#4 Site Visit pt. 1
Wow! It’s been a while. Included below: learning where my site is, supervisor workshop, traveling to site, and seeing the President. It has been an incredibly busy last few weeks, so much so that I am going to split this post into two parts. Welcome to part one.
Brief disclaimer: I am more than happy to tell you exactly where I am, but I won’t be posting the name of my village on the blog. PC discourages it, and I’m not comfortable with putting it here where anyone with a computer can see. This is also the reason why I made the Q&A section instead of having my contact info right on the page.
Site Announcement
PC Staff absolutely outdid themselves with this. They had been hyping it up for weeks, teasing us with how they needed a lot of time to set up the room and other silly things. The announcement was Monday the 5th in the morning. We were given blindfolds and brought up to the room that they had set up. Before entering they put the blindfolds on and led us into the room, standing us in a specific spot. Standing there with our blindfolds on, we could hear some voices close to us and others far away. We all took off our blindfolds at the same time and realized that it was a map!! On the ground in a big room they had used tape to make the country of Botswana, complete with roads and little nametags for each volunteer. I got to see that I was wayyyy far away from the capital/training. I am placed in the Okavango (Okah-vahn-goo) Delta, which is basically a meandering river that becomes a wide delta before it runs into the desert and disappears. It is strikingly similar to Red Wing and the Mississippi, and there are canoes!! But more on that later. The Okavango is far up in the north-western part of the country. There are a lot of villages lining the delta on both sides. When you cross the river up near Namibia and head back south again, it is called being ‘overseas’ because it is so far away. How awesome is that.
The staff circulated the room while we looked at the map, talked to each other, and read the information in the big packets that they gave us. Several staff members checked in on me, because my village is so remote, just to make sure I was doing OK. In the moment, I was thrilled, excited, happy, ready (spoiler alert: I am now even more so). It was fun to learn about all of the places that my friends will be posted, but also sad to see how far apart we all are. They had really good cupcakes too, with the Botswana flag on them in tongue-staining bright colors. They thought of everything.
Supervisor Workshop
This was fun. Three nights in Gabs, the capital, staying at a hotel. We had two full days of a workshop where all our respective supervisors came to meet us and learn a little more about PC. Nothing too interesting. You will hear a lot more about my supervisor, Mma Sebinang, later. For now, let it suffice to say that she is amazing. We had a little free time each evening after our workshop sessions, so we walked to a mall nearby, which quickly turned into we-have-nothing-to-do-so-lets-go-to-the-mall-oh-wait-malls-are-hell-why-did-we-do-this.
As requested: Letsile Tebogo (important note here, they mispronounced his name almost every time. In Setswana the ‘g’ is soft, so Tebogo is Teboho. It was frustrating to hear it said incorrectly) is a Motswana sprinter. Instead of ‘Botswanan’ a person from Botswana is called a Motswana. Plural = Batswana. Tebogo was born on June 7th, 2003 (almost a full year after me, oof). He was born in Kanye, Botswana, which, yes, is pronounced exactly like the artist. Tebogo is a short-distance sprinter, mainly running the 100m and 200m. For the past four years Tebogo has been one of the fastest for his age bracket, and now is one of the fastest men in the world. Tebogo competes all over the world and has set records in several different events. He holds the national record in the 100m, and the African record and national record in the 200m. Uncle Jorge, I hope this is sufficient. Will provide occasional updates on the successes of Mr. Tebogo in the future.
On the last night of the workshop, there was a big race…and Tebogo smoked ‘em all! There wasn’t a common area in the hotel, so everyone was watching in their rooms, but when he won you could hear people cheering, yelling, and ululating all the way down the hall. The next day, the president gave the entire country a half day off, which happened again the next week when team Botswana medaled again. When the national team got back to Bots, there was an incredible outpouring of support for the athletes, including a reception at the airport, local stadium, and people lining all the roads between the two. In the days after the Gold, everyone wanted to ask me about Lyles and if I knew Tebogo, to which I responded with a big smile and saying Tebogo!! Hilarious. Really good for Botswana pride and the country.
Travel to Site
PC doesn’t let any volunteer travel at night, so the long trip up to the Okavango (with Phoebe, as she is posted about an hour drive north of me) had to be done in stages. We left early, at 4:30, from Gaborone to take a bus to Maun. We got there at 4:00pm, stayed in a nice hotel, and left again at 4:30am this time headed up to Shakawe. Shakawe (sounds like Shakopee, MN!) will be my shopping village, and is about two to three hours by ambulance from my village (I work in a clinic so will get around in an ambulance). The first day was 11.5 hours in the bus, the second, six hours in the bus and three in the ambulance.
Fun notes:
The bus stops often to pick up more people and let people off. While it is a big coach bus, just like the ones in the US, some people use them just to go a little way.
I thought the landscape might change a bit, but unfortunately that was not the case. It looked pretty much the same from Gabs to Shakawe.
