I figured out transport!!!! To most people that wouldn’t be as exciting as it is to me…but it really is exciting!!!! I can get in and out of my village now all by myself!! It’s amazing!!! I figured out the Khombi’s and buses and can get places when I want to…well in theory! It’s still me sitting by the side of the road at many different times a day and sometimes for hours at a time waitiing for something to show up….but at least now when I sit by the road for hours I really am pretty sure that something will show. It’s very exciting!!!!! HAHA The Khombi is the only way in my village. Buses don’t come into my village, they only stay on the main tar road which is around 10-20 miles from my village. I really don’t know how much but I know its really far!!! So, I have to go to Letlhakeng and catch a Khombi which from my current understanding, there is only ONE khombi! Which means I sit and wait A LOT and that if that one guy decides not to go to work that day…then I’m screwed! Which might I add does happen. I’m learning how to be OK with Botswana/Africa time and be OK with the idea that just because you want to do something that day or even need to do something that day…it doesn’t necessarily mean you get to.
I make plans and walk out to the bus stop by my house (yes, there is a bus stop sign, even though there are NO buses) and I walk out and immediately get a ride. Sometimes I sit there for hours just to end up never getting one. Its all just luck or fate or destiny or just the way the world works…I don’t really know. BUT oh my gosh….I am so freakishly excited when I hear a car coming!!! I’m slowly getting the hang of things and feeling more comfortable with my house and neighbors and everything! Its an extremely slow process and some days are great and some just kind of suck….but it’s like one of friends said to me the other day when I was having a hard time. “It’s important to really reassess why you’re here and why you wanted to do this in the first place and make sure that you’re getting out of this experience what you hoped. If you’re not then you shouldn’t be wasting your time or being upset for no reason.” So I did and I’m still here. Its been a struggle and already just in the last 3 months I feel like I have had more emotional, personal, physical challenges put upon me than ever before. Honestly, I’m glad for it! Now, don’t quote me on that when I’m having a bad day, cause I won’t listen and I’ll deny I ever said it….but I am glad to be learning this much about myself and seeing what I’m really capable of and also, really figuring out what I want out of life and how I can get it. I don’t think that anything that you truly want comes very easily. I think if you really want something than you have to fight for it and test yourself to makes sure that you can handle what you’re wanting for when you do get it. I don’t know if I’m totally making sense. I guess my point is that if I want to go and work for organizations that help people around the world…than I need to see the world and meet some of those people! However, I will say that becoming an actual adult and being thrown into all of this so fast…I do feel a bit freaked and as if I may have missed a few steps of transition in between. Like I may have jumped the gun a bit and put myself into a tougher situation then I can handle or are capable of handling. I’ve had a lot of doubts about that lately. It’s hard. I’m trying though…
To be able to really be a good and empathetic person, especially for people that I’m hoping to help one day, than I should really know how others live and what it feels like to sit out at the road for hours not knowing if you’ll ever get anywhere. I mean, I’m still very lucky and I know that while I’m living at grass roots I still have the things I need. Its interesting though cause what I have still is a lot less than the people around me. The teachers at my school have a bigger income than I do. I have enough to get what I need, but that’s really about it. It’s funny because the people I work with have more money than I do and even nicer houses than I do…and honestly, wear nicer cloths than I do. However, because I come from America and I’m white….everyone assumes that I’m living very nicely. People always tell me that I’m rich. They don’t ask if I am…they tell me I am. I always say that not, because well I’m not. I have no money saved or anything at home currently, so by American standards I’m not rich AT ALL. By Botswana standards, I am very wealthy. What I’ve realized is that when people here do think of me they think of money but, I think more than money, I’m looked at as rich in opportunity. I’m wealthy with possibilities and opportunities. The mere fact that I have been on an airplane just to get here is something that the majority of people here have not done and more than likely will never do. I sit around and plan what trips I might want to take or grad schools I might attend in 2 years when I go back to America while most around me are planning how they will eat tonight. When I really stop and think about it and compare my worlds…the one I was in a few months ago to the one I’m in now, because they do seem like completely different worlds….I have nothing to complain about!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Cheap Cheap Cheap!!!
