12 Nov 12: Swearing In, Becoming an Offical PCV, Moving to Tshane!

 


Swearing In Ceremony Program

Hello everybody! I have a lot of exciting things to tell you this week, best of all: I'm in my new village! I'm really getting a sense of what it is to live in Africa and have to be self-reliant. In Kanye, I had a host mom who knew what to do during water shortages and how to keep food edible without refrigeration. I'm on my own now, which is a little scary and a lot exciting! Living in the desert, 12 km from the next village, with no regular transportation, well...it takes planning. You have to plan for water, budget money so that you can get to the shopping village with the ATM before you run out of cash, and really think about meal preparation. I don't have a refrigerator, so I have to try to eat a balanced diet that doesn't involve meat. I have been able to get my hands on a couple of cartons of low fat long shelf life milk. Because of the heat, I have to drink it within a day of opening it so I probably will save it for emergencies. I want to get on with the story, but I just want to emphasize that I've never had to plan and think and be wary like I'm having to do right now. It's a little stressful but it should make for some very funny stories!

This makes me so proud!

Lots of important people talked at the ceremony.

I completed my 2 months of training this week! On Thursday, I was sworn in as an official, honest to God, Peace Corps Volunteer. It was a pleasant ceremony, attended by the trainees, our host parents, and some important dignitaries and government officials. The Paramount Chief (the head chief over all the tribes in Botswana) attended, as well as an official from the US Embassy, and several members of Parliament. There were lots of speeches, but most of the time was spent recognizing the important people that had attended, as is protocol. After the ceremony, the newly-minted volunteers spent the evening in the company of wine, cider (think alcoholic apple cider-delish!), and each other for one last hoorah. Fun!

Me and Liz were REALLY excited to have completed training!

 

Friday came and proved to be just as exciting and stressful as I had imagined. Moving day! The three of us (me, Emma, and Ashley) moving to this side of the bush were supposed to ride together. Our supervisors were supposed to have arranged for transport to come and pick us up. When I spoke to my supervisor that morning, she said that she wasn't sure what day our ride would come. WHAT DAY?!?! I was a little ticked but I let it roll off me like water off a duck. The most important thing I've learned is that the less you stress, the less you care about things happening as you plan them, the better off you will be. So I took some deep breaths and walked to the Education Center to wait just in case our transport showed up. I was amazed when I arrived and there was the truck, sent to pick us up! Me, Emma, Ashley, and our driver spent an hour trying to pack all of our stuff into the back of this truck, which had a cover over it. There was only room for one passenger in the front seat, so I volunteered to sit up there (nobody wanted to ride for 6+ hours up front with some random person.) Ashley and Emma (and her new puppy) had to ride in the back of the truck, sitting on a folded up mattress. They were packed in there with the luggage tighter than a couple of sardines. I wasn't much better in the front as I was loaded down with stuff that wouldn't fit in the back. Needless to say, it was a LONG, HOT trip. We left at 9 am and arrived in my village at 5 pm.

It's official!

When I got to Tshane, I was greeted warmly by several of the teachers that work in the school I will be working at. The cleaning ladies from the school had cleaned my house for me, which I am so thankful for. The man who lived in this house before me left trash and nastiness EVERYWHERE. They worked very hard to make it presentable for me. My house is really nice by Peace Corps standards. The Ministry of Education did not deliver furniture or a gas cannister as they had promised to do. The chief of the village has graciously lent me a bed to use until mine arrives, which could take months.

Unfortunately, the water company refused to turn on my water until they had a copy of my passport and my signature. So until Monday, I don't have running water. After the welcome wagon left last night, I took a couple buckets to my neighbor's house and filled them from her standpipe for drinking water. I have a huge tank in my yard, called a JoJo, that collects rainwater. I used that water to wash my dishes and bathe. Peace Corps provided me with a swanky water filter, which I assembled last night. I put some rainwater through it and drank it and it tastes ok. Fingers crossed that I don't get dysentery!

