30 Dec 12: Sarah's First Christmas in Botswana, Millie the Chicken Moves In

Tiny Little Lady!

Happy early New Years! It sounds like everyone had a truly blessed Christmas: lots of food, lots of gifts, and most importantly, lots of family. I won't lie and say that this week wasn't hard for me. While most of the other volunteers got together to spend the holiday together, I decided that I didn't want to travel and that I was fine by myself.  I'm a strong lady, I should be ok alone on Christmas, right? I would just go hang out with my Zambian friend, Florence, and everything would be peachy. I was wrong but I didn't realize it until it was too late to go anywhere.

I had this great idea that on Christmas eve, I would drink some wine and watch romantic comedies. Yeeahhhh things didn't go exactly as planned. I started the evening with an impromptu solo dance party in my house, which was fun. But then some sad song came on and I ended up sitting on my bedroom floor having a little boo hoo. I crawled into bed feeling sad and missing my people. Being a million miles away from your family on the holidays + getting drunk by yourself = a one way ticket on the Hot Mess Express. "ALL ABOARD! The Hot Mess Express is leaving the station at 9 o'clock from Sarah's Bedroom! ALL ABOARD!"

My front yard: nature's lawn mower

On Christmas day, I woke up at 4:15 a.m., slightly hungover, to shouts of "AMEN! AMEN!" The church near my house was having one of their all night worship services. And believe me, these folks know how to worship!! Usually I can sleep through the singing but the "Amen!"s were just too much. So I got up and set to cooking for the holiday feast Florence and I had planned. I made mashed potatoes, home-baked bread, and a carrot cake with peanut butter frosting. Florence had invited about 4 people from one of the neighboring villages. We were to be 6, so I made enough food for 10 since these people love their starches! At noon, Florence called to tell me that our guests had decided to go to church all day. That's ok, more food for us right? At 12:30, I went to Florence's house and we had a nice little picnic in her living room. With the delicious roasted chicken she made, we stuffed ourselves and watched a Christmas program from South Africa.  Needless to say, Florence got to eat the whole carrot cake and I ate mashed potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of the week!

After our lunch, Phiri, officer in the charge of the prison, sent a car to pick me up and take me to his house on the prison compound. Because he is the boss, he gets the most luxurious accommodations. He has a whole 3 bedroom house to himself. Most exciting is that he has AIR CONDITIONING. Yes, air con. We relaxed in his living room enjoying cold air, drinking ginger beer and watching world news (for the first time since I arrived in Botswana.) It's the little things, folks!

That evening I got to talk to my whole family, which was really nice. I went to sleep and woke up Wednesday morning in a funk. I couldn't convince myself to get dressed and leave the house. I spent the whole day sitting around feeling a little sorry for myself and a lot discouraged. By midafternoon, I decided that the only way to pull myself out of the emotional swamp I was in was to go to Jwaneng for some curtain shopping on Thursday.

Living room with new curtains!!

So this is how I traveled to my shopping village for the first time: In the US, I took for granted how easy it was to go grocery shopping. Drive to Meijer, wade through the millions of choices, U Scan, BAM! Out the door. Not here. Thursday, I left my house at 5 a.m. so that I could hitch a ride into Hukuntsi to catch the 6 a.m. bus. I had two chances to get to my shopping village. If I missed the 6 o'clock bus, I could get on the 7 o'clock bus but that's it. If I missed both buses, I'd be done for the day. Go home and try again tomorrow. Well, I made it on the 6 o'clock! I rode that bus until 10:30, when it pulled into the bus rank in Jwaneng. I got off, stretched my legs, took a pee, and caught a taxi to the shops. I was in Pep pondering some curtains when my friends, Lisett and Jessica, arrived. I picked out curtains for my living room, kitchen, and bedroom, and we went next door to a grocery store called Choppies for some lunch. We had a mini-picnic of meat pies and ginger beer and hiked (I say that because PC volunteers are notorious for our heavy, overstuffed backpacks) over to a higher end grocery store called Pick n' Pay.

After a lot of research spurred by the fact that I feel fatigued and bloated most of the time, I had decided to try adopting a Paleo lifestyle for the next 30 days. Basically, you don't eat any grains or legumes. Fortunately at Pick n' Pay, I found a bunch of frozen vegetables and some exciting Indian spices. Lisett, Jessica, and I took our time going up and down each aisle, some more than once, as we knew that we would not be seeing another grocery store for a month. We loaded up our bags, got a taxi to the bus rank, and saw Jessica off on the bus to her village down south. Lisett convinced me that we should try to hitch hike home, in lieu of the bus, because it would be much faster. We stood by the side of the road for about half an hour, until a lady pulled over and picked us up. Her name was Margaret and she was a nurse at Hukuntsi Primary Hospital. Jackpot! She was going almost all the way to my village! She could drop me at the junction in the road and I could easily hitch into Tshane.

