Triple Six

It doesn’t taste as good as Triple Sec, but looks better than typing 666.  But anyway this post is all about 6.  Three of them to be exact.  6 lists.  All of different top 6 things about my Life in Peace Corps Botswana so far.  With the intention of celebrating the 6 month mark of my time here!  Yeah, officially the 6 month mark is still about 2 weeks off, but unless some technician actually came to fix the internet since the November lightning strike I don’t anticipate having internet then, so doing this now.   You might have heard some of these things, but assure you there is something new for everyone.  So without further ado, let’s jump into the lists!

The Top 6 Animals!

6.  Goats.  Annoying, everywhere, and they hold up traffic.  Because of all of this goats make the list just because they have an impact on my daily life.  And while donkeys and cows do the same things goats do, the goats won the spot since they have learned how to break into my yard and I have gotten good at herding them.

5.  Walking sticks.  These are technically bugs, but the look cool, are huge, and generally just awesome.  My dog in Kanye fought with one once, and at this workshop I am at one was just hanging out on my door to the lodge.  And the thing was bigger than my hand!

4.  Monkeys/baboons.  They look cool, will steal from you at hotels in Gabs, walk around in the strangest places (I have only seem them in Jwaneng at a diamond mine and in the capital), but they are aggressive little buggers and a little scary for that.   So monkeys, the number 4 spot is an offering so you do not attack me.  I recognize your ability to scratch my face off, and say please don’t. 

3.  Ostriches.  You don’t impact me that often.  But you are the only animal that I have seen in broad daylight both inside and outside the reserve (aka walking around my village limits).  So for your sheer resourcefulness in getting out of Khutse just to chill, and giving me something to look for from time to time, you get the bronze for this category.

2.  Dogs.  I love dogs.  Bobi ran with me in Kanye most mornings.  They are generally friendly (minus the pack of wild dogs killing cattle around the village that have since been caught) and brighten my day.  But dogs, a message to you all.  The reason you don’t win first is because almost all of you look like you belong in one of those adopt an animal commercials with sad music playing.  Your owners need to feed you more or else I will be spending a ton of money I don’t have trying to get you to the states.

1.   And the winner is…..SNAKES!  I mean how can it be anything else?  You probably read about my black mamba killing.  Well in addition to that I also got to ride in the cab of a truck where the back was a cage with a 15 foot python that had swallowed a baby goat.  They were taking it out to the Game Reserve to release it.  So snakes, you win since you have the most impact on my life.  I refuse to go to my pit latrine across the yard at night for fear of you.  And I would say that you make me piss myself, but you really stop me from being able to get to my bathroom…damn you.

The Top 6 Foods!

6.  Phaleche (papa).  General starch fill in.  Not overly impressive on its own, but nearly any sauce can be added on top to make it much better.  So way to be the base of a lot of my food (well at workshops, I still don’t have the desire to make you at home over pasta or rice).

5.  Tomato Sauce.  Think ketchup.  But then not really.  Has the same consistency and purpose but tastes better in my opinion.  And when you are poor in the Peace Corps, there is nothing like tomato sauce to add to your plain noodles in a pinch.

4.  Samp.  Samp is another food base like papa, but just so much better.  Papa has a firm, fairly dry texture, whereas samp just has so much more in regards to texture.  It also has much more going for it in terms of taste, it doesn’t need nearly as much doctoring as papa, hence the number 4.

3.  Veggie Curry Pies.  Now if you ever come to my house, odds are the food I will have the most of are cans of curried vegetables.  These have to be my biggest staple food.  Add in some garlic salt, paprika, thyme, and cayenne pepper and we got a meal.  But as much as I love veggie curry cans, there is just something magical about getting it in a pie.  Whenever I am in Moleps shopping I look for this since it is a great lunch on the go, really cheap, delicious, and I don’t have to cook it.  The fact that I can’t get you outside of Moleps keeps you at three.

2.  Fatcakes.  Warm balls of fried dough.  Sweet but not too sweet.  Filling, but you can eat more than one.  You will hate yourself for it.  But you will do it all over again.  The fatcake is just amazing.  And some are as cheap as 1 pula.  For fried dough.  There is no nutritional redemption to these magical creations.  And I don’t care.  I just love the warm sweet bread balls as you eat them piece by piece.  And I really should have wrote this part AFTER dinner.  But as much as I love Fatcakes, they cannot even hold a candle to my number one (although a lot of people will disagree with me).

1.   And the winner is….Chips!  Not like potato chips.  I mean the English version of chips.  Aka French Fries.  But that doesn’t do them justice.  When I think French Fries I think of those pathetic little crispy McDonalds potato sticks.  No, these are a bit thicker, oily, warm, and best of all….mushy.  Yes.  I like my chips mushy.  You all can keep your crispy little fries.  I want chips that still remember that they used to be a potato just smothered in tomato sauce.  And on that note, definitely ordering those as part of my dinner.  And thankfully this list is done before I drool on my keyboard.

The Top 6 Words/Phrases!

