All I wanted for my birthday...

Was to catch a croc. 

Checking that off my Botswana bucket list!

Monster Catch Up Entry

This is going to be a blog in three parts (and sub-parts), and will mainly contain pictures because I've had a pretty incredible time since my last post, but I don't really want to write that much and most of you don't want to read that much. So, here it goes...

Pre-America:

Aimee and I went to Kasane, met up with some wonderful people, ate some delicious Indian food, and saw a bunch of elephants. Also, I held some snakes. And we got a hitch from an overlander, which for those of you not in Botswana, are those giant tourist trucks that look like small buildings for people to come and live out of for several weeks at a time and trek across several countries. They are ridiculous and never pick up hitch hikers, so that was weird and awesome.

Sssss.

The Most Ridiculously Crazy, Fun, Three Weeks EVER

(Part I) So America is a pretty neat place, Oregon especially. It's also super awesome when two of your favorite people in the whole world get married to each other and your entire family is together for the first time in a long time and somehow the majority of your other college friends can make it into the Portland metro area and the Portland Brewer's Festival is happening and it's summer in the Pac NW (which is pretty much the best thing ever in itself). It was a whirlwind of food, beer, coffee, water, sunshine, and love. See photographic proof below:

Sushi and sisters.

McAlister & Friends Reunited.

Sisters.

Oregon Brewers Festival.

Bridal Party! YAY!

Ladies.

Paddle Boarding on Detroit Lake

(Part II) Also ridiculously awesome was that I spent the following week here:

Obligatory Eiffel Tower stop.

I'm still not entirely sure what they put on escargo, but it is ridiculously delicious.

Drinking wine along the Seine.

SO MUCH GOOD FOOD.

Hiking!

Rough life.

Returning to Botswana:

(Part I) AWA, or Africa Wins Again describes my return travel in which I discovered that an hour and a half is not a long enough lay over to get through the Joburg airport. So, my trip back to site was far more expensive and far less comfortable than I was expecting... AWA. Luckily, I had some really great projects to jump right into, which brings me to:

(Part II) Special Olympics is a project my friend Lindsey in Maun has been working on for quite some time, and Etsha 13 had a team going down. I was able to jump right into the prep work for our youth, my favorite part being training with the kids each morning leading up to the event. I'm not sure if I have ever been a part of such a joyful project. A great day with the kids, facilitators, and my fellow PCVs and a perfect way to jump back into my work.

PCVs involved.

Enjoying the races.

Some of the kids involved (those in black Choppies jerseys are from Etsha!)

You Know You're Back in the Village When....

I recently returned from a week in Gaborone for my Mid-Service Training with the rest of my Bots 12 intake group. To summarize I'll quote my friend Tate; at one point she leaned over and asked, "Do you also feel like you've been a part of a 48 hour therapy session?" Along with a whole lot of talking through our feelings (okay, it was actually kind of nice to assess my own and hear from other PCVs), we exchanged best practices and spent quality time catching up. But now I'm back in my village, and after a week in the city, a few things stand out. You can tell you're back in the village when:

5. Your hair is dirty because after a week of hot showers, bucket bathing and washing your hair in the cold is no fun.

4. The people and children around you are screaming 'Lorato' instead of 'Lekgoa.'.

3. You hear gun shots, meaning there will be meat hanging under a tree in the afternoon.

2. You forget your groceries in a hitch and your driver was incredibly kind, went out of his way to track you down on his return trip to Maun two days later to give them back to you.

1. That driver was also easily able to find you and your house in which to drop the food, with only the name of your village.

It's good to be back in Etsha 13.

Life is Sweet, Man

About a year ago, Aimee and I were hitch-hiking down to our In-Service Training.  After a very long wait, we were finally picked up by a Rastafarian trucker. Now I've since learned that hitching in big rigs can add hours and hours to your trip- this lesson learned during this ride to Gabs. And yet, what started out as as a slow hitch south eventually turned into a hilariously insightful trip and one of the most memorable rides I've had in Botswana. We were left with the advice "Life is sweet, man, life is sweet." And a year later, life is feeling very sweet, indeed.

My projects are going really well! Activities I have been pushing for months are not just 'happening,' but the participants have been actively engaged in discussions and visible progress is being made!

JSS PACT Club Girls and me with our identity collages 

JSS PACT Club: My Junior School PACT Club has really come together- the past few meetings the group has connected and all of the girls are active participants in conversations and activities. Further, we've been tackling increasingly challenging issues lately, and the girls have been responding thoughtfully. The previous term I was lucky if the meetings even happened at all, so this change has been so exciting to see! Plus, we've been having a lot of fun hanging out before and after meetings!

