Pictures!

Some pictures for your viewing pleasure. I will try and make sure I have some of my house in the next batch. Hugs and smooches!
~Claire

^ Me pointing to my new site placement in Ramokgonami

^This is Daniella and she is like my crazy, awesome, Catholic, sister from another mister. :)

^ Just one of my many "look what I hiked up" pictures. Ryan and I were heading to a braii at another volunteer's house.

The girls and I at our swearing in ceremony! Daniella and I gave a speech, in Setswana, in front of former President of Botswana Masire and US Ambassador Michelle Gavin.

Janina and I looking fly in our Africa garb at swearing in.

Officially volunteers! Goodbye PST, hello new site placements :)

The Kenalemang family (minus Tebo)

Me and my host sister Lame, looking good :)

 My new cat Bambino!

 The crazy evil, devil sink that exploded. Notice the awesome jerry rigged drying rack I created for my dishes?

Bathtub/kitchen sink/laundry machine! The key to living as a Peace Corps Volunteer is accumulating as many buckets as possible; can you find all four in this picture?












Me and my trusty head lamp. Seriously folks I love this thing >

Claire Vs. Plumbing

Hello Adoring Fan Base!

It has been an interesting past few days and I thought it was high time to update you on all things Tlotlo! Firstly, I’m pretty sure I have quite the lobbyist working the Big G upstairs for me because even when things go wrong in my life, they tend to go pretty right, example: I came back to my house two days ago after a frustrating time in my clinic and had a little “adventure.”

It is my second day at work and I spent the whole time in the caravan waiting to either a.) go to Sefare to meet the hospital staff there or b.) be of any use to anyone at all…ever. I ended up brain storming projects and did actually have a brief but insightful chat with the lay counselor about issues within the community. That aside, I was still pretty frustrated, so when I got home I had ZERO patience left to deal with the fact that my sink was making a high pitched squealing noise.

Let me fill you in on my bathroom/ dishwashing/ laundry room. It is the only room in the house that has water, and so it tends to get the most action in my everyday goings on. The toilet leaks out of either the handle or the bottom part of the tank, or possibly both. The faucet is lose so if it is turned even a little off center it starts to whistle. The pipe leading to the sink is funky, so it also leaks and occasionally whistles. There is a cricket living somewhere within all those drippy pipes and right around 7:30pm at night it starts to make its little cricket noise and doesn’t stop until around 5am. Normally, none of this would be an issue, but since the wall between my bathroom and my bedroom doesn’t reach the ceiling this cacophony of sound gently rocks me like a hurricane to bed every night. I had come to deal with all of these things though since I realize, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have it very plush and lovely compared to some. I had even begun to figure out what I affectionately called “the dance of the toilet” meaning the back and forth of me putting a used yogurt container below the tank to catch the dripping water, and then putting it back into the tank so there was enough suction to flush.

But today I was just not having it.

Me being me, I got out my leatherman and faced the singing sink head on. Let me preface this by saying my plumbing skills consist of identifying a leak and then calling a plumber. I attempt to tighten the bolt that connects the main pipe to the flexible cord that leads to the tap, and after one twist the sound had quieted a bit. I thought to myself “Go me! I rock, I could totally be a plumber, this is not that hard at all.” So I twisted it again, and again the sound lessened. After another lengthy pat on the back I went for one more twist…oh lordy pants, why didn’t I stop at two? The pipe freaked the heck out and began spewing water all over my bath/dish/laundry room at a rate I had not previously thought possible in Africa. I freaked the hell out and attempted to “untwist” the bolt (people, you cannot untwist what has been twisted) and the thing began exploding.

I run outside my house just in time to find my kindly old landlady walking back from her job teaching pre-schoolers. I explain to her what is happening with wild hand gestures, in a pitch that is a few octaves higher than a preteen at a Backstreet Boys concert, with some crock story about how I was “just washing my hands.” She smiles at me… and asks how my day at the clinic was. My reply was something like:

“Itwasgreatbutcanyoupleasecomeandseethebathroomitisexploding”

She takes her sweet time coming into the house and then laughs and ambles out to turn the water off, at which point the leak has devoured my bathroom and started flowing into the kitchen. Then, and get this, she begins to mention how worried she is that I won’t be able to bath tonight (it’s “bath” here, not “bathe”) and tells me to go about what I was doing so that she can mop up the mess. If I knew how to say “angel” in Setswana I would have called her that. After repeated wave offs of me asking if I could help in what I like to call “Setswinglish” she cleans the floor, calls a plumber, runs out to get the part that is needed and wishes me goodnight. 

