter of cows and goats and chickens for an incredible BBQ and to feed many of the poor people in our village on a special Muslim holiday, also had a big party for us with a really nice spread of Indian food.

We were extra lucky because he happens to live right by our house and we could stay a little later not worrying about walking home in the dark. Overall it was a great send off and we left Kanye and each other with incredible feelings of good for America, Botswana and each other.  We all left to go make the world a better place.  It was one of those moments in life when you fulfilled and all is right. 

 

Pick-up:  After several attempts at pick-up, John and I finally got to Molepolole.  The drive was beautiful. We passed through several mountains that looked like a mix between the Ozark and Rocky mountains.  The mountains were old and low but full of jagged rocks and interesting desert formations.  We were getting very excited, thinking of a great mountain view in our back yard window. We drove through the downtown and it was a little bigger than Kanye, but much the same.  And we kept going and going and going.  We ended up about 5K (3.5 miles) outside of town.  That means we can’t easily walk to town, Living at the school is quite nice for me.  But it is not so good for John whose job is 5 miles away. We pulled into the school where we would be living and the school looks like something between a prison and an army barracks.  All neat and clean, but very military looking, complete with razor wire all around the perimeter.

Our House:  Finally, we pulled on to the road of teacher housing.  The houses were all pretty old.  So old that the housing does not meet codes, but it has been grandfathered in.  The houses are duplexes and there are no solar panels on the roofs, which almost certainly means no hot water!

I was happy to see a big yard, and the last tenant had started a garden and we could still see the raised beds!  Yea!  We walk in.  I will start with the good parts:  There are high vaulted ceilings, which allows the heat to rise above our heads.  There are two bedrooms.  There is a new compact fridge and a new stove.  Both items seem to be from a doll house, but we are modest people now and no longer need the full size appliances.   We also have closets.  Lots of closets!   Many old concrete houses don’t have closets, but we have three very large closets. My new boss, Osi, was at my house waiting for me.  He had a few pots and pans, and other fun stuff from the previous PCV.  I could tell Osi wanted us to be happy in our new home.  That made me feel very good!

Ok – now the bad parts:  There is a geezer (large African electric roof top hot water heater), but the hot water has not worked for years and we were told it never will.  In fact, there is a small tree growing out of the geezer on our roof.  There are no curtains (other than the 1 curtain for 7 window sets that the previous PCV left us.  Our mattress is four inches thick on top of slat boards and the bed is only full size.  The place was dirty beyond words.  There are only 2 screens for the 15 functioning windows, allowing thousands, yes thousands, of mosquitoes in our home.  The floor tiles remind me of old converted basements from 40 years ago.  The walls are concrete so we can’t hang anything on the walls.  The orange high gloss paint around the windows and doors is chipped and dirt has caked in every corner and crack.  The toilet and the bathtub are ringed in rust.  The medicine cabinet is on old rusted metal box.  The ceiling is chipping and if you hit the walls hard enough dust and other undesirable things fall from the ceilings.  There are bars on the windows and doors, which is great, but they are so caked with 30 years of grease and grime.

All forces of nature collaborate to make us get up early.  The roosters start crowing at the crack of dawn, which is typically 5:00 am.  There are back up barking dogs in the neighborhood to ensure we wake up if the roosters don’t succeed.  If for some reason these sounds don’t wake us up in time, the mosquitoes will take their final drink on our skins before sun rise drives them back to wherever they go during the heat.  This all occurs concurrently with the bright blazing sun rise at 5:00 am accompanied with the 100+ degree heat.  There is no sleeping in this country!  Even John is forced to get up by 6 or 7am.

Alfred, the maintenance man, has promised to meet us three times in the last two days, but somehow misses every opportunity.  He never shows up, even when we confirm just five minutes prior to our appointment.  We hoped Alfred would let us borrow a ladder to clean all the dust, spider webs, and paint chips from the ceiling.  It would also be helpful to have a hammer, screwdriver and a wretch.  John is working miracles with his Leatherman, but even that has its limitations.

We cleaned for 10 hours a day for 3 days (that is 60 hours of cleaning).  When not cleaning we walked to town to look for bargains at the China shops.  China shops are stores owned by a Chinese person or sometimes an Indian.  These stores stock most house hold items for slightly cheaper than the few groceries or hardware stores that seem more like Botswana chains.  The china shops are crammed with crap.  I have a new understanding for exactly how much stuff the Chinese are making.  You should be grateful in knowing that the Chinese send the good stuff they make to America and the really crappy stuff to Africa.  It still costs about the same – so please enjoy the quality of goods in America.  I can’t wait to visit China and see what stuff they make for themselves, and how much it costs. (And of course see my friend Ye).

