#7 Tsena ditsala tsa me

Well! It’s been about a month since I last posted. Now that I am settled in in my village, there are fewer big changes. I have had dozens of funny, interesting, learning experiences, but nothing major. I’m gonna touch on what I’ve been doing workwise, and then tell you about a few of the funny experiences.

Work is good so far! I’m working away on my Community Assessment, trying to interview as many people as possible. In the morning I go to the clinic, and usually help with the Child Welfare Clinic. Every kid that is <five years old must come in monthly to be weighed and get a mini checkup. The paperwork is rather extensive for each kid, so it takes most of the morning to get through the 25-30 kids that come in each day. I’ve learned a lot of Setswana from this, especially helpful phrases that I will be sure to need later, such as “Do you breastfeed?” and “Do you have Oral Rehydration Salts at home?” See? Very useful. For the rest of the day, if no one has asked anything of me, I set up meetings and then talk to various community leaders around the village. At this point, I have more of an idea of what I will be doing, so I am starting to focus more on writing up all my results.

I have gone on “outreach” twice in the last two weeks. Outreach is when we go to villages nearby that my village’s clinic is responsible for. The first time, I went to the Jao Flats, a large island located in the heart of the delta. It took three hours on the ambulance boat to get to the island from my village. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life. We went from wide open channels to small paths hand cut through the muck and reeds and back again, weaving our way slowly southeast towards the island. On the way there, we saw dozens of crocodiles, several hippos, and an incredible variety of birds. As we swept around each corner the crocs that were sunning themselves on the shore would panic and lunge into the water (more croc content later). The actual outreach work was done by my supervisor, as I helped to organize the supply room and then walked around the island. On the way back, we saw some crocs wrestling over the bloated carcass of a cow that had ended up floating in the river. We watched them try to fight each other while also eating the cow. So cool.

There are several fancy tourist camps in the Jao Flats area because the island is so deep in the delta. I’ve looked some of them up, and they are out of this world: extremely high end, but also beautiful. A plane landed right as we got to the island, but the tourists are picked up in a camp car and are taken straight to the camp on the other side of the island. It is not surprising, but still odd to see how separate the camps are from the village. After my semester in Tanzania and then my time here so far, I have come to value the culture and people just as I value the scenery and activities. I find myself scorning the tourists who fly all the way in here just to be taken to the camps and go on their fancy game drives. Of course, the onus to buck this trend will soon be on me as I travel around the country and around the world for the rest of my life. I suppose it isn’t entirely sustainable to spend two years integrating into the community I am visiting every time.

The best experience I have had in Botswana so far was a weekend trip to my host family’s cattle post. It is only a few minutes away from my village, and they spend most of their time there. The cattle post is a few hundred yards away from the outer bank of the delta, where there currently isn’t water (the river level, much like the Mighty Mississippi in Red Wing, varies depending on the season. Unlike the Mississippi however, the Okavango River level is also dictated by how much water the country of Angola releases from their dams further up the river. At this time of year, the water is close to its lowest, and what is usually covered in water is now large sparsely grassed fields). The cattle post consists of a few mud brick buildings, a cattle corral, and a goat corral. Every night, the cows and goats come home, mostly of their own accord. I set up my tent and sleeping bag, and helped my younger brother Tony set up his next to mine. We ate food cooked over the fire and went to bed early; solar power is relatively common at cattle posts but not to the point where you can waste electricity late into the night. The next morning I helped build the roof for a new structure to keep goats in, and then sat with my dad and brother in the shade for several hours until the meat we were cooking was done. As the time ticked by, we kept moving from spot to spot to follow the shade. My phone’s battery was dead, so I enjoyed just sitting and talking and being together with zero distractions.

In the afternoon, my uncle came to pick Tony and me up to bring us to his farm out in the delta. We walked straight into the delta for almost 30 minutes, and then took a canoe for a few minutes to reach a small island where he lives and has a vegetable farm. He showed me the crops, and we helped his neighbor fix their gas-powered water pump. After meeting the neighbor’s family, who were bewildered to find a “lekgoa” (setswana for white person) on their island, he told me to go with the kids and paddle around in the open water nearby until we were tired, and then to call him and he would walk us back.

So off I went, with three 10-year-olds, to paddle around in the water. When we got to the canoe, I asked if I could try poling it. Because of the reeds and muck, plus the shallowness of the entire delta, canoes are driven by pushing a long pole against the ground, instead of using a paddle. It took me a long time to learn how to maneuver, because it the pole moves the canoe differently than a paddle. Then, after a few minutes of playing around the younger two kids asked me if I wanted to swim. I was absolutely dying to swim, but I was also slightly concerned with running into other river dwelling creatures, such as, yknow, crocodiles and hippos and massive boa constrictors oh my god. After many reassurances by the kids, and after they got in the water first, I jumped in too. Looking back, I am glad this was before I saw all the crocodiles on my trip to the Jao Flats, because I don’t think I would have the gumption to do it now. The water wasn’t very deep—I could touch—but it was still one of the scariest things I have ever done. Not knowing if something was close by, slowly sneaking up, just underneath the surface of the muddy water…man oh man. Most of these worries crept up afterwards, I’ll be honest. It was fantastic in the moment. We swam and poled the canoes for a few hours, and then watched the sun start to set on the distant horizon across the delta. Spending the afternoon in the middle of the delta swimming with three little kids that I barely knew, watching cows run across the river, drying off in the sun, and learning how to pole a canoe was the best day I have had in Botswana.

