100 days!

So today marks a very important milestone for my Peace Corps service.  100 days left.  At times it has felt like much longer than two years, and at other times nowhere close to that mark.  But either way it is here.  Considering I started this blog with the 100 day mark from when I left the states I thought this would be a good moment to offer some advice to past me (or anyone reading this who is thinking about Peace Corps).  So here are the pieces of advice I would tell myself before coming to Botswana that I know now.

1. Get ready for failure.  You may not be used to it now, but you will be.
2. Don’t be so naïve.  There is no way you will learn everything about Botswana before you come here.
3. Speaking of which, just stop trying to learn Setswana, you are not pronouncing anything right.
4. In that same thought, other people are going to be better at the language than you are, that is alright.  You, personally, will not use it that much.  *This is mainly due to me sticking primarily with my school with few outside projects and the kids are supposed to learn English at the schools.  Other PCVs use Setswana much more.
5. You know those McCall Smith books you are reading that are set in Botswana?  Interesting stories, but no, not even close.
6. Pack spices.  Seriously, you do NOT need stockpiles of soap and shampoo.  You need spices. 
7. Also, get a headlamp.  Handy for when your power goes out or you are living without electricity.
8. Did you seriously pack a wrench?  Why?
9. The same goes for the screwdrivers, pliers and electric razor.
10. The hammer comes in handy (but only hardly-possibly not worth the space).
11. Get a second one of those pans Brandon got you.  That thing is awesome.
12. Less clothes.  You have only worn some of these things once.  In 2 years.
13. More gum.  You can never have too much Trident and they don’t have your favorite kind here.
14. Tangent side note: get used to spelling in British English.  I almost put a u in favorite.
15. Also, don’t be embarrassed when kids correct your spelling from American to British.
16. If there is some kind of sauce you really like, bring some bottles.  It is either not here, or way too expensive.
17. See above in regards to tequila.
18. Or really any hard alcohol.  The affordable stuff here you didn’t even sink low enough to drink in college.
19. Quit the cemetery earlier (or rather don’t take the summer job).  Seriously, spend more time with people than trying to make a few extra bucks for a few months.
20. Scrap the black shoes, dust never leaves them, and bring back-up running shoes.
21. Bring more duct tape.  It is so useful.
22. Don’t bring that heavy of clothes.  Layering sweaters and t-shirts is fine for you.  You are used to and like cold.
23. Summer blows.  But at least there is no humidity.
24. Speaking of, get used to getting up at 5am so you can run before it gets too hot.
25. Don’t feel bad if you are not friends with everyone else in Peace Corps.  At training they may drill that into you but it really is ok to not hang out with everyone.
26. When in doubt on ANYTHING, just play the cultural ignorance card.  It almost always works.
27. Why did you bring 2 actual suitcases?  Be like almost everyone else and get a hiking backpack.  You are just going to buy one within a few months here anyway.
28. Did you really try writing in Setswana in your first few blogs?  Seriously?  I know training can tend to be a pissing contest but everyone gets over it really fast.  Try not to sink into it.
29. Speaking of, you may have just got done with college, and others in your group may be retired psychologists, but guess what, this is new to ALL of you.  Don’t try so hard to impress.
30. You underestimated the amount of cards you need.  You know how much you play cards.  Buy more.
31. Buy more brown, it blends with the sand and dirt.
32. Bring a hard-drive, you need media.
33. Get comfy talking about poop.
34. There will be a time when you think about extending for a third year.  You will look back on it as a very funny joke.  Do not take that thought seriously.
35. You work site will know very little about Peace Corps rules, you can use them as a scapegoat to get out of things.
36. Never vent your anger on people with cars.  Even if they piss you off don’t burn that bridge.
37. Stop worrying about whether you have electricity and that stuff.  The mental adjustments are so much worse.
38. Speaking of which, take time to deal with that.
39. And don’t feel guilty about it.
40. Gabs is a money pit.  Don’t avoid it, just be prepared.
41. Tell people to send you trashy tabloid magazines.  They become so entertaining over here.
42. Walk around a lot.  Staying in can be nice to hide, but you still need to get out there.
43. Mindless entertainment is so awesome.
44. Speaking of which, maybe not the best time to buckle down and read all the classics.
45. But you can still get through a few.
46. You cannot take care of all the dogs.  You are really going to want to.
47. In that same note, get ready to witness what we consider animal abuse.
48. And corporal punishment.
49. You know what, just start getting a calloused heart now.  Because you will not be effective in changing the behavior, so get used to ignoring it.
50. You will have an urge to beat a snake with a rock.  Makes for a cool story, but seriously?  What the hell were you thinking?
51. Peace Corps may say a laptop is optional.  IGNORE!  Bring one.
52. Most Batswana won’t say no.  Just assume that unless people show a lot of enthusiasm they mean no.
53. Even if they say yes, they mean no.
54. Nothing happens now (or even “now now”).  Just assume things will take a while.
55. Speaking of the word no, it is about to become your new best friend.  Embrace it.
56. Your de-stressing activities need to be routine.  Or you will fail to do them.
57. Do whatever it takes to remind yourself to be calm so you don’t get angry for the wrong reason. 
58. Don’t sacrifice your personal style just because you think something else will be more appropriate.
59. You will want those things to make you feel like you.
60. If you think something is worthwhile do it.
61. Even if you are doing it alone.  It will still make you feel better if nothing else.
62. You can actually buy good food with your budget.  Don’t think you need to scrimp on food.
63. Buy one of those really cool insta-dry towels.  So handy for travel.

