First of all we would like to apologize about sparse posting on the blog for these first 9 weeks. A few excuses are that we are focusing on community integration, we are in class everyday from 8 to 5, and we only have free internet opportunities on the weekend after an hour walk. Once we get to our site in the first part of June we will likely either have internet at one of our work places or we will purchase an internet dongle from the cell phone company.

For shadowing in week four I (Todd) went to Werda. Werda is in southern Botswana on the South Africa border. I met Paul in the town he normally does his shopping in, which is a few hours on a bus from his house. In Werda Paul and I spent Thursday and Friday at the compound where he works. The compound holds the clinic and the SNDC office. The SNDC is a social work office that works to provide goods and services to the needy in the community. I had a great time shadowing Paul. It was a great opportunity to see exactly what the role of a volunteer is in their community. The role of a volunteer in the Peace Corps is unique from a traditional volunteer elsewhere in that our main focus is not to simply do work for organizations but to build the capacity of the local organizations to do the work themselves. The role of a Peace Corps volunteer is more a catalyst than anything else. We have spent a lot of time in training talking about how we analyze the needs of the community and build programs to fit those needs. Through this process we have a Batswana counterpart that hopefully can either keep the project sustainable after our leave or train others to do the same. In Paul's case he has found a great need for many members of his clinic to learn how to use computers better. The Botswana government has set up a great software database for organizing its ARV distribution but Paul found that many people in the clinic simple didnt know how to use the software correctly. Paul also works with other employees of the clinic compound on a community garden. He and I spent some time on Friday creating what he calls a 'sack garden' out of a large woven plastic food sack. I have faith that it will work great at growing plants in the arid, sandy desert climate of Werda. At the end of shadowing Paul took another volunteer and I to a private reserve and lodge called Kalahari Rest. We went on a really great game drive. We saw impala, wildebeests, hyena(s?), kudu, and jackals. After the game drive we had a great dinner. I had an eland steak! It was the best meat I have had since I have been here. It was really refreshing to spend some time away from our training town for a few days and recharge.

I (Amanda) went to a large village of 50,000-ish called Kanye (yes, Like "Kanye West") with 2 other trainees; Paris and Joel. Parisa and I met Michelle in Gaberone for a very very exciting, relaxing and all around wonderful break into a westernized society! We were dropped off at the Peace Corps office (very nice!) and then walked across the street to hang out in the mall all day. We had great food, window shopped and (the best part) discovered a one-of-a-kind, proper coffee shop that I could have actually seen in Seattle! At “Café Dijo” [literally, Café Food…terrible name for the place) we relaxed in a sophisticated environment; on plush couches amongst white cottage-like tables and chairs, beautiful paintings and shelves of wine. We indulged in a proper chocolate cake and apple torte (we didn’t have to use our imaginations, as we do when we eat dessert in Moleps) and a proper iced latte with real brewed espresso! This was one of the highlights of the whole week for me…a fantastic relief from PST (Pre Service Training). After hanging out in Gabs and getting to know these wonderfully funny and fun girls, we took a beautiful bus ride to Kanye and from the Bus Rank, a taxi to Michelle’s home.
She lived in a nice 2 bedroom home on a family compound with running water and electricity. We made a nice (American!) meal before more girl time and heading to bed. The next day I finally got to see what a day in the life of an NGO Volunteer might be like ---this is the type of volunteer I will be. We started out for work with her at 7am. She works at a ‘Faith Based Organization’ called Lesedi Counceling Center. The councilors there do all sorts of community work from counseling Orphans and Vulnurable Childrent (OVC) on lifeskills and other needs to testing and counceling those who think they may have HIV, to marriage counseling. They are a really fantastic organization. The day opened with a devotion- prayer, short bible reading and of course song.
Michelle has an interest in finance so she works in the Finance office with one Motswana, updating and upgrading their entire accounting and finance system. She also does a lot of Grant writing - requesting money from International and National donors to keep the doors of the center open. The afternoons are spent doing capacity building initiatives- this is of course, what we are here for. She trains and supervises other staff members using the tools she created. We “knocked off” work at 4:30 and went home to more fun and more delicious, Americanized foor…Taco salad!!!!!
The next day involved a hike with Joel and his host …this was really more a wondering into the hills if beautiful Kanye. After free climbing a cliff, we were met by two cows at the top of the plateau! Hahaha!
Parisa and I spent the afternoon reading American magazines and watching TV shows on the computer.
After another amazing feast with the boys that night, consisting of BBQ burgers and homemade fries, we went to a bar where we met a great group of guys who were very interested in talking to us about HIV/AIDS and their lives. It was very fun and unexpected.
The next day we met up with 10 other shadow/shadowee groups in another beautiful town- that actually was supposed to be the capitol at one point- and dined on “pizza” at a hotel. That night involved a spontaneous camping trip to a nearby lake (again- way too much fun) where it took about 1.5 to light our fire of damp wood! This was the pefect way to round out our week of laughter, story telling and “learning” .
On the way home, Parisa and I went through Gabs again just to go to a restaurant and get real coffee!
If you haven’t noticed, comfortable, familiar and recognizable food is a HUGE relief from the stress of the new culture, PST, language learning and everything else that is non-stop.
So I can credit the awesomeness of this week mostly to the wonderful food that our great host purposefully cooked for us, as well as the laughter and great stories.
Overall, I feel well prepared for my service after all of the tips, experiences and stories that were shared .
Site announcement is in just 6 days on my birthday!!!!!

