Halloween and Birthdays

There isn’t a whole lot to do in Kanye besides go to training, study, and....party.  So even though the people of Kanye have no idea what Halloween is, a lot of volunteers managed to come up with costumes.  We had fun, and the Botswana staff thought we were hilarious.  We had classes in the morning, and in the afternoon went outside to learn a few of the games that Botswanan young people play.  A lot of us will work directly with school children, so it could be helpful to know about these.  And we all had fun, including the older volunteers!!

Here are some of our fellow trainees in make-shift costumes, posing on top as a box of Chibuku (the local beer made of sorghum) and below as one another on the left and right....like we said, limited costume supplies, but we are a creative bunch!

Since the next day was John’s birthday - 66 years ! (which is equal to the sum of the ages of three of our youngest volunteer trainees) - Carol decided to organize a little party.  We had found a restaurant different than the one that most of us volunteers hang out in, with the easy-to-remember name of Mmaphakhukhu Cafe, and thought it would be a nice change for us older volunteers to have a nice quiet dinner.  But when she let a few volunteers know, it turned out that everyone wanted to come.  And everyone did!   John can say that it was the best birthday he has ever had in Africa.  Seriously, it was a wonderful way to celebrate, and it took away some of the homesickness for family and friends.

Here we all are with the birthday "boy" at the head of the table!

Becky, our youngest trainee at age 22 with John, the elder, at age 66 celebrate their birthdays!

Carol at Game City Mall on November 8 --- note the Christmas decor!

Carol enjoyed her birthday in Gaborone on a Peace Corps business trip with our training group in the final stages of training as we prepared for our swearing-in the next day.  Shopping at the mall, fresh flowers from John, lunch out, for a moment it felt like home.  Oh yes, except for the baboon eating his lunch just outside the mall and Peace Corps office!

   

THE SPIRIT LIVES ON

Peace Director Tim Hartman, with the help of JFK,
spoke movingly of the ideals and the practical
successes of the Peace Corps after 50 Years.

We went Gaborone on October 22 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps.  Volunteers, trainees and staff were joined by returned volunteers from many countries, by former Botswanan President Festus Mogae, by United States Ambassador Michelle Gavin, and by many other friends of the Peace Corps.

Carol shows some of the other volunteers how
to celebrate!

Tim Hartman, Director of the Peace Corps in Botswana, stood next to a picture of John F. Kennedy and shared some thoughts that brought back the spirit of the New Frontier, when JFK implored Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."  Powerful words that resonate strongly after half a century.  Most of the volunteers and trainees, as well as Hartman and Ambassador Gavin, were not yet alive when Kennedy was inaugurated in 1961, or when Congress approved the creation of the Peace Corps later that year.  We were old enough to have seen him deliver these words, and like all present, were moved by how much meaning they have for us today.

Volunteers just want to have fun - at the Embassy
compound in Gaborone

So we are excited about being here.  We dearly miss our children, our grandchildren, our friends, our community, and the many wonderful things that Portland has to offer.  And yet, we feel gratitude for this opportunity to be here, trying to do something, however small, to make the world a better place.

This is the entrance to the Kanye Kgotla.  Our house is
about a mile from here, at the bottom of the hill.  The Kgotla
is where the traditional king and council meet, where cultural events
are held.

This is the long-awaited day of coronation of the Kgosi Melope II, of the Kanye  region.  Kgosi is translated as chief, although that word has an unpleasant colonial overtone, so I'll stick with Khosi.  King is acceptable, as well  The previous Kgosi died last year, but there have been delays, one being that the eldest son, who ordinarily would have inherited the throne, had been badly injured in a car accident and decided that he could not serve.  Then a leopard had to be killed for the ceremony.  Special dispensation had to be gotten from the government, that strictly limits the killing of what we used to call big game animals.  Once permission was given, the new Kgosi  went out with a team of men armed to carry out the hunt.  On the first attempt, which lasted fifteen days, they were unsuccessful, so they had to carry out a second expedition.  Then the skin had to be prepared.

