Have just escaped to my room after The Most Trying Night Yet.
Tonight went something like this:
I arrived home at sundown to find Niallil (15) alone with Pel (3) and Are (1). Niallil was looking despondent and groaning because her older sister (Are’s mother) had left her alone with the kids and gone to Gabs for the weekend. I sympathized with her and silently cursed Indil for throwing all the domestic responsibilities on Niallil, yet again. I assured her that we would have a good weekend together with the kids. She mustered a smile and we began to prepare dinner.
The Peace Corps gives our host families a food basket every 2 weeks. Because we have 7 kids in the house and two absent parents (mum at the fields for the last two weeks, dad at the mine for the month) our food is usually gone within the first five days. Today is day number 13 (basket tomorrow, thank the Lord) and we are down to a box of pasta, a bag of rice, half a tomato and some flour. We reluctantly agree on the pasta and Niallil begins to heat water as I tackle the rubber bucket, overflowing with a week of dirty dishes (a feast for our Ever-Growing Cockroach Companions).
Niallil and I are thirty minutes into preparations, singing songs in the kitchen when the electricity goes out. Sigh.
The pasta continues boiling away but we cant find a candle and the babies have started to scream for food. We open the kitchen door to let in moonlight and I fumble into my room to find my cell phone light. After 20 minutes we finally resign ourselves to The Absence of Candles only to find the pasta has clumped into a mass of starch at the bottom of the pan. Niallil holds Are in one arm and the shines the cell phone light with the other while I use our Only Fork to chip apart the spaghetti mass.
With the pasta salvaged and continuing to cook, I finally succumb to baby-screams. In a frantic scramble I find a stale ¼ cup of cornflakes, dump them in a bowl, and put them on the floor between the babies. Niallil oversees the Cereal Scramble while I prepare pasta plates.
At last the pasta reaches an acceptable el-dente-ish-state and I begin to fill the bowls under close scrutiny of six hungry eyes. Our condiments selection includes crystallized salt, 1 tablespoon of ketchup, some soupy margarine (unavoidable without a fridge) and a scandalous jar of mayonnaise residue. Niallil flashes the cell light at me with a face that says “If-you-waste-those-precious-flavors-on-babies-there-will-be-hell-to-pay.” For a minute I’m scared of her.
I scrape out the mayonnaise, ketchup and salt and throw three bowls of pasta onto the floor where my little angels wait ravenously. In a moment of pure amusement I step back to watch the girls hover crazily around the cell phone light devouring their heaps of pasta. When my own stomach grumbles me to attention I grab my bowl and collapse onto a plastic chair beside the girls. I manage half a sigh before shooting into the air as a puddle of dirty dishwater seeps through my bluejeans, soaks my underwear and freezes my skin.
The girls laugh hysterically.
I scowl.
The electricity turns on.
We all cheer.
Thirty minutes later the babies have been fully nourished, my ass has started to dry, the dishes have been reasonably cleaned and I am sitting down to a quiet game of Scrabble with Niallil. For the second time in the past hour I release a premature sigh which, for some reason elicits a scream from Niallil. I snap up to follow her glance and see that Are has peed all over Ondam’s bed. An inevitable peril of this diaper-less-society.
Odnam is the oldest sister at 25. She works twelve hour days at a local clothing shop and comes home at 9:00 every night in a sour mood. It’s 8:15.
Niallil and I abandon Scrabble to dry Are and fetch my hairdryer. We spend thirty minutes hair-drying Odnam’s comforter. Pel screams hysterically when the hot air accidently hits her skin. She will only be consoled with focused affection.
In the final minutes of This Chaos I’ve got Pel on my hip, comforter in my left hand, hairdryer in my right and Niallil looking fretful at my side. When the pee has nearly dried Niallil drops her head onto my shoulder and lets out an exhausted laugh. I press her forehead with mine and congratulate us for incredible perseverance. She nods. We relax.
I feel more love for these little ladies in four weeks than I thought possible in a lifetime.
Niallil beats me in Scrabble.