Yesterday we went out on a field trip to see some local Botswana historical locations. Our first stop was at a cave painting site. It was fascinating to see these wall paintings that are over 2000 years old. The wall featured paintings of giraffe, kudu and people. Some of which require a bit of an imagination to see the figure but most of the paintings are remarkably vivid for their age. After the wall paintings we traveled down the road to Livingstone's Tree. This was the tree David Livingstone supposedly spent a lot of his time while in Botswana. For our last stop we went to a cultural village. The cultural village serves as a theatrical way of showing people how the people of Botswana use to live. We were treated to some very neat traditional dances and a marriage ceremony.

check our pictures on Facebook because it takes too long to upload them here.

LOVE
Kebelo and Lorato

In The Beginning

It was the cross country flight from Seattle to Philadelphia that started our journey. Once in Philadelphia we caught a bus to the hotel where we met our first fellow volunteer, Sydney. Once we checked into our room we headed out for the obligatory Philly cheese steak. By the following morning all of the other volunteers had arrived and we started our staging. The staging mostly consisted of information on what we can expect once we get into Botswana and logistics of how and when things will take place over the next few weeks, months and years. Mix that with a few mushy “how are you feeling” exercises and the day day over. We headed back to our room to try and get a few hours of sleep before the bus arrived at 2AM. Unfortunately that plan was interrupted because Amanda got really sick (travel bug). The bus got us to JFK just in time for us to wait for a 5 hours for the South African Airways kiosk to open. Once it opened, we checked our bags and waited another few hours to board the plane. This was the last, and most embarrassing, place Amanda threw up. Thankfully another volunteer had some medication that made her stop before we boarded! (She continued to have the chills and aches and stomach pains through to Jo'burg though).
Waiting seems to be quite the theme of the Peace Corps. The flight from JFK to Johannesburg South African has to be the longest non-spot flight known to man. 15 hours is a long time. Seriously. The flight allowed us some great time to catch up on some sleep, watch some movies and read. The food on the plane was great! And we even got to have some South African red wine with our dinner. Once in JoBurg we had 8 hour layover where we continued to eat, sleep and read. All of this waiting was a great opportunity to get to know our fellow volunteers better. The flight from JoBurg to Gaborone (said “hab-or-ohne-ahy” or “Gabs”) was a quick 45 minutes. Once into Botswana we were picked up by Peace Corps staff and bussed to the Big Five Lodge. The lodge is a big traditional African style lodge with all of the amenities. It was beautiful!

