Ask and Thou Shall Receive, Best is West

The day arrived when we received site announcements. This day that will reveal the burning question that everyone has been itching to know of where we’ll be assigned and the place we can call ours for the next 2 years.

So what was rumored in the past was that site announcements involved an interesting puzzle, consumption of a cookie, and a map revealing our site. To our shock, it was strikingly the exact same.

The staff had us all line up and take a piece of paper with a number. This number was the order of which we went up the stage, to find a balloon with the color of our sector (mine was red for CHT) then pop the balloon to find another piece of paper with a clue/riddle of our town name, which led to a cookie with our order number, then matching the number on our riddle slips with the number on the map marked by our sector-colored string.

*Drum roll*

I got assigned to Hukuntsi. A lovely town, southwest of Molepolole, and North of the Khalagadi North Game Reserve. It has an estimated population of 1,400 villagers. Also, I will be replacing the Bots 15 volunteer Corinne* and had a lovely and extensive information sheet on what to expect and her role as a volunteer at the DHMT (District Health Management Team) that she was placed with. She was also a volunteer that I was fortunate enough to see and encounter while at PST in Gabarone at Ave Maria Pastoral Center.

How do we get assigned to our sites? Well it’s a process beyond me, but from what we’ve been told on numerous occasion is that our background experience, resume, qualifications, interviews with our program managers, and outlined preferences get us to this point of our next phase in PST. Interesting enough, I had told OT (my program manager) that I wanted to be placed West and preferably not North. I don’t know what it was, but in my heart I wanted to be placed far away from the well-known and popular cities, and really serve in a rural part of Botswana. I imagined the West as somewhere in the wild and untouched part of development and civilization, which is totally naïve and I would later discover during site visit that there seems to be wifi and a shopping centre in my town. 

Regardless, I'm hopeful to explore my Wild West. Prayers and thoughts always welcomed and appreciated ya'll. Be kind to one another.

Dithubaruba. Festival Time ya’ll

With weekdays that were jam packed with sessions back to back, this weekend was a treat and welcomed sweet relief from PST. My fellow Trainees and I were taken to a culture festival known as Dithubaruba in Molepolole. The day was promised to be filled with Botswana cultural dances, performances, and motivational speeches delivered by the religious, traditional, and political leaders of the communities of Molepolole.

Knowing me ya’ll know I love a good festival. Hell I took advantage of them all while I was in Nawlins. That city, my beloved city. Anyhow, we had this opportunity beforehand to “top-up” or upgrade our tickets to V.VIP, which would get us a spot in a shaded tent (totally necessary for the now 95 degree heat), a chance to network or greet dignitaries, receive snacks (super important), and a mystery souvenir. One of the coolest moments was sitting right behind the US ambassador in Botswana and his possible wife/partner. We were prohibited from drinking any of the traditional Botswana brewed beer, but I went wild with the Ginger brew that was provided in our tents.

As I shot video after video of each performance, I couldn’t help but just be mystified by their every move, their incredible footwork, and amazing rhythm and SOUL. I can’t describe just how powerful their movement got me to feel so blessed to be able to witness it all. (The videos are soon to be posted, my internet connectivity has been stalled due to my reluctance to plug myself back into the different sources of media- don’t hate me guys I just can’t force myself to be that connected it might make me sad).

After some of the beautiful and moving performances, lunch was served. Even though the V.VIP were supposed to get first dibs, it seemed that the schedule was behind. Go figure. So lunch was delayed for another hour or so. When we finally got through the line, I got to try a bit of the paleche, motogo, dinawa (beans), rape, lentils, seswaa, and beef gravy. It all seemed so delicious at the time after waiting for hours from breakfast, but I was soon going to regret the very meal that got me in deep shit. Story following…

Following the lovely long day of cultural festivities, I proceeded to go to my friend’s house to wind down and watch Bridesmaids. So… remember the scene in the movie, where Kirsten Wig’s character takes everyone to this cozy Brazilian restaurant from which everyone experiences food poisoning and uncontrollably and violently shits everywhere at the bridesmaids fitting appointment. Yup. It happened folks. I shit my pants. Literally. I woke up in the middle of the night only to find that my stomach and butthole had a mind of its own. The feeling was uncontrollable and insane. My butthole was actually quivering in fear. Then finally while I was digging around for my flashlight to go to unlock my door (which is barred), shit got real. I continued to walk to the latrine as the process was continuing, finished my business at my latrine, tossed the evidence, and called it a night. 

