Life's like an hour glass glued to the table...

I feel accomplished! I’m writing this now before the feeling gets challenged and I may be deflated a bit from the frustrations that more than likely will hit again and I find it harder for myself to say out loud that I have done a good thing. BUT I have accomplished few things and it feels pretty damn good! … OK, so I wrote those first few sentences 2 days ago and already I’m so exhausted the feeling has gone a bit. Still, it was a good thing and al good workshop which for the last few days all the teachers that participated, District Officials and NACA (Botswana’s biggest NGO for HIV/AIDS prevention) has been telling me how amazing the workshop was and how they want to expand it to all of Botswana. Which is flattering don’t get me wrong but I officially got about 6 hours off to “relax” and now I’m back at work…I’m a little overwhelmed. OK, but let me back track and explain the last week or so… It probably helps for you to understand why I’m already complaining so much…
So, we had our first big event for the SAF grant on Nov. 13th in my little forgotten village of Metsi! Part of our original plan for the grant was always to have a youth camp sometime in Jan. but after me suggesting us doing a Facilitators Workshop for the teachers that will be bringing their pupils from the two main schools we’re working with months ago and no one saying anything, yet then my school head 3 weeks before Nov 13th said, “hey that’s a good idea…” it was decided…that we would do this. 3 weeks was all we had to plan! I was freaking out a little cause 3 weeks is not a lot especially when you’re in Bots and everything, I mean EVERYTHING, moves at a slower pace here. So, I agreed if we do this fine, but we have to get working NOW NOW!!!! So, I immediately wrote up the letters of invitations to schools, all the district officials that my school head said we needed to invite and NACA, cause they are my local mentors and I work with them. After all the letters were written and ready to go which in a village of no electricity printers, computers…it was a large task that I even go those done yet at all. My school head called a staff meeting and said that while I was off working her and some of the teachers had been talking about the workshop and they believe that instead of just inviting the 2 schools we are mainly working with to the workshop (which the workshop was completely about teaching all about PACT and how teachers can start PACT Clubs in their schools) we should invite 7 other schools as well for a total of 9 schools and about 20 teachers!
Now, I’m not going to lie or try to fool anyone into thinking that I was calm, collected and more than welcome to this change of events because when it comes down to it its about the children and the more teachers we teach and invite the more children benefit…nope…not my response. My immediate response was, “ummmm hell no…and who do you think is gonna pay for all this…because I’m not!” Now, I kept it together enough to say that just in my head and with a few more swear words mixed in there but I did manage to get out an out loud response of, “What? Uh…No… Why?” Yep, I’m pretty classy and kind hearted, I know! So, we talked about it and I agreed that if we had the money in the budget to pull all this off and could get enough transport somehow then that was fine. I did at least attempt to make it clear that our main focus needed to be the 2 schools we were working with because that is the grant, that’s what the money is originally set for and I really didn’t want to lose focus of that cause that’s how I end up having to send an email to all my family begging them to give me money for Christmas for the rest of my life so I can pay off my debut to MTV…which personally, I don’t want to do. I like Christmas and I like presents! So, no thank you! Everyone agreed which I’ve caught on enough in this culture to know that really all they agreed to is me watching them 24/7 and having the right to say no at anytime. So, really all I did was add more stress on to myself…but it’s for the children right? I say that to myself A LOT!!!
So, now I had to write all new letters and send even more of them. After many staff meetings we decided many things about the workshop. It would be an all day event. 8am-5pm on a Sat which means we had to get approval from the Ministry of Education in Botswana because if the 20 teachers were attending a work related event on a Sat they had to be paid for their work by the Gov. We did get approval. They loved the idea so much they asked me to make the workshop a full week and event more teachers from other schools. I said no cause I could barely handle this much this fast especially since I’m learning how all this works and how to run things since I’ve never done this before. I said, we’ll see how this workshop goes and take it from there. Yes, it is true for those of you that noticed. I have in fact learned how to say “NO” when I need to…for the most part. I’m growing…or something like that! We decided which 7 other schools to invite, all in our District and none of them have ever done PACT or started on in their schools and most are very rural schools. We decided how many teachers, transport and the budget. Some teachers were going to have to sleep in our classrooms the night before the workshop because they live too far away; some schools are 200k away in 3 different directions. We certainly covered most of our district with the schools that were coming. Which now meant we had to plan and prepare dinner and breakfast for many participants and find transport. OK, so as the days went on. Letters were written, people invited, more approvals had to come and go, more people had to be notified, etc…we also had to spend a few days just calling the schools, some with no receptions so that took several days just to find out who go the invites and who was attending.
