Self Improvement Project

WOOT! I would like to announce that this is the 100^th post I have loaded onto PeaceCorpsGing!!! 100 posts of crazy Peace Corps Gingery goodness. *sigh*

So, this is the first of two really inspired blog posts that I am going to post within the next few days, which means that if you don’t come around here much anymore (because I haven’t been very good with updating) than you should start to check back on a regular basis! 

Anyways, my most recent book read (I’m going to try and update my list on the tab at the top pretty soon as well) is a doozey called “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.” This book documents the author, Gretchen Rubin’s experience taking a year out to focus on making herself more happy (I know technically I should b using “happier” here but she makes a point to say that she wasn’t unhappy to begin with, so I think the connotation is better.) Now, on the whole she is SIGNIFICANTLY more, how should I put this...type A? Than I am; in that she is incredibly analytical, super organized, and wildly scholarly about her happiness endeavor (shout out to baby sister and Mom on that one.) To her credit though, she states that not everyone’s happiness project looks the same, and that just because this is how SHE did it, doesn’t mean it is how EVERYONE should do it.

Meanwhile, in the mind of Claire...

A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to put myself in self imposed lockdown for the month of May. This is due to a few reasons, one being because I was leaving my village a lot and the other being because my wonderful cousin Alex, is coming to visit at the end of May and I wanted to make sure I was in good shape before touring around with him a bit. A few days ago I realized that this would make for another excellent writing project, but instead of writing a novel (like what I did in November) I wanted to write a letter home every day, for a month. Thus BoLeWriMo is born!!! AKA Botswana Letter Writing Month.

Combine the above two ideas and you have my little one year project, or what I like to call “Claire’s Year of Improvement.” I have picked a different thing to do every month that I think could better my life. Every month I will post both here, and for the Peace Corps Botswana Newsletter, about how I am doing, what it is like, improvements I am seeing and challenges I am having. This will give you out there in cyber space the ability to comment, critique and join along if you see fit! This is the schedule I came up with:

Claire’s Year of Improvement

·         May – Month of Letters: Write a letter every day

·         June –Month of Meaningful Mornings: Wake up at least 1.5hrs before you have to leave the house and either a.) cook a nice breakfast or b.) meditate/ write in your journal

·         July –Month of Journaling: Write in your journal every day

·         August –Month of Daily Exercise: Exercise for 30mins every day. Sundays off and walking only counts if it is beyond your daily transportation needs

·         September –Month of Cleaning: Clean your house for 20minutes every day. Cumulates when you are not home and must be done within twice the time you were gone (i.e. if I am gone for two days I have 40mins of cleaning to make up, and it must be done within 4 days)

·         October –Month of Music: Take 20minutes a day to sing, play guitar or ukulele, or listen to new music every day

·         November –Month of Hygiene: Shower at least 3x a week, brush and floss every day, brush hair every day, and use face wash every day

·         December –Month of Daily Blog Posts: Must write at least a paragraph every day, to be posted at least three times a week. Once a week the post must be for the educational blog you have completely neglected

·         January –People’s Choice Month: Comment with your suggestions and I will give something a whirl for a month!

·         February –Month of Daily Pictures: Take a new picture every day, if possible, post to blog

·         March –Month of Religious Study: At least 30minutes a day take time to read the Bible or research other faiths. Weekends are Abrahamic Religions focus, i.e. Sundays are set aside for Christianity, Saturdays for Islam and Fridays for Judaism

·         April –Month of Looking Good: Make-up, hair, nails, and more than 30seconds thinking about what you are going to wear every day. Sundays off (Saturday’s off if you are staying in)

·         May –Month of Meditation: At least 30 minutes every day

Isn’t it a beaut? We are going to see how long this sticks, I think I can make it, seeing as it changes every month. This is perfect for me since once we hit June 2014 I am either going to be getting ready to go home, or I am going to be getting ready to move. If ANYONE in Botswana, at home, or in any other part of the world, is interested in trying any of these out with me, let me know and we can be accountabili-buddies! If you are willing, you can also write about your experiences and I can post them up here. If you want to do your own, I would also be interested in hearing from you! I know this is a lot more “audience participation” than I have had on this blog before (aside from the little survey thing to the right) but we are growing, and expanding, and I want you to be a part of my process!

So, homework for you wonderful people: let me know if you want to be a part of this little self improvement project, and come up with ideas for the month of January so I can chew them over and pick a good one (I will of course give credit to the inventor.) The only thing I would ask is that you keep in mind that it is like the surface of the sun here in January (so if you write in with “running” I’m going to laugh in your face and keep on looking), and that I also might be traveling for a period of time that month (so doing something like “yard work”, “cooking”, or anything else that involves me being home won’t fly either.) This will be good feedback to me as well since I will get a better grasp on how many active readers of this blog I have, seeing as I reached over 12,000 views the other day, which is cool, but I don’t know how many of those are from weird internet bots.