These can be in English or Setswana, but they are all phrases that I see used (and some I have started to use) everyday. 

6.  Ke kopa 2 pula! (Give me two pula!)  This can be said in either language and I have heard it in both.  I don’t like it.  At all.  But it happens a lot.  Well in the larger villages.  No one in Kaudwane has ever asked me for money.  But it is usually kids in big villages (like Kanye).  But the thing that really gets me?  It is ALWAYS 2 pula.  What can buy for 2 pula that is worthwhile? 

5.  That side.  GAH!  THAT IS NOT A WAY TO GIVE DIRECTIONS!  GIVE ME A BUILDING COLOR AT LEAST!  Ahem.  Anyway, that side is the favored way of describing where anything in Botswana is.  That side can be any distance between just a few minutes, or even across the country.  And it always has a little hand wave that gives you absolutely no idea exactly where something is.  So be prepared to hear that side a lot in one trip when you stop every ten minutes to ask more directions until you realized you passed what you were looking for 2km back because nothing is labeled. 

4.  What what.  I have used this one.  It is the Botswana version of etc.  That is the best way to describe it.  You can use what what for describing people, talking about steps to complete a form, and what what.  See what I did there?

3.  Lekgoa.  I don’t hear this in Kaudwane (thankfully), but everywhere else I do.  Lekgoa is a white person.  Literal translation is “one who is vomited by the sea.”  Yet it isn’t meant offensively at all.  Which seems strange.  But this funny literal translation and the usefulness of knowing the word is why it gets a nice spot at 3.

2.  The tongue undulation.  This isn’t a word or a phrase.  But it is awesome so I made an exception, and at number 2 no less!  All of the women here do this tongue thing instead of clapping.  The noise is loud, awesome, and you really need to hear it to believe it.  So for being way more awesome than clapping you get the silver.

1.  And the winner is…now now.  This wins for being the most useful and least useful phrase in my current vocabulary.  I use this one all the time.  Now now means now.  Now just means sometime (maybe soon if you are lucky) in Botswana.  If you want something to happen now, you have to say now now.  Yet no matter what, it is never now now.  NEVER!

The Top 6 Things I have done!

6.  School Garden.  As you can see on the youtube video it isn’t done.  But just starting the ball rolling is an accomplishment so I am counting it.

5.  PACT Club.  When I got to Kaudwane the PACT Club had fallen apart.  So this year I am working on putting it back together with Mr. Pule the teacher assistant.  And we actually have 13 students in it and started meeting.  So far a successful revival!

4.  Game drive on New Years.  This one isn’t work related, but it was the first time I got into the Khutse Game Reserve right next to my site.  So that alone was cool, but got to see some game I had not seen before too (no lions or leopards).  All in all a very awesome way to ring in the New Year.

3.  Teaching Life Skills lessons.  This is my biggest work success so far.  We finally started teaching the Life Skills curriculum in every Standard.  Major improvement over not using the materials at all.  Next step is getting the teachers to do more of the teaching and me more of the support role (right now that is reversed for this lift off phase).

2.  Playing soccer with kids.  This is the most personal success so far.  I mean, I don’t even speak the same language as these kids yet everyday (that I am in Kaudwane at least) I play soccer with them for about an hour outside my house and we have a great time.  Yeah I am super tired afterwards, but always really happy.

1.  And the winner is…surviving!  Hey, that alone is pretty damn impressive.

The Top 6 Things I Want to do!

6.  Learn the name of everyone in my village.  I want to do it.  But we all know how bad I can be with names.  That is why this is number 6, very unrealistic.  But something to shoot for.

5.  Be fluent in Setswana, Sekgalagadi, or Sasarwa.  All three are spoken in my village, so I don’t care which one.  But they are all hard languages so this will be another pipe dream.  But not as hard as the name one, hence why it ranks higher. 

4.  See the Big 5.  The Big 5 are the main 5 animals that you want to see in Botswana.  Wildebeast, Elephant, Lion, Leopard, and Rhino.  Right now I have 1 out of 5.  Only 4 to go!

3.  Garden.  Yup, this makes this list too.  While the ball is rolling on the garden I want to make sure it can work each year.  So garden gets on this one too.

2.  PACT Club.  Another carry over.  As I said in the other list, the PACT Club had been stagnant before I came.  I don’t want it to fall back to that when I leave.  So that is another of my big goals.

1.  And the winner is…organizing soccer tournaments!  The kids love to play.  The parents love to play.  The school wants more parental involvement.  And the school has a soccer pitch.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there are possibilities there.  I am hoping to start on this as soon as this workshop ends this week.

The Top 6 Stories!

My final top 6.  In these stories I have labeled 2 as learning moments, 2 as uncomfortable, and 2 as just plain embarrassing. 

6.  Learning moment.  Hitching.  In the US I would have been terrified to do this.  Here it is not an issue.  In fact I have to do it.  I have learned really fast how to just blindly trust drivers.  But it is what you need to do to get around, and it affects my life so often that it had to make the list.

