Cha-cha-cha-changes

I haven’t written a blog post in months, mainly because I felt like I haven’t done anything for months. However, that is a complete lie. A lot has happened in the past few months and my lack of posting is due to the fact that I am still processing everything.

I left Lehututu on October 14th and moved to Gaborone to start my “3rd year”

My closest friends went back to America to continue on with their lives while I remained behind. You know that empty feeling when you break up with your significant other? I felt like that. I just broke up with 20 people all at one time.

As I was struggling to adjust to “city life” my friends were struggling to adjust to life back in America. We were all in dark places just on different sides of the ocean. In my mind, my transition wasn’t going to be that hard--I was still in Botswana--so how much adjusting is needed?

So long hiking spot! 

I was completely wrong, my life was turned up side down. For the first month, I wished I hadn’t extended....Then things started to change, I bought a bike, joined a gym and found some footing in my new job. We put on a summer camp for 60 plus kids and I made new friends....

My new bike! 

 I am on my month long home leave, in this past month, I feel that I have lost everything that I worked hard to build. This time 7 days from now, I will be on my way back to Botswana. I don’t know how I am going to muster the strength to get on that plane. This trip home has been wonderful and horrible all at the same time. I have had meaningful conversations with old friends and cried in bathrooms over things that will be funny in a few years.








I do have exiting things in my life--like my new shower head. Ain’t she a beauty! Hot water too! Even a pool! And I don’t have to go outside to go to the bathroom...or even pee in a bucket anymore!

Gaborone is beautiful too...in its own way. I don’t have chickens waking me up at 3am on the dot every morning. I can go have coffee with friends or happy hour on Fridays, watch movies or go shopping with out lugging my months worth of groceries home. With all the wonders of city life, I am no longer Bonolo, leaving behind that identity was (and is) bittersweet.

A letter to my students

I would like to take this opportunity to say goodbye. I will always remember the two years I have spent in Lehututu. All of you have a special place in my heart. 

Before I go, I would like to say a few words. 

First off you are all special. All of yuh are special and unique creatures of God. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. I pray that one day you can recognize the abilities and strengths that lie in you all. 

Secondly, I ask that you keep on dreaming. No matter what your dreams may be--be it a taxi driver, artist or lawyer. Do not let anyone tell you that your dreams are trivial or stupid. Never stop working towards your dreams, they won't come to fruition over night but never stop trying. 

Lastly, I would like to remind you that you have control over your life. YOU. Not your mother, uncle or friends. It may not seem like it now, but you have the power to make your life what you want it I be. If someone calls you stupid or demeans your dreams, don't let it deter you. Just know that those words were spoken from their own insecurities. Only you can determine your destiny. 

Go with God. 

Goodbyes....

Its been two years. Well almost two years, roughly 670 days. Two years is a Masters program, or two pregnancies and then some...

Two years is a long time.

But in hindsight it was nothing.

Time is wrapping up in Lehututu, I am leaving on October 14th. October 14th, the day, it seems like it will be here in a blink of an eye.

I am trying to process the wealth of emotions I am feeling on a daily basis right. The thought of leaving is hard, my best friends in the village are all under the age of 5, it breaks my heart to realize that they won’t remember me. It breaks my heart to know that a new PCV is coming in and I will be no more.

But at the same time. Being replaced and saying goodbye is part of the cycle. Kind of like breathing and dying. I am being replaced by a man. Which I am thrilled about, my students and other men in the village need a positive male role model. My heart is lightened that since being a man, the constant comparisons won’t happen--or I should say. The comparisons will be less than if it was a female. As a male, more doors are opened too! He can do things that I never could as a female.

I get a little type-A at times, saying goodbye is an exercise in letting go. I have been working on letting go. Which is easier said than done! Will the new volunteer keep up my garden, but most importantly, will he let my babies water it every day with him? Will he give out all the hugs a kid could need every Monday at the pre-school? Will he spend evenings on sitting side by side my neighbor letting her feed him and making animal sounds together? Will he just be present in the students lives?

Coming into Peace Corps I always said that I never was going to be the volunteer who built 100 pit latrines, I was going to build relationships instead. I have spent the past 670-odd days building relationships. I won’t be leaving structural impacts behind, I am leaving memories and feelings. I have given students an opportunity to be respected, valued, heard. Students will remember how I made them feel not the lessons I have taught them.

Can you handle this cuteness??? 

Reflections on two years

My time in Lehututu is coming to a close, I recently contributed an article to our PC-Botswana newsletter. I thought I would share it on my blog. 

When I signed up for the Peace Corps, I was prepared mentally for pooping in a hole and living in a hut. Well, I almost have that. I certainly don’t have “posh corps.” And if this is considered posh corps—I want to know what the authentic Peace Corps experience is! 