OK, so get this! I just paid my rent here in Botswana and its was 60 pula. Thats is literally like $8.50 or something. My rent is 8 bucks! I mean really! I kind of can't believe it. but I'll take it. So, if you ever want to save some money apparently then just move to a tiny house in the middle of rural Botswana and you can do it! HAHA I'm sitting here in Gabs right now and am listeing to some very odd Bette Middler song playing in the mall. hmmmm.... Anyways, I'm here cause transport from my village has become very hard and so I had a meeting with my country director and supervisor and they lifeted the "lock down" policy for me. which was a really big help actually. We are all suppose to be on "lock down" for the first 2 1/2 months and not leaving our sites and especially not spend the night anywhere, but since transport is so hard and I basically have to be dependent on other ppl's sechedules that usually means I have to spend several nights away to get food and things. So, the Pc's was cool about it and understood that I was an "extreme case" as they called it and liufted the policy...which is a bit of a load off. Still, i need to figure out how to get around and how to do all this but its cool...with time I guess.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
No rain...no rainbows
I retract my pervious statement. I believe that I more than likely said that “last week was the hardest of my life,” or something to that extent….I take it back! I realize that for the next 2 years I really can’t make statements like that because more than likely I will find a way to outdo myself or at least the circumstances/situations/events will change that fate for me. I don’t even know where to begin. All of the things that I heard from everyone and Peace Corps and anybody that knew anything about the Peace Corps at all, all told me that this is going to be hard….painfully hard at times….that’s what I’m feeling now. This is hard. So hard! I have no idea what I’m doing or what to think or what to say or what to do! It’s a huge rollercoaster of emotions everyday. Everyday is different. Everyday is nothing of what you thought it was gonna be and even when there is a “plan” it usually doesn’t go according to plan. I mean, so is life. I understand that. I feel like all I do these days is whine or cry or feel out of place or mess something up…but well, that is basically all I do these days.
I know that everyone around me is feeling the same way. We all text/sms one another and yeah, we are all feeling like this…to different extents and in different ways, but we all have something! It’s just crazy. It’s hard to get perspective on things when you’re right in the middle of it all and feel like I have very little outlets of how to deal or think or feel. Talking to people from home (America) about it doesn’t work very well cause usually I end up just upset cause I miss them so much that that just makes things better and worse all at the same time. I can’t really talk about things with people in my village cause its an entirely different way of living and understanding life. I mean, how do I cry to someone about being so drained from having to spend hours upon hours washing my cloths by hand, when its all that person has ever known…it doesn’t work. Nothing in my life is bad and I need to try to keep that in perspective…but it’s just so damn hard right now to adjust to it all! I feel so emotionally drained and exhausted from everything going on and all the new changes, new duties, new and big expectations, as well as having no comfort zone whatsoever throughout all of it.
However, throughout everything I do I find myself believing that this can’t be it. I just can’t believe that I have been through all of this just go get here, freak out, cry, and decide that I can’t handle it and go home. I can’t believe that that is how this is suppose to go down or that that is the point of all of this. (Hence, why I’m still here) I told my friend Alex that and she helped me to see that the fact that I even think that and am saying that means that I still have some decent and fighting perspective in me somewhere and that thinking that is “some pretty powerful stuff and make sure to tap into that.” (her exact words, haha) Which was good to be reminded of. I mean, I talked to my sister, who is my life counselor I feel like and I miss insanely…and I know she misses me even though she won’t say it ( I love you Coco!) and I was telling her how I have these moments all the time where I can’t remember why I’m here….yet, I don’t move. I don’t go home, I don’t call my mom and tell her I’m coming home….I don’t move but I really am unable to think of a single reason why I’m here. Not because its that horrible or because I hate it that much, I think just because it gets so unbelievably overwhelming and I can’t find perspective on anything. At all. There are good and bad things to everything and I think with this experience I’m feeling like there are new/good and extremely difficult/challenges things to everything I do here. Its not black and white. Its not good or bad…its everything and anything in between! I think its safe to say this is the most challenging thing I have ever done…but there I go again…I probably just jinxed myself and I’ll be in the middle of the biggest tragedy ever next week. Hey, at least it wouldn’t be boring. Haha
OK, so I need to stop venting now. I feel like you poor people that have to read this will think good lord she needs to come home or good lord, suck it up. HAHA Alright, I know you are probably nicer than me and not thinking that but I’m just a big drama queen these days! I’m so bi-polar these days and figure I will be for probably about the next year or so. Well, I’m slowly learning how to do things. My School Head, Susan, is very protective of me and won’t let me do much on my own. I keep begging her to tell me about the combie’s and how do I actually get out of my village and she’s like, “ You’ll get lost or stranded…I’ll drive you, I’ll take care of you.” HAHA She is very nice and always seems to mean well. I have to check in more with her than my own actual mother. I’m learning to time things better according to the sunlight and what my options are for getting to the water tap and how to not run out of things. Would seem simple, but no, it’s not. I’m slowly learning how to handle things on my own, in a new culture, and fending for myself. I realized today that I have literally been put in a situation that forces me to face everything I normally run from. I’m dead serious.