Also, in the mean time I was still working closely with the 2 main schools we’re working with and had to schedule House of Men to go do a 4-5 hour training in Mantshwabisi cause according to the grant plan that needed to happen in Nov. So, I got that scheduled after many MANY phone calls and a few moments of doing what I hate most which I pulling rank and threatening a bit at times in order to get the right people to do their jobs. BUT it was set, of course it was planned for 2 days before the workshop…go big or go home I guess. I need therapy or something. So, House of Men (HOM) was planned to train the pupils from 2pm to about 6pm. Part of our deal with them is that culturally we have to feed them. So, I had to leave the village about 6am that morning, Thursday morning to go to the nearest village and get food to then take 60k to Mantshwabisi at about 8am so they could cook it and have it ready for HOM by 1pm. I got that done. Then had to go to Letlhakeng which has the nearest printer and computer if I beg the right people to let me use their printers and computers to then type and print many things we need for the workshop. Meanwhile the teachers were going to Moleps to get the money from the bank we needed for food for the workshop and picking up one of the three Peace Corps Volunteers that were coming to help me facilitate the workshop and lead sessions. After all that I went to Mantshwabisi to go and monitor/support HOM train. I had been told on the phone the day before that due to the fact that the school is a boarding school and has 360 pupils, ages 5-19 living in the hostels they had planned with the teachers to involve kids from the hostels, not just the new PACT kids to discuss sever issues going on in the hostels. Some very serious issues of drug use, alcohol abuse, rape, teen pregnancy are all going on in the hostels, even the 5 year olds. So, I said that was great and worked for me. I didn’t realize however they were involving ALL the hostel youth. I arrived at about 2pm to see 360 children, 5-19 yrs old all sitting in chairs in a HUGE half circle outside under the trees waiting for HOM to perform. It was a great thing! It was a moment gain where I felt like tall the stress was worth it. I mean, it’s nice moments like that when I feel like even though I barely sleep anymore cause I have stress dreams about the grant, literally, to see 360 disadvantaged youth getting the exact information they need in a fun way because of the grant….it’s a good moment! I stayed for about 3 hours and HOM were great! They talked about having sex too young, rape, performed a big play on drug and alcohol abuse which the youth loved and laughed so hard. Then they Showed posters of what your body looks like when you smoke, they kids seemed to really get it. It was so good to see the youth really grasp what was being told to them and why it’s all so important…yet laughing and dancing at times throughout the whole thing. Half of the training was with all 360 youth, then the other half they split up the group into the youngest and oldest to teach them more age appropriate material. The teachers arrived from Moleps with Mary, a volunteer that travelled for 9 hours just to get to my village to help me and I asked the teachers to get out of the car so they could really see what the grant does and why it’s so important and most of all the impact it makes. See, the teachers don’t usually come to these events cause they have schools and whatnot so usually it’s just me that goes. I think the teachers got what I was hoping they would and didn’t a bit too…but I tried.
So, I got home about 7pm with Mary after a very long day. Friday came too fast and Mary and I were off. It was the day before the workshop and oh the drama!!!! All day, so much drama! We went to school at 7am to have a last minute staff meeting. I thought of the idea earlier in the week to drop one of the sessions we were planning to have me lead to show the participants how to teach the pupils and to actually bring in our PACT Club to let the them see exactly how we led PACT, what we do, how the kids react, how they speak in PACT and really show how PACT is different from normal classroom learning. The teachers at my school agreed, we practiced with the pupils on Wed night, by Thursday one of the teachers told me she didn’t want the pupils to be a part of the workshop because they can’t present well and basically would embarrass us. I needless to say was really upset at that and extremely frustrated. So, while on Friday morning we needed to leave my village immediately to get started on the day for getting food and preparing, I knew we needed a staff meeting to discuss this. I was frustrated beyond belief that we were about to be holding a workshop teaching schools about PCT and our experiences with it yet, we had a staff that was embarrassed of the children. I wanted to call the whole thing off. I felt like we were frauds…we were preaching to make ourselves look good not because we had a right to preach. So, I told my school head what happened and she immediately called the whole staff in our little tiny office with Mary just sitting there watching the craziness.
So, we discussed it basically the school head decided that my original point for using the kids which was not that the kids would be perfect, I didn’t want them to be really cause that’s not how it always is, but to have the participants see how PACT works and how the children may be shy but they can still learn and PACT can happen…was necessary and she wanted the children involved. The teachers were gong back and forth saying they had no problem using the kids and never were embarrassed, now if I hadn’t been as stressed as I was, I may have let that slide but I didn’t. I calmly and asnicely as I could brought to the attention that that wasn’t true and we’ve had this fight in the past before…so in the middle of this lovely conversation/fight all of a sudden a flash went off…Mary was taking pictures of this graceful moment. I looked at her and said, “really? Right now? Of this?” She responded with, “I think documented evidence of your struggle and your fighting back is important and also in case any deaths happen we’ll have proof of where everyone was sitting so we can make your alibi accordingly.” Got love friends!