I just did my first two loads of hand laundry in the tub with a scrub brush.  It makes the previously laundry drudgery with the hoses and buckets seem like paradise.  I think we will end up buying a washing machine.  It cost about $300US, but I spent 3 hours washing, scrubbing, rinsing and ringing, before I started on the hanging, and ironing part.  I think it will be worth the hit on our savings.  Although I must admit time does not equate to money here as it does in America.

Final analysis on the house:  Despite all my complaints we are very lucky.  Another volunteer just moved into a house here in our town, which was originally meant for us, that has not had running water for two months.  Oddly, despite the lack of water the bathroom is regularly flooded.  It seems the water comes on for about 30 minutes a day at2:30 AM and re-floods the bathroom each night. Actually, after all the cleaning, the house is starting to look more livable, and in another month it will be like a real home to us.   Several PCV’s are expected to come to our house to celebrate John’s 50^th birthday and Thanksgiving in a few weeks – we are very motivated to fix it up.

Our jobs:  School lets out in two weeks and students are taking exams now.  Christmas break lasts for about two months.  So there is not a whole lot I can do at the school now.  I will work on my community assessment project which is supposed to outline my work for the next two years.  I also hope to help John in his office. John’s boss’s name is Mother Theresa.  She seems quite competent and you can tell she cares about everyone and everything.  She sort of reminds me of the Catholic Mother Theresa.  I really am looking forward to learning from her. While moving to this house was/is a little tough right now, we still feel the mission in our blood and the drive in our souls. All is good with the world.

Counterparts/Supervisors and jobs: Last week we met our Botswana counterparts or supervisors.  A “counterpart” is a Motswana person who is assigned to do the same job as a PCV is assigned to do.  The counterpart is responsible for introducing us to persons in the community/job, helping us adjust to the culture, acclimating to the work environment and learn the nuisances of communication.  John and I had a good impression of our counterparts.  Both counterparts were encouraging, smart, and as kind as all other Motswana.

I am assigned to work in a junior high.  I’m glad to be working with older children. While teenagers often have worse attitudes than young children, the Batswana teens don’t have nearly as bad attitudes as teens in America.  I personally like the intellect level of older children too.  I have noticed teen children here, just like America, think there is “nothing to do” and tend to be bored a great deal of the time. One of my jobs is to find ways to engage them in life and let them know there are literally millions of things to do – but almost everything does require some amount of personal effort.  And finally, show each child that the effort can pay off.

I also learned that my assigned school has 10 computers and only three work.  900 middle school children and another couple hundred administrators attend/work at this school with three working computers!!!!!

One of my top priorities will be to obtain computers and John will help me build a computer lab!  I was thinking 50 computers, but I have been told that will be impossible and a through evaluation should be done before I attempt this feat.

I told my counterpart I was very interested in expanding the school gardens and developing a curriculum in math, science, social studies, and life skills related to the garden.

I also want to start an English Club.  Children are tested in English when moving from one grade level to the next.  If you can’t understand English your education will eventually end.  I know how language can be a limitation and I can’t wait help these kids pass tests in English.

My counterpart, Osi, also asked me if I could organize a “Wellness Day” for the kids and staff.  I am now grateful to Illinois Central Management Services for having organized several “Wellness Days” that I attended.  (I never ever thought I would be grateful for anything related toCMS).

I have all these plans and I haven’t even visited the school or my home! I am supposed to complete a full community/school assessment over the next several months before making any plans.  I understand the value in this approach and will try and hold my horses in check.

John didn’t have as direct of a conversation with his supervisor.  He has more patience’s than I do and he is waiting until he gets there and completes his assessment before he develops any plans.

Home:  I was fairly disappointed to find out a house was not available for us at the time of the meeting.  The house they hope to move us to is occupied by two teachers right now.  If we get the designated house, it is at my school which is great for me in terms of getting to work, but it has its down sides too.  It is on the outskirts of town – and John will have to walk or bike (something else we will have to buy) at least three miles to work.  We are also far from shopping.

However, government housing is generally good. The houses are built to standards and have electricity, hot water (usually solar-powered) and appliances.  Teachers are government employees and they are often assigned to teach far from their homes. The government provides housing at the schools that each teacher shares with another teacher.  Sometimes the housing is dormitory like, and other times it is rows of houses, but usually the yards are small or non-existent (no garden then).  Also, many of the teachers go home for the weekend – so you don’t have much of a neighborhood.  But we will try to hold our disappointment in check until we verify the circumstances.