My original goal was to try to hit 100 pieces of advice, but I am not going to stretch this out any longer.  Also, thanks to Shannon, Mia and Amelia for some of these ideas.

Turning 24

Well so it is now my second and last birthday that I will be celebrating during Peace Corps.  This past year has definitely been more jam-packed than the one before it.  By the time I turned 23 I had yet to leave Botswana, taken no vacations, and had no major work projects successfully get off the ground.  In this past year I have travelled around quite a bit of Southern Africa.  I have been to different parts of Botswana (especially considering my moving villages), travelled to: Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and back to the US, have written a novel, ran a marathon and finally had some great work successes. 

So for a blog post to commemorate the past year I am going to focus on the positive things that I have accomplished in this past year, both personally and professionally.

Work successes:  I have had two big ones in this category (one at each of my sites).  In my current village of Gamodubu you might remember that at the end of the first Term our school finished putting a library together.  Well, Term 2 just ended and I am proud to say that so far the library has been very successful.  We have had more than 60 kids check out well more than 100 books in just about a month’s time.  With this term being the shortest one (and I being missing for a good portion) I expect this number to rise higher next term. 

The other success I just learned about the other day from a project I left at my old site in Kaudwane.  I was working on a school garden with a teacher there and right before I moved sites we had sent off some requests for donations to get it running better.  Well, that teacher called me the other day to tell me that a few months back the school received 15000 pula to help make the garden work!  With that money shade netting has been bought and put up, new tools were also purchased to work the soil and with the remaining balance they are bringing in a specialist to examine the soil and provide assistance in making the soil yield more.  It is always a huge goal of Peace Corps to see if a project will be sustainable when you leave (and one most people do not get to see first-hand) so this was really exciting to see happen!

Personal successes:  Huh.  I realize I already used a bunch of my personal successes up in my intro for this blog.  Whoops.  Well there is still one other thing I have not mentioned.  I have finally figured out a firm direction for my graduate studies and the list of schools I am applying to.  I am applying for Gender based programs where I plan to focus on sexual orientation and gender roles and how both societal attitudes and laws regarding these distinctions hinder equal opportunities for people.  The schools I am looking at are Loyola (Chicago), University of Washington (Seattle), the United Nations University for Peace (Costa Rica) and University of San Francisco (guess where?). 

Yet to go:  This part is more a reminder to myself about things I still need to do to accomplish my personal goals from my post entitled Goal 4 back in February.  I still need to edit the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo.  I also need to finish my 300 books.  I can say that I have less than 50 to go, so I think I can still do it.

And well, I think that is it for today.  I am planning to put up another post on Sunday to mark a different milestone that happens to fall very close to my birthday. 

Adam

Readjustment, from this side

So right before I came back to Bots I wrote about my perspective on coming back here.  So now I figured I would do a quick update on how I am thinking about this readjustment thing now now.

So first of all, it has not been nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  And I think that is simply because I can say that I have 16 weeks left of service.  It is so close that no matter what it seems doable.  The same things here are still frustrating me when I deal with them...which is all the time.

A quick example.  For every victory comes at least a few frustrating moments.  I finally got gas for my stove on Thursday.  After 6 months of no gas.  So that was a huge victory.  And within that same day the driver from the Min of Ed (who has a real job and makes way more than me) was begging me for money.  And then later that day when I was heading into town for some airtime the bus refused to take me.  Not because they had no room...there were seats.  There is just some arbitrary rule that particular bus had that it was not allowed to pick up people on that road.  Something about competition with other buses.

But overall it is nothing unexpected.  And the other part of readjustment has been the boredom.  I have been super bored.  Since I have been back there have been other events at the school going on and now it is exam time.  And then school closes.  So that is why I have been spending time doing things like updating my resume.  Because I am super bored.