5.  Learning moment.  Teaching Standard 5.  I have a hard time calling this a learning moment.  That week felt like a lifetime.  While it was uncomfortable, I did learn a heck of a lot.  Mostly classroom management techniques.  The fact that I am still alive after teaching kids with that colossal language barrier I view as a huge success.

4.  Uncomfortable Moment.  Seswa.  Ugh.  I already wrote about this one, but it still comes in at 4.  The first week in the country more or less and I have to serve meat to 50 men then at least try a taste myself since the chief is telling me to.  And I use the word meat very, very, very loosely.  Ugh.  Never again.

3.  Uncomfortable Moment.  Oops, I forgot your name.  Man if this doesn’t happen way too much to me.  The most embarrassing was the first couple days at school when a couple of the teachers’ names just wouldn’t stick.  Names are very important here, so not being able to remember is very uncomfortable, hence thing I want to do number 6.

2.  Embarrassing story.  Falling in Kanye.  Most of you know about my running issue in Kanye.  You know, the day I trip, gashed open my hand, and to top it all off lost my house keys?  Yeah, that day sucked.  Hard.  But I am almost positive I covered it elsewhere so that is enough of reliving that.

1.  And the winner is…another embarrassing story!  Yeah, these things happen too often.  Falling that is.  Yeah, another I fell story.  Although this one was in front of about 20 people.  And out of a truck.  It is so embarrassing to fall out of a truck.  Luckily it was stopped.  I was hitching to Letlhakeng and when the truck stopped I was getting out when I got bumped and fell out the side.  Not as bad a wound as the time in Kanye, but definitely harder on my pride. 

And there you have it!  6 lists of top 6 things for 6 months in Botswana.  Been a great half year so far and I hope it just keeps getting better, despite all the challenges (damn falling).  

New video!

Hey all!

New video up on the Youtube channel.  Click the link at the top of the page to go straight there.  And sometime this coming week will be a post dealing with 6s.  See if you can guess why that is the magic number before it goes up.

Stress

Howdy again ya’ll! 

Thought that since I have access to internet this week I might as well just update this one more time for the end of IST.  And I realized that I forgot a little bit to include in my last post.  So let’s do the Time Warp (insert Rocky Horror joke here) and head back a couple weeks.

So the week before IST we had a bit of a shortage at sight.  A teacher shortage.  We are still waiting as far as I know for two temporary teachers to be assigned by the government.  And two weeks ago the school head, Senior Teacher Guidance/Standard 1 Teacher/My counterpart, and one of the two Standard 7 teachers went to a week-long training.  So back in Kaudwane we had 6 teachers and me.  We are supposed to have ten teachers since three of the Standards (1, 2, and 7) are big classes.  So with only 7 of us total we each took one of the Standards for the week.  So I taught Standard 5 all week.  In nearly every subject (barring CAPA and Setswana).  I even taught have a lesson of Religious and Moral education.  But I focused with them mostly on Math, Science, Social Studies, English, and Agriculture. 

And I must say, you learn a lot about classroom management when you are thrust into a situation when you are teaching students who have English as a 4^th language.  Eish!  But all in all I did survive the week, despite it being the most hectic of my life.  Because in addition to teaching Standard 5 I also started my first Life Skills lessons with every class.  So I also had to run around to 6 other classes during the week doing half-hour lessons.  And I still don’t know if we have a Standard 5 teacher yet.  I hope we do. 

But anyway, for IST.  It has been a bit of a hassle overall.  I did get to see everyone, and had a great time, but I am frustrated that I had to miss a week of work when it was just starting to pick up.  But at least I am getting my rent money on Tuesday, along with my Youth Forum reimbursement.  And they just announced that the Ministry of Education is now asking us to go to a 2 week long training for just the Life Skills volunteers starting the last week of Feb.  And we have Peace Corps regional in between.  So now I feel like I am hardly spending any time a site, which is agitating.  But you have to be flexible I suppose. 

Anyway, short one, but I wanted to abuse the internet while I had it.

P.S. Sorry to Tracy for breaking your foot the first day of IST.

Hello 2012!

Well this may be a little late, but compliments on the New Year!  That is the phrase used in my village at least instead of Happy New Year.  Also, belated Merry Christmas and an early happy birthday to Uncle Tom! 

It has been a long and mostly slow month since my last post.  December does not have much going for it in terms of work.  Everyone takes leave.  And they do not come back to work till after the New Year.  But on the plus side with all of that free time I have done a ton of reading.  Speaking of which, did you know there are 40 books written about the Land of Oz? 

Anyway, Christmas was quite unexciting so I am actually just going to skip right over it, but I hope you all stateside had a nice Christmas.  It was weird being in the middle of summer for a season I am used to having snow during.  The real fun this side came for New Years.  I actually managed to struggle to stay awake till midnight thanks to some help for the Leopard Ecology people at Khutse.  And yes, it is a struggle to stay up till midnight when you usually get up at 5 and are in bed by 9 each day.  We had a cookout, enough alcohol to enjoy ourselves, a little archery contest, and the like.  The next day we went on an afternoon game drive in Khutse (which was my first time in the reserve too!).  That was hot, but we got to see some pretty cool animals (no lions or leopards though). 