Voices of the Community: The women's group that my fellow PCVs and I have been working with for months has not only been very active, they've been drawing in new members, old members are now the ones doing the training sessions we originally taught them, and PCVs aren't the ones driving the meetings forward. The members have also become a fantastic resource the community; the group has been approached by individuals in need of advocacy while maneuvering through a convoluted legal system! I can't wait to see what this group can do next. 

I love this photo! Voices celebrating a successful project with a braii (bbq)

Teenage Pregnancy Prevention: Over a weekend, the team at the junior secondary school and I managed to talk to nearly every student out of the 800+ enrolled about teenage pregnancy prevention. The schools start their six week break at the end of June; year after year, 9 months after these breaks the school sees several students dropping out due to pregnancy. We split the youth into small groups and just cycled through presentations regarding the implications of teenage pregnancy, delaying sexual debut, condom use, and contraception. Most of the students were active participants in the discussions and willing to demonstrate condom use or explain another form of contraception to their peers, so hopefully the Etsha JSS will see fewer dropouts due to pregnancy next term!

World Tobacco Free Day: My clinic and I put together a community event for the global commemoration. This was a project that seemed to fall into pieces, up until the last minute when everything came together- and managed to draw a large crowd! Even without snacks, a solid group met to march through the village singing and holding posters depicting the dangers of tobacco use, drawing hundreds to the kgotla where we delivered a health talk and skit encouraging the community to be tobacco free.

And I can't say my life has been all work and no play! My weekends have been full with some pretty incredible experiences lately.

Hippos on the way to Jao

Jao: My village is largely made up of two ethnic groups: Bayeii and Hambukushu. The 13 Etsha villages were built as settlements for Angolan refugees in the 1970s, many of them Hambukushu (though Hambukushu also lived in this area previously). The Bayeii people are people of the delta, and have gradually moved in towards the Etshas to have access to medical care, schools, and shops. My friend Jamie's research is centered around access to natural resources and I could (and probably will at some point) write an entire post about what she has learned about the Etshas. To keep it brief, I was accompanied her to Jao Island, where many Bayeii people living in Etsha consider their home village. It's a beautiful hour boat ride through the heart of the delta, past countless tiny islands and through both lagoons and narrow channels. 

Backing up in preparation of our 'flight'

This photo may not look like anything too interesting, but the papyrus had moved to block the channel (papyrus, the plant in the photo, actually floats along the water rather than growing out of islands). Ishmael, our driver, said to us "Alright girls, so the island has moved to block the channel, we're going be flying over the papyrus!" We assumed he was joking, as last time we had managed to push the plant blockage out of the way, but he wasn't. We actually backed the boat up and 'flew' the boat over top the island and continued on our way. 

Once out at Jao, we spoke with village elders, including a 100 year old man, fishermen, and saw the beautiful village nestled among the delta reeds. We also went out to a few fishing posts, including one built around a termite mound island! It was incredible to see more of the culture I’m living among.

Tent atop a carved termite mound. Most creative set up I've seen!

Enjoying sunset on the lagoon (photo credit to Jamie)

Guma Lagoon Camp: While my dad was visiting, he wasn't too keen on roughing it in Etsha, so I decided to send them to the lodge just outside my village. We ended up making friends, so Aimee, Jamie and I decided to head out there again! We soaked up a little bit of sunshine by their pool, enjoyed the view of the lagoon, took ample advantage of their hot showers, and took a boat ride out for sundowners. Oh, and Aimee was nearly run over by a hippo chomping his way to the fancy grass to the pool (only the deadliest animal in Africa, no big deal). 

So metal.

Ghanzi Metal Fest: One of the most interesting sub-cultures I’ve come across, Botswana is home to the aptly named ‘metal cowboys.' They don leather chaps, studded cowboy hats and chains, and listen to the likes of Slipknot, Iron Maiden, and some Batswana versions of metal music. As one of the most unexpected forms of Botswana culture, of course some PCVs and I had to check it out. 

