Adjusting In Hukuntsi

Christmas Is Coming

Dear Readers (in Chris’ words),

So another month has come and gone and we are still settling into our new hometown of Hukuntsi, Botswana. It is amazing to look back at the last month; it feels as though we have experienced so much, yet the experiences are small everyday things. Things you overlook when you are in the comfort of your native country.

Many of you may be wondering why the title of this blog includes the phrase “Christmas is coming”. Well, one of the major differences between our cultures is the process of naming children. The American process of naming children is unexplainable, since it varies so much. Here in Botswana children are named for words with meaning. For example, we have friends here with names that mean the future, gift, many helpers, work of God and to the surprise of one of our fellow volunteers…girl. Well our neighbor boy is named Oreeditse, which translates to Christmas Day. The other day we were sitting on our porch and I saw that he was on is way over and I said to Shel, “Hey Christmas is coming!” After laughing and thinking about how we will miss Christmas at home we felt a little homesick.

From time to time we endure periods of homesickness, in which we miss our families, friends, lakes and rivers, grass, food (like subway), driving cars, professional haircuts, milk by the gallon, miles instead of kilometers, not having sand in our shoes, going to the gym and celebrating American holidays. For the 4th of July we made plans with another volunteer to spend the weekend together and celebrate. Since our friend lives close to a major city, Jwaneng, we brought our cooler and hiking packs in order to stock up on groceries. We met up with her in Jwaneng, purchased what felt like 200 lbs (91 kgs for those local readers) worth of groceries and took the bus back to her place. We ate dinner, chatted about our experiences over a glass of wine and later in the evening, in honor of the 4th, we each lit off a box of matches. It wasn’t the same as fireworks, but it proved to be satisfying enough.

Throughout our settling in process we have undergone a variety of emotions, the main emotion being awkwardness. For the first two weeks just walking to and from work was stressful. When I think about it, being stressed out by this is foolish because the Batswana are wonderful people and it is extremely safe here, but when your language skills are limited and your surroundings are unfamiliar it takes a toll on your nerves. We both have had the same experience; I think our attitudes of not wanting to offend anyone have played a large roll in our emotional distress. We have found that when we do things together our stress levels are greatly reduced and when we have a Motswana friend with us stress isn’t even in our vocabulary.

Everyday that passes we feel more and more comfortable and our house is beginning to feel like a home. Other than some minor hurdles we are beginning to grow fond of our home in Hukuntsi.

Living With What We Get

Getting a haircut has proven to be difficult. The barbers here are not used to cutting the hair of white people, as a matter of fact, we were talking to a Motswana friend and he said, “Who cuts your hair because we aren’t used to cutting hair like you have”. Since my hair was getting to be a bit of a bother I had to turn to Shel. This may have caused me more stress than all of the walks to and from work combined. Ultimately, she did a good job, even though throughout the duration of the haircut she was overcome by bouts of uncontrollable laughter. At one point she said, “I’m going to call this haircut controlled chaos, because I don’t cut the length of your hair the same anywhere, that way no one will be able to tell if it’s even or not”. As you imagine this worried me some, but in the end the haircut turned out to be pretty good. I will be returning to her for another controlled chaos cut soon.

One thing that never fails to be an adventure for us is bus rides. Our most memorable bus ride was the day after the 4th of July. We got to the bus stop around 3:30, we were informed that the bus would arrive at 4, but knowing from experience that bus times are not reliable we arrived early. Even when you are informed of what time buses arrive people tend to be very vague. Earlier in the day we asked several people what time our bus came, we were told: in the afternoon, at noon or 11, 12, 1 or 2. Our bus arrived at 4:30, it was packed and it turned out to be a mini-bus with a max capacity of 24, but it was the last bus of the day so we piled or 200 lbs of groceries on and joined the crowd. Fortunately for Shel we had a cooler that she sat on, I was forced to stand. She later told me that she was jealous I got to stand because her cooler was against a seat leaning back so she could only sit at a 45-degree angle.

We had about 30 people on the bus and I was comfortably leaning against a seat, thinking about how much I wanted to sit down, when we stopped to pick more people up. This is when the bus went from 6 over the max capacity to 16 over. I was the last one in the aisle so I moved towards the back and kept moving back until I was eventually between a guy’s legs, which would have been squeezed shut if I hadn’t been between them. At this time I had about three moveable body parts my head and both my arms. I finally moved my head enough to look up towards the front and I realized Shel was sitting on the cooler at a 45-degree angle, holding a baby, with three peoples’ butts in her face. I’m not sure who had it worse. After an hour or so the bus stopped, several people got off and thankfully the conductor gave myself and another lady seats. Shel no longer had to hold the baby, but the butts remained.