As far as work goes the school year just started last week so we are still working on getting things going.  But for the positives I think we found a place to donate shade netting for the school garden, and the teachers and I are putting together a Life Skills time slot in the curriculum.  While the end goal the government wants for the program is infusion throughout all classes, you have to walk before you can run, so just having some time each week with each class is a great start.  We launched it this past week, but this was just the introductory lesson and now I am away at IST for two weeks so it will be a little while before the program is up and running fully. 

And now we come to the present.  IST.  Positive: I will have more access to internet than the past month.  Negative: Leaving right when things are getting going.  Positive: A shower and cold drinks.  You have absolutely no idea how good these are unless you have gone for about a month without either.  So yes, I still have no fridge.  But one day.  And bathing in a bucket just is not the same as a shower, so the one I had today was just phenomenal.  But for PCVs our IST marks the end of the Community Assessment phase which most people consider to be the hardest part of service.  And since all of us are still around from my group (unless I am completely out of the loop that is) we are doing pretty good. 

The fact that I don’t have anything else to add to this after a month of no posts just goes to show how boring December is in Botswana.  But I will end with a few thank yous.  Thanks for all the packages and letters I have gotten so far: dad, grandma and Aunt Shirley, Aunt Rose and Uncle Tom, Brandon, Aunt Jackie, Kaylynn, Leah, LB, Beam, and I am probably forgetting a few (sorry).  And thank you Ben and Annie for the New Years video you made.  It was fantastic.

Look for pictures soon!  And if I have time maybe another video, although I don’t know what about yet.  

Thanksgiving and Youth Forum

So I have been nicknamed “The Mongoose” and a “brick slingin bad ass” over the past few weeks.  But I think I am getting ahead of myself.  First of all the last post on my blog (that wasn’t just a shameless plug for the YouTube channel I started) was a few weeks later than I planned in going up.  That was because I didn’t get around to posting it before I went to a 10-day Youth Forum run by the Ministry of Education.  Let’s just say that coming back from that experience I have been bruised (both physically and a bit emotionally), been emotionally drained, had a huge crash course in culture, was at my wits end many times, grew a lot closer to those who went with me, had some of the best days yet during the hardest times of my service so far, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

The Youth Forum started on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and went the next ten days.  Due to the start time we had to be in Gaborone on Friday to travel to Kgagodi where the forum was (about 1 hour from Palapye).  And since I can’t make it to Gabs from my village that quickly I had an excuse to go to Molepolole and see other volunteers on Thanksgiving before going to the forum.  So I still got to have a pseudo-American Thanksgiving courtesy of John and Carol Chicago.  So huge shout out to them for that.  It was probably my favorite Thanksgiving ever.  It was also the strangest.  Instead of family it was just a bunch of us Peace Corps friends (most of those in Moleps and the other volunteers staying there on their way to the forum as well).  It was the Thanksgiving I probably ate the least at, but the company more than made up for it.  And since I had not seen anyone in two weeks it was really great to catch up.  But to all those who were at Thanksgiving here are a few references you might get: Becky and her RHA, Supriya being a SDF, Rachel and her hobbit house that causes her to get lost in bigger houses and holding hands. 

But I think that will be about all I need to write about Thanksgiving.  Let’s move on to the forum, shall we?  So we left Moleps that morning for Gabs to catch the transport from the Curriculum Department to Kgagodi.  Bus left late at about noon and we were with many of the other facilitators whom we had never met: YOHO, KBTS, BOFWA, etc.  But by the end of the week we all knew each other and were getting along great.  Especially with YOHO and KBTS.  YOHO is a Youth Health Organization and BOFWA is the Botswana branch of the International Planned Parenthood Association, no idea what any other groups stood for, but they all work with youth.  Oh, and just so everyone knows here is who all went to Youth Forum from our group: Bots 9-Abby and Paco, Bots 11-Nate, Supriya, Becky, Rachel, Julia, Alex, Caitlin, Corey, Karla, Sheburra, and me.  The first hint that something may not be properly planned with the Youth Forum came on the journey up.  We made two stops, once in Mahalapye and once in Palapye.  For anyone who knows those villages are close together, we did not need to stop at both, but it happens.

When we got to the Kgagodi Community Junior Secondary School (CJSS) we were staying at the real shock started to set in.  The accommodations were….less than appealing.  The females in our group ended up in a room filled with 16 people.  There were not 16 beds.  Some doubled up and some were on the floor.  So that created some stress for them.  For the male said we were in a less crowed hostel with just YOHO guys, but with a door that did not lock, or even really shut.  The place was bug infested to no end (and my bed was top bunk under the working light so I had a ton on it) and the shower facility was a concrete building with no doors or curtains for the “showers” (cement stalls you brought buckets into).  And they were quite filthy since they were being shared by 75 people.  Of course I did not have room to pack sandals so I had to barefoot it in there.  Yuck.  But no weird fungus was picked up so that is a point for me I guess.  Also, the second night in our room a bird got in since the door would not shut.  We spent 20 minutes trying to catch it with towels to release it so we could sleep.  During its time in our room it pooped on two things: my shoe and my sleeping bag. 

