Confessions of the Kalahari

Oh Look a Donkey (in Shelly’s words),

It has been a little over a year since we stepped foot in Botswana and a lot has happened. Personally we have grown, we have learned a lot, we have adjusted to living in an environment that is completely different from our own and hopefully we have helped our community in some way.

Once again we’re sorry for not writing more frequently but like we said in the last blog nothing changes for us day-to-day and we didn’t want to bore you with the details. You can only write so much about donkeys and awkward moments on the bus. With this blog I will share with you our feelings towards our service so far, what we are doing in our community and a little about the wonderful trips we have made since our last blog posting.

One Year In, One Year to Go…

We have heard from many returned volunteers that it takes about a year for things in your community to really pick up. At first we felt like that was untrue because really why would it take a year? In our case it did and I will be telling new volunteers that it usually does. Coming into an environment with different work ethics, lack of resources and many more obstacles compared to what we are used to, it takes awhile to straighten things out. It takes awhile to figure out how things work/run in your community and it takes awhile for people to trust you. In Hukuntsi some people thought we were spies for the U.S. government and some thought we were there to replace them at work. Who knows maybe we are spies and we just don’t know it. The U.S. government is pretty tricky sometimes.

Right now we’re feeling a bit frustrated. It’s really difficult to measure the impact we’re having on our community when we are here for an issue that you can’t see or hold in your hands. If we were here to help people grow vegetables and sell them that would be a different story but we’re here to help with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. How do you measure your impact? Recently I have stopped asking myself that questions because honestly I couldn’t answer it and it was making me question my worth here. We found that the majority of the volunteers in Botswana felt the same way. We recently met with our Peace Corps group and shared our frustrations with one another. One individual said that it’s important to remember the three Peace Corps goals and to focus on your day-to-day interactions with individuals.

The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

In order to decrease our frustration levels we decided to take this advice and focus on the small things. Even if it’s as small as being a good example to others, being kind to animals or encouraging the youth to read.

On top of focusing on the small things we are still working on building a full-court basketball court at the local school. The court would provide a healthy activity for the young children in the community. Before we offer our full assistance towards building the court we need to determine that the community will put in a considerable amount of effort to raise the majority of the funds without the assistance of outside aide. We are not here to bring in money or to build things for the community, we are here to assist so we need to determine whether or not the community will drive this project.

At my place of work I have been coordinating the implementation of a 9-month HIV/AIDS project that is funded by a small grant awarded to us. I have also been teaching the staff about computers and the Internet. Chris is assisting the District AIDS office with all of their activities and working with architects for the court. One of the things that we are most proud of, so far, is coaching the local boys and girls basketball team. We can already tell that we will be most sad to leave our teams at the end of our two years.

Germany, Zenner Visit and Football…

In order for us to stay sane throughout our two years in Hukuntsi we need to leave Hukuntsi every so often. No offense to Hukuntsi but really there is no form of entertainment that we’re interested in and we need to be near bodies of water every so often. I think it’s in our blood. We also need to see family and we need to have some excitement in our lives. Luckily we have been fortunate enough to leave our site and visit with some family!

Schnitzel Anyone?

Last April we met up with my mom and sister in Germany! It is a great country to visit. The landscape is beautiful, there is a lot to see, the food is good, of course the beer is delicious and you can drink it with breakfast and nobody judges you! The best thing about Germany (hands down) was getting to see my mom and sister. After a year without seeing any family, we really needed some family time. I would have to say that this trip and seeing my mom and sister would be the fifth best time of my life.

Our favorite brew house...the Hofbrauhaus in Munich

We saw and did so much on this trip and it wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for my mom and sister. Thank you for the time in Germany. Something else worth mentioning is that my sister and Chris’ favorite thing about Germany was eating salami sandwiches for breakfast every morning.

This was one of our last days in Germany and we named that day, The Day of Many Shenanigans

I almost forgot. On our way to Germany we had a layover in Egypt. So we decided to quickly visit the pyramids. We asked a cab driver to take us to the pyramids, drop us off so we can take a few pictures and then take us back to the airport. Somehow and we still don’t understand what happened but our driver took us to a perfume shop and then we went on a 2 hour long camel expedition to the pyramids. Either way we accomplished our goal!

The cab and driver-------Chris wondering why a perfume shop has camels

This view made all of the stress and confusion worth it

The Zenner’s Tour Botswana…

Shortly after we returned from Germany we got visitors! I will briefly describe the trip we took with Chris’ mom, dad, two of his sisters and a future bro-in-law because we did a lot! I have to say the two-week trip was absolutely amazing. We had so much fun showing family around the country that we have made our home for the last year. It means a lot to us to be able to share stories with others and not just each other when we return home. I will let the pictures do most of the talking but in a nutshell we saw tons of wildlife, Chris’ mom got chased by a wart hog, we flew in a helicopter over Victoria Falls, our boat almost got attacked by a hippo, they met our co-workers, they stayed at our house, we thought we saw a guy that looked like Prince Henry but it turns out it was actually him, we took a scenic flight over the Okavango Delta, we went on many game drives (including one at night), Chris and I jumped off of a very high bridge (and survived) and we successfully fought monkeys for our loaf of bread! Whew. Thank you to the Zenner's for visiting us in Botswana. We had a wonderful time!

Hanging out at our house-------------Spending time in Maun, famous for the Okavango Delta

After Maun we went to Kasane and we saw lots of wildlife during a riverboat cruise on the Chobe River

Next we went to Zimbabwe and took a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls----That is the bridge Chris & I would later jump off

We did 3 jumps off the bridge, a swing, zip and bungee...the swing jump gave me nightmares----Chris doing his bungee jump

We went on several game drives in the Tuli Game Reserve

Football – The One Where You Kick the Ball and Wear Shinguards…

A few of you may have followed the 2010 FIFA World Cup but for those of you who did not it was in South Africa and the U.S. did pretty dang well. One of the stadiums was very close to the capital of Botswana so a few of us Peace Corps Volunteers thought we might never get another opportunity like this to see a World Cup match. We all agreed to make a trip to the last match at the stadium near Botswana. We got lucky because the last match ended up being the U.S. vs. Ghana!

One of our first stops...McDonald's

We had another lucky break. We showed up without any tickets but fortunately the English fans were extremely cocky and thought they would place higher in the group play. Which didn’t happen so we took advantage of the misfortune of the English and bought their tickets.

Before the match we partied with Ghana fans----I was surprised and happy to see so many Americans in the stadium

Despite losing the match we were extremely proud to be there decked out in red, white and blue!

Next up…

We are looking forward to November because my dad will be visiting us! We will be showing him our site, taking him to see some wildlife, we will visit Victoria Falls and we’re going to force him to make one 6-hour bus trip with us! Someone from home needs to experience the bus with us.

Favor...

We have a favor to ask for those of you who receive a letter or postcard from us. Please send me an email confirming because we know that a few have never made it to their final destination. Thanks!

Take care friends and family,

Chris & Shelly