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.

The Whirlwind of Workshops and IST

It has been a real intense couple of weeks. I’ve traveled more or less all over the country, had a whole bunch of training, a whole bunch of reuniting and merry-making, and eishe am I happy to see my little village again.

Two weeks ago, I was in Maun (the biggest town within six hours from me) for a very intense grant writing workshop, hosted by aid organization SAREP. One of our PCV Leaders invited a group of us from the Delta region to attend along with several organizations to help each organization write a (hopefully successful) grant. This also means that I was able to spend the last week with super fast internet, a shower, and grocery stores, which was quite a treat.  

Most PCVs were paired with organizations at random; I was lucky enough that an organization that I had already been working with was also invited to the workshop. The Ngamiland Basket Weavers Trust is an organization that I have worked a little with, based in the Etsha villages. They are a group of weavers composed primarily of women, so it has been fantastic to work with an organization focusing on women and income generation. They want to host a workshop in the region and wanted SAREP’s help, so we spent one very intense day writing a grant proposal.

It was probably the most hectic, intense work day that I have had in Botswana. It was like writing the paper the night before it’s due, plus there is a language barrier and you’re working with two other people to figure out exactly what they want and then put it into words. It was exhausting, but in the end we were pretty happy with the proposal and we all learned a lot about the grant writing process.

Then, one long bus ride and an even longer, though hilarious, hitch later, In-Service Training came in Gaborone. All of Bots 12 intake group came together for a little over a week of training and enjoying each other’s company in the capital city. There were a lot of sessions- some helpful and some atrocious. On the good end, I got a ton of ideas for activities and improving things we're already doing, and on the other hand, we learned just how terrible the NACA (HIV/AIDS on the national level) is. It was wonderful and a little bit crazy being back with the Bots 12 family, but I am certainly happy to be in the village again.