Peace Corps always teaches you to roll with the unexpected, and so far we were doing just that.  That first night there was a meeting about snakes and scorpions.  Due to the existence of poisonous snakes in that place we were told how to get to the clinic, and where to find drivers to take us or anyone who is bitten.  The next day we got more unexpected surprises.  We were on the schedule for World AIDS Day.  We were running World AIDS Day activities and we did not even know until we saw the program.  And we were supposed to have materials for an expo that we didn’t know what was happening.  So we were a little frustrated to say the least to be so unprepared and it made us look a little foolish, but throughout the week we planned and managed to put together an (at least from my perspective) impressive program for World AIDS Day and good spiel for the booth.  But as we learned later the best laid plans fall apart.  The one activity before ours on World AIDS Day ran two hours over and exhausted the kids so we had a lot of last minute alternations to make to our schedule, but it all worked out.  This whole scheduling and communication debacle though at least had one good point; it gave us a huge crash course in how the style of planning sometimes goes in this country. 

Now up to this point everything we had experienced was just more a huge inconvenience (and a bit gross) but that was only the crash course in culture part.  What came throughout the week that put us through our emotional paces was one woman, the woman running the forum.  For the sake of this blog let’s call her M.  She was the one who pushed me to my wits end many times over.  And I think she did that to most if not all of us who went.  And I don’t mean just the Americans.  On the bus ride back (which gets its own paragraph of ridiculousness later) everyone was mocking her.  Everyone.  She ran the Youth Forum the year before too and Abby informed us that while she was unpleasant then, but this was above and beyond this year.  The first instance of M’s unpleasantness was with Karla.  M wanted all of Peace Corps to do security work (it was only after getting to the forum that we found out that M just wanted us to serve food and patrol dorms-we defied that and interacted with kids as we felt we should).  But at that point we were willing to do security because everyone was supposed to; she just wanted us to coordinate the schedule.  Yet no one else wanted to do it, at all.  And when Karla asked M how many people she had to work with so she could schedule everyone the reply she got was an angry, “If you don’t want to do it just say.”  But in the end we actually didn’t do it, since no one else would help like they are supposed to. 

But the rest of the week continued in the same thread in regards to interactions with M.  At one point she insulted us in front of the entire group of facilitators in Setswana (since she knew we didn’t understand that well).  That dispute was over the fact that we were told to wear the shirts we were given for a certain day, and when we brought up (for the second time that week) that some of us had yet to get shirts she told everyone in Setswana just to ignore us since some of us were barely older than some of the kids at the camp.  That second part she also said about the YOHO group as well, so it wasn’t just us.  And as the week went on she got more and more rude (to everyone, but us in particular) to the point where should would not even great us, which is a cultural no-no in Botswana.  So needless to say M was frustrating, but at least she is not the norm in Botswana, and the fact that all groups suffered together made it a bit easier to handle.  Yet I will not be happy to work with her again if I find myself in that position.  But we made it work by eventually just ignoring her and working directly with the other facilitators.  So that not only made some great contacts for us, but also taught us that despite protocol there are certain times that you just push through no matter what so you can do what you came to do, in this case work with youth. 

So far I have covered the crash course and being at my wits end, so now it is time for the emotionally draining part of the experience.  That would be World AIDS Day.  I didn’t quite realize exactly how hard it would be to commemorate that day in Botswana.  First of all I was at a Youth Forum where some of the kids in that room were HIV positive.  That alone is sobering.  Especially in this country that has so many infected and affected people.  Yet I think the bigger problem for me was much more personal.  Back in the states I usually worked with various groups for commemorations on World AIDS Day.  And here in Botswana I am not able to do that for a variety of reasons that many of you can guess.  And that reminded me of my personal situation here, which is something that I try not to dwell on too much, because it is a hard thing to cope with.  But seeing all those kids lighting candles for World AIDS Day and knowing that everyone in that room at least knew someone (if not themselves) who has been affected by HIV/AIDS just made the commemoration that much more powerful and important.  And yet at the end of the day I was picked up by one of the kids who tried to teach me Kung Fu and how to dance.  So I learned that despite all of the problems and emotional hardships people are going through due to HIV/AIDS, there is always someone there to pick you back up, which is what makes this a great country. 