Homework for me: start writing letters...lots and lots of letters.

Hugs and smooches!

Claire

Alternative Ideas for Year of Improvement:

·         Month of No Smoking

·         Month of Working in the Garden

·         Month of Running

·         Month of No Toilet Paper

·         Month of Reading

·         Month of Job Searching

·         Month of MCAT/LSAT/GRE/Foreign Service Exam Studying

·         Month of Job Applying

·         Month of Nose Picking

·         Month of Yoga

·         Month of No Drinking

·         Month of Art Making

·         Month of Setswana/ Language Learning

·         Month of Village Exploring

·         Month of Emails Home

·         Month of No Dongle

·         Month of Pay it Forward

·         Month of Mud Bathing

·         Month of Media

·         Month of No Spider Killing

·         Month of Poetry (this is actually a real thing that went on in March called NaPoWriMo)

·         Month of US President Education

·         Month of No Car

·         Month of Yoga

·         Month of Relaxation

365 Days from Home

I had these big extravagant plans to do this whole little recap of my service thus far, with pictures and clips from previous blog posts, and journal entries and emails home...but to be honest I have been on the computer all day writing up emails and the piece is just not where I want it right now, so you have to wait. In the mean time, to celebrate my one year mark of leaving home, not to be confused with my one year mark from leaving the states (April 11th), my one year mark in Botswana (April 12th), or my one year mark left in service (June 12th...unless I extend and then June 12th 2015), I am going to do another one of those "cop out" posts where I re post something I have sent in an email. 

This was to another Bots 14 invitee who is still trying to figure out whether or not Peace Corps is right for them. I'm going to alter is a little so that it has more to do with this date in time, and I hope the person doesn't mind that I have shared this. 

"I totally understand the anxiety portion of things, this is a huge commitment and sacrifice and not something to be entered into lightly.

My experience so far has been pretty wonderful. I was originally a little sad about the fact that I didn't end up getting placed in the Middle East or Asia (I have an Asian Studies specialization with a concentration in the Middle East) but I think ultimately this is where I was supposed to be. I thought I was going to end up in a school, but wanted to be a clinic volunteer, so my placement went well for me. As a Life Skills you would be assigned to a school, and working with either primary school children (elementary/ middle school age) or secondary school children (middle/high school age) so you should really think about your inclinations on teaching. Though every volunteer has the ability to craft their own service (I do a lot of projects outside of the clinic), Life Skills tends to be a bit more structured, which is great for some people and not so much for others. 

By way of regrets, at this point in my service, I don't have many. There were a lot of things I did during the adjustment period of my first year that I might do differently the second time around but that has less to do with the country and the program and more to do with the process of adjusting to a new life in a different place. The bottom line comes down to advocating for yourself, and being okay to do what is right for you instead of giving yourself a ton of guilt over it. I know there are a lot of volunteers here who wish they had been more of an advocate for themselves when it came to their service. People who really wanted to serve in Francophone Africa, who took this because it seemed like "the next best thing" without thinking about whether or not they could be happy here. Some of them found that Bots is great to be in, and some of them are still a bit hung up on not being in the region they had hoped. Again, this is a question you have to ask yourself. 

When it comes to making the decision about whether or not you want to serve I would ask yourself a few questions: 1.) Does this job sound like it would be something you want to do? Peace Corps as a general idea has so much romanticized baggage to it that sometimes we forget that it is an actual job. I have wanted to serve since middle school, but I hadn't really taken a lot of time to think about what service actually MEANS. If you want to be a PCV but don't want to be a teacher, or work in an office, or do one of the other million things you might end up doing, than you might not be happy here. The other side to this though, is that you are going to have more control to change your job description than you ever did in the states and Peace Corps will back you up as long as you are doing something. The preschool needs a new roof and you really like fundraising? Awesome, do it. You want to start a support group for teenage moms in your community even though they aren't in school any more? Go for it. There is a lot of flexibility here. 

2.) Are you at the point in your life that you are willing to give up what needs to be given up and put life in the US on "pause" for two years? I know they ask you this a million times during the application process, but ask your self again, and also add "do I want to put my life on 'pause' for two years?" I have noticed a lot of volunteers who end up leaving early, do so because they had careers at home that they really loved and were fulfilled by and then they came here and it was a bit of a let down. It is entirely possible that Peace Corps will not be as awesome as the life you are living right now. I didn't have this issue because I came to PC right out of undergrad and the two jobs I was working right beforehand were more of a "temp" situation. I have SO much more to gain by staying here than by going home and when I have rough days, this thought alone helps me out a lot. I don't know where you might be at in life, but it is something to keep in mind. 

