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!

World Malaria Day

With about half of the world’s population at risk of malaria, World Malaria Day is recognized every April 25^th. To commemorate the day and increase awareness in Etsha 13, the clinic and I created a mosquito net exhibit and focused the week’s health talk on malaria. We hung the net in the middle of the clinic for a few days before and my counterpart Kandondi helped me with translating the talk. Health Talks are given every Wednesday at the clinic, as this is the day that blood samples are collected for CD4 counts, creating the most traffic through the clinic. This meant that the audience was made up of those most at risk: people living with HIV and the usual group of pregnant women and mothers bringing in babies for weighing.  The talk emphasized prevention measures, early recognition of symptoms, and gave time for Q & A at the end. I was surprised to learn that many of my community members were unaware that mosquitoes transmit malaria, including the staff member at the clinic who helped me translate the statements for the net display.

Luckily, malaria is not the insurmountable problem in Botswana as many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face. Over the past decade, malaria related deaths have decreased drastically and overall incidence is down as well. Data from the previous year showed only a handful of cases, but outbreaks have occurred in my sub-district this season. Botswana is very close to eradication!

On Floods and the Importance of Layers

In Oregon, if you count the erratic weather from March to June as spring, the seasons can be divided into four pretty easily. Season are nothing like that in Botswana. 

Seasons are measured in rainy versus dry, warm nights versus cold, floods or no floods, lush and green or dry and brown. Transition periods between these seem to be days to two weeks.

What I would consider as winter is here. When I woke this morning, I could see my breath; now, at mid day, it's still in the 80s. The floods are also up, and came quickly. I left my village for the one year celebration, and  when I returned, the floods had gone from about  2 km away to just behind my backyard. Luckily, that rate has slowed down and the water has not come too much closer to my house.

While I'm not looking forward to the point when it is too cold to bathe, even with heating water, I am really excited about enjoying hot tea, soup, and not sweating while sleeping. My favorite sign of winter is definitely the full floodplain (as long as it doesn't push anyone out of their homes this year); I've been enjoying many afternoons reading by the water, plus it is fantastic to have a back up source of water, like last week when the water was off for six days. 

Kids collecting water in the floodplain, directly across from my house. 

One Year Celebration in the Tuli Block

To celebrate making it one year in Botswana, a chunk of Bots 12 gathered in the Eastern 'nose' of Botswana, spending the weekend in the Tuli Block. We went on game drives, picked through the rocks on the Limpopo River, and generally got spoiled rotten by Tarrafou Lodge between a delicious braii and comfy rooms. Above all, it was so fantastic to see Bots 12ers from all over the country. This group is full of some incredibly inspiring and fun people!