At this point we have reached more or less the second to last day of the forum, the day long field trip (the last day was just travel back to Gabs).  This was the day that I was literally scared for my life and got the physical bruising.  There was not enough transport to the location so some of us rode in the back of trucks.  M put 8 of us in the back of a single covered truck with only one thin pad on the floor for a 5 hour ride one way.  There was barely room for all of us to sit.  When we asked for water M refused to give us any bottles and instead gave 3 bottles to the driver.  Yeah.  My back and behind were bruised from sitting in that truck for so long.  And after we reached the site we only had enough time to eat lunch and turn around.  And at that point some of the vehicles just went back to school and not the second site so we ended up getting another of the volunteers with us (Abby was with the YOHO people in another truck on the way up).  By the way, a lot of the way was on a dirt safari road where we were going 100km/hour and the door to the back did not shut.  It was tied with a piece of stretchy cloth.  Like I said, I literally feared for my life.  At one point we were all shouting/singing Christmas carols to try and not think about the conditions we were being transported under.  But at the end of it all I was more frustrated by that day for the kids.  All of them (150) were packed into one bus which did not have enough seats and it never even stopped for them to use the bathroom.  Many of them that I talked to also felt that the trip was a waste due to how far it was when the Rhino sanctuary was much closer to Kgagodi.  But at least some of the younger ones enjoyed it, and I got to see the South African border so that was pretty cool too. 

And now for some of the best days I ever had.  Those kids at that forum were just amazing.  As I just said they are always looking on the bright side even after emotionally draining times.  They are just kids being kids, but something about the way they want to help you just makes you love them all the more.  Several of the kids worked on teaching us some Setswana, they would always come and see us during their free time to play, and they were the first ones to be able to tell all the Americans apart.  Some of them taught me some dance moves, we taught them games like Uno, red light green light, etc, I gave more piggyback rides than I could count, and I got to see a bunch of them do the chicken dance.  This is literally the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.  At the end of the 10 days some wanted our phone numbers, many wanted pictures with us, and one boy even made for some of us sheets of paper with common Setswana phrases on it so we could have something to study.  There we were at a forum to help the youth and they went out of their way to help us.  I think that is why these were some of the best days I have had, despite it also being some of the most challenging. 

And what made this experience all the more special was going through it with some of the others in our group.  We are now even closer than before, whether it be the women group bathing and holding towels for each other behind a window, to just being there to support each other in our frustrations, and everything in between.  And of course the field trip transport I think sealed the deal on bringing us closer.  They always say in Peace Corps that as much as you try it is hard for people back in the states to completely grasp what you are going through.  They get an idea, but never the full picture, and try as you might you can’t explain it.  And that is what this forum was for us.  We had an intense experience that I am not even sure if our other volunteers could quite understand unless they were there.  I am sure they get the idea, and can picture it in their heads, but it is something else to experience it so I think I can say for all of us that went to the Youth Forum we now have a stronger and somewhat special bond, which when coupled with the amazing kids and connections with other groups made the whole frustrating time worth it for me.  I can honestly say if they invited me to go to another Youth Forum starting tomorrow I would be on a bus as we speak.  And that may be sooner than later since the next one is in Kweneng West (my district!) in April. 

And I gotta say it didn’t hurt getting back into Gabs so late on Monday that we got to stay in the capital at a nice hotel for half price and pamper ourselves a bit with great food and FIRST SHOWER SINCE SEPTEMBER 16th!!!!  I took 3.  Bucket bathing just is not quite the same as showering.  Yet I never want to have such a frustrating time getting back to Gabs ever again.  Now we come to the journey leaving Kgagodi, which was fraught with problems.  We left at 10:30 from Kgagodi and did not get back to Gabs until 7:30.  For those of you doing math that is 9 hours.  The trip usually takes about 4-5 depending on stopping.  So I already described the field trip transport going 100km down a dirt road.  Well the bus that went on that trip (that also transported the facilitators back to Gabs) did the same.  And it bent the axel.  Yet instead of fixing that they just put a new tire on and put us on our way.  Needless to say the tire on the bent axel went flat about 45 minutes in.  The bus was swerving all over the road (for most of the trip) and we just kept patching the tire or replacing it.  We stopped completely about 3-4 times to work on the tire and for the rest of the trip we were just driving really slowly.  When we called M the first time the bus broke down she just told us (PC and all the other groups) that it was our problem and there were no vehicles to help us.  At that point Julia and Becky hitched out of there and the rest of us waited for the bus to get fixed.  We should have followed.  They made it to Gabs by 4 at least.  Due to the bus breaking repeatedly and after one game of road-side Scrabble we finally made it to Mahalapye (the first town we hit since leaving the forum).  When we made it to Mahalapye they were going to see about fixing the bus again, so the PCVs jumped off, flagged down the public bus to Gabs and were finally in smooth sailing for the rest of the time.  And of course after we left M finally showed up, apologized, and gave people money for public transport.  But we were just happy to be on a reliable bus so we didn’t care. 