Are falls asleep on the floor.
Pel cultivates an obsession with the hairdryer.
And I
I take my soggy ass to bed and thank the Lord for a quiet bucket bath finale.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Rush Hour
I’m running late to language class (not terribly out of character from the girl you knew in America) when I turn to sprint path near Hael’s house. Normally this particular dirty path disrupts my commute with tiny spiked burrs that slip into my sandals, wedge between my toes and force me to stop and remove them no less than 3 times on the 100 yard stretch. This morning, however, the burrs are the least of my concern.
As I turn onto the path I glance towards Hael and Anel and they wave from the end of the road. Then I notice someone else’s eyes: a man herding six enormous donkeys. We stand at opposite ends of the path blinking at one another. I get the distinct sense he is daring me to start. The reality is that I know I’ll get mauled by donkeys if we attempt to go it together and yet something makes me hesitate (Did I expect him to flag me through a polite wave? A greeting? A smile?) Lo and behold, he wins the draw.
For the next 4 minutes I wait impatiently as the old man whips his donkey herd up the dirt road. In Botswana-style, the animals all have their front legs tied together so they take a particularly long time hopping up the sandy path like rabbits.
Eventually the parade passes me and I shuffle down the path to class. At 8:05 Soma scowls and asks why we’re late but seems fully satisfied with my account of the Donkey-Delay.
I slip this into my reserve of Late Excuses That Fly in Africa.
As I turn onto the path I glance towards Hael and Anel and they wave from the end of the road. Then I notice someone else’s eyes: a man herding six enormous donkeys. We stand at opposite ends of the path blinking at one another. I get the distinct sense he is daring me to start. The reality is that I know I’ll get mauled by donkeys if we attempt to go it together and yet something makes me hesitate (Did I expect him to flag me through a polite wave? A greeting? A smile?) Lo and behold, he wins the draw.
For the next 4 minutes I wait impatiently as the old man whips his donkey herd up the dirt road. In Botswana-style, the animals all have their front legs tied together so they take a particularly long time hopping up the sandy path like rabbits.
Eventually the parade passes me and I shuffle down the path to class. At 8:05 Soma scowls and asks why we’re late but seems fully satisfied with my account of the Donkey-Delay.
I slip this into my reserve of Late Excuses That Fly in Africa.
May 21, 2008
Sat through my first Botswana class today and nearly collapsed of boredom. The African school child is truly an amazing character.
How does sperm fertilize the egg?
What happens to a girls body when she becomes pregnant?
What are the risks associated with teenage pregnancy?
What is the best way to avoid teenage pregnancy?
A room full of forty 12 year olds sit in front of me chanting answers in unison while sneaking peaks over their shoulders to check out the visiting lkgoa (literally, “white vomit of the sea”)
I sneak smiles back at them and feign attention by flipping vigorously through the little green book, dense with English paragraphs and anatomy pictures. I make a concerted effort to look engrossed in the monotonous text of “Growing Up and Responsible Living”.
Form 1 has Guidance and Counseling sessions one time each week for 40 minutes. The session allows them to regurgitate facts on teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, alcohol abuse, contraception, anatomy and sexuality. I am impressed by their knowledge and awed by their ability to retain these dry details.
Facts:
These children face an average life expectancy of 33, due mainly to HIV/AIDS.
Predicted statistics for 2010 show the average life expectancy rate dropping to just 29.
The Botswana government provides free counseling, testing and ARVs medicine to every citizen of the country.
The Bostwana government also provides 15 Peace Corps volunteers to pilot the new Lifeskills program.
Chances are I’ll go back to the States with a handful of success stories and a suitcase of frustrations and very little sense of the effectiveness of my work. I’ll train the 30 new Lifeskills volunteers in 2009 and the 45 in 2010 and then head home to hold my breath for the next decade and pray for infection rates to drop and life expectancy rates to rise. Quite literally, I’ll pray for my students to live.
I look up from the little green book and catch the eye of a girl in the front row. We smile at each other while the responses chant on
and I am impatient to know her.
