Emotional Rollercoaster

I have a lot to write about. I know I said that I would write about the youth forum and what not but instead I am just going to have write about the last 4 weeks. That’s all I have the energy for.

Peace Corps warned us about having major ups and downs. They even gave us a chart for us visual learners. My past 4 weeks was a perfect example.

I think the 10^th of October, we had a prize giving ceremony at Motswakhumo CJSS. Like you might have been able to guess, it’s an awards ceremony to recognize the top students of the year. Each subject, club, and sport awarded the top student. It was held outside in the parking lot at my school. Mind you it was close to 39 degrees Celsius. Unlike my high school and junior high school which handed out plaques and medals, the junior secondary schools handed out dish sets, sets of cups, decorative art, and even gardening equipment such as rakes and shovels as well as a certificate of achievement. I think this just make more sense. So once the kids get these prizes, their family member, usually female (mother, aunt, etc) come up as well and the student hands these prizes to the parents. I think prize giving is more about the family. Some mothers made a big scene, doing a little dance, making this noise that I can’t describe and strangling their children in bear hugs. Now can anyone guess what the prize was for being the top form 3 (the last grade in a JSS) student? The top student gets a goat. The poor goat was terrified and being dragged by a rope around its neck. When it wouldn’t comply, a couple of (human) kids grabbed the goat by its legs and dragged the poor thing. It was quite a struggle. Luckily, the winner finally took the goat and put it around its neck (which looked much more comfortable for the goat) and awarded it to his mother. Then the goat escaped as the mother enthusiastically did her dance and two dozen kids had to chase after it. It was quite a sight.

I was helping out in the food department so I missed part of the ceremony (which involved a lot of speeches). Most of it consisted of hanging around doing nothing, and grating cheese and polony since no one seems to like doing it. When a pot was freed up, the staff told me to go and watch the traditional dance group perform. By the time I came back, the food I was in charge of (bogobe or thick porridge) was already made. Overall the whole mood was super festive and everyone seemed pretty happy.

Prize giving was a great mood booster which I definitely was in need of. The previous week I was feeling frustrated because I am trying to raise interest in making a community library in Lentsweletau. There is a Lentsweletau library, but it consists of 4 cabinets that are sparsely filled. I had to ask 3 different people to find the library. The first two didn’t even know it existed. I think I have posted pictures of it already. I went to a meeting with the Village Development Committee and proposed the idea. My major motive was to have a place where out of school youth can hang out and maybe reach out to them. The VDC loved the idea, and with incredible enthusiasm, showed me plots of land that the library can be built. Then they looked for builders to get quotes and started drawing out a blue plan (all on the same day). I had to keep pushing them to think about the abandoned buildings in our village but they seemed to have their heart set on a new building. I asked if I could come to the next meeting, to do a follow up and they told me they’d contact me when they had things figured out. They never did and I never got a response to my text messages. I don’t know how rude it is to just barge in on a meeting and I haven’t had the courage to just go, so now this idea is just up in the air. Failed, and nothing has even started.

To make myself feel better, I decided that I could at least open up the school library on the weekends. My school is a boarding school so kids are floating around doing absolutely nothing on campus grounds. I caught some kids throwing stones at each other for fun. Since I go to school for Setswana lessons with one of the students on Sundays, I decided just to extend my time there til evening. They love movies so I play a movie for them. The first movie was a movie that addressed AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and relationships which was awesome. Things went down hill after that week. I found what I thought would be awesome videos, only to find out that they were in french and subtitled in English, inappropriate, or just plain boring. Because I felt like they were losing faith, I desperately went to the teachers to see if they had any movies (on video cassette) and the only one I could get a hold of was Air Force One. I didn’t remember the film at all and I had to skip through some of the more violent parts (which they groaned) but they seemed to like it okay. They cheered at the end. The rest of the time in the library is actually for reading or studying. I usually tutor one of the students during this time too. So that’s my Sunday – it’s better than watching the kids beat each other up and lounging around… I think.

So this made my week a little better. I having an “up” week. I talked to my mom on the phone, was starting to relax and even had time to write this blog entry:

My mother is amazing. Not only does she send me the most incredible packages but she knows how to give subtle (and not so subtle) advice as well.

I don’t know why I am so adverse to her advice. I’ll dismiss her ideas even before it has sunk into my thick head.

