Dumelang Borra Le Bomma...

It’s been an interesting and different time for me this past week or so! I’m starting to feel a bit more settled in here in Botswana and the shock of it all is starting to slowly wear off a bit. I’ve had a few challenges with cultural differences and understanding my new role as young American women in Bots. It’s a new experience and a very different status that I now have here and as happy as I am to be here, I’m really realizing that I have my obstacles pretty lined up for myself and am trying to find the best way to deal and handle them as they come.

The realization is starting to really hit me that this I my new life for the next 2 years and the struggles and obstacles that I am facing and observing isn’t just a problem that I might be dealing with for awhile, but are things that really affect me! Things that I have to deal with and learn to accept in order to deal with them because this is my life now. I’ve never made such a drastic move like this before to live, so I’m still a bit used to thinking that whatever I come across I only have to deal with for a little while until I get back to my comfort zone at home….but this is my home now…at least for quite awhile.

I think that so many things that Batswana (people of Botswana) do are really cool and I’m really happy to be so integrated and so involved so quickly into the culture. However, I’m learning that even though I’m part of my family (a very traditional African family) and basically am trying to live and breathe Botswana culture…I’m still very much considered to be a representation of the “American dream” and being a young white American women…makes me very vulnerable to what the Peace Corps call, “unwanted attention.” I’ve had an instance recently that has made me very aware of my status and how much of an “attention” grabber I can be seen as to others. I’ve been getting some special unwanted attention lately and it’s been a little unsettling at times for me to feel so vulnerable and a bit like a target. My host family has been amazing though and has been standing up for me every step of the way and been at my defense every second. It’s Botswana, being white is being the minority here. I’ve lived in America my whole life and have never been the minority before. I think It’s a good lesson for me to have and get a perspective of what it’s like to be “different.” People here are very nice and welcoming, please don’t get me wrong, but there are some people that see me only as a white American female and living in a culture where men dominate everything and I’m considered the minority…it’s a big adjustment. I get stared at everywhere I go. I have men proposing and asking me to go home with them daily. I have people coming up to me asking my name, then shaking my hand, and then telling me immediately that they love me and ask if I will take them back to America with me.

I guess through situations that I have had lately and challenges of this that I have already needed to address, it’s just really made me think about my new role in my new society and how different life really is now. Like I said, the shock is starting to wear off and I’m slowly settling in, which is good but causing me to need to put some things in perspective. Lessons have been learned already and it’s only been a month. Haha I can only imagine next month at this rate.

Anyways, not to be harping on the not very fun things, but I think that its really important to understand and be aware of my surroundings. It’s a bit bitter sweet for me because I want to me welcoming, open, not judgmental, and very accepting of everyone that I meet…but I’m realizing that its going to take a long time to feel like I can find a balance of letting my guard down and feeling safe doing it. I think that’s how it is anywhere, but it’s hard because I don’t want to have my guard up or to be thinking of myself as 

someone that people will take advantage of. However, I think of now it has to be done. I’m in a different world, with different cultures and customs that I don’t know well enough yet or comprehend why thing are the way they are. I’m learning more and more through training, talking to people, and just being here I’m learning how important your upbringing and growing up experience really Is and how It shapes everything that you are to the present day. I spend my days in training talking about HIV/AIDS and the overwhelming epidemic that is currently in Botswana and the here about many cultural traditions that make Botswana very rich in culture, but seem to hurting and worsening the epidemic in many ways. Botswana’s government is working very hard to help the disease and people living with it such a providing free ARV’s, free protections, free medical opportunities…I mean, good things that seem almost unreal that with all of these free opportunities that Bots still even has a problem…but there Is so much more to it! The culture, traditions, superstitions, con current relationships, government jobs moving people all over the country, stigma, discrimination, etc… so many factors that contribute and I find it so overwhelming to think that it’s my job to try to find a way to respectfully educate through all the obstacles and work towards stopping the epidemic.

I’ve had a few moments of, “what am I doing? I can’t do this? No one can! We’re all screwed!” I have so said that to myself a few times and even to a few people around me…who are usually saying something to the same affect. Hahaha However, it’s like a few people have told me and the Peace Corps reminds us of a bit, which is that we’re not here to stop AIDS. That won’t happen no matter how hard we try. However, we are all here to get our foot in the door, to start the educating of the new generation to help stop it, to make sustainable projects to help people in Bots help themselves to fix the problem in the long run. Miracles can happen, but I think with something this big…it’s just not possible to happen overnight. BUT it can happen!

Today at training we had a panel of 3 people that are all HIV positive and talk and to us about life, discrimination, and how they deal with their statuses. It was really amazing to experience and listen to these 3 people that are so positive and happy about their lives. They talked about how they wouldn’t change anything and they have now dedicated their lives to education others and becoming activists against the cause to fight HIV/AIDS. One women, who is now in the AIDS stage, said, “bad things happen to everyone, but everything happens for a reason. It’s how you deal/accept the things that happen that makes the difference. If you love yourself and what happens so that you can accept it, then everyone will love you too and then life is nothing but a beautiful flower.” Listening to them all, as you can imagine, puts life in perspective!!! I mean, I’ve spent the last 2 days complaining about the huge stomach ache I have had due to the flu shots they gave us a few days ago…ummm, yeah, I stopped complaining after that panel!!!! It’s interesting how caught up in all of our little social dramas and own heads we get and don’t think and can’t feel what others go through. Having a stomach ache is not the end of the world…its not even considered big enough to make my day that bad. I mean, life is overwhelming when you look at it through the perspective of someone that is looking at death and permanent illness. Yet, it’s also an amazing way to see how important life is and how much it needs to be cherished and how valuable the people in your life really are.