I am so independent and I don’t let people take care of me often, if ever really. I always take care of other people and now when it comes to so many things I completely dependent on other people. I have to be, 100%....and I still hate it but I have to do it. I have to let others take care of me. Like with transport, I have to get rides right now because there is no other way for me to get out of my village without help from other people (*because I can’t get anyone to tell me about the combie’s). All the things that I was completely terrified of about coming here and doing came true. I have to let other people take care of me and learn to be ok with feeling like a mooch, I live alone (which I’ve never done), I don’t have easy contact with people to help me vent (which is how I dealt with everything), I’m utterly vulnerable all the time (which I am so not good at), and I feel so unspeakably isolated (which has always not been a happy idea for me). These are all the biggest things that I was freaked out about before I got here and I got all of them. It actually makes me laugh a bit, but that might be from the exhaustion a bit though. Oh well, I’ll take it. As corny as this will sound I basically read a quote to myself that helps me put things in perspective for about 5 seconds…but I’ll take 5 seconds…
“I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you know, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…” (Rainer Maria Rilke) I seriously have to live by this in order to stay at least a little sane. Whatever works right?!?! I read this to myself all the time and then go outside and look at the 800 trillion stars (exact number in my opinion) and sit outside. Its so perfect and peaceful and I can’t even explain how many stars. I have never seen that many stars, ever! Its gorgeous!
The kids are slowly getting more used to me. I still feel pretty useless these days which I’m suppose to feel cause Peace Corps doesn’t want us working for the first 2 ½ months and just doing community entry things. So, I guess all of my thoughts and feelings are “normal.” They keep telling me that. I sent a Bots 7 PC’s Volunteer a text/sms the other day saying something about how I feel useless and horrible and have spent the day crying off and on but I was making bread cause I was bored. Haha Her response was, “Yep, that’s exactly how it should be, way to fit in.” I laughed and found comfort in it only to realize how insane this is. I’m reading a book right now called, “ The Sex Lives of Cannibals,” by Maartin Troost (don’t let the title fool you…its not a creepy book) and I’m not kidding I feel like that is exactly my life. It’s about a guy that moves with his girlfriend to the middle of absolutely nowhere in the South Pacific and all the weird little things he goes through learning the culture and how he starts thinking like everyone else and doing and laughing at the weirdest things….It’s totally me but in Sub-Saharan Africa. Haha Best book ever now! Anyways, that was a random tangent.
I’m going to a Life Skills conference in Moleps so I’ll be out of sight from Sunday to Wednesday which I think will be a nice break to see civilization again. Haha I might go see my host family. I miss them actually. Its only been a few weeks but they are so sweet. My oldest host sister sends me texts/sms’s telling me how much they all miss me and ask how I am. They’re sweet! I’m hoping to get to talk to the nurse in my village next week to get a ‘needs assessment’ done on the village and my school and see what’s prevalent here and what I can help with. I’ve just spent the week trying to get a handle on things and meeting people when I can. I go to school and read a bunch of stuff and then go home and read more stuff or cook or do my laundry in my kitchen/entry. I don’t think I really have any funny or entertaining stories from this week. Its was more the drama and trying not to break down and settle in week.