During our site placement meetings in PST, we were asked about what we wanted. I was honest and vocal in saying what I wanted out of my service. I wanted rural. I didn’t need to be around other PCVs. I didn’t mind not having electricity. I was ready for the challenge. I wanted to prove to myself and to my family that I could do it. In America I had hundreds of shoes in my closet, months full of outfits, kitchen gadgets coming out my ears and update my candles and table decorations on a seasonal (okay monthly) basis (feel free to judge me, I don’t mind). I vowed to myself that I could live simply for my time here. 

Let me paint a picture of my life. I live in Lehututu, as the guide books call it “its little more than a sandy spot on the road”  in a little cinderblock house with a flat tin roof-no ceiling, just rafters and tin protecting me from the outside world. My house was built in the early 90s and is slowly crumbing around me. I can see the night sky if I sit at different spots in my house. I have bats that keep me company at night—who needs noise machines when you have the sounds of bats flapping and squeaking around you at night? My water supply is off and on, albeit not as near as bad as other PCVs out there. The entrance to my bathroom is outside, so I usually pee in a bucket instead of making the trip outside. At least I have a bathroom and not a pit latrine. 

My shopping village-where the nearest ATM/Bank and grocery store is about 400 kilometers away from me—thats a 4-5 hour bus ride. I plan my week around when the produce truck comes. It comes on Wednesdays, which means Wednesday afternoons or Thursday is the only time to get produce. Let me use the word produce lightly. Weeks its only potatoes, questionable apples, onions. Good weeks will include wrinkled bell peppers, iffy tomatoes, maybe some bananas, butternut, you can hope for carrots and beets. If you don’t buy produce within 24 to 36 hours of the trucks arrival, you wont be able to buy anything aside from the left over veg which no one wants to buy. Get while the getting is good. 

On the up side we have two bulk food stores in Hukuntsi that cater to the surround settlements. Having the bulk food stores allows us to purchase bulk supplies of canned veggies, rice and pasta—items which are often absent from the shelves of our general dealer. I have to admit, the lady who runs our general dealer will order feta and cheddar cheese for us! Which has been my saving grace these past 20something months. Up until a month ago we were the only subdistrict in Botswana not to have a grocery store and a bank! About a month ago a small Shoppers opened about 100km away! We are still waiting on the bank….  

I also don’t have electricity-not even solar panels. Not having electricity has forced me to be alone with my thoughts in the silence of my house. Back home, I would usually be listening to NPR, podcasts or have music playing in the background. Unless I was busy focusing on school work, there was always noise. I also always had roommate for companionship as well. Never in my life have I been so alone. 

Transportation is always a sticky situation. In the past five months we have had consistent petrol shortages at the nearest petrol station. Leaving the next closest station 100ks away. I am fortunately have a kombi that runs semi regularly to Hukuntsi, the next largest village 15km away, where the general deal is.  We have three buses that go to Gabs daily at 6am, 7am and 11am. I am the second bus stop, more times than I can count I have been at the bus stop and the bus has sailed on by because not one more person could physically fit on it. More times than I can count, I have had to stand for the entire 7+ hour bus ride or site with the driver its been so full. At month end, its impossible to leave my village unless you arrange a ride with a private vehicle. 

Neighboring PCVs….well, I can count them on one hand. Very few of them actually complete their two years for varying reasons…Its like the Kgalagadi spits you out after a while. I don’t know what life is like in the rest of Botswana, but I feel like the Kgalagadi is the forgotten district. That mentality is reflected in every aspect of life. Villagers try and cling to traditional values and practices which clash with government values and programs. Education for example, there is no value in obtaining an education, instead children and parents would prefer to be at the cattle post leading semi-nomadic lifestyles with their cattle. You in fact can still barter livestock for material goods! Why should children sit in English or Setswana class? 

Looking back on my service, I am unspeakably thankful that I have faced these challenges. The ability to be alone with your thoughts is something that I feel most Americans lack. It is certainly not a skill I feel that is honed in my generation. There are weeks that I have had nothing to eat but butternut, onions and beans. This isn’t my own choice, just because there is nothing to be found in the general dealer. I have never had to face a situation like that before. I have always budgeted my money, but I have never before budgeted the cash I had in my wallet to last me until the next time I can make the trek to an ATM. 

I have had my share of bad days, today for instance, tears were in my eyes as I took walked the 3 kilometers from my house to school. The thought of leaving my house to charge my phone and computer were unbearable. I have the ability to say that when I finally leave this place-I will come out stronger. I have done it. I have met my battles head on with little complaining and succeeded. 

Meerkats!

Meerkats. I am obsessed with them.

What really can be cuter? 

We were becoming friends, alas he couldn’t leave his family and start a new colony at my house

I wouldn’t mind being a meerkat in my next life, meerkats are altruistic animals! 