I read 75% of Fellowship of the Ring in two days!
It is possible to go a long time without getting sore in one of those seats. But as soon as you move, you are totally screwed. Once you move once you have no choice but to keep adjusting every few minutes, which is no fun for you or the person next to you. So best practice is to hold off on readjusting for as long as possible.
Once you are farther north in the country, cows and goats cross the road about eery five minutes. Usually the bus drivers don’t have to slow down, and if they do they manage to scare the animals off by honking their horns. Sometimes we came to a complete stop in the road while a whole group of cows crossed. And sadly one time a goat was too slow…BANG! “Ooohhh aeshshshsh” all the old women said while shaking their heads. We just kept on goin.
Our bus broke down when we were super close to getting there. A huge BANG and then several other Bang Bang Bang noises from underneath the bus. Turns out the long spinny pole thing (driveshaft?) had come undone. Definitely not a road-fix. After waiting for a while on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, another bus came and picked us all up. It was all hilarious, I have some fun pics of everyone outside of the bus once it broke.
Oh, and the road. It’s nice and paved most of the way, but then for the last three-ish hours before Shakawe it is washed out about every half mile. So the bus lurches off the side of the asphalt and drives on the gravel for a ways before getting back on the road only to lurch off again before it is washed out. Kinda hard to describe, but the word ‘weaving’ comes to mind.
The final leg, in the ambulance. “An ambulance?” you might be wondering. No, not an ambulance like you are thinking of. This ambulance is a pickup truck with a covered bed and some slight padding. It depends on which one you get, but they range from having an actual gurney in the back to it being just the metal bed of the truck with some slight padding. While flying down the bumpy gravel road at 80kmph the entire bed and cover is shaking, making the loudest racket. Talking to one another is not possible, unless you are yelling.
First Few Days
The president was about to visit!
I found this out at the aforementioned supervisor workshop and learned a little more about it: The Tauetona (directly translates to ‘the big lion’ but means president. Isn’t that awesome?) came to my village to celebrate the one-year anniversary of a country-wide initiative he had started. When I arrived on Saturday night, we just went straight to my homestay, but Sunday morning I was put to work. Mma Sebinang and I went straight to the Kgotla, which is the town hall, to meet the Kgosi (~mayor) and other important people. After my introduction was done (I had no idea he was the Kgosi and found out in the middle of introducing myself. Ah!) I sat talking to people and watching all the activities around me. People were repainting walls, repairing fences, big machines were clearing a place for some tents, etc. After sitting for a while, I watched, from a distance, a goat be slaughtered. Ten minutes after watching, I was told to come over (“Kopano! Ta kwano!”) to the place they were cooking. Lo and behold they had found their make-hunks-of-still-warm-goat-meat-smaller person…me! Confronted with a massive cauldron full of said hunks and a proffered knife, I got to work cutting them up, followed by starting the cookfire, stirring palachi, and helping make seswa.
For the next few days I helped do things to get ready for the president’s visit, cooked more, learned how to be an usher, dished food, met a trillion people, and watched the brutal slaughtering of a goat right in front of me. On the day of the Big Visit, I put commemorative woven pins on all the VIPs, told people where to sit, and (failed) to direct traffic (…I got yelled at). During the actual program, which was a bunch of speeches by various important people, I was helping give people water and snacks all over the area, from the VIPs to the randos standing around. I also got to eat a lot of the snacks, which was one of the best parts of the day. At the end of the day I again helped dish food to everyone. In my new clean white shirt I was in charge of dishing the beetroot, AND I only got a tiny bit on me. Basically a miracle.
At the end of this chaotic, super-hot, stressful day, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly grateful. I could very easily have been left on the side, told where to sit, and had a good day. However, I was included as much as possible. Fellow ushers would explain what was happening, where I should be, translate for me, and make sure I had water and food. People went incredibly far out of their way to help me and welcome me into the community. When I went home at 8:30, I was exhausted and sweaty, but couldn’t remember a time when I felt more part of a community after so short a time.
Ah, yes. I forgot. I did not actually meet the president, although that would have been really cool. I did hear, however, that he had told someone he was very happy Phoebe and I were included and integrated with our traditonal clothes and that I was an usher. So we didn’t meet him, but we were noticed! I’ll take that.
More coming soon. Just wrote all this, so I have to go back and insert all the snarkiness before publishing it.
P.S. Went back to look at the Q&A from the last few weeks, and here are some answers:
Fav food is probably Seswa so far. It’s basically pulled pork but made with either goat or beef. Served completely plain but tastes amazing; they know how to cook their meat here. Second best is morogo, which is a cooked mix of chard, carrots, onion, and sometimes tomato. It is really good, mainly because it makes me feel like Popeye. And it’s about the only veggies they have here, so love it or leave it.
I’m working on a recording of myself in Setswana, I *think* that I can post it somewhere on here.