Anyway, just thought I would do a bit of an update on how I am doing after being back.

Back to Bots

In several hours I get to start the long trek back to Botswana.  It is going to take me at least two days, with overnights in Doha and Jo’burg before I get back.  Needless to say I am not looking forward to it.  At all.  The flight is just dreadful.

But anyway, with that out of the way I figured I would spend just a quick bit of time talking about my trip to the US.  First of all, it was fantastic.  It was great to be in a familiar environment, around friends and family, and just being able to relax.  I mean fully relax (something which does not happen that often in Bots for me).

Naturally I did what most PCVs would do when graced with a trip to the US.  I ate lots of food I can’t get there (good pizza, Mexican, Chinese, Mexican…did I say Mexican yet?), stocked up on supplies for my last few months, and showered every day.  All in all it was pretty awesome. 

Also, during my trip to the US I got to attend a wedding.  So, to Katie and Sean (currently on your honeymoon) congrats!  And thanks for having me in the wedding party.  I got to see most of my family and nearly all of my friends.  Which that is good and bad.  It is amazing to see people you have not seen for nearly two years.  But that means you still have to go through the process of saying goodbye to them yet again.  At least this time around it will only be for a few months. 

And even though I know it is only for a few months, I still am not looking forward to going back to Bots.  It was nice to get back into a bit of a familiar routine.  And since I am close to being done I have started to look around at jobs for after Peace Corps.  It would be so easy to just not come back.

But when have you ever known me to take the easy way?  I am stubborn.  And I am sure once I get back in Botswana and spend a few weeks falling back into a routine there it will be fine.  But looking at it from this end (especially with that long flight in between) I am not excited.  A lot of PCVs I talked to before coming back expressed that if they went back to the US during service they may not come back to Botswana.  And I must say, that is a legitimate concern.  If it was not for Katie and Sean’s wedding I would not have returned during service.  And while I am glad I did, if I had no particular reason to come back to the US, I would not advise doing it until PC service is done. 

When I set out to write this it was planned to be much more coherent in my head, but well, this is how it is turning out.  Oh well, what do you do?  Right at the moment the plan is to post another blog at the end of June (when the school term ends) so check back then to see how I am viewing the readjustment from that side.

Weird things I do...or are they?

So, I will be back in the states for a short time very soon.  And I thought we could all play a little game while I am back.  The game is “find all the weird stuff I do now that I didn’t do before!”  Peace Corps makes people weird.  So below is a list of things that either I (or other PCVs from Botswana) have started to do since we arrived here.  Some are due to the Botswana influence, and some due to the PC influence.  I have included things other people do that I do not, because we all could use a little bit of misleads in this game. 

•    Saying “half three or half past three” instead of three thirty when telling the time
•    Picking my nose
•    Greeting strangers on the street
•    Talking about poop-entirely too much and at inappropriate times.
•    Doing the “uh-uh” thing that is usually reserved for babies and small kids-to adults.
•   Waving my hand in front of my face (backside out) as a non-verbal way of saying no.
•    Doubling words (now now, what what, and so on).
•    Using the words “that side” as directions.
•    Using the exclamations “eish!” and “Ow, shame!” in everyday conversation.
•    A general decline in my ability to speak English
•   Getting overwhelmed by any menu with more than a few choices
•   Talk about food, incessantly
•   Talking/pining about sex way too much
•   Binging-in regards to food.  I am talking about eating blocks of cheese at a time, or cocoa mix out of the bag with your hand, and so on.
•   Never leaving the house without water and a book
•   An intimate knowledge of the amount and kinds of cheese in my fridge (or in any fridge I have seen the inside of for thirty seconds)
•  Hoarding
•  Talking to myself or animals constantly
•   Blatantly ignoring people trying to get my attention because I think they are going to hit on me or ask me for money
•   Not washing sheets, for an extended period of time
•   Re-wear clothes many times
•   Saying bath instead of bathe
•   Hit people with my bag passive aggressively who refuse to make room
•   Apathy about bugs in food
•   When shaking hands holding my left hand near my right elbow
•   Doing the above when taking something from someone else with one hand
•   When counting on my fingers I often start with the pinky 

I would like to thank the following people to contributing to this list: Mia, Claire, Julia, Ashley, Margie, Dana and Shannon

And now I want to do a quick little update from a blog I called Goal 4 from a while back.  I had four goals that I still wanted to accomplish and here is a progress update on them.