Volunteer trainee Marjorie Nicholson had a traditonal
dress made for the occasion of the Kgosi's enthronement

President Khama waves at the crowd as he enters the
Kgotla to honor Melope II

What was amazing at the coronation was that in a crowd of several thousand people, including the President and numerous cabinet members, the only weapons were the old rifles of the hunters.  There was a contingent from the army, the army band, there to play the national anthem.  Certainly there were security guards, but they were not obvious and if they had weapons at all, they were concealed.  Far different than what we experienced in Portland, much less what we've seen in Colombia or Mexico or Viet Nam.

A member of the Kgosi's regimental guard, with his hunting
rifle unloaded, watches the performance of a traditional dance

The prime seats, where the President and two previous presidents sat, were inside the Khotla, a traditional meeting place with a big thatched roof held up by wooden columns, and without walls.  But the throne was outside the Kgotla, and our seats were only a few feet from it.  After the Kgosi was draped with the leopard skin, he sat, virtually motionless, for two hours in the hot sun, while dancers danced, singers sang, poets lauded him, and politicians - but not the President, who was actually in attendance not as President but as chief of his own tribe - made speeches.  John couldn't take the direct sun or resist taking pictures, and was able to move around a bit in the crowd.

After the formalities of speeches, dances, poetry and music,
the new Kgosi addresses the people of Kanye

It's typical in the Peace Corps to make connections, such
as Volunteer Trainee Brandon Lawson, in the dark suit,
meeting a woman from his home town who has come to
Botswana to work with youth through the Episcopal Church.

After five hours, the entire crowd of several thousand people left the Kgotla and went to a nearby field where huge white tents were set up to provide lunch for everyone.  Unfortunately the caterers didn't plan very well and ran out of plates.  People, including us, filled cups, glasses, and makeshift plates formed out of the tinfoil covering the chafing dishes.  Still, a good time was had by all.

Women dancing.  They are holding sticks used to thresh
sorghum and the dance is to celebrate the harvest

One of several groups of women who came to sing and
celebrate at the enthronement.

Downtown Thamaga, across the street from the house
of Kelli Haynes, the "Botswana  9" volunteer with whom
we spent a week.

The landscape around Thamaga is dotted with great
rocks and piles of rocks, some of the piles are hundreds
of feet high, and they seem to have been balancing
for eons.

October 29.  Two weeks since we last wrote and it seems like so much has happened. We spent five days in Thamaga, a one-hour  bus ride from Kanye, to “shadow” PCV Kelli Haynes, who has been in Botswana for fifteen months, so that we could experience service witha volunteer working with people and organizations in her community.

Kelli’s house is on the grounds of the Botswelelo Pottery Collective, which was our first stop of the day. It began as a mission project in the 1970’s and is now a fully self-sufficient business, very impressive. Most of what they potters do is make tableware, using some traditional designs and color.  They also do some larger work, as shown in the picture.

Carol and Kelli meet with the director of the
Pottery Cooperative

Their bread and butter is patterned dinnerware,
but the potters also do special work, like these pots

Kelli works with a junior secondary school (grades 8, 9 and 10), about 30 minutes walk from her house.  There are nearly 650 students who, in addition to classes, have a tea break in the morning and receive a hot lunch in the early afternoon - cooked in big pots over hot fires.  Students are highly disciplined.  

John and Kelli outside the office of the Junior Secondary
School where Kelli helps develop youth leadership skills

We assisted Kelli in the Guidance/Counseling class - often dispelling myths about the United States, based on the students’ understanding gleaned through television.  We also met twice with her after-school “PACT” Club - a leadership training class.  The students were shy, at first and after warming up to us became very articulate as English speakers (their second language) Needless to say, we didn’t get far with Setswana, which actually is not spoken in the secondary schools here. 

We also engaged in a rehearsal for a couple of students for a presentation at an all-school assembly.  It became an impromptu speech class as the students gained enthusiasm for the project. The two students who did speak to the entire student body did a very good job.

Students, all 650 of them, stand for a morning
assembly.  Their self-discipline during these
assemblies is impressive.

One of Kelli's leadership training students speaks to
her classmates about good study habits

These two students made outstanding presentations
to the students in Kelli's school

Every day, the kitchen staff cooks lunch for 650 students
heating these pots over open wood fires.