But in a nutshell (and yes compared to how long Youth Forum felt 4 pages of word document is a nutshell) that was Youth Forum.  Except for one last little story that is, that I purposely saved for the end.  So I mentioned earlier that someone (John Otterbach) gave me a few nicknames.  And if you were paying attention I also mentioned that there were poisonous snakes and scorpions in Kgagodi.  Well one of the snakes up there is the black mamba, aka basically the deadliest of all snakes.  Well one night some of the facilitators were hanging out at a party at one of the ministry housings on campus.  Karla and I were heading back early and Shaolyn (from Min. of Health) called us over to use Karla’s phone light.  He shone it over to where he saw something in the yard and it was a black mamba.  First of all they aren’t really black; the tongues are which is what gives them the name.  Well Karla held the light and Shaolyn from a distance threw an empty beer bottle at it attempting to kill it.  Well it didn’t kill it and just kinda pissed off the snake.  You can tell it was pissed because when snakes are mad they stand their ground, or worse chase you when you run.  If it was scared it would have slid away, but it didn’t.  So at this point I did probably the stupidest thing I have ever done.  I picked up a big rock, and instead of throwing it at the snake I got close to it and beat it to death with the rock (making sure to hit the head to it couldn’t snap at me if I hit the body).  But yes, I killed a black mamba while being within arm’s reach of it, hence the nicknames.  And I think I can hear many people taking a collective gasp and wondering what is wrong with me, so I will just end it here for now. 

Talk to you all soon!

P.S. Merry Christmas early in case I am not on again soon.
P.P.S. Happy birthday to Hinkle, Brandon, Hodge, Nate, and Yami!

An ode to duct tape:

Often called the all purpose tool,

Whoever said that was no fool.

You aided me as can be seen,

By helping me attach window screen.

You truly are my new best friend,

Yet I am sad that you are at your end.

Message from all this: send duct tape, I ran out.

A strange way to start a blog post I suppose, but I needed to express my new love of duct tape.  It has helped me control the heat in this village.  So I managed to get to site just less than two weeks ago, so it seemed a good time to do a quick update on some of the new things in my life.  First of all driving into the village I got to see two wild ostriches.  Still no lions yet, but I am hoping sooner or later. 

Moving in was…well a huge pain to say the least.  I had the keys to my house for days, and when I finally got there the place was just filthy.  The keys I had were the ONLY keys, so that meant no one had cleaned the place since the old volunteer left.  So after storing my stuff at another teacher’s house (where I was going to sleep originally) I made a huge effort of cleaning that place so that I could move in that night.  And I was successful.  It still took almost the entire weekend to get everything unpacked and arranged how I liked it, but it is finally a place I am proud to call home, despite all of the ghetto rigging I have done.  I have shoved a couple puzzle books that I finished under my front door since the gap is big enough for mice to crawl in.  I also have cut up an old mosquito net and used my new best friend to affix it to the walls to make screens.  This allows me to keep my windows open without fear of bugs so I can regulate the temp a bit. 

I can also say we have officially entered the rainy season.  As I am writing this I am currently trying to out noise the rain on my tin roof by blasting music.  This is the third storm in Kaudwane in a week, which kinda sucks since I have to leave the village tomorrow to a Youth Forum (although by the time I post this that tomorrow will be meaningless). 

I can’t say too much on my day to day yet, still trying to remember names of people and meet and talk to everyone.  So I don’t really have a routine yet, and the school closes in two days from now, so I will probably be pretty bored very soon.  So instead of giving boring details of these past two weeks here are two interesting cultural things I have encountered here.  I should note that these are not typical to ALL Botswana, but my location in a Khoisan settlement gives me some more culture stuff. 

First one:  The kids have some of the strangest nervous tendencies I have ever seen.  By far the best of these though was the hand thing.  I can’t think of a better name for it yet, but I will work on it, after I get over trying to laugh when they do it.  I saw it the first time the other day.  A kid didn’t know what to do and in his nervousness he put his hand up towards his face (not touching).  Next he stuck his tongue out and ran his hand down in front of it.  Once again, not touching, but still just strange.  Then he walked away without saying a word like it was the most normal thing. 

The other one was explained to me by one of the other teachers.  Two students were wrapped up in blankets that their parents rushed over from home during the first of the big storms.  This is when I found out that it is part of the celebration of becoming a women.  First of all a girl will be in the house for seven days when it is her first menstruation and people will come and sing songs to celebrate her becoming an adult.  Then, during the first storm following she needs to be wrapped up because it is an old cultural belief that unless she is she will be a target for lightning strikes. 

Well that is my bit for now on attempting to impart some Botswana culture on America.  And expressing my love of duct tape.  Seriously, send tape.  Any kind too, I am almost out of scotch tape for putting stuff on the walls.

P.S.  I wrote this two weeks ago, but was at a ten day youth forum, the blog post on that will be ridiculously long and full of great stories, so be ready for that in a few days./weeks

Blood oaths, mince meat, diamonds, Somali pirates, doppelgangers, and euchre, OH MY!

I solemnly swear I am up to no good.  Oh wait, that was the Harry Potter one, oops.  Well as far as I know maybe that is the Peace Corps oath.  I decided to start this one with talking about the future instead of the past, because the future (aka this coming week) is very exciting.  If you haven’t guessed by now, this Wednesday is one of the most important days in the life of a PCT.  The last.  On Wednesday I will no longer be a trainee and will be sworn in as a volunteer, finally getting that new title of PCV.  And as far as I know it isn’t really a blood oath, but knowing my luck I will find a way to cut myself on something that day with my klutziness. 

