Finally we get to update our blog! Internet is more difficult to come by than we had expected...it’s been especially hard during training. We just haven’t had the time to go to the internet café and when we get access it is pretty slow and inconsistent.
Anyway we hope you’re doing well and we miss our family and friends very much. I want to start by congratulating my brother and sister-in-law…they will be having a baby boy this fall! Wish we could be there for the birth because it will be difficult being away during that time. Also Happy (belated) Mother’s Day to our ma’s. We love and miss you both. When we get home we promise that will make up for the brunches that we will miss. While we’re at it…Happy Father’s Day! Do you have a match (an inside joke we have with our dad’s so just ignore)?
WARNING: This will be a long and informative update because a lot has happened since our last blog posting. There are some pictures posted at the end of this post...
Welcome to Botswana
Lets start with Botswana. We are currently staying in Molepolole for our 8.5 weeks of training. The people in Molepolole have been very friendly and welcoming. We feel very safe and comfortable here. The city consists of grocery stores, gas stations, Western Chicken, internet cafes, a soccer stadium, sidewalk vendors, churches and several neighborhoods (known as wards). The houses in the wards vary greatly. Some have no electricity or running water. Some have all the amenities that a house in the States would have. Most of the families have a family compound that usually consists of a main house, a second house or a traditional house which is like a hut. Most compounds have chickens, dog(s) and cats. The animals here serve a purpose and are generally not regarded as family members like in the States. When we show Batswana (Batswana = more than one person from Botswana, Motswana = one person from Botswana) people pictures of our dog Fletch they think we’re crazy because we’re seen hugging him and playing with him inside our house. We have never seen a dog inside of a house since we’ve been here. The yards are dirt and so are most of the roads in the wards. There are paths between the compounds where you will often see chickens, donkeys and goats.
Throughout training we have been living with a host family. They have been very gracious towards us. We live on a family compound with electricity and running water. We have our own bedroom and we’re very comfortable. Our host mom calls us her children and she treats us as if we were. Also living on our family compound are 3 sisters, a cousin, the oldest sisters daughter, nkuku (grandma) and her sister. Every night we sit down eat dinner and watch the local soaps along with the news. Our family is helping us with learning the local language and teaching us how to cook the traditional foods. Most importantly they taught us how to wash our clothes by hand since we will be doing that for our entire service. Along with teaching us about their culture our host family also gave us our Setswana names. I am known in Botswana as Sethunya which means flower/rose. Chris is known as Tumelo which means belief/faith.
Sethunya (Set-tune-ya)
Tumelo (To-mel-low)
We are lucky to have such a wonderful host family that has taken care of us from the moment we arrived in Botswana!
Learning the Language and How Not to Offend Anyone
Training is the subject that consumes most of our lives right now. We complete training June 18th and will be sworn in as U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers. After the swearing in we pack up our bags and move to our sites. We have training everyday except Sunday. Training consists of 2-4 hours of language (Setswana), tea break and fat cakes if we’re lucky (kind of like a donut), program training that deals with our assignments, culture and diversity, tea break and some technical training on things like HIV/AIDS. We’re grateful for the training, but we will be happy when it’s over because we will gain some of our freedom back!
The downside of when training ends is that we will be leaving the safety net that is made up of our fellow trainees, our host family and the Peace Corps staff. We have gotten very close to the groups since we are with them everyday in an unfamiliar environment. In fact we have difficulty remembering a time in our lives when we did not know these people. It may sound strange since we have only known them for 2 months. The Peace Corps staff is great. Some are Americans, a few are from different countries in Africa, but most are from Botswana. I feel very confident in our staff in Botswana when dealing with serious problems, which makes us feel pretty good about our service here. The language teachers are very friendly. They teach us language everyday and answer all of our cultural questions. We would call several of them friends of ours. Our security guy is a wonderful as well. He gets things done and at the same time frightens people just enough so they don’t mess with us, but he is a very sweet man.
Our group of Peace Corps trainees is 61 strong. It is a very good group and we have gotten close to many of them. There are people from all of the U.S with different backgrounds, with ages ranging from 23-68 and the group also includes 9 couples. I would love to have them as neighbors when we return, but they must move to the Midwest because it is a wonderful place. We tell them how much we miss the lakes and how we will definitely miss snow when we’re experiencing 113 degree-days in January! We are seriously scared to face our first summer here.