I went to my friend Laura’s this morning and she has a government home with electricity, running water (HOT and COLD), a flushing toilet and I am in total awe of her life right now. I couldn’t even handle it. Its was like going to a spa. I figured this out yesterday and realized that it has literally been 2 weeks since I have even SEEN electricity…even seen it! Seriously! HAHA Oh my gosh! I haven’t taken a bath that had hot water coming from the tap since the USA…Its been months since I have had anything to do with hat luxury!!!! I still can’t get over it. I took a long HOT bath this morning and had to put no effort it to make it that way…it was unbelievable!!! Its been the best day ever so far!!! Now, I’m in Gabs and going food shopping and stuff with a few friends. I get to go t stores that have electricity and buy things….Its all just so exciting!!! It’s the little things in life now. I painted my toe nails bright pink the other day cause my mom sent it to me from home and that has still made my day for several days now. I think I’m a bit of a freak with my pink toe nails, but, well, the whole being a young white American women in the middle of the rural African bush of Botswana , I think has really already solidified my “freak” status for me…so oh well! Anyways, I better go shop and enjoy all the luxuries while I can. Oh amenities…they make me happy! Haha Happy 4th of July for all you Americans that are actually in America!!!!
I know that everyone around me is feeling the same way. We all text/sms one another and yeah, we are all feeling like this…to different extents and in different ways, but we all have something! It’s just crazy. It’s hard to get perspective on things when you’re right in the middle of it all and feel like I have very little outlets of how to deal or think or feel. Talking to people from home (America) about it doesn’t work very well cause usually I end up just upset cause I miss them so much that that just makes things better and worse all at the same time. I can’t really talk about things with people in my village cause its an entirely different way of living and understanding life. I mean, how do I cry to someone about being so drained from having to spend hours upon hours washing my cloths by hand, when its all that person has ever known…it doesn’t work. Nothing in my life is bad and I need to try to keep that in perspective…but it’s just so damn hard right now to adjust to it all! I feel so emotionally drained and exhausted from everything going on and all the new changes, new duties, new and big expectations, as well as having no comfort zone whatsoever throughout all of it.
However, throughout everything I do I find myself believing that this can’t be it. I just can’t believe that I have been through all of this just go get here, freak out, cry, and decide that I can’t handle it and go home. I can’t believe that that is how this is suppose to go down or that that is the point of all of this. (Hence, why I’m still here) I told my friend Alex that and she helped me to see that the fact that I even think that and am saying that means that I still have some decent and fighting perspective in me somewhere and that thinking that is “some pretty powerful stuff and make sure to tap into that.” (her exact words, haha) Which was good to be reminded of. I mean, I talked to my sister, who is my life counselor I feel like and I miss insanely…and I know she misses me even though she won’t say it ( I love you Coco!) and I was telling her how I have these moments all the time where I can’t remember why I’m here….yet, I don’t move. I don’t go home, I don’t call my mom and tell her I’m coming home….I don’t move but I really am unable to think of a single reason why I’m here. Not because its that horrible or because I hate it that much, I think just because it gets so unbelievably overwhelming and I can’t find perspective on anything. At all. There are good and bad things to everything and I think with this experience I’m feeling like there are new/good and extremely difficult/challenges things to everything I do here. Its not black and white. Its not good or bad…its everything and anything in between! I think its safe to say this is the most challenging thing I have ever done…but there I go again…I probably just jinxed myself and I’ll be in the middle of the biggest tragedy ever next week. Hey, at least it wouldn’t be boring. Haha
OK, so I need to stop venting now. I feel like you poor people that have to read this will think good lord she needs to come home or good lord, suck it up. HAHA Alright, I know you are probably nicer than me and not thinking that but I’m just a big drama queen these days! I’m so bi-polar these days and figure I will be for probably about the next year or so. Well, I’m slowly learning how to do things. My School Head, Susan, is very protective of me and won’t let me do much on my own. I keep begging her to tell me about the combie’s and how do I actually get out of my village and she’s like, “ You’ll get lost or stranded…I’ll drive you, I’ll take care of you.” HAHA She is very nice and always seems to mean well. I have to check in more with her than my own actual mother. I’m learning to time things better according to the sunlight and what my options are for getting to the water tap and how to not run out of things. Would seem simple, but no, it’s not. I’m slowly learning how to handle things on my own, in a new culture, and fending for myself. I realized today that I have literally been put in a situation that forces me to face everything I normally run from. I’m dead serious.
