A photo update from the last several weeks

For those of you more visually-inclined, here are some miscellaneous photos and side stories to give you an idea of some of the highlights from my first few months at site. Spoiler alert: cat photos at the bottom of this post!

This is my new house! I recently moved from one that is just outside of this picture. It is super old, has cracks running down the walls, no running water, a tin roof that heats up like a hot plate during the day, tons of termite damage, but its just what I needed. 

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 We went to a small village called Nxamasere to watch the sun set one evening and found a group of mokoros (traditional canoes made out of a single hollowed tree). Naturally I had to hop in one. Sorry about the little girl in the background...she's having almost as much fun as me, clearly.

A local bringing a mokoro back in.

 They are often used for fishing because they glide nicely through small, shallow channels. 

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I went for a walk one morning and literally almost bumped into this guy in  the bushes outside of my back gate. By the time I took this picture he was retreating to the river. 

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Crocodile Hatching (yep, you read that right). There is a crocodile farm about 10k from my village where another PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) is living. They breed Okavango crocs for skin, meat and also for educational/conservation purposes. We have visited it a couple times--the first time to take a tour and collect eggs, and the second time to help a nest collected back in September hatch!

We collected these eggs from a nest in one of the enclosures. They will stay in an incubator for 90 days until they are pulled out to hatch (which we helped with!)

Literally peeling off the shells. Some of them had already broken through, while others needed some help. They were super slippery!

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I helped out at a holiday party for OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) on a farm in Mohembo, the village right near the Namibian border. Even though my face painting skills are mediocre at best, for a crowd of kids who had never had their faces painted before, I might as well have been Monet.

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Who let the adorable cat out of the bag?? That would be me.
Meet Tsala (Setswana word for "friend"). She was 8 weeks old when I first got her from an old Hambukushu lady. I carried her home in the sack you see below, and the first night, which she spent in my bathroom, she was terrified. But by the next morning she purred right before I left for work, and she hasn't stopped since. I knew we'd be buds. :)

Tiny Tsala in a big sack.

Tsala on her favorite perch in my new house. She likes to keep an eye on the birds in the tree outside from here. And she can look down on the dogs, too. 

That's all for now, more to come soon :)

A girl and her goat: A love story.

A while ago I was walking in a busy part of the village around 5pm when I passed a tiny goat all by itself. It was a strange place to see a goat and it wasn’t crying out as they usually do when they are separated from their herd. I approached him(?) tentatively, glanced around, and then scooped him up. I wasn’t really thinking through what I was doing, and I quickly walked home with him. Unfortunately I was on my way somewhere (and was now late), so as soon as I got home I put the goat in my bathroom and ran back out again.

When I got home later that night I panicked a little bit. How on earth do you take care of a baby goat that is probably less than a week old? I did some quick research and found that it’s not uncommon for mother goats to abandon their kids, meaning they reject them and don’t let them nurse. I found a recipe for kid milk (believe it or not) and tried to feed him. I didn’t have a bottle, but with the suggestion of my friend Hannah (who conveniently called at that moment and provided goat-rearing moral support), I soaked a washcloth in the milk mixture and let him suck on it. It wasn’t great, but it did the trick.

I soon realized, however, that I couldn’t keep this adorable little goat. The next morning I took the goat with me to work, because I always pass a herd of goats on my way. When I ran into them as expected, I put him with the herd and walked away. It was heartbreaking to see him try to drink from many of the mother goats, all of whom rejected him. I had to just walk away at that point, I had done everything I could, so I walked the rest of the way of the clinic and tried not to think about the little guy anymore.

About five hours later, I left the clinic for lunch. Directly outside of the gate was the tiny goat, all by himself. I swear it was like he was waiting for me. I don’t believe in coincidences, so of course I scooped him up again and walked home. Yep, I was that random white girl in the village walking around carrying a baby goat. As if I needed that extra attention.

I spent the afternoon collecting old cinderblocks from around the yard and creating a small corral for him. I also bought a baby bottle to feed him with. He had a huge appetite! Clearly I was in this. For about a week, I put him in the corral during the day and let him out to graze whenever I was home. This proved difficult because one of the dogs that hangs out in my yard was a little too interested in the goat. The kids who come over to color sometimes loved feeding him and playing with him. Maybe they thought it was strange that I was treating him like a small child, but I think they found it funny more than anything else.

The goat kept nibbling on the ends of their markers.

One of the dogs (Buddy) a little too interested in the baby goat.