Last Sunday she called me to tell me about how touched she was to see pictures of the Peace Corps in Korea during the 60s. She talked about how nice and interesting it was to see everyday rural life now, even though she lived through it back then. I immediately told her that not only would pulling out a camera give me a lot of unnecessary attention, but that Botswana was relatively modern as well. I now realize when thinking back to this conversation, that I have become desensitized to my surroundings in a mere 6 months. It also made me realize that I need to get out and explore my village more.

Since I am a better photographer than writer (which isn’t saying much) this should be an easy transition. As you can probably tell, I am not a deep writer and at times, if I wrote what I was really thinking I’d get in trouble with Peace Corps =). Most of the time, I just can’t express my experiences in words. I’ll try to be better about writing captions underneath the pictures and if you’d like to know more about any picture, please just tell me and I’ll try to include it in my next entry. Don’t worry, the funny/interesting stories will continue.

Everyday life in Botswana pictures will be placed in a folder called “untitled.” Maybe for every 1000 pictures I take, I will find one that will truly be memorable.

Thanks mom for waking me up. It’s like I never left home huh? =)

I was feeling great that Sunday night! 19^th of October. I felt motivated and ready to tackle the upcoming week of school. I went to bed at 11pm feeling exhausted, happy and settled. Then around midnight I heard my window rattle. It’s been windy and stormy lately in Lentsweletau so I thought nothing of it. Then the window in the bathroom was rattling, and after that another window in the house was rattling. I started thinking it was the birds since there was no way wind could rattle one window at a time. I started to freak out when I heard pounding at my bedroom window. I didn’t know what to do so I sat there for the longest minute of my life listening to the pounding. Then I snuck out to the living room to get my air horn and I turned on my bedroom light. Then I flung open my curtain window to see a man staring at me. It’s funny how you forget how to use simple equipment when you’re panicked. While I was hysterically screaming and sobbing, I was fumbling with the air horn. I screamed at the man to go away and he just stared and said something. Funny thing is, I think he said hello. Then I finally figured out the damn air horn and he bolted. All the dogs in my neighborhood started howling. The phone number to my police department was in my living room and I was too scared to go out there since I accidentally left one of the curtains open. I called PC security, no answer, another volunteer for the police departments number (didn’t have it), and then a teacher at my school. The teacher called the police department for me and I guess drove like a madman to my house. I called Andrea which was stupid since I woke her up in the middle of the night to feel helpless, but she helped me calm down. So I guess I used her. The teacher took me to the kgotla where the police department was to report the incident and I stayed with the teacher and his family for 2 nights. I was only planning to stay for 1 night until I found out that this wasn’t the first attempted break in; my neighbor told me it happened to her 2 weeks before my incident. But the scariest thing was, no one heard my air horn. None of my neighbors heard my screaming.

So that week was a major down week. Actually I don’t think I fully recovered until the next week. Things started to pick up from there. I moved from the backroom which had no outside lighting to the room in the front of my house which has lights out in the front and on the side. I leave the lights on outside at night now. I feel much better and secure knowing that with the light on the outside, I have a much better chance of seeing whatever is outside before it sees me… unlike my incident. I’m planning to get a dog, but now that I’m looking for one, I can’t find one. I decided that the best way to get over this incident was to keep myself busy. I have an English Club after school which has been getting decent turn outs. All we do is play games like modified taboo and pictionary but their favorite game is Uno. Not kidding. We start the club with a list of 10 vocabulary word and then when they want to use one of the special cards in Uno, they have to use one of the vocabulary words in a sentence. If they speak Setswana, they get penalized 2 cards, if they disrespect another student they get penalized 5 cards, if they don’t speak up they get penalized 2 cards and so up. The kids are great and it’s incredible what they will do for a sweet. I caved into a group of form 3 boys (I think about 7 of them) begging for one piece of chocolate but sadly, I only had 1 piece left. So they asked me to throw it in the air so they can fend for themselves. So I did. I threw it in the air, ducked and covered my while running away and watched the boys push, shove and scramble around for ONE piece of chocolate. Then I saw one of the boys running FULL SPEED away from the pack and 6 other boys trailed after him. I’ve never seen anyone run so fast. They screamed “KAMOSO TSHEGO!” ([see you] tomorrow Tshego) and kept running. I laughed all the way home.