I am so independent and I don’t let people take care of me often, if ever really. I always take care of other people and now when it comes to so many things I completely dependent on other people. I have to be, 100%....and I still hate it but I have to do it. I have to let others take care of me. Like with transport, I have to get rides right now because there is no other way for me to get out of my village without help from other people (*because I can’t get anyone to tell me about the combie’s). All the things that I was completely terrified of about coming here and doing came true. I have to let other people take care of me and learn to be ok with feeling like a mooch, I live alone (which I’ve never done), I don’t have easy contact with people to help me vent (which is how I dealt with everything), I’m utterly vulnerable all the time (which I am so not good at), and I feel so unspeakably isolated (which has always not been a happy idea for me). These are all the biggest things that I was freaked out about before I got here and I got all of them. It actually makes me laugh a bit, but that might be from the exhaustion a bit though. Oh well, I’ll take it. As corny as this will sound I basically read a quote to myself that helps me put things in perspective for about 5 seconds…but I’ll take 5 seconds…
“I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you know, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…” (Rainer Maria Rilke) I seriously have to live by this in order to stay at least a little sane. Whatever works right?!?! I read this to myself all the time and then go outside and look at the 800 trillion stars (exact number in my opinion) and sit outside. Its so perfect and peaceful and I can’t even explain how many stars. I have never seen that many stars, ever! Its gorgeous!
The kids are slowly getting more used to me. I still feel pretty useless these days which I’m suppose to feel cause Peace Corps doesn’t want us working for the first 2 ½ months and just doing community entry things. So, I guess all of my thoughts and feelings are “normal.” They keep telling me that. I sent a Bots 7 PC’s Volunteer a text/sms the other day saying something about how I feel useless and horrible and have spent the day crying off and on but I was making bread cause I was bored. Haha Her response was, “Yep, that’s exactly how it should be, way to fit in.” I laughed and found comfort in it only to realize how insane this is. I’m reading a book right now called, “ The Sex Lives of Cannibals,” by Maartin Troost (don’t let the title fool you…its not a creepy book) and I’m not kidding I feel like that is exactly my life. It’s about a guy that moves with his girlfriend to the middle of absolutely nowhere in the South Pacific and all the weird little things he goes through learning the culture and how he starts thinking like everyone else and doing and laughing at the weirdest things….It’s totally me but in Sub-Saharan Africa. Haha Best book ever now! Anyways, that was a random tangent.
I’m going to a Life Skills conference in Moleps so I’ll be out of sight from Sunday to Wednesday which I think will be a nice break to see civilization again. Haha I might go see my host family. I miss them actually. Its only been a few weeks but they are so sweet. My oldest host sister sends me texts/sms’s telling me how much they all miss me and ask how I am. They’re sweet! I’m hoping to get to talk to the nurse in my village next week to get a ‘needs assessment’ done on the village and my school and see what’s prevalent here and what I can help with. I’ve just spent the week trying to get a handle on things and meeting people when I can. I go to school and read a bunch of stuff and then go home and read more stuff or cook or do my laundry in my kitchen/entry. I don’t think I really have any funny or entertaining stories from this week. Its was more the drama and trying not to break down and settle in week.
I went to my friend Laura’s this morning and she has a government home with electricity, running water (HOT and COLD), a flushing toilet and I am in total awe of her life right now. I couldn’t even handle it. Its was like going to a spa. I figured this out yesterday and realized that it has literally been 2 weeks since I have even SEEN electricity…even seen it! Seriously! HAHA Oh my gosh! I haven’t taken a bath that had hot water coming from the tap since the USA…Its been months since I have had anything to do with hat luxury!!!! I still can’t get over it. I took a long HOT bath this morning and had to put no effort it to make it that way…it was unbelievable!!! Its been the best day ever so far!!! Now, I’m in Gabs and going food shopping and stuff with a few friends. I get to go t stores that have electricity and buy things….Its all just so exciting!!! It’s the little things in life now. I painted my toe nails bright pink the other day cause my mom sent it to me from home and that has still made my day for several days now. I think I’m a bit of a freak with my pink toe nails, but, well, the whole being a young white American women in the middle of the rural African bush of Botswana , I think has really already solidified my “freak” status for me…so oh well! Anyways, I better go shop and enjoy all the luxuries while I can. Oh amenities…they make me happy! Haha Happy 4th of July for all you Americans that are actually in America!!!!
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