3.) How comfortable are you with the company you keep? (AKA, are you okay with being on your own a lot?) Some volunteers serve really close to others, and some are hours away, but either which way you end up spending a fair chunk of time on your own. This kind of ties into the last question you asked about what i have learned about myself and I have to say that most of those revelations came when I was alone in my house. You have SO much time to self reflect here and sometimes its a very "zen" moments and you have these nicely wrapped revelations about how you view the world and other people and yourself. But a lot of times is comes from a more difficult place because you are lonely, or frustrated, or tired, or missing comfort (of being in a familiar place, of being home, of friends and family), or some combination of all of these. The amazingly high emotional moments of Peace Corps are only matched by the incredible lows, and these can happen a few times a day. Part of being further into my service, and something I very much enjoy, is that you level out a bit, but there are still days like that and you still have to be able to cope. On this same note, I try to remember that even if the only person that I am changing for the better in all of this is me that, that still means I am changing the world for the better. 

4.) Can you let go of what service "should" be, and just let it be what it is? A lot of us had issues with the fact that we are in a relatively "developed" country and that the idea we had of living in a hut and cooking over a fire wasn't going to be the experience we had here. You will have a stove if you come to Bots, and chances are you will be within 30 minutes of internet if you don't actually just have it in your village or home (we have dongles that connect to phones lines that you pay for minutes on so you can get online.) Not every moment is a starving "feed the children" moment, and you are going to have to deal with people who make decisions for themselves, and others, that are just plan wrong or unhealthy (i.e. I work with some women that didn't take medication during their pregnancy, even though they knew they had HIV, and so now their kid has it. Their nonchalance about this at times has me wanting to hit something.) That being said, sometimes letting it be what it is, is SO much more rewarding than the romantic picture ever could have been. When you have your first conversation in Setswana, or you push through with your first project, or you really see the difference you are making. I had one of these moments yesterday when two of the women from my clinic, that are in the walking group I started, told me that they continued to walk on the days last week when I wasn't around. This is a big thing, since the last volunteer's aerobics group fell apart after she left, and I was worried I was starting a project that wasn't sustainable. Maybe I didn't save a life but one of these women has had a blood clot, and the exercise could really help...so maybe I did? The point is that you don't come to Peace Corps to save lives, you just come to change some. 

5.) Can you be okay with being uncomfortable? This past year has been the most life altering, but also the most uncomfortable, part of my life. Socially uncomfortable (Quotes from actual volunteer situations: "no ma'am I will not give you my sperm [so you can have an African American baby]"), emotionally uncomfortable ("I was going to ET ...*sniff*...and then a little kid gave me a hug...*sniff*...and now I can fix the world!!!!"), and physically uncomfortable ("Is that a boil?...on my butt?") But the discomfort is not the point, its learning to deal and knowing your boundaries. I do NOT, allow myself to be in situations where men degrade women any more; I say something, and then I walk away. I even went off on a dude in a bus a few weeks ago. Its not always about being polite, some of the best ambassadors to the United States of America were not polite when the time called for it, and you are going to have to find a way to deal. A large part of my "soft spoken" self has died here, and I'm okay with that. From discomfort can come the greatest of revelations; embrace it, own it, laugh at it when you need to, and ultimately, find a way around it. Be loud, be soft, be present, be scarce, just figure out what works for you and go with it. 

I know I have gone on a long time at this point, and I hope you don't mind, and that this isn't coming across as too preachy; I'm trying to give you the best information I can, that I think most volunteers are lacking when they decide to service. Peace Corps is incredibly hard and challenging and there are days when I question if this entire program is worthwhile at all...but this is not most days. Most days I look at the friends I have made and the projects I am involved with and the impact I am making on myself and others, and I am just floored by the whole experience. Today actually marks the one year anniversary of when I left Michigan to come to staging so your timing couldn't be better since I am in a reflective mood anyway. I'm also currently contemplating trying to apply for a third year of service if that is any indication of how worthwhile my time here has been (I am thinking about this as someone who is INCREDIBLY close to her entire family.) 