• Read 300 books:  Well I am currently up to 232 books, so I am getting there
• Edit the novel: Have not touched this one yet
• Run a marathon: Completed in 4:18:40.  WOOHOO!
• Figure out the next step:  I finally have a complete list of graduate school programs I am applying for.  I am applying at the following 4 schools: The United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, San Fransisco State University, University of Washington in Seattle, and Loyola in Chicago.

See a bunch of you stateside in less than a week or so!

The Library!

Hey everyone,

So I wanted to write a blog on some good news.  My school has officially started a library.  I finished putting it together yesterday so that way when Term 2 starts kids can come and check-out books.  Please note that the following tale about starting a library is quite unusual.  I had a lot of positive factors work in my favor that made this possible in such a short time.  Most PCVs are not lucky enough to have all of this working for them.

So naturally the first step is to get people on board with the idea of making a library.  Usually this can be an issue just in itself, but at the beginning of March (yeah, this whole process took just a month-rather unusual) my counterpart came to me and said that she wanted to start one at the school.  Community interest accomplished!  Onto the next step.

This is usually one of the hardest steps to accomplish.  Finding a space.  Most schools need a new building built in order to house any size library.  Lots of PCVs have to scrounge for donations, including grant writing to try and accomplish this.  Once again, I had a huge stroke of good fortune.  Our school had a store room with not a lot in it that could be cleared out and relocated.

Sure, it isn't the biggest space in the world, in fact it is just a storage closet.  But it is better than having nothing available, that is for sure.  So naturally the next step in the process is to clear out the store room.  (Although this step actually did not get done till after we got book donations, it still needs to get done before assembling the library.)

And once the school cleaned out the space, I was ready to rock and roll on putting this thing together.  I went around to several classes and got teachers to give me some metal cabinets they were not using so I would have something to put the books on.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS!!!!!

Since 1998 the Botswana Book Project has been responsible for bringing over 450,000 books to schools all throughout Botswana.  Started by Pam Shelton in the Maun area, it has spread all throughout Botswana.  There are many ways you can help, and we welcome all support.  You can donate to shipments at www.booksforafrica.org.  All donations are tax deductable.  You can also donate books.  To see all the ways you can help, and to see the results of our work in action, please visit: botswanabookproject.org   We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

And we are back.  In all seriousness, this organization is fantastic.  I was able to get over 200 books for our library from them.  They are doing great work all over Botswana and if you are in a position to help them I know it would be greatly appreciated.  Here is what I was able to get from them.

These boxes had over 200 books between them.  So at this point I had some books to start with and some cabinets.  At this point, one of the teachers tell me they got a book donation from The Botswana Library Association in 2011.  But, they didn't know where to put them so they were just sitting in a teacher's storeroom for two years.  Well I quickly liberated those books to incorporate them into the library.

Now that I had all the parts, it was time to sort.  We had books that I put into 7 different categories: Stories and Novels, Learning to Read, Health, Science and Nature, Religion, Reference Books, and Teacher's Resources.  Also, I got some maps from Pam Shelton as well (See, another great reason to support her!!!), so I used those and some signs I made to decorate the walls and label the book sections.  After about a half day of sorting and putting things up on Wednesday we had a finished product.

As you can see we still have room for a ton more books.  I am planning to look around to see if I can find more, but it is at least nice to have some ready to go.  A few kids saw me setting it up yesterday and asked if they can take some.  School closed yesterday, and I wasn't done with the work, so I told them at the start of Term 2 they can.  Here is hoping it gets some use!

It's a strange strange world

Hey, you know what I haven’t done in a while?  Written a blog post.  Or a letter for that matter.  For all of those people who I was in fairly regular mail correspondence with, oops.  This lack has been totally my fault.  I dropped the ball on that one.  I plan to resume that soon. 

Well, anyway, I was trying to figure out what to write for a blog post, and I have had people tell me that they like my list style posts as some of my best.  So now I have a new list for you.  The 5 biggest WTF moments of the past couple months.  All of these have happened since I moved into my new place.  So while they may not be the strangest moments I have ever had here, they are the most recent.

5.  On one of my walks back into the village from doing some errands in Gabs I managed to get lucky and snag a ride.  In the back of the truck with me was the health education officer for the village.  She had gone grocery shopping that day too.  We dropped at the same spot and walked together for a bit since we live in the same area.  Well, she eventually got around to asking me why I was not at the Male Circumcision workshop the week before at the Kgotla.  Well, first of all, I try to avoid the Kgotla like the plague, not my favorite place to be.  I find it boring and tedious when I could be doing something much more useful.  But I probably would have gone to it for that workshop.  While I know about SMC from a bunch of Peace Corps stuff, it would have been nice to see what messages were getting out. 