Also during shadow week we met Alpha, a young Batswana who has founded The Jubilante Recovery Centre on a wing and a prayer, with no financial resources, yet enormous energy and passion.  He speaks on the radio, and gets calls from people all over the country.  We had the good fortune of joining Alpha at the Botswana Police Criminal Investigation Unit in Gaborone for an interview on the correlation between substance abuse and crime. Alpha’s efforts are being supported by others including PCV Kelli as he is applying for a grant to fund his project to open the first in-patient clinic in Botswana. The connection between drug/alcohol abuse and the HIV/AIDS epidemic here was repeated often during our week of interviews at clinics, schools and community organizations.  

Alpha is a young man with a vision - and who just got
a paying job working with public schools, which will enable him
to bring his dream of an alcohol and drug rehabilitation
center closer to reality

Training continues and is actually more challenging now for patience and hanging in since that we have had some field experience.  Our group of 35 trainees remains strong and committed.

Last Saturday we attended the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary Celebration in Gaborone at the American Embassy.  It was incredibly inspirational, including speeches by several local dignataries.  Our favorite moment was when the Country Director quoted Archbisop Desmond Tutu who once said  “Peace Corps Volunteers are people who work their butts off for no pay.”  Hmmm.  

Kids love games everywhere in the world, and
this neighbors of Kelli's are no exception

This week we received our site assignment at Goodhope Senior Secondary School in the Life Skills Program and met the Head of Guidance and Counseling.  Goodhope is about an hour south of Kanye, and the largest senior secondary (11th-12th grades) in the country.  It is a boarding school, with 2400 students, 60% of whom have been orphaned by AIDS.  We will have a house on the campus where most or all of the teachers live as well.  So after our swearing-in on November 9, the next day we will go to Goodhope, with hopes that the name bodes well for our upcoming experience there!

October 15.  Forty-two years ago today we met in Cambridge Common, at the peace march against the war in Viet Nam. And here we are today so many years later still supporting peace among peoples in this beautiful world.

We're still marching.  Occupy Wall Street

That desire for peace, and for doing the little bit that we can to make the world a better place, has guided us ever since, and here we are, still working, now in Botswana.

We had an outing to the dam near Kanye.  No swimming,
however, because of a liver fluke called Bilharzia

It has been an eventful almost two weeks since we have last written. Our Pre-Service Training (PST) is almost at the half-way point, and right now we are on a “shadow”visit to a volunteer, Kelli, who lives in Thamaga, a beautiful village even smaller than Kanye.  The idea is to experience life at site in our program of Life Skills.  Kelli is an awesome trainer. At 24 years of age, from Tyler in East Texas, she is a natural PCV.  Aside from being from a land very similar to Botswana (hot, dry and dusty), she is honest, practical and has a great sense of humor, which are, we are learning, essential qualities to survive the Peace Corps.  Leaving our temporary home in Kanye on Monday, with the chickens and roosters all about, felt a little unsettling, even for a brief time, as we have so little that is permanent right now.  

So here’s the update on experiences in these past several days all of which are supporting our adjustment to this new country, culture and way of life. You see here a picture of a large village celebration (which we are finding the Batswana love!) at the Kanye Kgotla (chief’s gathering place), complete with amazing dancing.  

We volunteers were given honored seats at
this cultural event preceding, by a week, the enthronement
of the new Kgosi

Our training class also made an impromptu trip to a dam, and as you can see we were not dressed for the event, although the picnic and short hike were fun anyway.  PCV’s are nothing if not “patient and flexible.”  And we caught an amazing glimpse of one of the few unusual animals we have seen thus far --- a grasshopper.

We are looking forward to seeing lions, zebra and giraffe,
for now, it's donkeys, goats, cows and chickens,
and this six inch long grasshopper

Most of our weeks are spent in classes and here you see Dolly, our amazing LCF (the Peace Corps adores acronyms --- Language & Culture Facilitator) teaching us Setswana. Her hair this day was especially fun.

Dolly's "uplift" hairdo is as uplifting as her spirit.  She
has been a good teacher!