I think ultimately you have to be okay with whatever decision you are going to make, whether that be accepting the invitation, turning it down, or deciding not to serve at all. I hope this email has helped a little bit and I apologize for the length, I really love writing, and I really love talking about Peace Corps, so emails like this are just too tempting ;) If you have any more specific questions on what your job might entail I will try and be more brief and fill you in. I wish you a ton of luck in the next few days about whether or not you want to serve, and if you end up accepting I look forward to meeting you in a few months 

All the best, 

Claire"

Modifications

There is going to be a lot of stuff to post about what went down this last week, but I wanted to get some feedback on the slight formatting mods I made to the blog. Does the wider format, larger text and different font, make things easier to read? Please feel free to comment below (because I have also changed the setting to allow anyone to comment now, which is awesome) and I look forward to hearing back. 

More to come. 

~Claire

Comments, Questions and Answers

This morning I was contacted by a third potential Bots 14 invitee! This makes me excited for a number of reasons, but mainly it is because clearly their invitations are going out, and also that we are going to get to see and meet and get to know new members of the family in a few short months! In order to create a greater ease of access I'm going to post my email up here and loudly declare that if you are a Bots 14 (or even if you're not) that you are welcome to contact me with questions about serving here, and concerns you may have about your invitation.


Normally I would have some sort of terrible fear of doing this, but I'm hoping this information gets to the right people. I'm also pretty confident in the gmail system, and that there is very little in my email account worth stealing information wise. So there it is interwebs, my email is at large!

Hugs and smooches, 
Claire/Tlotlo

Camp!

Even though Daniella did an excellent post on our camp I wanted to do my own version of it (though I still encourage you all to check out her version!)

Sunrise over the camp

The Place: Okavango Delta. A beautiful system of channels that is filled by the flooding in Angola each year,

Shatty with breakfast!

and a place that plays host to a plethora of wild life. We had a counselor catch two fish out of that baby using some fishing line, a hook, and a little chunk of beef. It was crazy and certainly not like the fishing I've
done at home. 

The Event: Youth Conference. Daniella and I wanted to hold an event to celebrate and empower the youth of Botswana. Due to some funding issues we couldn't have as large of a camp as we wanted, so we decided to take some more of the more involved youth and go camping on the Delta as a warm up to the leadership roles we want them to play at the larger camp. This involved defining certain vocabulary to express themselves by, having a "creative outlet" session to talk about artistic expression, defining what it means to be a leader, and going over the 5 steps to community mobilization. 

We will now go over the Top 5 Best and Worst Moments of the Youth Empowerment Conference!

#5 Best: The location was amazing, and I got to wade into the river a few times, as well as wake up to an amazing view. 

My life is good :)

#5 Worst: We didn't bring chairs...big mistake

#4 Best: We had an epic campfire that had epic campfire food included, and one of our campers played a wicked four string guitar.

#4 Worst: The field we used for session was covered in grass that was pokey, and this may sound like a whinny comment but when you consider that our full day of camp included about 5 hours of us sitting on the stuff you realize how important comfort is in keeping your audience focused. (I have come to the conclusion that all shrubbery in Africa is either poky, thorny, prickly, or poisonous.)

#3 Best: Running my own Writing Workshop!

Reading an example from "Loose End" by: Ivan E. Coyote 

Daniella teaching about Community Mobilization

#3 Worst: We didn't bring enough water so by the time we were getting ready to go, the entire group was incredibly dehydrated and sucking down syrupy orange drink concentrate in order to keep our blood sugar up.

#2 Best: Hearing the personal stories of all these amazing youth

BOOM! Empowered baby!

#2 Worst: I still have not quite gotten the hang of jungle peeing...which means I may or may not have peed on myself...

#1 Worst (because you always save the best for last): Myself (a 5'8" individual) and Daniella (a 5'1" individual) sleeping together in a child's tent I bought at Sefalana that couldn't have been more than 5'4x4'5"...which then became infested with ants...it was a rough night. 

#1 Best: Seeing the transformation of the students even after just a day of talking about this stuff, and catching the enthusiasm they had for upcoming projects!

All-in-all it was a pretty amazing conference and the staff all agreed that by having this smaller get together, the larger camp is going to be that much more successful. On a personal note I have to say that this was one of the more satisfying projects I have completed within my Peace Corps service up to this point and I'm really looking forward to the larger camp. By empowering these youth we ensure a brighter future for Botswana as a whole down the line, and if these guys were any indication, its looking pretty bright. 

Hugs and Smooches, 
Claire
p.s. On a more technically note: I figured out how to enable anyone and everyone to leave comments!! So bombs away people, bombs away!

CAMP!

I'm hoping to write my own post about this tomorrow, but in the meantime I would like to put on your radar the wonderful, ever fabulous, Daniella; who did a fabulous post on the event: 
http://drminafrica.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-list-good-bad-and-ugly-of-out-of.html?spref=tw