Never Been Called That Before

Earlier in the month my co-worker Susie invited us to her cousin’s wedding. Weddings are a community event here and almost everyone is invited. They take place over a two-day period; everybody that shows up is offered lunch and beverages. This fact alone plays a main role in why so few people are married in Botswana (I can’t remember exactly but it’s something like only 20% of people old enough to marry are married). Weddings are expensive; it’s not unusual to feed over 500 people during the two-days. Along with the cost of the food and other items necessary for a wedding the Batswana pay a labola (dowry) to the bride’s family, on average a labola is 8-12 cattle, which can also be paid in cash (roughly $1,600-2,400US). Anyway, like I was saying, we got invited to a wedding, which we attended with two of my co-workers. I don’t think we witnessed the ceremony, but we did eat lunch. It’s hard to say exactly what part of the wedding we were there for, but we watched them open gifts and we heard several speeches, all in Setswana. The last speech of the day was given by the Kgosi, the chief of the village, since it was in Setswana and the last speech of the day Shel and I were pretty much zoned out. As a result, we were slow to realize it, when the Kgosi was pointing towards us and everyone was staring at us. A little shocked we both smiled and my co-worker leaned towards me and said, ”The Kgosi just asked ‘when is someone going to introduce me to the two colored people in the room’”.

Work as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs)

Things are slow for both Shel and I, but that is to be expected during the first few months of service. I go into my office everyday and visit with all the people at my work and assess where I will be able to help. Things have been extremely slow with Shel’s NGO because there is no funding. So she is currently looking into grants and trying to find a way to get some funding. Meanwhile we are both thinking about our secondary projects and we would like to help out at the local schools. Hopefully we can teach HIV/AIDS education, leadership skills, empowerment, self-respect, budgeting, interpersonal relationships and possibly entrepreneurship, but right now this is what we would like to do…we need to see what the schools need. On top of that coaching basketball is something we’re both interested in…we will see what the headmasters say once we meet with them.

Thank You Host Families

The weekend before we were sworn in as volunteers we planned a party for our host families, to show our appreciation. The volunteers split into several committees: decorations, entertainment, shopping and cooking. I volunteered for the cooking committee and Shel volunteered for the entertainment committee. Since we had to do all the cooking for 200 people we kept it simple by having chicken, rice, coleslaw and bean salad. Me and two other dudes volunteered to cook the chicken since it was the manliest thing we could cook. Due to funding limitations Shel and those on the entertainment committee had to resort to doing a talent show as the sole means of entertainment. Many of the volunteers, myself included, had set very low expectations for the talent show. In the end the talent show proved to be the most successful of all the committees. Shel had a juggling act with another volunteer, our friend’s the Scharmers swing danced, another friend Stepped (Stepping is a kind of dancing) and two people played guitar and sang. At the very end of the party Shel played the song “Shout” and some of the volunteers and members of the host family danced together in the proper “Shout” fashion. We were both extremely proud to be an American after sharing such an important piece of American culture.

Trying to Understand (in Shelly’s words)

Some random things we haven’t figured out: do cows attack people and how do you stop the goats from breaking open your trash bags? Things we have figured out: never ask for a napkin at dinner because it means a babies diaper.

In Memory

Our host nkuku (grandma) recently passed away and we would like to say of few things about her. She was one of the first people we met here. She would always smile at us and talk to us even though neither of us understood each other, but we always ended up laughing. She was great to us and she will be missed.

~ We love & miss you all ~

Some Photos From The Last Few Months

A group of PCVs doing the electric
slide with one of the host moms
at the host family thank you party


This is our group "Bots 8"
at our swearing in ceremony


Chris celebrating with Lucas
after being sworn in as PCVs


Shelly & Amy celebrating after being sworn
in with their new addiction...chocolate


Our giant house in Hukuntsi
"The White Castle". Never thought
we would be living in a house like
this as PCV. Maybe a hut at best is
what we imagined.


View outside our window in
Hukuntsi....lots & lots of sand


Goats who frequently visit us
in our yard


Goats escaping our yard


Chris at a wellness fair with some
of his co-workers