Setswana is not easy to learn, but Dolly makes it enjoyable and her patience with us is endless.  Plus we get to drink Botswana’s beloved bush tea during class!  Another cultural event was our neighbor’s birthday party for their 5-year old. We kid you not, the party was 10 hours long, beginning with cooking preparations, a huge lunch, candies, games, Bible reading, prayer for the children and dancing for all.  We spent the American 2 hours at the party, enough time to eat and visit with the family and neighbors, plus enjoy the children’s fun.

The neighbors started cooking over open fires at noon
for this five-year old's birthday.  The dancing ended at ten,
late for Kanye

Birthday parties for five year olds are celebrations
for everyone in the family, in the neighborhood

The end of our day, at the home of our host family, the
Baakanyangs, where we eat dinner every night.

So that is the scoop for now. We will be back soon with pictures of our current site visit after we return to Kanye later this week. As much of an adventure as this continues to be, you are first in our hearts and we love and miss you every day.

Saturday, October 1. After an intense beginning two weeks of training, we are back on line to update you all on what is going on here for us in Kanye, Botswana!

Carol, outside our front gate.  Our little house
is on the left, behind the tree and the pile of bricks

Our Host "Parents", Genasi and Thlabologo Baakanang,
outside the house they are building.  In the other picture,
this house on on the right.  People build incrementally when they
have enough money to do something - put in a foundation,
roof, install doors, etc.  

 We've finished our first two weeks of Peace Corps Training, mostly at the Kanye Training Center.  Two mornings were spent in the field learning about and working with Permagardening - there is a big emphasis by the government to get more people involved in backyard and community gardening as one approach to combatting the HIV/AIDS pandemic here. The goals of the garden project are to improve nutrition, decrease food imports, and develop healthy pasttimes for people who may not always be spending their spare time in a positive way.  We PCVs had a great time with this, and it developed a lot of enthusiasm.  A number of us have done home gardening and some worked with youth development organizations that involved food production.

We are digging and making seedbeds to plant vegies.
There is a big push for community gardens, as Botswana
imports most of its food.  Big need for compost,  as well:
you can see by the red color that there isn't much organic
material in the soil.

Carol and Dolly, our Setswana teacher, working on
the seed beds.

Setswana is a hard language to learn, and learning will be harder because so many people speak English well.  But we have a group of very enthusiastic local Batswana as our teachers, and we all live with host families who supplement the class teaching.  Ours, certainly.  They get a lot of laughs out of our attempts to pronounce words and make sentences.  Of course.  It give us an appreciation of the difficulty that immigrants to the United States have in learning English.

Genasi tries to teach me
a few words of Setswana.  I struggle.  He is patient.  After
spending 27 years in the diamond mines, I guess he has learned
to be patient.  His English is ok, and he speaks Zulu and
Afrikaans as well as Setswana

Carol on her way to get a ride to the training center.
Cows like this one, as well as goats and donkeys,
wander around the village.  And they look pretty
healthy and cared for.  After all, here, owning cows is better than
having a bank account.

The Peace Corps Director for Botswana Tim Hartmann has conducted several sessions on policy, goals and methods that was music to our ears.  It gives us faith that the spirit with which the Peace Corps was created 50 years ago is still very much alive!  It remains a grass roots, people to people, capacity-building organization.  One wonders how this can continue to thrive in our current political climate, but happily, it does.

Last Friday afternoon we met with local leaders in a welcoming ceremony. Kanye is divided into wards, each with a kgosi, or chief, and a council of elders.  We met in the traditional meeting house, with some modern improvements, and it was a back and forth conversation.  Many of the elders were educated by Peace Corps Volunteers many years ago.  And they asked some hard questions about our motives and intentions.  It was a very open and educational session for all of us.

Weather.  It has been cloudy and windy today.  Yesterday started out cloudy and cool.  Not what we expected.  The clouds signal the beginning of the rainy season, but it may be a few weeks before it rains.  For now, long sleeves, at least in the morning, are a good idea! 

By far, the most challenging aspect of this experience is being so far away from family and friends.  We have nothing to complain about   - not the food, not the inconveniences such as no hot water, not being strange in another culture - but we do miss you, a lot, much more than words can convey.

Trying out the washing machine.  