How does sperm fertilize the egg?
What happens to a girls body when she becomes pregnant?
What are the risks associated with teenage pregnancy?
What is the best way to avoid teenage pregnancy?
A room full of forty 12 year olds sit in front of me chanting answers in unison while sneaking peaks over their shoulders to check out the visiting lkgoa (literally, “white vomit of the sea”)
I sneak smiles back at them and feign attention by flipping vigorously through the little green book, dense with English paragraphs and anatomy pictures. I make a concerted effort to look engrossed in the monotonous text of “Growing Up and Responsible Living”.
Form 1 has Guidance and Counseling sessions one time each week for 40 minutes. The session allows them to regurgitate facts on teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, alcohol abuse, contraception, anatomy and sexuality. I am impressed by their knowledge and awed by their ability to retain these dry details.
Facts:
These children face an average life expectancy of 33, due mainly to HIV/AIDS.
Predicted statistics for 2010 show the average life expectancy rate dropping to just 29.
The Botswana government provides free counseling, testing and ARVs medicine to every citizen of the country.
The Bostwana government also provides 15 Peace Corps volunteers to pilot the new Lifeskills program.
Chances are I’ll go back to the States with a handful of success stories and a suitcase of frustrations and very little sense of the effectiveness of my work. I’ll train the 30 new Lifeskills volunteers in 2009 and the 45 in 2010 and then head home to hold my breath for the next decade and pray for infection rates to drop and life expectancy rates to rise. Quite literally, I’ll pray for my students to live.
I look up from the little green book and catch the eye of a girl in the front row. We smile at each other while the responses chant on
and I am impatient to know her.
Monday, May 19, 2008
May 18th, 2008
I’m nursing another stomach ache when the village loses its electricity.
The girls drag me into the yard where I watch them dance and giggle in moonlight and I’m reminded, again, of how lucky I am to have been placed in this gorgeous family. I take turns picking up Are and Pel and they wrap their dirty little feet around my waist and stare at the moon with big black baby eyes. Pel and I have started to communicate little words and phrases and this feels like incredible progress—I’m inspired to study the language harder just by the prospect of gaining a relationship with her.
Eventually the ache worsens and I retire to my room to lie in the dark and wait for the cramping the pass. I count the days until I acquire a kitchen and the freedom to prepare and eat meals without fear of illness. Never thought I’d rue the food over the bucket baths, but there you have it: self discovery.
Robala Sentle Good night
from a tiny cement bedroom with pink flowered drapes and a tin roof in Lekwapaynge ward of Molepolole village of Botswana of Africa.
The girls drag me into the yard where I watch them dance and giggle in moonlight and I’m reminded, again, of how lucky I am to have been placed in this gorgeous family. I take turns picking up Are and Pel and they wrap their dirty little feet around my waist and stare at the moon with big black baby eyes. Pel and I have started to communicate little words and phrases and this feels like incredible progress—I’m inspired to study the language harder just by the prospect of gaining a relationship with her.
Eventually the ache worsens and I retire to my room to lie in the dark and wait for the cramping the pass. I count the days until I acquire a kitchen and the freedom to prepare and eat meals without fear of illness. Never thought I’d rue the food over the bucket baths, but there you have it: self discovery.
Robala Sentle Good night
from a tiny cement bedroom with pink flowered drapes and a tin roof in Lekwapaynge ward of Molepolole village of Botswana of Africa.
May 17, 2008
My host mother has left to harvest the family lands this week leaving me alone with my seven younger siblings.
I wake up at six and step into the unfamiliar quiet of my hallway… Saturday morning whispers in a grey kitchen as I heat my bathwater and greets me in the yard where I brush my teeth.