Our first 4 days in Botswana were spend at the lodge. In reality it didn't really feel like we were in Botswana at all. The lodge has a real traditional African feel but could have been anywhere. It felt like Africa but a Disney Africa, an idealistic version of Africa. The days at the lodge were spent partly in pre-training training and partly in language study. It was a great transition period for all of us. On Friday morning we packed our things onto the bus and headed out of Gaborone to the village of Molepolole. Molepolole is the largest village in Botswana with more than 60,000 people, although I am not clear on what is the line between a village and a town or a city. In Molepolole we went to a teaching college for our matching ceremony where we get to meet our host family. The ceremony was a lot of fun. On one side of the gym all of the volunteers sat and on the other side all of the host families sat. All meetings in Botswana whether it be in government, school or church all begin and end with a prayer. And at exciting or happy moments, the Batswana break out in spontaneous, beautiful, harmonious traditional song (it brought tears to my eyes- Amanda). At the front of the gym at a long table sat the tribal leaders of Molepolole as well as Peggy the Botswana Peace Corps Country Directory. After each of the people sitting at the table talked about how excited they were about more Peace Corps volunteers in Botswana and how their own life has been changed by the Peace Corps we started our actual matching.
Then, One by one they called off volunteer names and host family names. The name of a Batswana was called off then the name of the volunteer. As soon as each of the names were called the women in the Batswana side of the room would yell and make a funny sound with their mouth. I would describe it best as the sound that is made if you yell through puckered lips and flick your tongue back and forth from side to side. Our names were called and an elderly woman did her best to run across the room and and greet us. We really didn't know what to expect going into the ceremony and couldn't be more happy with our homestay mom.
As we sat down with our new mom, we were a little worried because she didn't say anything. Amanda leaded over and whispered “...I don't think she speaks english...” As a little time went by we found out she speaks english quite well for an older woman in the country. She tried to convince us that she was 100 years old. We didn't fall for her joke... ok maybe we did for a little while (she is only 75). We waited for a ride even though she said she lived close by because we had a decent amount of luggage. It turns out she lives a LONG ways away. Mma Kerebe, as we call her, lives is a 'modern' Botswana house in Molepolole. She has electricity and running water (into the bath and toilet room sink) in the house. She tells us that she has lived in Molepolole her whole life. On the same property as far as we can tell (A lot of things seem to get lost in transition.) She says that when she was young her family lived in the same place in straw huts.
A few days after we had gone home with Mma Pundi (Kerebe is her last name and Pundi is her son's first name. She goes by both as is tradition here) her 13 year old grandson Ryan showed up. Ryan will be living with us for about a month while his school is on break. Ryan is a gift sent from God. He goes to an English medium school in the city (Gabs). He speaks nearly perfect English and Setswana. He is very interested in American culture so we have been having fun with the language and culture exchange.
Mma Pundi has taught us many things so far; such has how to wash clothes by hand, cook food so that you wont get ill (you boil the hell out of it), sweep the yard like a true African (you actually do need to, its not just a weird tradition...the animals fill it with crap ) and she even warms are bucket bathing water for us!

Our LCF (language and culture facilitator) Julie lives across the street form us. A few kids lived in the house with her for the first few days after we moved in.

We have now lived here at homestay for 2 weeks and have been enjoying it a lot. I would say that the transition has not been nearly as difficult we had anticipated. Amanda is grateful that she doesn't have to deal with as many spiders as she thought.

We go to school from 8-5 Mon-Friday and from 8- noon ish on Saturday. We learn Setswana in the morning and have cultural, technical, safety training (etc) in the afternoon.
Last week it rained straight- literally...NON STOP for 5 days! Im not talking about coastal type sprinkle rain. This was like Jungle rain, day and night, pouring buckets. Has anyone ever experienced that? What made it worse is that we have to walk everywhere we go AND hang our clothes to dry. So our clothes were filthy and we couldn't do much about it. But at least it brought the cool air.

Another thing we are adjusting to is the family culture here. It is customary for people/ “relatives” to come and go as they please through any house. It is nice to meet people, but frustrating when they just come for a meal or to listen to the TV at obnoxiously high volumes. Peace corps provides food for the family to cook us, which is 'supposed' to be supplementary. However most host families don't purchase any food, so everyone ends up eating the food designated for us. Its fine for most of the food; things like rice, miaze and flour comes in bulk. But we get smaller portions of the more important things needed to make a balanced diet.

Overall we are very happy and feel lucky to be in this family!
Next week are both shadowing another current volunteer in different places: Todd is going to Werda and Amanda to Kanye. We will go from Wednesday to Saturday...it will be a wonderful break from the intensity of school and living with Batswana!

We will try to post after that and let you know about our experiences!

MISS YOU ALL!

Much love,
T & A