NOT ONLY, does my faucet pipe not squeak anymore but the plumber saw my yogurt cup and the rust lines and said he would come back to fix that this weekend, which Mma Monyatsi said was great, since it was overdue that this bathroom have a checkup. I’m also pretty sure that the tidal wave may have taken out the nasty little Pavaratti that sang me to sleep every night. Claire 1; Plumbing/Cricket 0.   

As an aside, I will be taking pictures of my house and the village and adding them to the blog super soon, so watch out!

More to come, much love to all,
Claire

Cha-cha-cha-cha-changes!

It hit me yesterday how much my life has changed in the past couple of months. I thought you guys might get a kick out of some of the comparisons:

-Saturday night 6 months ago: go out to the bar/ a party with some friends, maybe find a place to sing a little karaoke, have a few drinks, come home around 2am, and go to bed.

-Saturday night Bots: go to the local bar, have one beer (two if I am feelin fancy), walk over to Nate’s house to watch him kill a chicken, get home before dark (around 6:30pm), watch a Disney movie in bed, and go to sleep

-Taking a walk 6 months ago: head out with my dog and go where ever I want, generally get ignored by anyone I didn’t know, maybe wave to the neighbors.

-Taking a walk in Bots: walk somewhere along the main road, get constantly pointed at by small children and cat called by drunken men; attempt Setswana but then switch to English when people only laugh in reply.

-Food 6 months ago: I could eat anything under the sun depending on what I was craving. Thai, Chinese, Greek, Italian, seafood, sushi, burger, anything I wanted and get it within an hour of wanting it.

-Bots food: I can have anything I want as long as I want some combination of chicken or beef, rice or noodles or sorgum, carrots, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Now that I am a vegetarian you can exclude the beef and chicken.

-Tactics to get people to show up to your party 6 months ago: tell them there will be a dj and a keg

-Tactics to get people to show up to your party in Bots: tell them you have a toilet and some floor space to crash on

-Things that excited me 6 months ago: leaving for Botswana, a night on the town, dressing up for a date, family game night, a trip to the cottage, a new movie coming out

-Things that excite me in Bots: cheese, toilets, hot water, internet access. 

-Concerns 6 months ago: what am I going to do after college, how am I going to maintain my relationship, how am I going to get enough money for graduate school, how am I going to find a good job.

-Concerns in Bots: how am I going to get to my shopping village to get food, if the water goes out do I have enough stored up, how many kettles of hot water do I want to heat in order to take a warm bath, how long can I go without a bath before the locals start noticing.

-Ways to blow off steam 6 months ago: put on my favorite tunes, dance around the kitchen while cooking up something tasty

-Ways to blow off steam in Bots: put on my favorite tunes, dance around the kitchen while cooking up something tasty.

The reason I threw in the last one was because at the end of the day, I may be changing but I am also still very much the same person I was when I left the states. My physical expectations may have changed, and my day to day needs have certain changed, but the things that make me happy, and the moments that bring joy to my life and a smile to my face, are still very much the same. In fact many things that wouldn’t have brought a giant smile to my face (toilets) now do, because my expectations for how I function are different. 

My life is both significantly more simple and significantly more complicated all in one go. I think something important to remember while serving in Peace Corps, not everything has to change, and not everything will.

Much love,

Tlotlo

Always Bring a Book and Never Ask "Why?"

Lots to catch all you wonderful people up on! Here is the dealio, I have been moved. Yes, moved by the people and the culture of Botswana, and of course moved to better myself as a person, but also physically moved. Due to some extenuating circumstances, myself and my wonderful trainee friend Nate, have been site swapped. I am not going to get into the details, but I think this is going to be for the better of our communities in the long run. Though I am sad to say goodbye to Kanye, and my wonderful, amazing host family, I am happy about all the new challenges and adventures that await me in Ramokgonami!

Here is the low down: Ramokgonami (Rams as I will be calling it from here on out) is a 3,000 person village located about 3 hours north east of Gaborone. It is a 45min hitch/kombi ride from Pahlapye (my shopping village, which you should be able to find on a map if you are super interested) and an 8 hour ride from Maun. I will be working in a midwifery clinic as a Community Capacity Building volunteer and will also probably be finding some projects to do with the local schools and library. My house is going to have running water in the bathroom and electricity, and I just found out that the library has wifi, which means I can keep in touch with each and every one of you good looking lads and lasses.

