29 Nov 12: Sarah Meets Florence, Discovers the Library, and Sees a Camel!



My house, aka Peace Corps Africa Ritz Carlton



 

Rumelang batho ba me! Hello, my people! You might be wondering why this email has arrived a day early. Well...I'm travelling this weekend! It is Thursday night, about 8:00 pm. By this time tomorrow I will be relaxing (a.k.a dance party and cheap wine) in Mokatako, Botswana. Tomorrow morning I will board a bus at 6 a.m. Two buses and a combi later, I will arrive in Mokatako around 4 something p.m. with my friends, Liz and Diane. We will attend a wedding on Saturday, for the food of course, and then have another three-person dance party. God willin' and the creek don't rise, I will arrive home sometime Sunday afternoon, but it could be Monday. I'm dying for some time with Americans. I'll let ya know how it goes! Good or bad, it will be an adventure!


My backyard, as viewed from the back door of my house.

I really started feeling like a Peace Corps Volunteer this week. I identified a need in my community and took steps to fulfill that need. I had to set some goals for myself so that I wouldn't just sit home all day and read. I left the house by 9 and stayed out until 3:30, except for when I came home for lunch. I wanted to meet at least 20 people, get their names and enough info about them to write them in my "People of Tshane" notebook. I got 22 names. I went to all the government-related places in Tshane, including the clinic, postal agency, police station, Livestock Advisory Office,
metrological station, and even the...drumroll please...Tshane Prison.

Florence!

I spent a good deal of time at the clinic and the library. I made several new friends! I met the nurse at the clinic, Florence, and she is an amazing woman. She is from Zambia, she is a midwife, and she acts as the clinic's doctor. She prescribes drugs, performs minor procedures, pretty much everything. We hit it off really well and, lucky for me, she is one of my neighbors! I also spent some time with the health educator, Dimpho. He let me accompany him to the primary hospital in Hukuntsi today. At the library, I made friends with the librarian, Bareketse, a lady in her mid 30's. Nicest lady I ever met.

Tshane Clinic

So I'm not just going around the village meeting people for fun. Remember, I'm doing a community needs assessment. I am based out of the school, so I started my assessment there. Upon finding that the school receives high marks, the teachers are good, and the kids are well-behaved, I got to wondering why a Peace Corps Volunteer was placed in Tshane. Why do they need me here? Well, I found out. The HIV prevalence rate in Botswana is reported to be 25%. A quarter of the population is reported to be infected with HIV. You expect the actual number to be a little bit higher because there are a certain number of people who are HIV+, but are unaware of their status. Brace yourself: according to Florence, 75% of the people in this community are HIV+. Let me say that again. 75%, three quarters of the villagers in Tshane, are infected with HIV. WHAT?!?!?!?! She went on to explain to me that although many new infections are being diagnosed in older people, most of the new infections are teenagers. Young people have sex for recreation. For fun. No feelings, no relationship. Just something to do. There is really nothing else to do here but screw. This leads me to something else that has kept me up at night...

Tshane Library

THE LIBRARY! We are fortunate to have a library (really just a one room structure with some books in it) in Tshane. There are lots and lots of benefits of reading. It makes you smarter. It broadens your mind. IT GIVES YOU SOMETHING TO DO. As I think its clear, people in this community need something to do. There are about 20 fiction books for adults. Every adult in this community that reads has read them all. There are a few more children's books, but they are old. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated three computers but no one, not even the librarian, knows how to use them. Several people have told me that they want to learn how to use a computer and how to type. After my assessment is finished, I think that me and Bakeretse are going to start a computer class. This afternoon, I installed teaching typing software onto the computers. Dimpho was the first student. The program is full of typing games, which he seemed to enjoy!

Dimpho takes Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing for a test drive!

So that's being a Peace Corps Volunteer. See a need, figure out how to fulfill it in a way that builds capacity and is sustainable. Installing Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software onto the computers of the Tshane Library was my first good deed as a PCV!

Kraal, a pen for cattle/goats/donkeys

I mentioned in my email last Saturday that I was going to a farewell PARTAAAYY!! I arrived at the party at 4 p.m., as I had been instructed to do. A goat had been killed and was boiling away in a cauldron over an open fire. I've been protein starved, folks. So even though I could see the hide of the goat and it's face laying on the ground beside the pot, I was pretty excited about the meat. In true African fashion, the party started after 8:30. The lady who the party had been thrown for called me "her best lady," so I was seated between her and the Kgosi (chief.) There was plenty of singing and praying and preaching and stuff. Gifts were given, more prayers, more singing, and finally...the moment I had been waiting for...FOOD! I was served third, behind the Kgosi and the lady of the evening. For those of you who have never been to Botswana (hehe,) the order in which people are served food is a sign of respect. Being served before everyone else, including the elders, was a real honor. There was more dancing and singing, and at 11 o'clock I dragged my exhausted self home. It was a great first party in Tshane!

Believe it or not, there are horses here. This fella was
headed to the salt pan.


 

A "cold" front blew in this week, thank goodness. It has been hot, but tolerable. I haven't woken up at night in a bath of my own sweat. They are predicting rain this weekend. Please say a little prayer to Jesus, Allah, Buddha, and the whole gang that we get rain. We're in a pretty severe drought and the cattle are looking awful skinny.

I always have to mention something about wildlife/bugs in Botswana. I saw a real CAMEL this week in the salt pan. That evening, you'll love the irony here, I met a baby CAMEL SPIDER in my house. Oh, you aren't familiar with a camel spider? Google it. Be prepared to be freaked out. But don't worry. I have a can of Doom with "Damien the Camel Spider from Hell" written all over it.

Next week, after I recover from traveling, I am going to try to map the community. I am going to walk and walk and walk and try to get a grasp on the layout of this very spead out village. I'm also going to be formally introduced to the police force by the officer in charge at the police station. Exciting! Well, I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I think it's time for me to go crawl under my net. I'm willing to bet that you guys aren't having any mosquito problems back in KY right now.

My bedroom. See that net? My favorite thing in the whole world.

In conclusion, I gave my first help as a PCV this week, so it's time for my first plea as a PCV: the library needs books. I know how Americans love the idea of donating things to Africa. If anybody feels the urge to do a book drive and small fundraiser to cover the cost of shipping, I'd be forever in your debt. Local fundraisers aren't possible because everyone here is poor. My community loves fiction, fiction, and more fiction, especially romance novels (Danielle Steele) and mystery/thrillers (Robert Ludlum, whoever that is.) The library also needs books for teens and children. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that donating books to the Tshane Library saves lives.

Special thank you to my Granny, who sent me a recipe for French Bread that takes 5 hours to make. I made two loaves this week. 1. They were delicious. 2. I have nothing else to do on the weekends. Thank you.

Salang sentle!