And now let’s rewind the past few weeks.  And because I already started ahead of the present anyway, let’s go with the most recent.  Yesterday (and the night before) constituted literally the longest day I have ever had in Botswana so far.  And I thought waiting at the immigration office a month ago was bad.  But at least it was all for a good cause.  We hosted a thank you party yesterday for all our host families to try and repay a bit of their kindness these past few months.  Considering the time of year, and the goal of showing off some American culture we decided to throw a Thanksgiving celebration (with some minor twists based on food availability). 

One group of people did a great job decorating, including turkeys made of paper hands, carrots, and fat cakes (they are as delicious and bad for you as they sound).  Basically they are just fried dough, but they do something that makes them taste wayyyyyyyy better.  But I better get back on track before I start drooling on my laptop.  They also made a map of the US and we all put where we were from.  There was an entertainment committee that put on a skit about Thanksgiving, did thank you songs, and the best video I have ever seen and I really hope Brandon (the amazing IT whiz who put it together) will give us all a copy.  And the rest of us were cooking.  Hence the long day.  We made a carrot salad, mixed vegetables (frozen bags), stuffing (amazing job John and Carol Chicago on that one), mashed potatoes, rice (just in case we ran out of food), sugar cookies, apple crisp desert, and meatloaf.  Yeah, meatloaf.  Not Thanksgiving per say, but still pretty American (plus birds would have broken the budget).  So Jan and I were in charge of making meatloaf (enough to feed 200 people).  Everyone seemed to like it, but as you know I can’t attest to the taste, and everyone loved the irony of me cooking 50 pounds of meat.  All in all I think we spent about 13-14 hours in the kitchen between prep, cooking, and cleaning.  So almost like pulling a double shift back in my old Subway days.  And the most important part (and huge respect to the entire cooking staff-Jan, Julia, Supriyah, Rose, John, Carol, Margie, Cassie, Ashley, and everyone else who lent a hand in cooking, prep, and cleaning), we got done ahead of schedule.  Go team!

And making the prep night even longer was that earlier in the day we had a field trip to the Jwaneng Diamond Mine.  I got to see where girl’s best friend, and man’s biggest expenditure, comes from.  The Jwaneng mine is actually the world’s richest mine in terms of the large amount of high quality diamonds it produces.  Plus the pit for the mine is just massive.  And they are expanding it.  It was an interesting little tour and considering how much of Botswana’s economy is based on diamonds it was socially interesting to the backbone of the economy essentially.  They wouldn’t let us into the area where they sort the diamonds from the ore, and sorry, but no free samples.  In fact security is so tight in the mine grounds (even just walking around the pit) that if you don’t work for Debswana (DeBeers and the government of Botswana’s joint company) you are not allowed to bend over.  No picking up anything.  Even anything you drop, someone has to pick it up for you.  But they took us into a “vault” which was more a tourist spot, but we got to see some very high quality diamonds from the mine, so all in all a great little field trip. 

Now before anyone asks (and I am sure someone already did) I did not actually see a real Somali pirate.  We got to show the Botswana another great American tradition, Halloween (but minus the candy and less slutty costumes).  I only say less of the slutty costumes since Corey decided to dress as a commercial sex worker.  Cassie was the Somali pirate in question and I think she probably stabbed me at least once with her fake dagger.  I was a Tuck Shop.  Think 7/11 but smaller, and built at the edge of the person who owns it’s yard.  So basically I had a bunch of cell phone airtime, pop cans, and such taped to me.  Nate came as Quailman.  Although the best costumes go to the doppelgangers.  Karla dressed up as Corey, Alex as Julia (she even shaved part of her head for the costume), Julia as Carol Chicago, and my personal favorite Ashley as Brandon.  Everyone got a huge kick out of seeing “themselves” and for some people it took a little while for them to figure it out.  All in all, one of the best Halloweens yet (although I did miss your party Aunt Jackie). 

And besides all of this, the rest of the past few weeks have been the normal day to day stuff.  Although there have been a lot of cards played.  I learned bridge from John and Carol Oregon, taught euchre to Nate, Mia, Lynn, John and Tracy (although John just needed a refresher), Carol Oregon, and Dominque.  So now when at least some of us get together I can get my euchre fix on.  Although it isn’t quite the same as playing with Ryan and Katie via skype, but I am sure we can figure that out sometime in the next few years. 

But yes, this is also my last blog post from training and from Kanye.  Since I leave Thursday I will not be back online until I hit my site (and still no idea if the school has internet), but at the very least I can get on when I go shopping.  Starting Thursday I will be in a town of 450 people working with the Khoisan people, so as soon as I can I will let you all know how that is going.  BTW, my 2 room house with no water or electricity is on a church compound.  So with that in mind it is contact information time!  I already posted most of this on fb, but just in case here is a central location for it all.

Email: hiiadam89@gmail.com

Cell: 73916784  (not sure of the country code)

Mailing address:

Adam Hii

Kaudwane Primary School

P.O. Box 526

Letlhakeng

Botswana

And finally, happy early birthday to Aunt Shirley, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!