Moving to the Kalahari
The next big update we have to share with you is our site placement. It was a very exciting day when our group found out where in Botswana we would spend the next two years of our lives. It was exciting because you have no control over where you go (unless you fake an illness ;) and the fact that you will be there for two years! All of the trainees knew which sites are Peace Corps “posh” and which are not. So as you could imagine we all had our fingers crossed that day.
Chris and I assumed (and you should never make assumptions in the Peace Corps) that we were going to be placed near the Okavango Delta because two spots were open that fit our assignments. However, we did not realize that we could also be placed in a village called, Hukuntsi. We got Hukuntsi, which is the opposite of being placed near the delta because it is in the middle of the Kalahari Desert! When it is freezing cold and snowy in Minnesota it will be scorching hot and sandy in Hukuntsi. We have already been daydreaming about swimming in the cold waters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness and it isn’t even hot here in Botswana.
The following is what a travel book had to say about Hukuntsi: it was known as one of the most remote areas in Botswana prior to the paving of the main road. There are no hotels in the area so visitors must either know someone to stay with or carry a tent. You’re in luck…you know two people in Hukuntsi!
Hukuntsi Visit
When we went to visit our site we were shocked when we got to our house. It may be the biggest house in Hukuntsi which will make it difficult to convince people we’re poor volunteers. Maybe they will believe us when they come inside and notice it mostly empty. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a big living room, a large kitchen, running water and electricity. Its funny living in a house like this when you’re surrounded by almost nothing and you have to make a 7 hour round trip for groceries. I don’t think they had many housing options for us in Hukuntsi.
We met our community and counterparts during our visit. The people are friendly and they laugh every time we tell them our Setswana names because most of them use English names. We met the chief and other elders in the community. Chris will be working with the Social and Community Development office. He is predicting that he will be working on Home Based Care with people affected by HIV/AIDS. He will also be working with orphans and vulnerable children. I will be working with a Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) that visits the 6 settlements located in the district. The NGO distributes food and water to the preschools located in the villages. They also provide educational materials. We will have to figure out a way to build capacity and create HIV/AIDS awareness among the villages during our two years there.
New Contact Information
We have cell phones if you would like to call us…we would call you, but it is too expensive for us on a Peace Corps budget. If you do call please keep in mind that we are 7 hours ahead of U.S. Central time. A good time to call is weekday evenings or anytime on Saturday or Sunday. Our time zone is GMT +2 and our country code is 267.
Chris – 723 466 49
Shelly – 723 466 45
If you would like to mail us something you can send it to Chris & Shelly Zenner (make sure to at least have Chris’s name since it is his work address) or Tumelo & Sethunya Zenner:
RAC Kgalagadi District
Private Bag 12
Hukuntsi, Botswana
Several people have asked us what we would like for them to send us so here it is…we love books and we will be reading all of the time at night since we will not have a television and there is not much, as far as, entertainment in Hukuntsi. The volunteers have a network of books that we pass around and we would very much appreciate anything to read (books and/or magazines). I've included a list below of books we have already gotten our hands on. Any sports equipment would be appreciated and it is something we could share with the kids. If you send sports equipment that needs to be inflated please send a small pump because we haven't seen any around here. Board games would be great as well. Chris loves candy. We are not going to be shy here and admit that it is strangely exciting when we get something in the mail. From family and other volunteers we heard the best way to send things is through the U.S.P.S. using a flat rate box. It seems to be on of the cheaper ways.
Books we have: Six Wives of Henry VIII, Power of One, Thousand Splendid Suns, Number One Ladies Detective Agency vol. 1-6 and the Miracle at Speedy Motors (don't know which vol), World War Z, Intensity, You Can Hear Me Now, The Thorn Birds, Dreams of My Father, A Little Yellow Dog, Twilight (1st one), The Gate House, Time Travelers Wife, The Band Plays On, Bio Ghandi, Kite Runner, Short History on Nearly Everything and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
What’s Next?
We will be sworn in as official U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers on Thursday, June 18th. Then we will make our way to Hukuntsi the following day and make ourselves at home for the next two years!
We miss you and we will keep you posted…don’t forget to let us know how you’re doing as well!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
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