Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Nda wa zoga jwang? (How did you rise? in Sekgalagadi) Today marks one full week of me living in Tshane. As I anticipated, the week has flown by. Before we know it, I'll be stepping off the plane from Africa in November 2014!
As I've mentioned before, Peace Corps teaches you all kinds of things about yourself, good and bad. This week, I realized that I like a routine. I still haven't gotten used to not being constantly productive. My routine this week consisted of me waking up around 5:30 (I know that's early but the sun rises here around 4:45 and it sounds like a barnyard in front of my house), getting dressed, and heading to Tshane Primary School. I live right beside the school, less than a 5 minute walk. The children start trickling in as early as 7 am. At 7:20 one of the older kids rings the bell to signal that it's time for assembly. The students form a semi-circle in the school yard, older kids in the back (the students range from 6-12ish years old.) The head master gives a little pep talk and then the students start singing. That is my favorite part of the day. One of the older kids starts singing and the others repeat back, call and answer style. The first song I heard them sing was about chickens going to the hen house. As they were singing, the students would take off marching one row at a time towards their classroom, like chickens going to the hen house! Precious. One of their favorite songs (I heard it three times this week so I'm assuming it's their favorite) goes "home for the boys...home for the girls...home for the teachers of Tshane school!" That's the whole song. They just repeat that about a million times. So cute.
Back to my routine...there was no instruction at school this week because school closed for the year on Friday and the teachers were in meetings all week. The kids would just run wild around the school yard. Supervision is not something that happens here. The older kids are expected to look out for, and even discipline, the younger ones. I would hang out at school for a bit to see what was on the schedule for the day and then decide what I wanted to do. Most days, I ended up going walking around the community meeting people. Monday, I went to Hukuntsi and got my water connected. Tuesday, I was formally introduced to the staff of the school. Wednesday, I went to the tiny village clinic and met the nurse. Thursday, I met the health educator. Friday, I introduced myself at the police station. After going around meeting people, I would go home for the day around 11 am. Short day, right?
 |
| Dimpho, the health educator |
Several things happened this week which significantly improved my living situation. My water was turned on! Yesterday, a truck pulled up at my school carrying a refrigerator! For me! I was so excited that all I could do was run around the school yelling "they brought me a fridge!" This is significant because, with a way to keep food chilled, I can add eggs and milk to my diet. As it turns out, eggs don't actually have to be refrigerated. Long shelf life milk is also available here. Unfortunately, when the temperature gets so high, even food that is stable at room temperature goes bad. I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to drink water that is not warm. It's amazing. I will probably maintain my meat-less diet due to the fact that I can only go to my shopping village once per month and it's a LONG trip.
 |
| My kitchen! You can't see the fridge but it's there! |
In exploring the village, I discovered that there is a general dealer not far from my house. The general dealer sells food/home staples, such as flour, yeast, and sometimes produce and eggs. Everything at the store is marked up pretty high, but as there is no transportation out of this village other than hitch hiking, I don't really have a problem paying a little bit more to be able to eat fresh vegetables. Learning about the store really reduced the anxiety that I had been feeling about my food situation. I was able to buy some yeast there and bake some "bread." I say "bread" because I didn't have a recipe so I just kind of threw some ingredients together, baked it, and ended up with a dense, but edible, loaf.
The last thing that has improved my quality of life the late week change in the weather. The past two days have been cloudy, or as my new cleaning lady friends calls it, nature's umbrella. Ironically, everyone in the desert carries and umbrella everyday. To shield them form sun, not rain. Last night we had a little bit of rain. Between the clouds and the little bit of rain it has cooled off a bit, thank ya Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I'm uncertain how long this break in the heat will last, but I'm enjoying it while I can.
Although I've spent the majority of my time in my house, I have been able to make lots of new friends here in Tshane. I've most closely bonded with the two cleaning ladies at school, especially the younger one. Her name is Tshene, she is 28 years old, and she has a 20 month old daughter. She is very kind, eager to laugh, and she speaks English. She and the other cleaning lady are the ones who cleaned my house for me before I got here. I think I'm going to ask Tshene to tutor me in Sekgalagadi language. My other friend, Dimpho (pronounced "deem-po",) is the health educator for the village. He is in his early 30's, well educated, and he loves to chat. I will probably be working with him on several projects, so I'm glad that we hit it off well.
Now that school has closed until January, I'm not really sure what I will do with myself. I have until the end of January to do my community assessment. I expect that for the next month, I will spend a lot of time at the clinic, hanging out and talking to people. The teachers have left to go back to their own villages so I'll probably hang out with the cleaning ladies in the mornings as they will continue to go to the school M-F. I have been invited to a farewell party this afternoon at the kgosi's office. The court clerk is transferring to a position in Kanye. I feel very honored to have been invited to the party, as there will be lots of important people there!