The images I remember from China are not the Wall or my work or even my students—those memories from Asia are much simpler somehow:
…waves of hot through my hair as I race a rusty bicycle down colorful streets, thick with smells and faces and music…
Botswana does not have the color of China. There are no street markets, no food vendors and the desert yawns out long stretches of sand, peppered with a few lonely trees. I would lie to say I wasn’t slightly disappointed to learn that all “ethic shopping” takes place in “China Shops” which are, quite literally, cheap Chinese products being sold in Botswana by Chinese merchants who have a better place in the economy than the Motswana themselves (don’t get me started)…
Still, the Botswana I take home will be composed of the same type small moments I found in Asia. My Molopolole training memory will be walking out into the yard to brush my teeth by the bush with those soft pink flowers. Something about the way those flowers stand still against the backdrop of a sun rising into ribbons of purple and blue. Something about looking out across my quiet village with the round rooftops and those thick aloe cactus plants. Something about my dirty toes flip flopping over pink dusk. Something about silence.
I tread back to the house where my little brother sleepy smiles in the kitchen and I look at him and miss Eli. He’s too tired to fumble through English so he points at the water to indicate that it’s warm enough. I shuffle back to my grey little bedroom to bathe.
Some of this world will be heartache, some progress, some reflection, some epiphany, some rant.
And some will be Lekwapagne at six a.m. Somehow this will remain my Africa long after I go. Photographing it here so I remember to remember. So I remember to be.
I wake up at six and step into the unfamiliar quiet of my hallway… Saturday morning whispers in a grey kitchen as I heat my bathwater and greets me in the yard where I brush my teeth.
The images I remember from China are not the Wall or my work or even my students—those memories from Asia are much simpler somehow:
…waves of hot through my hair as I race a rusty bicycle down colorful streets, thick with smells and faces and music…
Botswana does not have the color of China. There are no street markets, no food vendors and the desert yawns out long stretches of sand, peppered with a few lonely trees. I would lie to say I wasn’t slightly disappointed to learn that all “ethic shopping” takes place in “China Shops” which are, quite literally, cheap Chinese products being sold in Botswana by Chinese merchants who have a better place in the economy than the Motswana themselves (don’t get me started)…
Still, the Botswana I take home will be composed of the same type small moments I found in Asia. My Molopolole training memory will be walking out into the yard to brush my teeth by the bush with those soft pink flowers. Something about the way those flowers stand still against the backdrop of a sun rising into ribbons of purple and blue. Something about looking out across my quiet village with the round rooftops and those thick aloe cactus plants. Something about my dirty toes flip flopping over pink dusk. Something about silence.
I tread back to the house where my little brother sleepy smiles in the kitchen and I look at him and miss Eli. He’s too tired to fumble through English so he points at the water to indicate that it’s warm enough. I shuffle back to my grey little bedroom to bathe.
Some of this world will be heartache, some progress, some reflection, some epiphany, some rant.
And some will be Lekwapagne at six a.m. Somehow this will remain my Africa long after I go. Photographing it here so I remember to remember. So I remember to be.
Friday, May 16, 2008
May 13, 2008
Two and a half weeks in counting until we’re finally assigned to our villages. To say I’m excited is a gross understatement! Once learning our placements we get to visit the site and meet our counterparts for a full week.
I am thrilled to be getting close to finally having a “job” (i.e. community, permanence, purpose) and “home” (i.e. privacy, kitchen, silence)
Next week they’re holding interviews to help with final placements and I’ll need to rank the following items in order of importance:
Cell phone coverage
Ease of transportation
Running water
Electricity
?!
I am thrilled to be getting close to finally having a “job” (i.e. community, permanence, purpose) and “home” (i.e. privacy, kitchen, silence)
Next week they’re holding interviews to help with final placements and I’ll need to rank the following items in order of importance:
Cell phone coverage
Ease of transportation
Running water
Electricity
?!
May 12, 2008
Inram lives in an enormous house with hot, running water, a fridge and two ceiling fans. This is paradise compared to my Molepolole homestay life of bucket baths and cockroaches.
In the evenings the village kids come over to do their homework in Inram’s kitchen. Their homes do not have electricity and, since many of their parents were never formally educated, they beat them for doing school work at home. Inram spends time checking math equations, correcting spelling and showing praise on these kids to enhance their fragile sense of self worth.
