Also, due to the internet constraints I am not able to post any pictures- sorry! I will keep trying...
Around here everyone referrers to December as the Festive season, as most people recognize Christmas (or gather with their families during that holiday anyway) and the New Year. As Americans, our Festive Season is a little longer of course, with the addition of Thanksgiving. We were amazed and warmed at how well we could actually replicate our American traditions in Botswana this year!!
Thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving day we traveled about 40k north to Etsha 6 where the next closest volunteer, Alison White lives. She planned a traditional Thanksgiving feast at her house to include us, 2 other volunteers, 3 other American students she met who were living nearby and several local friends, as a cultural exchange. Each volunteer brought a traditional American dish and Alison (somehow!) was able to order a whole turkey in the city of Maun and transport it the 3.5 hours home! We arrived around 2pm with our sweet baked pumpkin, homemade rolls and apple crisp and helped prepare the feast. We couldn’t believe how well everyone replicated our favorite Thanksgiving foods with what is available to us here and what was sent from home! Alison managed to cook the turkey PERFECTLY in the erratic Botswana oven (there is no temperature control in ovens here).
After all was said and done in that blazing hot kitchen, the food was paraded around the living room for the Americans to gawk, squeal and clap at and take too many photos of. There was a thrilling sense of pride filling her tiny living room. A sense of camaraderie and even patriotism that only an American holiday of gluttonous feasting can do for a group of ex-patriot 20-somethings living in Africa! We set up the buffet and surrounded the bird with a green bean casserole, apple-nutty-delicious stuffing, sweet baked pumpkin, whipped potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls and gravy- amazing! After this buffet was set out Alison gave a small speech to our new national friends about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the traditions thereof. Then, going around the room, everyone said what they were thankful for this year. It was beautiful.
Later on, we discussed the more modern traditions of Thanksgiving, including: the Thanksgiving Day fast, methods and timing of fitting the most food in your stomach, the Thanksgiving Evening Graze, and popular Thanksgiving Leftovers dishes. We rounded out the evening with pumpkin pie and my apple crisp.
Though each our own families’ Thanksgiving meals are of course our favorites, we could all agree that Thanksgiving dinner had NEVER tasted so good! You come to understand the laws of relativity much better when you live in a developing country :).
CAMP
The following day Allison, Heidi and I (Amanda) took to the road with 27-13 to 16 year olds from 6 different schools to Tsodilo Hills (Mountain of the Gods) to lead G.L.O.W. Camp. G.L.O.W. Club is a world-wide leadership club for teenagers which stands for “Girls and Guys Leading Our World”. The camp aimed to teach Leadership and Life Skills (a teaching buzzword in this area of the world) over the course of 6 days and 7 nights. What a hard job! We worked at least 15 hours a day, with the help of 6 other teachers, rounding up kids, leading sessions, playing games, making sure the food was being prepared and forcing them to bed. But after all the hard work, it was well worth it. And it was nice to finally see a change in elevation and lots of trees. I lead a session on Assertiveness and Self Confidence and helped Alison and Heidi on a Gender Equality session.
I had a really great time leading Assertiveness and Confidence, as I got to see the girls and boys think through the meanings and application in their lives as leaders. The real-life situations that I posed to them in activities made them think through why assertiveness is important in protecting their rights and dignity and that of others. This topic is not something that is normally taught in the home, due to the culture of subordinating youth in this part of the world. Many Americans would probably be appalled at what children are made to do- without question- by (any) adult here. However, one has to remember that it is not necessarily bad- it’s just different. And besides, they would probably be appalled at how kids are babied in America.
The gender equality session was a little rougher since this is a big issue Botswana is still grappling with. They are culturally a patriarchal society and for a long time multiple concurrent partnerships (cheating) has been condoned amongst men. The male teachers and even some of the male students held to these ideas to some degree during discussions and activities without shame, even in front of their female counterparts. There were many strong opinions that we had to respectfully listen to on the topics of cheating, transactional sex and gender roles. As independent, strong American Women, this was of course very offensive and we could only do our best to turn these into teaching and critical thinking moments.
Overall, the camp was an extremely positive experience for all and the kids had a great time. They especially enjoyed the American games! Junior school is such a critical time for kids in Botswana and the hope is that these teens can use the things they learn at camp to affect and lead their peers in their respective schools.
During this week Todd got to go to the National World AIDS day celebration in Palapye where he got to hang out in a tent with the president and hear him make a speech. Here are some photos of the event.
CHRISTMAS
When we returned to Gumare we were surprised with FOUR packages from home, and 2 more packages came the following week- Thanks family and Travis Whidman! On this VERY exciting day we also were shocked to find that we could buy a mini Christmas tree and decorations at a shop here in our own little village. So on December 3 we opened boxes of wrapped gifts and stalkings and 2 care packages (sorry Travis, we didn’t wait until Christmas :)), put up our tree, hung the decorations and placed all of our wonderful gifts under our tree. It was a very happy day and a reminder that Christmas was approaching.
A Christmas candle from April
Homemade stalkings from Isabelle and Sophia, my nieces
The tree
The finale
Wow!
It’s strange to live in a place like this in December, because everything in our environment tells us that it is summer and nothing points to Christmas. The weather is painfully hot, the smell of barbecues (known as Braii) hangs in the air and it is light out for at least 14 hours a day. In addition to not being able to bundle up in layers of clothes, there is no commercializing of the coming holiday to be seen- no Starbucks eggnog latte’s in Christmas cups, no lights being strung on houses, no village decorations and Christmas trees, no hustle and bustle at shopping centers. There was also no family to make plans with and no Advent services to attend at church. And we have grown very much accustomed to not keeping track of time… I only generally know of what month I am in at any given point :). So there was really nothing to remind us that we were in the Advent season and Christmas was coming soon- until of course, this blessed day that Christmas joy came in boxes!
We decided to spend Christmas day trying to make a nice dinner at our house and invited Alison to enjoy it with us. We were given a cut of our Kgosi’s (chief's) cow (we think as a thank you for coming to his daughter’s wedding that month?) so I thought it would be nice to try to dry-roast this 5kg hunk of meat. So Christmas morning came after the traditional opening of one gift the evening before and a sleepless night of sugar plums dancing through our heads, and we awoke to a Christmas miracle! No- not snow. But cloudy, cool skies and eventually rain! The day before it had been 104 degrees, so you can image our excitement at this wonderful break from the heat. We opened stalkings, made some good ol’ fashioned hot chocolate sent from April’s family, and tore into our gifts. We were like kids opening Christmas presents at Disney Land! It was very exciting. After hours of reveling in these blessings we had a traditional Christmas breakfast from my side of the family- homemade overnight cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs (mmm) while listening to my new Glee! Soundtracks (Thanks Kris and Doug!).
Allison came over later with some homemade eggnog (amazing!) and one of my GLOW kids came over to give us a gift and visit. We also delivered some M&M cookies we made for friends, explaining the Christmas cookie tradition that many of us embrace. After dinner we finished off the evening with more eggnog and a Christmas movie on the laptop...which we all fell asleep to half-way through.
It was the merriest Christmas we could imagine in Botswana, thanks mostly to all the cheer friends and family sent our way!
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