The real reason I did not go was because I was not invited.  The health officer hosted the workshop and I told her that I was not invited to go.  She told me that she had dropped off the invitation at the school inviting the Guidance teacher, one other teacher, and myself.  Now, I did see her a little before the workshop drop something at the office, but when the announcement came from the school head, all she said was, “There is a workshop at the Kgotla on Monday and Mma Thupe (the Guidance Teacher) is going.”  No one inquired any further; it seemed like a done decision.  I did not even know until later what the workshop was.  When I explained this to the health officer, she still said I should have been there.  Somehow, it was my fault I missed it.  These kinds of things happen a lot and I know how to brush them off pretty well, but they still make me scratch my head for a little while.

4.  Those of us over here in Bots are aware that the weather is starting to cool off (at least in the mornings).  This is one of my favorite times of the year here-not summer.  But for some of my teachers this kind of weather has a different significance.  This is a conversation I was around, but thankfully not a part of between two teachers.

Teacher 1: Do you know what they call this weather?

Teacher 2: No, I don’t know.

Teacher 1: BMW.

Teacher 2: BMW?  Ah, why do they call it that?

Teacher 1: What does BMW mean?

Teacher 2 guesses: “Be My Wife?”

Teacher 1 laughs and asks me if I know what BMW means.  I am as confused as Teacher 2 is and shake my head.

Teacher 1: No, not be my wife, baby making weather.

I walk away, still confused by why that happened.

3.  So while my new house is far and away more posh than my old place, it is still missing a few things.  Namely, a front door that opens, and a gas tank for the stove.  The door is not a huge deal; I can just go in and out through the kitchen door.  But the gas tank has had me borrowing another teacher’s hotplate for the past 2 months.  Which does my school management think is the bigger problem?  The door of course.  When I say that I need gas they say I have they hotplate.  I say the hotplate is not mine, plus when the electricity is out, I cannot cook.  But when I say that the door does not matter because I can get in and out they say that “it is not healthy to only use the back door to get into your house.”  Once again, mystified, I ask why.  Answer: it just is not healthy.  Still mystified.

2.  I always have a hard time picking a winner for things like this.  I usually waver between something monumental or something that is perpetual.  In this case, I am going with the monumental, so the perpetual gets second.  All in all, this instance is not really that impressive, except for the fact that it happens to me at least twice a week it seems.  People asking where I am…when they are not there.  For example, this morning I got asked by a teacher why I did not see them yesterday.  I said I did not know.  I was at assembly like I am every morning and I was back in the afternoon for PACT club.  Usually everyone is supposed to be at assembly.  Then she said, “Ah, I was late yesterday.  But I needed to talk to you and I did not see you.”  I asked why she did not come see me at PACT club then.  “Ah, I had to go early.”  Huh?  How is this somehow my responsibility to divine when you want to talk to me?  But my absolute favorite is people saying they did not see me…when they were actually out almost all day and just came around 3pm to sign a log book at the school.  And yet somehow that happens so often to me…

1. This one actually happened to me the day after I wrote the first draft of this blog.  I had to alter my list and make this new occurrence number 1.  I was on an hour long combi ride, in the front seat area.  The conductor was two people away from me with a woman in between us.  Now, the conductor clearly wanted to get with this woman.  Also, they had never met before.  At the beginning he tries and arm around the shoulder.  After a few rebuffs the woman I guess decides “what the hell” and goes with it.  Within 10 minutes he is grabbing her boob.  Full-on, right in the front of the combi.  All the while I am stuck next to this.  Eventually things cool off for a minute when he starts to take money from everyone.  At this point the woman pulls out some lip gloss.  As she is putting it away the conductor takes it from her.  And puts some on.  Yeah.  And it gets weirder.

Finally my destination is in sight.  Just a couple more minutes and I will be off the combi.  And of course, the conductor picks this moment to go for broke.  He puts his hand up her skirt.  And she lets him!!!!  Right in front of everyone he is feeling up her skirt.  And she is just laughing.  At this point she is getting off the combi too, so what do the new lovers do?  Exchange names and phone numbers.  Yup, didn’t even know each other’s names till that point.  People are weird.

Finally, I just want to end with just a couple general updates.  For a week in early April I will be off to Mozambique to enjoy some time on the Indian Ocean.  As far as work goes, the school closes for a few weeks at the end of March.  I just host a training for the teachers on Infusion of the Life Skill books (basically my main purpose here) and we are supposed to be implementing them starting next term, so we will see how that goes.  And finally, in just two short months I will be back in the US for a few weeks.  I have a special game that everyone can play when I am back, details to come in another blog post.  J