One child told Inram she wanted to buy a backpack and agreed to sell cookies around her village to raise the money herself. Inram funded the biscuits and then took the profits from this little girl to buy her backpack in Francistown. For kids who have never seen their parents sober or working, experiencing this type of simple entrepreneurship is incredibly empowering.
Inram arrived in Olibukom 25 months ago as a CBC (Community Based Care) volunteer slotted to work with orphans and vulnerable children. In two years Inram has made a number of significant contributions to the health and resources of this community. For one, she has learned the language fluently and thereby gained the trust and respect of her counterpart, colleagues and community (very tough shoes to fill—sorry for the volunteer from my group who will replace her!)
Once the community had accepted her, Inram was able to run a number of successful campaigns and workshops, start an annual orphan camp and obtain computers and resources for the local school and NGOs.
With the help of her counterpart from the Social welfare and Community Development Department (and heaps of village bureaucracy above her) Inram was able to coordinate weekend workshops on Gender Equality and HIV/AIDS as well as a very successful Alcohol Abuse campaign. These educational events have sets the groundwork for developing a progressive dialogue and sustainable behavior changes around the health issues that plague this village.
When we walk through the village people stop Inram and embrace her. They beg her not to leave (she closes her service on June 7th) and they tell me stories and praises about her work in their community. Inram blushes and they ramble off Setswana for several minutes while I watch awed and envious.
Last week Inram cleaned out her house and made a heap of paperwork she could not take back to the States. With no garbage system most Motswana must burn their rubbish.
Inram sits at her kitchen table and tells us how she watched two years of her notes, grants and reports turn to ash. I am quiet as her eyes fill with water.
“I just watched all of that work go up in flames—and it was a horrible feeling. But after a few minutes the neighborhood kids showed up and started dancing around the fire and giggled and pulled me in with them. And then it was okay.”
In the evenings the village kids come over to do their homework in Inram’s kitchen. Their homes do not have electricity and, since many of their parents were never formally educated, they beat them for doing school work at home. Inram spends time checking math equations, correcting spelling and showing praise on these kids to enhance their fragile sense of self worth.
One child told Inram she wanted to buy a backpack and agreed to sell cookies around her village to raise the money herself. Inram funded the biscuits and then took the profits from this little girl to buy her backpack in Francistown. For kids who have never seen their parents sober or working, experiencing this type of simple entrepreneurship is incredibly empowering.
Inram arrived in Olibukom 25 months ago as a CBC (Community Based Care) volunteer slotted to work with orphans and vulnerable children. In two years Inram has made a number of significant contributions to the health and resources of this community. For one, she has learned the language fluently and thereby gained the trust and respect of her counterpart, colleagues and community (very tough shoes to fill—sorry for the volunteer from my group who will replace her!)
Once the community had accepted her, Inram was able to run a number of successful campaigns and workshops, start an annual orphan camp and obtain computers and resources for the local school and NGOs.
With the help of her counterpart from the Social welfare and Community Development Department (and heaps of village bureaucracy above her) Inram was able to coordinate weekend workshops on Gender Equality and HIV/AIDS as well as a very successful Alcohol Abuse campaign. These educational events have sets the groundwork for developing a progressive dialogue and sustainable behavior changes around the health issues that plague this village.
When we walk through the village people stop Inram and embrace her. They beg her not to leave (she closes her service on June 7th) and they tell me stories and praises about her work in their community. Inram blushes and they ramble off Setswana for several minutes while I watch awed and envious.
Last week Inram cleaned out her house and made a heap of paperwork she could not take back to the States. With no garbage system most Motswana must burn their rubbish.
Inram sits at her kitchen table and tells us how she watched two years of her notes, grants and reports turn to ash. I am quiet as her eyes fill with water.
“I just watched all of that work go up in flames—and it was a horrible feeling. But after a few minutes the neighborhood kids showed up and started dancing around the fire and giggled and pulled me in with them. And then it was okay.”
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