An Early Departure (in Chris’ words)

Well it’s four months earlier then we planned, but Shel and I are back in the US. As some of you know, Shel has a pretty bad ankle. Lately she has been spraining it while walking on almost completely flat surfaces. Recently she had it checked by our doctor to see if she needed surgery, he said that only one of the three lateral ligaments were functioning. After seeing a specialist and getting a MRI, her evaluation was sent to Peace Corps Headquarters in DC. We expected that she needed surgery but we assumed it would be done here in Africa. To our surprise, not only does she need surgery, but they said she has to return to the US immediately. Apparently her ankle is so bad they are afraid that further damage would occur because of its instability, if she stayed. We left Botswana two days ago (Friday, 02/25/11) and we arrived in Minneapolis Saturday afternoon. We tried to get an extension to give us more time to wrap things up, but they don’t grant extensions for these types of situations.

It’s a weird feeling. Mentally we were prepared for our service to end in June. We have been preparing our resumes, looking for jobs and working on handing over our projects. But we no longer have enough time to properly prepare for our departure from Botswana or our return to the US. We are a little overwhelmed with emotions, a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, sadness and anxiety.

We are happy to be back in Minnesota, two years is a long time to be away. We look forward to seeing all of our family and friends, having fast internet, a reliable water supply, eating seafood, watching sports other than soccer and rugby, starting a family, drinking American Mountain Dew (African Mountain Dew has a weird flavor), driving/owning a car and so much more. But we will also miss Botswana, our PCV friends, our Batswana friends, the culture, our big white house, the endless sky, the sunshine, the wildlife, our work, the salt pans, our basketball teams, livestock grazing in our yard, the languages and all of the things that make Botswana great.

Botswana will always hold a special place in our hearts; although we faced many challenges we have many fond memories of our time here. I’m proud to be able to say we’ve lived in a remote village in Botswana. We’ve learned a lot from our experience and we feel it’s changed us for the better.

Opportunities

If you know of any job opportunities, that you think would fit our qualifications please send either of us an email.

I have a degree in Marketing – Professional Selling. In the past, I had a sales internship and worked as an advertising assistant. As a Peace Corps Volunteer I worked with the Social and Community Development Department. I gave various health presentations, advised on workplace improvement committees and planned community health events. I’m interested in any marketing or sales positions, but I am open to all opportunities.

Shelly graduated with a degree in Organizational Management and minored in Marketing. Before serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer she worked as a Regional Marketing Coordinator and her main responsibilities were planning events, developing promotions, managing marketing funds and working with vendors to develop marketing plans. As a Peace Corps Volunteer she worked with a non-governmental organization. At her assigned organization she acted as a liaison between support groups and government offices, coordinated the planning and the implementation of events, helped strengthen organizational structure and conducted grant searches and monitored the implementation of awarded grants. She is interested in any job opportunities that align with her qualifications, but would prefer to work for a non-profit organization.

Thank you for all of your support!

p.s. Please do not send any more mail to our Botswana address. If you have recently please let us know and we will tell our post office in Hukuntsi to send it back.

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

Still Kicking

A Short Explanation

Dear Readers (in Chris’ words),

So it’s April and our last blog was sometime in November, it’s been a while. I guess I’d like to say we have been so busy changing lives and impacting the community we haven’t had time to write a blog, but that’s not really the case. The reason why we haven’t updated the blog more frequently is because we’ve been doing a lot of the same things we’ve mentioned in our previous entries and we don’t want to keep writing the same thing over and over. Not to say we aren’t enjoying ourselves or helping our cause, just saying it’s not always that exciting.


Language and Cultural Dilemmas

The following are a few situations caused by cultural differences and the inability to understand Setswana fluently:

I was sitting in a workshop that was being conducted mostly in Setswana. The current conversational topic has been going on in Setswana for about an hour, that’s beyond my attention span so I start writing an email. The people talking sounded as uncomfortable as their facial expressions looked. I thought about why that could be for a second and returned to my email. Suddenly I hear my name, “Tumelo” caught of guard I look up and respond, “Yeah”. “What are your thoughts on masturbation?” After giving out a slight laugh I say, “Ummm, well, what do you want to know?” Needless to say I don’t care to repeat the answer I gave to that question. I later found out that the topic was changed because one lady said that to discuss masturbation in front of women was sexual harassment.