We dropped Lisett at her village of Sekoma and continued on. After driving for about 3 hours, Margaret pulled the car over. It had overheated. She popped the hood and we got out of the car. When I saw that the engine was smoking, I decided that I should probably try to get another hitch. I felt bad leaving my new friend to deal with the car on her own in the middle of nowhere, but it was imperative that I make it to the junction by sundown, lest I have to walk the 3 miles to my village after dark. I hitch hiked to the next village, Kang, with a South African couple on their way to Namibia. They were sooooooo kind, offering me sandwiches and water. They dropped me at a gas station and continued on their way. I found out that the same bus I would've been on if I'd decided not to hitch would be going through that village around 6 pm. I walked me and all my crap to the next gas station where the bus would be picking up. I waited there for that bus until 7:30, when it finally arrived. I saw one of my friends, Lazarus, from the prison, took a seat beside him on the bus, and we rode all the way to Tshane. I got off the bus at 8:30 and walked home. So...for a 3 hour shopping trip, I was in transit for 10 and a half hours. Yikes.

Despite the hassle, it ended up being totally worth it! When I opened my curtains, they were the wrong size (of course.) I spent all day Friday and most of Saturday sewing. I altered 8 curtains by hound and now my house really feels like a home (even though I still don't have any furniture.) Best of all: no one can see me! People like to walk by my house and look in to see what the white lady is doing. Now they can't! Two cheers for PRIVACY!!!!!

So that was Christmas week: lunch with a friend, a day of moping, a day of shopping, and a day of sewing. New Years Eve, I am going to spend with my volunteer friends from the surrounding villages. Holidays should be spent with fellow Americans!

Introducing...Millie!!

This email has been kinda blue, so I am going to tell you something that happened to me on Christmas eve that has brightened my life here. Since the rains started, my yard has grown some kind of grass weedy plant things. I know that if you let the grass grow, it will get very tall and snakes will take up residence in it. I don't know about you, but I don't love the idea of deadly black mamba snakes chillin in my front yard. So, I decided that I would open the gate and let the donkeys and the goats come in and eat it (see picture on my blog next week.) Unbeknownst to me, a little chicken- too big to go through the fence and too small the fly over it- had wandered in. When I closed the gate, I realized that I had trapped her. I opened the gate, shooed her out, and went back in my house. 5 minutes later, I looked outside and there was that little chicken sitting on my porch. She had crawled under that gate after all my effort to free her. And that is how I was adopted by Millie, the sweetest little lady in the whole world.

Millie gets very sleepy after lunch. Millie goes to
sleepytown.

There are chickens everywhere here. Though they are used to seeing people, they are still of afraid of them. Not Millie. Millie's favorite thing to do is stand at my door and chirp until I come outside and sit with her. She nestles up against my legs and takes a rest. She eats ground maize that makes her very sleepy after lunch. She enjoys being read to, watching movies, and tea time. She also likes to sneak into my house when I'm not looking. Friday night, we had a terrible storm. The electricity went out and I was left to sew curtains by lantern. I had the door open and Millie walked right in, bold as you please, and took a seat on the living room floor. I didn't shoo her out because I thought she was a little scared of the lightning. MISTAKE. When it was time for Millie to go to sleep out on the porch (she has a little box out there), she decided she would rather live inside with me. I ended up chasing her all over the house until finally she ran out the door! Can you imagine me chasing this tiny baby chicken from the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom to the living room back to the kitchen and finally through the door?! That's another reason why I wanted curtains: so people can't see what kind of crazy things I'm doing in my house.

I hate to complain about this, but I feel its worth mentioning since it really defined my week. Saying "it was hot this week" really doesn't do the temperature justice. Saying "I live in a furnace in the bowels of hell" is more accurate. When Millie the chicken sits around panting, you know its hot. When the wind blows and you feel like you just opened an oven door, you know its hot. When you get a heat rash and salt burns on your face from being constantly drenched in sweat, you know its hot. When the water coming out of your tap is hot enough to make tea (and you don't even have hot water!), you know its hot!!!!

In closing, this week was tough but I learned a lesson, got a new best friend, made an important lifestyle change (I feel better already!) and made my house into somewhere I'd want to live. I made the mistake of thinking that I was Sarah the Strong, volunteer awesome, who doesn't need no stinkin' people on the holidays. I was partially correct, I am Sarah the Strong, but I'm also Sarah the Person. One of the mottos of Botswana is a Setswana word called "botho," a concept that is very important in this culture. It means "I am because you are." The lesson of the week: Sometimes I forget that I am a regular person, a person that needs other people, and that needing people does not make me weak.  Next holiday, I'll bite the bullet, get on the stinky bus, and go be with my peeps!

Don't touch that dial! Stay tuned for next week's episode: Sarah spends her first New Years Eve in Africa, continues her commnity assessment, does things the hard way, and learns another obvious, but painful, lesson about life!

Chirpity peep peep chirp!
(That's from Millie: "Here's to waving goodbye to 2012 and welcoming 2013!")

Sarah and Millie