Long fight short…we agreed to practice with the kids that night when we got back and I basically said it was up to the teacher to plan this, I would help her but was washing my hand s of the responsibility of it…I was tired of fighting about this cause I feel I’ve been fighting for this since we started PACT…I had too many things to do and I couldn’t tackle this one right now too. Agreed 3pm we would practice. So, Mary, one of the teachers, and myself were off to Moleps to shop for food, last minute things like pens and paper and to collect the two other PCV’s that were helping me facilitate. After about an hour f waiting for the driver who went MIA after we were done he finally came back, I was stressed like nothing else and we went to Letlhakeng to do more printing, get the projector and such. I had a big migraine and it was now 230pm when we got back to my village. I drank some water and went up to school to practice. The teacher was awesome. She planned the session for the kids to do and got t together. She used a part if a session I thought of a few days before and then planned a new part. I was so grateful to her at that moment an impressed that she stepped up. The kids were there about 30 of them and we practiced for an hour. The session was Love, Sex, and Dating. That’s what the kids would teach that and do a PACT session in front of everyone. It was not an easy topic or topics we were asking of them but I knew they could do it. We practiced and I felt some mess ups would be made, which I didn’t care about but they did a pretty good job. We told them to be back to school the next morning at 930am.
I was there with the teachers til 8pm that night decorating the hall and cooking dinner, in the dark, YAY for no electricity for the teachers that had to stay the night. I work up the next morning at 6am to start the day and get t school to prepare things. They teachers were all there making breakfast already and so were the kids. We said 930 but they were so excited they were all there by 6am. Some of the boys borrowed these ripped up old ties of their dads or friends to wear and you could tell they felt very fancy and manly. It was very sweet! So, breakfast was made and the teachers/participants are started to arrive and take their seats. 3 representatives from NACA came, the Principal Education Officer came, the School Head of all School Heads for the District came as well as 17 out of the 20 teachers invited. 8 schools were represented. One school couldn’t come and two other schools just sent one representative instead of two. In true Botswana style, the workshop was meant to start at 8am but started at 845am…which actually isn’t very late surprisingly. So, it started with the school head giving welcome remarks and a few other protocol things. Then I had to give the objectives of the workshop and then do a session on the basics of PACT and all about it. John, another volunteer presented the basics of Life Skills session next. We had “Team Building Activities” after that which is basically playing games that we play in PACT which the participants really liked. We made sure to do that throughout the day to make sure this workshop would be interactive and not lecture cause that’s what PACT is. Everyone loved that especially since that’s not very normal here.
Then after tea, it was time for the kids. Myself and one of the PACT teachers led the session with the kids. I opened with explaining the purpose of the session and how I wanted them to see the kids in their environment and how PACT works first hand. Well, the children were phenomenal!!!! Unbelievable! They got right up there and confidently played games with all the participants watching and string at them. They answered questions about love, sex, dating, they knew answers like, “sex isn’t just about being naked with someone, it’s about making love because sex should be loving and you shouldn’t have sex with someone you don’t love…” I mean come on! Brilliant! I was such a proud mama! My kids were amazing!!! I couldn’t believe it, the teachers couldn’t believe it, the participants had their jaws to the floors. In total awe! Several of the teachers told me they would literally consider transferring to my school just for my PACT kids….oh and the kids did all of it in English. My kids are 10-15. All in English. 100% Everyone in the room was so impressed!!! People have been calling my school head for days congratulating her on her pupils and how they have heard amazing things about our PACT! My school head came up to me right after that session and said, “who was embarrassed again? …Cause that should shut them up!”
After the PACT kids, Mary, a PCV did her session on HIV/AIDS & Stigma and Discrimination. She did activities with the teachers that they can do with the youth and taught them about the topic. Lunch came and then time for Shannon to do her session on Communication which after that I led a session of having the teachers/participants all get into groups of four and make their own PACT lessons to get them used to how easy and simple it can be which I think they really got the point. One of the groups made up their own skit/play in 5 mins which was great cause that really showed them how easy it can be. The participants really tried and I think they got a lot out of it. It was a big success…and everyone keeps telling me that which is really great. After questions and comments and me needing to reinforcing how to start a PACT Club and how its possible to do it with no money (all the NGO’s and resources available to help them) it was about 5pm and time to be done. I am exhausted now. So tired. I can barely see straight. All that stress and insanity. Pure craziness but I think it went well and I think overall its worth it.
Now…starting to plan the Youth Camp…my work is never done…