Mozambique

So I went to Mozambique. It was awesome.

Highlights include: sitting on the beach, eating a whole lotta seafood, seeing a giant leatherback sea turtle, swimming with whale sharks, five dollar fancy cocktails, and relaxing. 

Lowlights: The truly absurd amount of bus travel it took to get there and getting money stolen. Worth it. 

Photographic Evidence of a Real Good Time:

Night sky on our nightly walk back!

We made prawn and calamari curry! 

Our first seafood meals, the first of many.

Fishing nets on the Indian Ocean

We made friends and took him up on an offer to make traditional Mozambican food. The family had piglets! SO excited!

Ready to eat some delicious seafood and matapa!

Learning to open and shave a coconut!

We saw a leatherback sea turtle on the beach! Even the turtle researcher in the area had never seen one like this before.

Hanging out in Inhambane

Enjoying the warm waters of the Indian Ocean!

Snorkeling with whale sharks! SO COOL! We swam next the world's largest fish, no one had a camera that could go underwater but here's some more info on the giant fish: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/whale-shark/

Feeling five dollar fancy with cocktails!

(Caveat: some of the photos are mine, several of them are borrowed from my travel companions)

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.

A Case of the "I Hate Everythings"

Before anything else, this post needs a few explanations:

VET GATES: All over Botswana, there are these fences spanning the whole country. To be completely honest, I couldn’t tell you the real purpose for them but they have something to do with keeping the wildlife and the livestock separate… and preventing the spread of foot and mouth disease (see explanation below). Vet gates are one of the worst parts of traveling, because  going through them means that everyone must get out of the vehicle, dragging all of their bags. These bags are often just patted down once or barely unzipped… think the worst event security in the world. It’s 10x more difficult to sneak something into a festival than through these fences and security check points. Once they are done ‘checking’ your bag for shoes, meat and who-knows-what else, you get to walk through gross, white, soda water (I think) and dip all of your extra shoes in the stuff too. Doesn’t sound too terrible if you’re in a private vehicle, but let me tell you…. When the bus is so full that if you’re lucky enough to have a seat, but your arms can be literally stuck in a stranger’s fleshy backside…. It can take forever and a half, feels completely pointless, and half the time people aren’t actually required to get out, especially if it’s dark out or they have a lot of luggage in the trunk that the officers don’t feel like searching, they don’t take the bags out from underneath the bus so all of those shoes are magically immune, and they just blame the disease on the buffalo anyway.

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE: This is going to be a poor explanation because I actually don’t know much about this disease and don’t won’t to use my airtime on my dongle to look it up… but I do know that it is devastating to farmers who survive off cattle. While I have a strong dislike for Vet Gates, foot and mouth disease is a serious problem that can obliterate a family’s livelihood.

CHINA AND LEKGOA: Frequently, people of any sort of Asian descent are called ‘China,’ usually by children but occasionally by an ill-mannered adult. It doesn’t really matter where one is from, or if he or she is even Asian as I have had completely Caucasian friends report being called China as well.  Lekgoa means white person or English speaker... this one is also usually done by children or old people, but adults will use this term more frequently. Generally, I would say the terms are not derogatory, but rather a statement as pointing out physical characteristics (from weight to hair styles) is a just a part of Batswana culture.

HOW MANY BUSES I HAVE BEEN ON LATELY: a lot of them. Going a long ways away.

With these explanations, the following what not to do is from a single weekend of travel.

 What NOT to do when you have a case of the “I Hate Everythings…”

I would not recommend that when the bus conductor repeatedly calls you ‘China’ and Lekgoa’ and then pushes you out of the way in a tiny aisle on a crowded bus while you’re not paying attention to him, to tell him he is being a giant ass. I would however continue to tell him that is unacceptable, especially an adult speaking to a customer, to call someone “China” and/or “Lekgoa.” It also probably isn’t the best idea when forced to go through the vet gate again because someone pulled your bag off after you got out because it looked like it would contain shoes (… they were only worn once, okay? I didn’t want to get that slimy stuff on my new shoes and then stuff them back in a bag) to pitch a fit when they actually search your whole bag and make you walk through the slimy stuff three times because your shoes weren’t covered in the fluid the first and second time around, and finally bark at the guy searching your stuff that ‘this is (you can probably fill in the expletive here) stupid’…. They will remember you and ask if you are in a better mood the next time you go through there. Lucky for you, they will laugh it off, and so will you.