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 My frustration from having to hold him back from chasing down the goat...

But there were a couple different people at work who told me the owner of the goat was probably looking for him. Livestock is property and a means to income, and as much as I really loved that goat, I knew I couldn’t keep him. So that Friday, just like before, I put him back with the herd I passed on my way to work. This time though, I didn’t watch what happened. I made sure he was with the herd, and then I walked away.

Even though there are hundreds of goats in this village, I look for the little guy every day. 

On Loneliness.

So it has been a while since I’ve posted anything. I wish I could say it is because I have been insanely busy with projects and exciting new programs. But that’s just not the case. The truth is I’ve been a slug. A lonely, it’s-too-hot-to-move, lazy slug.  You’d be surprised how impossible it is to do anything when you feel this way. Even though we were allowed to visit fellow volunteers in our shopping village over one of the holidays, it proved harder than expected to be so alone during a time of year where I’m usually surrounded by family. I’ve never missed a Christmas or Thanksgiving with my family, and I really felt that here.

I’m an introverted person with some extroverted tendencies, and I really relish time to myself. I thought that this level of isolation and aloneless would give way to lots of reflection and creative uses of my time. But, honestly, more often than not I pass the time by watching TV shows or movies that I hoarded on my hard drive during training back in Serowe. Because it feels easier to lose myself in some crappy TV show that I would never have watched in the States rather than let myself dwell on my new found loneliness. I have bursts of alternative uses of time though. Like when I spent a Sunday sewing new curtains for my house, or the week when I spent every evening after work digging my garden. But those things sometimes take effort, and just existing here can be truly exhausting.

But I’ve realized that my discomfort with being alone is in direct proportion to the number of hours I spend in my house and by myself, naturally. There are some days when I realize that I haven’t had a real conversation (esp in English) in over 24 hours. And those are the hard days. The difficult part comes when you find yourself in a rut, feeling sorry for isolated self, but knowing that you need to go out and walk around the village. You know it will make you feel better, but if you’re at that point of recognition, it can be incredibly difficult to change out of your unwashed, minimal clothing (who wants to do laundry when it’s so incredibly hot outside….who even wants to move?) and leave the house. But it is always a good decision. Always.

"So what exactly are you doing over there...?" A Typical Day During Community Integration Period

The first three months at site are known as the “community integration period,” or more affectionately called “lock-down” by the PCVs. It means we are bound to stay in our sites and get to know our communities without distractions of traveling and visiting other PCVs. It’s not a time when we are supposed to start any projects or programs. We are just supposed to become orientated to our villages and identify where we can be of the most use. The theory is that if you jump in too fast you won’t make the impact that is most needed or sustainable for your community.

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So a typical day goes something like this (I included extra info to give you an idea of how some things work at the clinic too): 

6:00am: Wake up and do yoga (most days). Sometimes I just get up early to walk down to the river. Enjoy the cool breeze before things heat up too much.

Delta view from one of my morning walks.

6:40am: Eat breakfast, usually outside and with a cup of tea. Get ready for work.

7:12am: Realize the time and rush to get ready. Don’t forget to feed Tsala.

7:15am on-the-dot: Seth calls. Sometimes I tell him to call back if I’m not ready yet… But in theory I leave the house and walk to work around now.

7:30am: In Botswana, working hours start at 7:30 and last until 4:30. The clinic is always incredibly busy in the morning and usually a ghost town by the afternoon. I still haven’t completely figured out why, but I think people just like to avoid the heat. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have report at the clinic, where the staff gets together and debriefs about any updates/issues they have run into.

8:00am-10:30ish am: I help run the Child Welfare Clinic (CWC). Each month, mothers bring their children under the age of 5 in to be weighed. The monthly weights are recorded in a government-issued card so that their growth progress can be monitored. The Health Education Assistant (HEA) and myself also record whether or not the child has been sick in the past month, what their HIV status is, what their feeding method is (i.e. exclusive breast feeding, mixed feeding, etc.), and whether or not their immunizations are up to date. The HEA advises the mothers if anything is off or she instructs them to go and get injections (“mokento”) if necessary. 