So things seemed to have picked up again, then I had a silly incident that I made into a huge deal. About a week ago, I found a scorpion in my kitchen. I was thirsty in the middle of the night and so I walked into my kitchen and heard a scratching noise. Was it a mouse? No, of course I wouldn’t be that lucky. It was almost the length of my palm and the thickness of almost 2 of my fingers. Luckily I had just bought a new can of Doom (Raid equivalent) and used almost the entire can on it. This scorpion was so FAST I didn’t dare use a shoe to smack it. It was just not long enough. So after the can was almost emptied, the scorpion stopped moving. So I smacked it with a fly swatter but it just made it squirm. Oh, by the way, I was screaming and crying during this whole ordeal. Once again none of the neighbors heard. I finally got my shoe and smacked it several times and all this brown gushy guts stuff came out. It was pretty disgusting. I also inhaled so much Doom I started feeling dizzy and started puking. I couldn’t bring myself to open the door to sweep the damn thing out because I was afraid that a swarm of scorpions would attack me in order to avenge the death of their friend the instant I opened the door. So, I took care of it the next morning. That night, I slept inside my tent. I checked it first before I got in. I showed my neighbors and my teacher friend, and they said they’ve never seen one so big. They told me that it was probably pregnant and pregnant scorpions were the most dangerous. I cried softly and texted my medical officer for a scorpion kit (some kind of suction device). My kitchen still smells of Doom.

A couple days ago, Wednesday, my neighbor came over to tell me some sad news. Her niece had passed away. She was a form 5 (last year of high school) student who boards at a school in Gaborone. My neighbor told me they didn’t know the cause of death, and there were no symptoms of sickness. Her uncle had seen her the day before (and said she was well) and was the one to find her in the morning. It’s rumored that the girl was pregnant and tried to abort the fetus. I hope it is just a rumor. I guess it is tradition to bring the deceased to the places they spent their life. The girl lived in my house with her mother (the owner) and so they said that they were going to bring the body into the living room for a few minutes sometime next week and do a prayer. I had to comply, this was the owner’s only child. I can’t imagine how it must feel to lose your only child. Although I know it’s going to happen, I don’t think I can be there when they bring the body in. I plan to leave them with the keys to the house and escape to another PCVs place. I know if I refused, I wouldn’t able to live with myself, but if I attended, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. So I am just going to be MIA. I was super depressed Thursday and I even made my counterpart cry when I told her what was wrong. I feel like such a terrible person because here I am, Peace Corps Volunteer, out to help others, and instead, I have become such a burden in my host country that I made my counterpart cry. I don’t know what to do.

There was also a last PACT meeting/party yesterday. I baked them a cake like I promised and I never saw a cake disappear so fast. My heart broke to see some of the students carefully splitting up their share and putting part of it in plastic grocery bag for their siblings at home. I almost cried again. Then after the short party, I went to a funeral service. It was for a student’s (who I happen to be quite fond of) father. Funeral services here are a week long which I think helps ease the sadness since it is spread out. I was only there for a short time, just to hear a couple prayers and singing and then I was dropped back at the school. I had a nice chat with one of the teachers, and I walked home at dusk. When I got home, I locked my door and cried for the 20^th time that day, and the 50^th time in the last 4 weeks. This time I cried for the student. I cried because she just lost an important figure in her life. Then I thought about the other students and realized to half of them, this was not an unusual circumstance. I cried because after talking it out to someone, I realized I was selfish for feeling uncomfortable about having a body in my house for a few minutes. I’m making a bigger fuss than those who had a loved one pass away. But I don’t think I can see the child in my house and keep my sanity. I think I have to be selfish this time.

These kids needed me to answer their questions from the question box and I couldn’t even bring myself to answer all of them in a timely manner lately. I had questions about sugar daddies, how to cope with losing a parent, abortion, and alcohol. I worked on the questions and answers with teachers for hours only to lose most of it in a power outage. I did save some of it but my usb key got warped in the outage as well and it saved 3 copies of the same questions instead of saving 3 different questions and answers. I put up what was left. I just can’t believe that I have kids depending on me and I feel like I’m letting them down.

As I see it, it’s been a crap-tacular month and things can only go up from here. Let’s hope I’m right.

P.S. - So far, I haven't met a single Motswana who is NOT excited about Obama. They were thrilled and excited about the election. It was happy day for everyone =)