What to do when you have a case of the “I Hate Everythings”

Spend the afternoon watching The Sound of Music and taking a cue from the film, compile a list of your favorite things:

-sunset over bots after a thunderstorm

-the so-fluffy-I-could-die baby donkeys

-the smell of baskets

-mosadi magolos (old ladies) -from refusing to do anything while standing, gossiping under trees, well-meaning sense of ownership over me in e13, to their great pride in saying, I’m a mosadi magolo, I’m not doing that.. I find them adorable and hilarious.

-when Batswana have the same reaction I do to something interesting on the bus- i.e. an elephant charging across or the driver doing something stupid….

-my neighborhood kids… even when they’re being bratty and obnoxious.

-thunder and lightening

-boating on the Okavango Delta

-southern carmine bee eaters (they’re hot pink birds that have long tails!)

From personal experience, I can say the latter will relieve your frustration while the former will just leave you feeling embarrassed. 

4th of July

So it’s the 4^th of July, a holiday that I was more nervous about how I would feel missing back home than Christmas. But I have to say, so far so good. No major bout of homesickness, although I think it helps that I haven’t been able to spend much time on the internet finding out what everyone is doing and that it rained on the fireworks last weekend at the lake. As much as it bums me to hear about a rainy 4^th, it does make me feel happier about being in Botswana during one of my favorite holidays. It also helps that today was full of ‘Peace Corps Moments’.

The day started out at the clinic with the chance that I would catch a ride with one of the medical trucks to Gumare (a town nearby) to talk to the woman in charge of us and our housing as I am still missing most of my furniture (ga gona mathata, I’ve got the important stuff but I would like to fill up my empty living room) and needed to take care of some other business. So I spent the morning in the clinic, helping with patient intake, vitals, cute babies, practicing Setswana and attempting to meet and communicate with community members. All of the before mentioned: Peace Corps Moments. Aimee is in the same boat furniture-wise, so we managed to get her a ride to E13 so we could take the free ride together. It was the usual confusion regarding language and communication methods, will she be here or not? but then rapid Setswana is spoken and an ambulance ends up bringing her to my clinic. Something looking like it won’t work out and then somehow magically does: Peace Corps Moments.

So, we hopped in the back of the canopied truck bed ambulance and went on our way, taking the sandy part of the road instead of the paved part because it’s so beat up. Foreign country transport: PCM. We arrive in Gumare, and it’s lunch time and no one is in. So, we go do some other errands and find some of the best clementines ever out of the back of someone’s pickup bed. Finding random delicious food just when you think you’re surrounded by only white bread flour and refined oil: PCM. We head back to the hospital, and then spend the next four hours there being passed off from person to person, no one who really knows why we don’t have our furniture, or who should be paying for it, providing it, fixing up our houses, reimbursing us, etc., etc., but eventually we are reassured that someone is working on it now (and yes, that means they weren’t before). But we were able to meet a whole bunch of people who deal with things like supplies and funding, so it was totally worth it. Something being awesome and annoying at the same time: PCM. Then we caught an ambulance back right near sundown, with a whole bunch of other people stuffed in the back of this truck. Watching the sun set from the back of a converted truck to ambulance over a mud and thatch village: PCM. In spite of the lack of family, friends and fireworks on the lake, I’m pretty happy with my Fourth of July J

Shadow Week!

Rachael's super cute round house

                                            Condom water balloon toss with the PACT club

I spent the last week shadowing Rachael, a current PCV, in her village of Morwamosu. I experienced the village life for the week; only about 600 people make up Morwamosu and she lives in a small round house without running water. It was also a much-needed break from the daily grind of PST and a glimpse into what I will get to do myself in a few weeks. It was a really fabulous and well-balanced week with amazing food (we ate pizza twice! Woot), interesting workshops, a braii (the Botswana version of a bbq) with Batswana, and time with other volunteers.

But what everyone actually wants to hear- I saw my first African wild animal! As I was on the bus ride out to Morwamosu, I hadn’t seen anything interesting and by Friday I was getting disappointed when I still had yet to see anything besides donkeys and cattle. I was just telling Rachael this, when 10 minutes later our hitch (more on this later) nearly runs over a baby ostrich and it’s family! The ostriches were unharmed, but I got a real close glimpse of the giant birds.