End of Training:  We are all glad to end training, but it is bittersweet.  We will be leaving our peers, and John and I literally like and have become friends with every single person here.  We are lucky to be assigned to a town with a lot of volunteers and our village is the assigned shopping town for another 10 volunteers that we are sure we will get to see every once in a while.  But we will miss many people very much.

We will not miss counting off and dividing into groups, flip charts, skits, power point presentations, and learning objectives.

We were asked to throw a good-bye/thank you party for our host families.  It was great to get to work with everyone in our own guided and creative ways outside the classroom.  We decided we would have a Thanksgiving theme and provide some American history/culture.

John and I signed up for the cooking committee.  We worked all night Friday night and got up at 6:00 AM on Saturday in hopes of enjoying the presentations and serving dinner at 2:00 PM.  Cooking for 200 was quite challenging in the face of the following obstacles:

• Two ovens but the large oven didn’t heat above 300, but sporadically reduces down to 100 and then up again
• Only four chopping knives and none of which was sharp
• Only 100 plates, 135 cups, 30 forks, 40 knives,
• Only cookie sheets to bake meatloaf (no turkey available) and dressing
• No pitchers
• No peelers (For 40 pounds of potato’s and 40 pounds of apples)
• 3 small graters (to grate 40 pounds of carrots) – had to hand grate because the nice, industrial electric grater was broken just as so much other nice equipment
• No can openers for 20 sealed cans
• A second group of cooks arrived to prepare a separate lunch for 20 people requiring we share the stove with only six burners
• No hot water
• No plugs for the sink (we let the drains get clogged with food and then filled with soap water to wash dishes)
• No hot water
• Spices include:  Salt, pepper, sugar

The cooks missed most of the presentations while scrambling until the last minute to pull everything together.  But we did it.  We also learned that Motswana don’t like dressing and seem to think dressing is a way of ruining bread, and they also don’t like Apple Crisp.  However, they were grateful for the dinner and enjoyed the presentations.  They especially liked a song written and sang by a volunteer in Setswana telling them we love them and thank them.  Nate is a good musician and his song was compelling.   The host families did a skit for us showing their traditional dances, and offerings to the Kgosi (tribal chief) at the end of harvest.

John and I are using this cooking experience as a way to gage our hopes of having a Thanksgiving dinner at our house for other PCV’s in a couple of weeks – depending on how the house turns out.

The really bad news:  I failed my language test.  Not only did I fail, I started to cry in the middle of failing. People in Botswana don’t cry.  They often talk about their confusion and discomfort when American’s get emotional. The tester tried to end the test as soon as I started crying – because who wants to keep asking questions like “What do you like about Chicago?” and “What did you eat for breakfast?” while someone is crying.  I begged for second chance and she reluctantly agreed to let me try again and I did just as bad.  I left the room and many people where waiting for me at the front door and they were so sad to see me crying.  And I hated that more!  Honestly, I feel worse that I cried than I felt for failing a test I knew I would fail.

These tests are taped and independently graded in Washington DC!  This procedure is in place to avoid pity passing.  I can’t stand the thought of someone in Washington DC listening to my babbling attempts to speak Setswana.  And of course this will be on my “permanent record”.  One PCV here hopes to run for office one day.  Now he has to worry that this tape will come out during his campaign and show his lack of foreign diplomacy.

Luckily – since this is an English speaking country I don’t think I will be asked to leave but I will be assigned a tutor.

John thinks he failed, and I am sure he didn’t do great – but he may have got somewhere above failure.

One of my classmates, Becky, (who is learning this language very well) suggested that the malaria medication may be hindering our ability to learn the language.  (She is taking a different medication).  I thought that was a very kind way to make us feel good.  Everyone here is always trying to build their peers up!  When I retold this story, to illustrate how supportive Becky is being, another peer, Janice, who is a practicing psychologist, affirmed Becky suggestion.  Mefloquine is an anti-malarial medication that has many bad side effects, (but several doctors believe malaria is worse), including vivid dreaming.  And I dream every second I am sleeping now.  I have a dream in tiny micro sleep seconds I didn’t even know existed before.  Apparently what ever causes this dreaming can also interferes with normal brain processing especially at night, or at rest.

So now, every time we can’t figure something out, we are going to blame the Mefloquine instead of our own lack of sense or intelligence.  John said we have two years of being stupid to look forward too.  We are going to be grateful that we came here smart enough (at least we think we did).

Check Johns posts for highlights of the Halloween party and the diamond mine visit.

We still love our life here!  And are very excited about getting to our new home and new jobs next week.