A group of meerkats is called a “mob” or “gang” or “clan” (the original gangsters)  

The end is near....sort of

In July Bots13 came together for our COSC (close of service conference).

Most of Bots13 is leaving in October after completing our service as Life Skills Volunteers.

We were all placed at Primary, Junior or Senior Secondary Schools in Botswana.

Liz, me, Jess and Lisa 

You know, sometimes I just can’t look at Katy without making a face...

coming full circle...

Here is to the next 13 months! 

Lisa, Maggie and I 

When you don’t cut your hair for 2 yeas you get mermaid hair! 

I however, have decided that I haven’t gotten enough. 

I am extending for a third year! 

Lets see how long my hair will be then... 

Silence is deafening

  I was watching a TED talk the other day by novelist Abha Aawesar, a New Yorker recounting the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. She talked about her daily journey hauling water up 7 flights of stairs while holding a flashlight between her teeth because of the power outages, the stores being out of bread, water and other necessities, the struggles of getting a shower and charging electronics. To paraphrase, she says the self as we knew it—was no more. She referring to the ever connected age of technology we live in. I instantly started reflecting my little journey I have be on during the past 20 something months. 

When I was in the process of packing up my piles of clothes and shoes, consolidating the things that “I can’t live without” into two 50 pound suitcases for my 27 month Peace Corps service several realizations dawned on me. I was having anxiety induced meltdowns over which pair of my beloved shoes I should bring or which shirts I wanted to bring with me—even though it was a shirt from the back of my closet I hadn't worn in months. These silly material things were making me cry, snap at my mother who was trying to help me pack and make me question can I do this? This being the Peace Corps. The thought of giving away (or packing away) these silly things that had brought me so much fleeting joy was bring me to tears. 

After taking time to stop packing and reflect on what is important, I decided that I needed to make some changes. I needed to simplify my life. Hitting up the shoe closet at Van Maur brought me great joy or buying a fancy cheese and new kitchen gadget at the grocery store and making a fabulous dish for my friends brought me great joy. Thats not to say that I didn’t find immense joy and satisfaction from my job….but that wasn't enough. You can’t physically carry with you a clients success. You physically carry with you your new Italian leather boots. 

I in the effort to simplify my life, I decided that I wanted to be internet free for the duration of my service—good bye email, Facebook and google. This also meant parting with my smartphone…My loved ones were not as thrilled with this idea. I decided to keep internet and my smartphone, but consciously work on limiting my access to it (via self control).  

Dawesar says our life story needs two dimensions of time—direct experience/ immersive experience (the moment) and our life span—the narration. She claims that our self and our lives stories are being changed in our ever technological world. We are living longer, that dimension of time is lengthening, but our immersive experiences are shrinking. 

As I arrived at my site and was unpacking my belongings. A sudden realization dawned on me. It was quiet. My house was quiet and I was alone with my thoughts. It was scary. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. A restless feeling started to spread over me—what am I supposed to do when I am done unpacking? The house that I live in doesn’t have electricity. My phone and computer only has so much battery life…I can’t have the constant noise in the background that I unknowingly had become accustom to. No amount of preparing could help me deal with the flow of emotions that was washing over me. 

Technology perpetuates the idea that those who have it—so must  everyone else. Imagine, going to a friends house and if their is a lull in conversation not being able to check your phone or surf the web to fill the silence. Or being on a bus, not wanting to strike up a conversation with strangers so you turn to your Huffington Post app. Technology perpetrated every aspect of my life, so many of which I was blissfully unaware of until I was sitting in a house that was growing quickly darker and my phones battery was dead. 

I was suddenly faced with my own revelation. Myself, as I knew it was no more. I was suddenly being forced to live in the moment, live with my thoughts, live with deafening silence, live away from a screen. As my time in Lehututu draws to a close, I am faced with many decisions about my future. How do I live in both worlds? Being truly present in the moment whether in Botswana or in America. 

Dawesars’ Grandmother taught her that things happen in the time we take, it can’t be fought. Reflecting on that unspeakably true statement, I have grown more in the ebb and flow of life and time in the Kgalagadi more than I have in my time in America. Or Is should say, I have grown in a different way than in America. Technology threatens the present. But we have the choice. We can regain our “self” the moments that make our life story. Moments that combine the past, present and future. Every cold winters night that I make myself cocoa I am instantly transported back to my Grandparents kitchen with my PaPa as he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye saying “making cocoa is very scientific.” I can’t help but make it the exact same way as he taught me and wishing he was there to eat marshmallows with me while waiting for it to heat up. I am not sure if I would have the same experience making cocoa in my American kitchen because I wouldn’t have embraced the silence and my thoughts. I wouldn’t be able to experience those memories completely.