Every day that I’m here I feel more and more like I’m realizing how important and irreplaceable relationships, friendships, love, and support really is. It’s everything! To feel loved and to give love to 

others…really is everything that life is about…or at least I think should be about. I know this is getting sappy and corny, but its true. Being a friend, being a good friend is amazing gift that people can give one another. In panel today they were talking about their support systems and how vital they have been to getting through this disease and to feel like they can fight against it all and have a chance. It’s a very surreal feeling to be sitting there with amazing people in front of me happier than ever and choosing to be that way rather then living in fear of the fact that unfortunately, they’re dying. I can’t even imagine what that would be like!

I went to Mochudi last week, about an hour out of Gaborone to shadow a current PC’s NGO volunteer and it was a really great experience to see what life will be more like when I get done with training, which I can’t believe is in about a month! It was so great to see a different perspective to the whole PC’s life and ask a million questions to the volunteer that has already been through what I have. Mochudi is a pretty big village, more of a small city village, but it was so mice to get a break from classes and really go work a little. I met some really cool kids. One teenage boy kept serenading me with 50 cents songs that then randomly busted out into “Uptown girl.” HAHA I loved it, but it was so random! I get more marriage proposals then I do “Dumelas” (Hello) some days. I often get asked if I will marry some guy and then take him back to America with me! I think my favorite was when one of my taxi drivers told me that he loved me, wanted us to get married, and then told me that if w did that we could drive to America right then and I could take him home to meet my mom. HAHAHA I told him there were a few major problems with that plan…like the Atlantic Ocean for that matter!! He laughed! I think we broke up already! Oh well!

I met some really great people in Mochudi, one of them was Unity Dow, who was the first women Supreme Court Justice in Botswana. She was really nice and it turns out that she used to be a language teacher for the Peace Corps in the 80’s. Go figure! I’m getting so excited to find out my site placement. It’s just about 2 weeks until I find out! Oh my Gosh!!!

There are a lot of cultural differences that I find really entertaining and interesting, cause it’s little things that in America we just don’t do. Like for meals, people are basically assigned the same plate for every meal. I’ve been eating on the exact same white dish for the last several weeks. I’m not really sure why its so specific like that, but it is. Also, in Africa there is no personal space, no personal bubble! You are NEXT to people all the time and the idea of a bubble just doesn’t exist. Which in reality is a friendly thing, but in a America, you totally have space! So, its not a big deal, but something to get used to. In taxi’s especially, you might as well be sitting on one another’s laps….same thing basically. Bots has their own hand shake! Haha I’m serious though, there is a quick but specific hand shake that people in Bots do, well most people in Bots. I’ve eaten some interesting things, but nothing like people are expecting…so don’t get too excited! I don’t have any goat eye stories, at least not yet….and I’m just fine with that! However, apparently being offered a goat’s eye is like the biggest gesture you can get from Motswana.

I’ve had a lot of cultural foods though like Phaletshe, which looks like really stiff mashed potatoes but is what they call Maize Meal. It tastes like mash potatoes but a little blander. Setampa which is basically raw corn, yet cooked, but still raw! I really can’t explain it much better then that. Last night I ate cooked pumpkin, which isn’t odd or anything, but I’ve never had it before. In Bots, you don’t deny food. I mean, 

people are typically pretty nice and the Peace Corps gave us tips on nice ways to back out of eating things, but really in less you just can’t….than you just eat. So, far I’ve only had one thing here, which is the porridge, that I just couldn’t do! I felt badly but I had to tell my host family that there was no way that I would be able to eat this! I can’t explain it, but it just isn’t my thing. My family was really nice and they try so hard to make things that I like, which has made things so much easier…especially because we have like 8 meals a day. They have tea time here at least twice a day, which is pretty easy to get used to having to stop the work you’re doing so that you can relax and have some tea and a fat cake.Yes, I said fat cake. They are just like fluffy rolls and as American girls we have finally started getting used to not feeling fat, while asking for another fat cake. HAHAHA

I’m making chocolate chip cookies for my host family again this weekend after I hand wash all my cloths…by the way I’m really hating on all of you that have washers and dryers…and showers! I’m so hating you all for showers!!! Bucket bathing should be like an Olympic sport! Its take talent not to flood the room when trying to bucket bath. It should be it’s own sport! Anyways, I made my family cookies a few weeks ago and they really loved them so they asked me to do it again. My friend Laura In the Pc’s with me that is living next door with her host family and I made them and between the trying to figure out the ingredient conversions, trying to study Setswana, and all while fighting against the cockroaches that I didn’t know were in there and apparently don’t like oven heat, fleeing from the oven! We successfully made roaches-less cookies and everyone loved them. Laura and I were proud of ourselves that the cookies weren’t roach hard…we totally gave up on studying…and are still laughing about the roach invasion!