Having just been here for a week, I've already noticed a couple of things that I'd like to try to work on during my service. All of the surrounding villages have a combi (a small bus) that provides public transport for people to and from the village to the larger village of Hukuntsi. All the villages except Tshane. Why? I don't know. It's a mathata, a problem. The clinic in this village does not administer the ARV drugs that HIV+ people have to take every week. Those people have to hitch all the way to Hukuntsi to get their medication, which often leads to problems with adherence. When an HIV+ person misses a dose of their medication, the virus immediately begins to mutate. Each mutation makes the virus more and more resistant to that line of medication. There are only 3 lines of antiretroviral drugs, each one with worse side effects. So once you get to the second or third line of drugs, you're in a bad place. Drug adherence is the most important thing to successful ARV therapy. So maybe I will try and figure out how to get a combi route to Tshane.
I'm not gonna lie and say that Thanksgiving day was a great day for me. It was the day that parents come to school to pick up their kids' grade reports. Every parent I talked to either a)tried to sell me something, b)begged me to hire them for a piece job, i.e. doing my laundry, raking my yard, or c)flat out asked me for money. I was so frustrated and upset that I had to go home for the day. I was really offended. Did I come all this way to be an ATM for these people? It took me a day to cool off and decide that these folks wouldn't embarrass themselves if they didn't really really need the money. As a very rural village, many villagers are destitute. I can help with that! Many volunteers start projects that help women make goods that can generate income.
 |
| Is that a frozen lake out there? No, silly! It's a salt pan! |
Some things I've learned about this place through my limited exploring this week:
1) Tshane has a population of approx 1,115 people. Many of the villagers are government employees, many of whom work in Hukuntsi. It is one of the safest places to live, as many of my neighbors are police officers. There is a police station that serves a good chunk of the region, just within walking distance of my house.
2) The desert doesn't care about your clean house. It comes right in and doesn't wipe it's feet. You can't keep the sand out of your house for longer than a day or two.
3) Donkeys can be ridden by fully grown humans. I see old people, young people, and children riding donkeys. People love to ride a donkey here.
 |
| Tshane. Isn't it beautiful? Salt pan in the background. |
3) GOATS, while they may appear cute and cuddly, are furry, little demons. They will eat all your plants if you don't have a fence. If you do have a fence, they will burrow under it and get in your yard anyway. There are more goats than there are people here. God help you should a baby goat get away from its mother while you are trying to sleep. A lost goat will drive you freakin' crazy until it finds its mother. BEEYYAAHHH! BEEYYAAHHH! ALL.NIGHT.
4) You can see the effect of the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 2000's. There are virtually no middle-aged people around. There are lots of kids/teens and lots of old people. Hardly any 40-50 year olds.
5) Most of the kids in this village are orphans and vulnerable children, having been left parentless by the AIDS epidemic. Although they have it rough, living with relatives who may or may not want them, they are the sweetest, most joyful children I've ever met.
Speaking of kids, the kids at the school have taken a real liking to me. Almost all of them speak Sekgalagadi as their first language and Setswana as their second language. English is their THIRD language, so as you can expect, only the older ones have any kind of proficiency. But you know what? Not being able to talk to me in English doesn't bother them! They are satisfied with just being with me. The first day I went to school, I looked like someone leading a parade. I had a throng of children following me around, laughing and smiling. Now, they come and sit with me and we just BE together. If I'm walking somewhere, I usually have a small entourage of children, some even holding my hands. This leads me to something that one of my fellow volunteers told me, and the moral of the story this week:
Barbara is an older lady volunteer who spent most of her life living in Ethiopia. One day during training, we were talking about how important, yet difficult it is to form relationships with people here. She planted a little seed of wisdom in my brain that I didn't really understand until this week. She said "Sarah. The most important thing I learned in Africa is that all you have to do is learn how to be with someone. Really just BE with them. You don't have to talk. You can just sit with them and enjoy being in their presence." I learned what that means this week. The power of just sharing space and time with another person is something that busy, overworked Americans don't know anything about. It's almost a foreign concept to us; being with another person and not having to resolve a problem or talk about something; being with someone without it being a meeting. These Bakgalagadi children are content to just BE with me. Even my new friend, Tshene. I can just sit with her and we don't have to communicate or do anything really. We can just BE together. Breathe, think, be alive, share a moment in time and space.
And with that, I conclude this overly long blog post. Much like my life back home, I have good days and bad days. But when I'm walking to the salt pan, or hanging my clothes on the line, or going to the general dealer, and I hear tiny voices screaming "Maduo! Hiiiii! Mma Stuuuwarttt!! Hiiii!!!!", I know that I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else but here.
Salang shente ditsala tsame!)
(Stay well my friends!)
No comments:
Post a Comment