I spent most of last night setting up my kitchen and unpacking. It is so nice to not be living out a suitcase anymore! Since I couldn't cook, I made myself a dinner of raw vegetables with salad dressing and a couple pieces of bread and butter. I went to bed late and woke up early this morning covered in various kinds of bug bites...

This house has been vacant for some time, so the bugs living here have had a chance to grow and grow and grow. The spiders I saw in my home last night were MONSTERS. I am lucky to have a screen on one of my bedroom windows, so I was able to leave it open all night. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was hang my mosquito net over my bed. I didn't have any string so I hung it with dental floss from the curtain rods. Now I have a nice little bug-free haven set up around my bed. The net is impregnated with pesticide so if a bug even tries to get at me by climbing up my net it will be killed! Take that mosquitoes! I opened the net up last night to check it out. When I hung it this morning, there was a nice little collection of dead bugs in the net, having climbed on it and died. Ha! I also sprayed so much Doom around the baseboards of my house today that I actually got nauseous. Small price to pay for not being attacked by cockroaches the size of texas and spiders with fangs.

My counterpart (the guidance and counseling teacher at the school) gave me an empty gas cannister from the school. She was able to arrange for transport to pick us up today and take us to town. The ministry is supposed to provide my gas but I chose to pay for it myself (which took half of all my money) and hope to be reimbursed. Otherwise, I'd be eating bread and raw veggies for God knows how long, which would be fine expect for the fact that it takes me a whole day to get to the grocery store. My counterpart also lent me two curtains to put up in my bedroom. Over the third window, I have hung a towel.

a road in Tshane!

Tshane is a tiny, tiny, tiny village at the end of a tarred road. As I mentioned there is no public transport here so if you want to leave the village you have to walk to a larger road and hitch. The village is situated right next to a HUGE salt pan. It's unbelievable. It looks like a lake, but it's really just salt. No water. I don't know much about salt pans other than what I've heard: when it rains the salt reflects the sunlight and it is breathtaking to see.

A funny story: When I took a bath this morning, I figured I could just use the water from the JoJo unfiltered. The water filter takes about half a day to filter a gallon, so filtering bath water isn't practical. Anyway...I'm standing in my tub pouring water over myself, and my eyes started burning. I thought, "Oh I've gotten soap in my eyes." So I rinsed them with more water. It wasn't until the water hit my mouth that I realized that it wasn't the soap. Evidently, it rains salt water in the Kgalagadi! Maybe because of all of the salt pans? Anyway, I was washing myself with salt water and I didn't even know it! Welcome to Africa!

I love my village and I love my house, but I have one complaint. The heat here is unbearable. It's 2:30 right now and if you look outside, the place is a ghost town. It is so hot that people cease to function by late morning. I don't have a thermometer but it has got to be well over 100F. It's not much cooler at night, which is surprising for a desert. It gets this hot in Kentucky, but I think the difference is that there is no escape from it. You go inside and it's not much cooler. There is no airconditioning to cool you off. Even the water I'm drinking is hot! No escape! Also, constant sweating leads to a kind of chronic dehydration. Sweating all day. Sweaty Sarah. I crave fruits and vegetables, not my usual chips and candy, because my body just can't keep up with the moisture loss. As a small mercy, there is usually a breeze out here, so I do have a little bit of air flowing over my hot, dripping self.

In conclusion, I'm pretty much settled into my home in Tshane. I have no furniture except a tiny bed surrounded by a mosquito net. I have an empty living room and another bedroom, just aching for some furniture. I have a large yard, which is full of rocks and trash. I plan to work on that tomorrow morning when it's not so hot. There aren't any plants in my yard; the soil here is actually just sand. Starting next week, I will spend the next two months doing a community assessment. I will integrate into my community and write a lengthy report followed by a plan for my first year of service. Monday, I will send out an email with my new mailing address for those wishing to send me a package. I will, fingers crossed, be getting my water turned on that same day. I am now a legitimate Peace Corps Volunteer! I am learning patience and humility. I'm learning that most of the things that I've always stressed and fussed about are insignificant. I'm becoming a duck: figuring out what's important and letting the rest roll off.

Stay well!