So don’t freak out mom and dad, but I also gained more experience in the art of hitchhiking last week. While not technically endorsed by Peace Corps, hitch hiking is often a big part of transport for PCVs in Botswana as the cost of gasoline is so high and public transportation is inconsistent and only occurs in brief time windows. Rather than giving the thumbs up one sees all over American media, which actually signifies that you don’t need a ride, you just kind of flap your hand at the wrist.  If the driver can’t/won’t take you he or she will make one of several types of hand signals back, which I have yet to figure out. After last week, hitching has become my favorite form of transportation because it was often much quicker than the bus and I had way more space than in the crowded combis and buses. While there are certainly things to watch out for (mainly unsafe vehicles and drunk driving), you can always turn a hitch down and wait for the next car to go by. Although the wait time on less travelled roads is long, as I learned trying to go about 20km between villages. Rachael and I waited several hours for a hitch only to have it get snagged by some guys who only had waited about half an hour… needless to say I don’t think I will let another long awaited hitch slip by me that easily again.

Along with hitching and ostriches, my favorite highlight of shadow week was the PACT workshop I attended in another village. Rachael was assisting another volunteer with the workshop in her village so I had the opportunity to attend and help a little. It was so nice and refreshing to see PCVs at work; I was able to translate all of the tedious training activities into real life. The workshop centered on health and life skills in a school, with what I guess were 10 to 13 year olds. Those kids were amazing. We arrived at the school and they had the classroom ready to go and they were eager to be there as well.  And then we had this question box- which I don’t know if anyone remembers having that in middle school or whatever, but all anyone put in there was jokes, but these kids had the best questions about all sorts of topics. I was so impressed! While I’m sure that those kids were great to begin with, it’s also encouraging to see the impact the PCV had on her community. Seeing stuff like that is the reason I joined Peace Corps. Sure, filling up over 100 lubed condoms with water for a balloon toss was fun, but sorting through those kids’ questions about topics such as gender, sexual health, puberty, leadership, etc was amazing, especially knowing that along with the other PCVs and Batswana in the room we would be answering them and getting these kids comfortable with the topics. I’m so thankful for my shadowing experience; it was  a great break from training but I am more ready than ever to finally learn about my site… only a few more weeks until I get my own village!

The Beginning

I have officially been on Botswana soil for a full 24 hours!  I am moved into my home-stay, I have a cell phone, I know the names of most of my intake group (there are over 40 of us) although the names of my host family are not coming so easily…

Even though the flights were extensive and I was saying goodbye to a whole lot, I found myself remaining continually positive and freak-out free. The positive and excited feelings grew the closer I got to Botswana, even running on about 7 hours of bus/plane/airport sleep over three days I still had energy and excitement.  I have no doubt that this will catch up to me, but I’m seeing this as encouragement that I have made the right decision in joining the Peace Corps. Before leaving, I kept feeling as though I wasn’t prepared to make this journey or that I hadn’t actually thought the whole thing out because I hadn’t suffered a major freak out about spending the next 26 months on the other side of the world (with the exception of the Saturday, but I was much more based on stress about seeing everyone I love before I left and managing to get my 80 pounds of stuff underweight and in one piece to the airport over moving to Africa for two years). Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely had moments of doubt but, I was able to squash them within a few seconds. And I definitely cried leaving my parents in the airport. But it wasn’t the freak-out-oh-my-god-what-am-i-doing-turn-back-now type of panic, it was mainly sadness, but not regret, over leaving my life in the US behind. 

I can say that as of week one away from home… I couldn’t be happier to be here. I’m feeling that the long application, packing and goodbyes feel like they will be worth it. Being in Botswana seems really ‘right,’ as corny as that sounds. And, I can drink water from the tap… woot for no bottled water!

Staging, and the Transportation Hell to Come

In describing staging, the words tired, excited, extensive, and informative come to mind. There has been very little sleep, a lot of introductions, group activities, and our last American food and drink (so far I've been a little disappointed in the beer options in Philly, I had a terribly weak IPA and a weird amber, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places). I've really enjoyed meeting all 44 of the other Bots 12 volunteers! I'm so excited to be working with such a diverse group of people of different ages, hometowns, and experiences.

And now, we're truly off to Botswana! Transportation hell to include: 3 am, bus ride to JFK. If without delay, there will be several hours between our arrival at JFK and the plane taking off on a direct flight to Johannesburg, around 11 am. Six hour layover in Johannesburg, and finally, a quick flight to Gaborone. We'll be put up in a lodge there for the night. The next morning, we will head to Kanye, the village where I will go through Pre-Service Training.

I will be without much internet access for the first couple of weeks, but my next post will be from Botswana! Love to all of my friends and family!

Side note: Apologies if this post is terrible. I'm writing it at 130 am from Philly... no sleep till the bus!