Next week I'm headed to Gaborone for my In-Service Training. This is the last of the mid-milestones to cross; I'm past the one year mark, past the halfway mark, past the one year as a PCV (as opposed to a trainee) mark. Over the past month or so, I've noticed a significant shift in my attitude about living in Botswana. This feels like 'real life,' rather than something I'm just passing through, and it's a really fabulous real life to be living. Water outages, electricity 'brown outs,' bugs, cold, heat... have become manageable, easily handled in fact. I remember there was a point where my mood coincided with whether or not the water was on. I had a realization during a run last week that I was actually look forward to kids screaming 'Loraaaaaatoooo' and running with me and the mosadi magolos saying, 'ah! next time I will come with you!' These things originally prevented me from wanting to run in the village and used to drive me crazy during my 'me time.' I have less than a year left, and suddenly it feels like my time here is moving too quickly.

American Visitors

My dad and two of his friends came out to Botswana, and here are some of the highlights from their trip:

After a bit of a hold up at customs (thanks for all the beer, dad!), they finally made it through the Maun airport

I swear we were actually really excited about the herd of giraffe behind us, in Nxai Pan/Makgadikgadi National Parks

In front of a massive boabab out a Baines Baobabs, with a salt pan behind us

Dinner with Matt, Bridgette and their American visitors out a friend's game farm!

Catching tiger fish on the Okavango Delta!

We also spent time going to my projects in my village, buying meat from the 'local butcher' under a tree, hauling in water from the river as my water was off, watched a herd of 40+ elephants less than five miles outside my village stomp around the delta, ate game meat, and just generally showed off how amazing this place can be.

New Address

I have a new mailing address:

PO Box 174
Etsha 6
Botswana

Why, you may ask, did I decide to get a new mailing address halfway through my service? Because no one from the hospital overseeing the clinic in Etsha can figure out who is responsible and how to pay for the post office box. I was patient and persistent for a few weeks, but then a care package was withheld and patience went out the window. Mail sent to the old box will be forwarded, but if you're going to be nice enough to mail something to me, send it to my new address!

Community Clean Up

With the flood waters in my backyard again, I've been spending plenty of time down by the water. Usually this begins as an attempt to read but I often am sucked into people-watching: kids swimming, mokoros headed into the detla, women washing clothing, and even the occasional religious ritual. It seems the entire village takes advantage of this proximity to water. I have also found myself diverted from my reading by a much less pleasant distraction, garbage. Everywhere.

It is also worth noting my recent discovery on how much kids flip out over stickers. I've convinced them to break up an argument in the hope of earning a sticker. Kids know that if I am walking home and carrying something that looks heavy, if they help me take it home I will reward them with stickers. It's amazing. So, after a day sitting by the water, disgusted by trash, a light bulb went off: If I put garbage bags, my PACT Club kids, and stickers together, the waterfront could be cleaned up in no time. 25 garbage bags, 30+ kids, a bagful of stickers, and a couple of hours later, Etsha 13's lagoon is nearly garbage free (never underestimate how much garbage accumulates in a place without any decent disposal options).

I have been on a bit of an environmental health tear lately; it all started with an Earth Day themed PACT Club. I've been a little low on good activity ideas without a mile long list of complications, so I've taken advantage of all of the international commemorations, i.e. World Malaria Day, Water Day. I used an excellent activity suggested by  Bridgette, in which the kids guess how long it takes for various waste products to decompose and/or break down. They had no idea that plastic bottles didn't just disappear in a matter of a few years, or that styrofoam would outlast us all (and then some). I don't think I've gotten a single guess over 10 years for any waste substance! We also had the chance to talk about the various ways to dispose of garbage, burning or burying. As both options are still pretty awful, we focused on harm reduction.

They're much more excited about their stickers than trash pick up

The positive reaction from the activities with my youth led to my extra motivation to finally push for a training for the 'Green Scorpions,' a group of paid volunteers that the clinic oversees each month with the goal of environmental health education.The group doesn't get much information beyond a daily location and the instructions "Tell people to clean up their garbage." Since the time I arrived, the group has felt like a grossly underutilized resource; I'm so happy that everything came together for a training! Plus, there was great participation from the group and I think we all learned a lot. The group changes monthly and most villages in this area has Green Scorpions, so we're looking to expand into other nearby villages next month!

In other news, my cat disappeared for three weeks and then, after he was presumed eaten, showed back up one night looking well-fed. Where he has been is beyond me, village life is pretty harsh on animals- who knew my crybaby cat was so tough. Also, it is almost too cold to bathe these days, it seems that brief period of near perfect weather is over. Eight months out of the year I'm doused in sweat, and for three months it's too cold to bathe. But oh, that two week window between where I feel clean! Anyways, the most exciting news of all is that my dad will be out here next week! Can't wait to show him and his friends around Bots!