Some months are designated as annual supplementation months. That means that all children brought into CWC receive, in Nov and May for example, Vitamin A and Albendazole (the latter is for deworming). Trust me, no kid or adult wants some sort of vaguely foul-tasting, milky substance poured down their throat. Ever. Sometimes the mothers would take turns holding down each others kids, one pinching the nose, another bracing the head and keeping the mouth open while the other holds the body still. And the number of times the child would spit that stuff right out like Old Faithful was more than I could count. Only once was I in the splash zone. I swear these kids are like dogs...their screams inside the CWC would alert the ones outside that something unsavory was coming...thus setting them off in a similar preemptive tantrum. So by the time the next set of kids came in to get their supplements they would already be crying, but they wouldn't even know what for yet. Let me just say Dec. 1 was one of the happiest days of my short CWC life so far. 

In August or so, the some of the clinics in the district started using a computer program where clinic visits are recorded electronically. Everything at the clinic up until this point has been on paper (with multiple carbon copies), so this is a huge change for everyone, especially people who don’t have any computer skills. I have been helping register all of the CWC patients into the system. This means assigning each child a unique ID number which can be used to access information such as immunization records, supplement and other immunization campaigns (i.e. measles campaigns, OPV campaigns, etc.), PMTCT records, HIV status, growth history, illness history, and more. It was a very tedious first 6 weeks or so, but now about 95% of the children who come in have ID numbers. 

10:30-11:00am: Every day we distribute rations to the mothers. They receive a different ration depending on how old their child is. Children aged 6 months-3 years get oil and “Tsabana,” a dry porridge powder made of ground sorghum and soy beans. Children over 3 years up to 6 years get oil, beans, and “Malutu,” a different dry porridge made of a similar but slightly different combination. These government rations are distributed for free and mothers can receive them once a month. Sounds great in theory, but it sounds like the clinic never  has all of these things in stock. Currently, for example, we only have beans. Two months ago there was only oil and Tsabana. The problem isn’t that there are no rations, it’s that they are stored in a warehouse on the other side of the village and there is no transport to move the massive amounts of heavy bags to the clinic (transport issues are probably 65% of why things don’t get done here….or at least the excuse for 65% of why things don’t get done here).

11:00am-12:00pm: Computer lesson for my counterpart. The Health Education Assistant who I work with is trying to get better at the computer. While she gained basic knowledge from lessons with the last PCV that was here, I am helping her master typing. We spend about an hour each day with a typing program that teaches her proper hand placement, speed, accuracy, etc.

12:00pm: Tend to the garden. I helped cultivate a garden in the back of the clinic to grow vegetables for the Home Based Care patients (sort of like for hospice patients, but also for disabled individuals, those with TB and AIDS). I spend some time watering and weeding before lunch.

12:45pm: Lunch. People here seem to either not eat lunch or go home for it. I am lucky enough to live about a 10 minute walk from the clinic, so I go home every day. Lunch lasts until 2:00pm…which I find breaks up the day in a very strange way. I guess they know that Batswana rarely get anything done after lunch, so they make the morning shift extra long. But for someone who has to eat every couple hours, it sure can be a long morning.

2:00ish pm: After lunch what I do can vary. Sometimes I go back to the clinic and spend time there, but generally there is nothing going on. Occasionally I will help count out pills at the dispensary and chat with the nurses. I also use this time to visit with different community members and organizations, such as school guidance counselors, the village social worker, NGOs, etc. I usually introduce myself and find out a bit about what their role in the community is and then spend some time brainstorming how I could partner with them potentially in the future.

3:00pm: Most days at this time I go to a home based care patient’s house to teach her basic computer skills. She is in her late 20s and wheel-chair bound, but has a burning desire to learn computer skills. The hope is that she could use those skills to get a job, start a business, or do something more. Her days currently are empty and filled with a lot of idle time. It has been a bit of a slow process and we had to start completely from scratch, but she is starting to pick it up. It’s especially hard because she has no way to practice when I’m not there. It’s like trying to learn an instrument but only getting to play when your teacher comes for a lesson. And to add on to that she is a self-described slow learner. But we are taking it slow and doing what we can.

4:30pm: The official end to the work day. There are still a couple of hours of daylight left, so sometimes I go for a walk or just sit by the river with my newly-acquired camping chair (as I’m doing right now). Tsala is always ridiculously happy to see me when I get home, which is usually exactly what I need.

7:00ish pm: I usually stay outside as long as possible and retreat inside only when the sun has gone down. I spend some time making dinner, watching some TV, bathing, etc.

9:30ish pm: I usually crawl into bed around this time and read for a bit before falling asleep.

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And that’s a typical day during the lockdown period. Once I get back from the last bit of training and start on my projects, my schedule will (hopefully) look nothing like this. But for now it’s just fine.