I’m pretty pumped about my new assignment, and I really just can’t wait to start working and getting to know the village and actually start planning some projects. The volunteer whose spot I will be taking set up a formula and milk distribution center for mothers in the PMTCT program. I also hear, from that crazy Peace Corps grapevine, that she was incredibly ingrained within the community; so I am going to have some pretty big shoes to fill. A lot of the general work I will be doing with have to do with the PMTCT program, as well as distribution of ARVs and breast feeding demos. The clinic has had 3 volunteers prior to me, so they should know their way around the program by now, but I was to try and distinguish myself as an individual by trying to come up with projects that are very different from my predecessors.

On a more up to date note, I think I am going to go veg, or at least give it a shot. I have been pondering the thought for a while now, and had an interesting experience today that kind of solidified it for me. The training for the day was in Gabs and we got to have a walk through tour of one of Botswana’s diamond polishing plants. It was actually really amazing, since I think all of us went in there with some pretty nasty pre conceived notions about what the diamond business looks like in Africa and that was not at all what we found. Since it was Friday everyone in the plant was in jeans. The nice Israeli guy who runs the operation, fielded all of our charged up questions about how he knew his diamonds weren’t covered in blood with grace. When someone asked how long shifts were, and if employees were expected to stay until the job was done, the man in the cutting room said it was an 8am-5pm shift with a tea and lunch break and if you weren’t done with a particular diamond prior to you “hauling off” than you just came back to it the next day.

Anyways, this is all besides the veg point, but before we leave this train of thought, I would like to add that I got to hold a 17 carat “rough” diamond and a 10 carat finished, yellow diamond. These rocks were GIANT! The lady in the finishing room took my hand, and literally placed the yellow diamond on top, between my two fingers so I could get an idea of what a ring that size would look like. It blew my mind. THEN she proceeded to put a princess cut, pear cut, round cut and some other kind of cut, between the rest of my fingers, the smallest “only” being around 3 carats. I had hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewels on my hand, and all I could think about was the fact that these little shinny rocks could pay off all my student debt, or buy me a house, or build a clinic in my soon to be village, or feed my entire village for at least a year. Don’t get me wrong, when I find that special someone, I would like a ring, but I don’t think I am ever going to be able to look at a diamond the same way again. The rough one looked like a freakin piece of glass, or maybe even a slightly more translucent piece of quartz. We pay so much for something that comes from dead animal and plant matter and it just seems so…weird.

ANYWAYS, I got home from the crazy diamond experience and found that my host mother needed help washing the car. It was getting late so when she said I need to scrub down the windows I couldn’t really see what the sticky stuff I was scrubbing at was…that was until she told me about her afternoon. My host mother had been out at the cattle post (something I am going to have to describe later) and on her way back she had run into a friend with a dead cow. Since the friend needed a hand to get the carcass back to Kanye, my host mother had offered to help…by putting it into the family kombi.

People of America (and this only applies to those of us whose close encounters of the bovine kind are in a grocery store or between the toasted buns of a McDonald’s sandwich) a cow carcass is HUGMONGOUS! There was blood all over the seats, and windows and the whole car stank of blood. As I proceeded to help my mother wash everything down, and slowly got more and more blood water spilled on me I realized that this whole meat thing might be leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Afterwards, when I was heading back into the house and found a leg of cow in the sink, these thoughts became a little more solidified. Finally, after scrubbing myself down and coming out of the bathroom to find my host sister making fried cow intestines, I had this beautiful moment of clarity and decided to swear off meat, here and now. So I am going to give this whole herbivore thing a go and if it works, neato frito, and if not, at least I gave it a shot.

Seriously people, I was like the ranch hand version of "Kerry"

Alright, that is going to be about it for me today. I will try and post an address as soon as I get to site so all of you dedicated readers out there (love you Mom) can send me letters and packages and pictures, and anything else you can fit into a standard envelope/ flat rate box. Also note, if you don’t want to send me a package, but still have some sympathy for my dietary situation, taco seasoning and macaroni and cheese (the cheese packets) fit into an envelope! (Thank you Aunt Beth)

Ke rata mongwe le mongwe (I love everyone)

~Claire/ Tlotlo

p.s. the title of this post is the running motto of Peace Corps Botswana