We ended up walking back later, had another great meal (with cauldron bread!) and then went to bed. The next day we packed up and drove back to the village through the delta. On the way we saw monkeys, a huge heron, and many more birds. What. A. Weekend.

My house is coming along nicely. Nothing has changed, but I’m getting used to living here. I’ve just about run out of groceries, so I am starting to eat like a real Motswana (Botswana person). I’m relying heavily on veggies that I buy in the shopping village and then freeze, as vegetables are not really available in my village. I’m cooking with and for my brother most nights, as his mom gets home late from work and rarely cooks for him. I’m also joined by my three-year-old brother who lives next door every evening. He has free reign in the house because I don’t understand his three-year-old-Setswana-and-English-combo and can barely communicate. He is a total sweetheart and runs over across my year yelling “Kopano! Kopano!” so I hear him coming. He recently discovered how to say “Boo!” which is the cutest thing ever. He balances things out though, as he shit himself all over my porch yesterday and I had to clean him and the porch up. You win some and ya lose some, I guess.

I’m sure we are all tired of hearing about the election, so I’ll keep these comments short. The Botswana elections were the week before ours, and the ruling party, which had been in power for 58 years, had a stunning fall from 61 members in parliament to 3 members. For the first time in Botswana history, the sitting president was voted out, and a new party is in control. With the unemployment rate reportedly around 27%, people wanted change and voted for it. It was very strange to go through this US election while being here; I believe in part because I am so rural and the Botswana election, but no one here cared about the US election at all. People knew vaguely what happened and could talk about it if I brought it up. But the conversation would quickly turn back to the Botswana election.

My Mom sent me an email from the League of Women voters that had a great John Lewis quote in it that sums up how I feel about the US election:

“Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or one presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.”

Alright, back to normally scheduled programming; I got the funniest haircut of my life the other week. I asked my brother Tony (see above, re: nine y/o) where to get a haircut, and he said he would show me. A few days later, we walked across the village with his two other friends in tow, headed to the barber. When we got there, I was amazed to see that it looked like a real barber, with a candy-striped pole, neon signs, and big comfy seats. Just kidding. It was a shack on the side of the road. Amazingly, they did have power and had a few clippers and a variety of scissors and things. Given that we are several hours away from the nearest town, and even then, many hours from the nearest place where any white people live, I had no hope that the guy would know what to do. I had already come to terms with the fact that I was going to get a buzz cut, and had leaned into it, letting my brother pick out the design I should get from the poster on the wall. Turns out, I didn’t need to tell him what I wanted, as he just started cutting when I sat down. A whole crowd turned up, and at one point there were seven or eight people there watching to see what the barber was going to do to the white guy.

I had long hair before, so when he gave me a fade (short hair around the ears/neck and then fading into longer hair on top) I had a blinding tan line where my hair used to be. I watched in the mirror as he slowly, accidentally, revealed my widows peak/receding hair line and tried to cover it up. I watched as he only cut from back to front, effectively just combing my hair down. Finally, when he was done, I got up and said the only two words of the entire interaction: “Thank you!”

Walking home, my brother took some pictures of me, in which you can see the tan line, hairline, etc. The next morning at work I took a selfie that caused me to laugh for five minutes before regain control. All these fun things will be in the photo album on here, so go have fun. I’m still laughing about it. Apparently, Eileen (shoutout Curly Girl!) saw the pictures the next day and was horrified. Sorry!! Various phrases my friends and family have used are “Fucking brutal,” “….interesting,” “soccer haircut,” and “did you do something to make the barber mad?”

Last thing, a few more funny little tidbits that make me chuckle during the day:

I’ve learned how to iron! Kinda. It ain’t pretty. But the effort is there.

My knuckles bleed every time I do laundry, then scab over and heal just in time for the next week’s load.

The plastic chairs that I bought are very nice- they even have a recline feature. It’s the first time I’ve seen something like that on a plastic chair. It only works in hot weather though, which is when the thin plastic is weak enough to bend and there is no choice but to slowly recline. The chairs were $3. They are horrible.

Finally fulfilled my dream of buying a Nokia. It is glorious.

I am waging war against the goats that like to infiltrate my yard searching for my garden.

It started to rain! Good and bad; it isn’t quite as hot, but power is off for hours at a time.

That’s about all I got for y’all! I love you all, and hope you are doing well. Send any news you have; I love hearing from people back home.