I can finally check off pooping myself from the Peace Corps to-do list. The funniest part is I remember telling my friends that night that whoever shits themselves has to tell their story. Life has shitty jokes I suppose. And that’s the scoop on my poop. Ok end of poop puns I promise.

Integration, Integration, Integration. Repeat.

Bucket bathing definitely beats coffee in the morning. A warm bucket bath I was told is crucial for the winters, but this morning as the cold crisp air touches my skin I immediately regret bathing in the morning. Another lesson learned, not likely to bucket bathe in the morning.

As these past few days have passed, there has been a huge influx of information. I thought I knew what that would look like, or what to expect from other MI students that gave me insight on what PST feels like. But it’s entirely different hearing about how it will undergo and then going through it. In Setswana they would say, “Ke botshelo” or such is life. 

I would describe this feeling as an intense, stimulating, overwhelming, and brain exercising boot camp. As I move through week two, consistently we have language in the mornings from 7:30-9:30, then we have a jam-packed day lasting from 10:00 till 5:00. So far, this week has included where we had our interviews with our program managers of our individual sectors (mine is Clinic and Health Team aka CHT) that were one of the many evaluations conducted for our future site placement. Along with those interviews, we have had revolving sessions that include the informative topics, such as, Peace Corps medical policies and orientation to in-country care, Peace Corps’ approach to development, the Peace Corps goals, Botswana history and culture, and on the other hand covering sensitive topics that include, diversity and volunteer resiliency. Some topics seem to be easier to swallow and process than others, but overall I know it’s all for the greater good of training and preparing us for our actual site assignments. 

Constantly it has been drilled over and over, that it all depends on where we get placed. The key to understanding community needs and building sustainability through capacity building that address those needs is based on, can you guess? Yep, integration. 

On an interesting note, this year is Botswana’s 50^th birthday or celebration of its independence! It’s been interesting to get local perspectives on the holiday and festivities, mostly my host family members that don’t agree with the amount of money or attention that is being “excessively” spent due to it rather than allocating that money to other issues and urgent matters of the Botswana communities. There will be exciting events, such as, the Roving Torch that will celebrate the independence of Botswana by passing around a torch from town to town (August 12-14 is when it will reside in Molepolole) and returned back to Gabarone.

It was also interesting coming into Botswana while it’s entering a huge drought crisis. Some areas of Botswana do not have even have water tanks and have to go into neighboring towns to collect it, and recently it was discovered that a dam owned by Botswana in South Africa has been dried up completely. It definitely is a sensitive time to be entering Botswana and I hope with my time here that I make a positive difference to raise awareness of this highly critical environmental situation. 

Also we went over our Trainee Assessment Portfolios during the week that will basically analyze how well we perform and implement the learning objectives set by Peace Corps frameworks formed for the different sectors: Health, Government, NGO, Civil Society, and Life Skills. These are then analyzed by our written assignments/responses, interviews with our program managers, and practicum activities that include using participatory analysis for community action (PACA) tools (community mapping, the seasonal/academic calendar, activities, and needs assessment) to plan for our final projects with our assigned local organizations (most likely clinics, schools, or district health management offices). 

This session got me really excited and looking forward to the possibility of what my two years of service could look like. I feel like this will be my chance to not only implement and utilize the tools that Tulane gave me, but also the tools Peace Corps will hand me to empower and strengthen whatever community God places me in. Technically whatever community my program manager places me in. It’s been a strange dance between being hopeful/staying motivated and being realistic/expecting the unexpected and being flexible with whatever challenges lie ahead, which I can’t even anticipate because I haven’t technically started my service with Peace Corps yet. All I know is I’m here now and I’m not going to give up, but I’m going to keep calm and carry on.

Stay tuned friends. Pray for me. Send me good thoughts and love, because I get them all.