This situation is a reoccurring one for us and I don’t know if it’s a cultural norm to put people on the spot or what, but it’s starting to feel like it is. On one occasion not more then a week I ago I was going to the Registry Office to check for mail – as I’ve been doing for the past 8 months. This time the lady at the counter points to her co-worker and says “Tumelo! Do you know her name? You should!” I laugh nervously and say, “No, I have a hard time remembering Setswana names.” To which she replies, “But you should know it, haven’t you shared a ride with her to Gabs?” At this point it comes to my mind that I don’t know the name of lady who is questioning me. I try to read her nametag but it’s tiny and angled toward the ground. I say “Yeah I really should know her name, if you tell me I promise I’ll remember.” She gives me a glaring look and asks, “What’s my name?” At this point I’m just hoping she stops asking me peoples’ names. I then admit, “I don’t know your name either but next time I come for mail I promise I won’t forget.” After some playful harassment they finally let me leave with their names permanently engrained in my memory.

Another similar thing happened to me a while back. I was returning from the bathroom when I heard my office supervisor yell, “Tumelo, come here!” I walk over towards him and see that he’s talking to a guy I had met previously at a workshop. My supervisor asks, “Tumelo, do you know this man?” I casually reply, “Yeah I met him in a workshop.” The man smiles and shakes his head in agreement and my supervisor turns toward me smiling, “What’s his name?” I laugh nervously and say my usual excuse, “I have a hard time remembering Setswana names.” My supervisor smiles again, “But Tumelo his name is Jeff.”


Burning Man in the Pan

Our Peace Corps group recently celebrated our one-year anniversary since arriving in Botswana. So a large portion of our group went camping on the Sowa (the bushmen word for salt) Pan and burned a wood shaped man (We copied an annual event in the US called the Burning Man). The reunion ended up being a lot of fun. It was nice talking to volunteers we hadn’t seen for a while, relaxing and celebrating our one year in country.


On our way to the pans --------- Our burning man

The night we camped on the pan ended up getting a little crazy. Most of us had pitched our tents outside by the pan; the others pitched their tents in a giant pavilion like shelter. As the night went on most of us were assuming it was going to rain and it did, but before the rain came we got an intense windstorm. Out of the 15 tents that were pitched outside only 3 of them remained staked into the ground. Ours didn’t get blown away, but only because when the wind came I was inside our tent looking for a cup. I don’t recall if anyone lost a tent but I know one was lodged in an Acacia tree (thorny tree). In the end everyone brought their tents into the pavilion.

Camping on the pans --------- Chris and I (and Meg)

One of the most memorable moments for us at the one-year celebration was when our group sang our national anthem while we were standing around the bonfire. It was definitely a bittersweet moment. Oh yes and we will not forget the tarantula spider (the size of our cell phone) that visited our camp.

Scary spider

Things to Come

We have a few fun things lined up for us in the next two months. Next week we are going to be heading to Germany to meet up with Shelly’s mom and sister. We’ll be traveling throughout Germany and Austria for two weeks. We are really excited about that because we haven’t seen any family since we left home. Also my parents, my sister Mel, her fiancée and my sister Jo are coming to Botswana in the end of May for two weeks. They are going to stay with us for a few days in our village and then we are going to tour the country and see all the famous sites. We cannot wait!

On the work side of life things are definitely easier said than done. Especially when it comes to working on projects with members of the community instead of just doing them on our own. We are capacity builders which means we are not suppose to do things that cannot continue once our service is completed. We have been apart of several projects that have fallen through because often times the person “leading” the project leaves Hukuntsi with no notice. So now we are trying to do a project with our local District AIDS Coordination Office. This project will involve the surrounding settlements, HIV/AIDS education and family photos. The settlements are often ignored regarding HIV/AIDS prevention/awareness and we know very few people who have photos of their families. We feel by offering photos it would be a good way to gather people because they love having their pictures taken. Also often times children are left without any tangible memories of their parents if they are orphaned.

Along with that we will continue to try and do some fundraising to get a basketball court built in the village. The school has one hoop that is bolted to the wall in the school hall, but the bolts fall out often. We coach basketball and we have had to cancel practice many times because we felt it was no longer safe to play.


Closing Remarks (in Shelly’s words)

We would like to end this blog by saying that we miss many things about home. We miss our family and friends very, very much. We miss things like having a car, being able to cook something that doesn't take more than 20 minutes and Subway sandwiches (just to name a few). However missing things and people "helps" us realize just how lucky we are to be from where we are from.

Random Images of Our Life in Botswana

Chris played in a volleyball tournament for a Month of Youth Against AIDS event

We played dodgeball "Hukuntsi Style" when we had volunteers over for Thanksgiving

After I messed up Chris' hair we had to shave it all off (I think I have it figured out now)

Some of the neighborhood girls doing my hair

We named this goat, big brown goat

We saw this camel near our village (it was huge!)