Instant coffee lattes and goat chops.  This
is a really nice place to chill out after an
intensive day of training

Mom (Carol) and some of our fellow volunteers at the
Gaborone airport

September 15. We made it to Botswana, after a two year process of application!  It is amazing to be in Africa.  We expected it to be hotter when we landed in Gaborone; the weather was, and is, beautiful, dry, desert like, warm to hot but hardly stifling during the day, cool at night.

We spent the first night at a lodge in Gaborone, where we received rabies shots, medical kits, mosquito netting, and did some introductory training.  We met the staff, all of whom are very impressive.  Most are Batswana, that is, people from Botswana.

This is our room at the Gaborone lodge.  Very nice, with a swimming pool, although, between training and being in desperate need of sleep, we didn't use it.  Probably none of the volunteers did.


The next morning we bussed an hour to Kanye, where we will do our training.  The countryside along the way is reminiscent of Eastern Oregon, but with trees instead of sagebrush.  Lots of trees, mostly with no leaves, many, though, in bloom.  It will be the rainy season soon, and, no doubt, everything will turn green when that happens.   In Kanye there was a presentation by a number of dignitaries, many speeches in English and Setswana, after which we met our "host families" and had lunch.  Our host family lives a short drive from the training center.  Our quarters are very nice, certainly different than what John experienced in Panama 40 years ago!

Not far from our house.  

We've walked around Kanye a bit, went to church Sunday morning, and are feeling pretty good about settling in.  Tomorrow, Monday, we start formal training.  We are excited about the people in our group, and, really, everyone we've met so far.

Mma Baakang, left,  our host "mother" and a friend, in
Mma's house.  Our house is a roomy "studio" with a
bath, in a separate building on the compound

September 5-10 --- New Orleans, the last stop on our journey across the country before meeting our Peace Corps group!  The drive from Atlanta to New Orleans was really, really long, especially  because of the torrential rain. We witnessed one car slide across four lanes of traffic into a ditch, disappearing for a moment before it surfaced, fortunately on all four wheels.  Carol called 911 and when the dispatcher asked what color the car was, Carol thought it was red or blue, John thought it was black.  So much for eye witness accounts.

We spent awesome, warm days with Nelsie, Walter, Arthur (age 4) and Ben (age 2).  And when we say spent days with them we mean it; our room was right in the center of home life.  Being awakened by kisses from two grandsons, it doesn't get better than that! 

All of the Sterns are all in school, what an academic family!  Arthur and Walter biked off every morning before we were quite ready to engage; we took Ben to school, and while Nelsie was in classes one day, we did errands and projects around their house.  The yard is ever more lush, which meant John had a chance to be a gardener once again.

Arthur has a bike with training wheels, so Ben and Bop Bop (John) went off to find a two-wheel, no pedal vehicle - called a Ka Zam.  Ben was a little reticent at first, but after we left, not only did he take to the wheels, but Arthur decided to have the training wheels taken off his two wheeler, and away they went!

Ben's maiden journey on his new Ka Zam

September 8 was the Saints' opening game, almost like a holiday.  All of New Orleans was riveted to the television!  Earlier in the day, it seems that every boy and girl in the city wore Saints' tee shirts or paraphenalia to school.  Sad for Crescent City to see the Green Bay Packers win, but there is always the next game.  Never forget:

During our visit, Walter was honored to deliver a lecture at the Louisiana State Historical Society.  He is researching first-hand accounts of the history of integration in the New Orleans Public Schools --- a fascinating, complicated, and altogether important subject. There is so much to be learned about the accomplishments and the failures during the Civil Rights Era that applies to the increasing diversity in our country in 2011.  How important that we remember this today.

Saying goodbye was difficult, but no better way to do it than have breakfast at the Laurel Street Bakery across the street from Nelsie and Walter's home.

Nelsie, John, Arthur (a/k/a Hercules), 

Carol, Walter and Ben 

We left New Orleans with huge overage of luggage and an even larger collection of amazing and wonderful experiences in this family and friends odyssey.

If you could actually see all our luggage you'd understand
why our overage fees were more than our plane tickets.

Our leaving was poignant, as now our travels to see family and friends are at an end.  Carol says her heart is "happy/sad."  We are headed to Peace Corps 'staging' in Philadelphia.  In other words, this is really happening!