December in Digawana

The weeks have gone by quickly since the last time I posted here.  Let me see if I can give you a picture of what it has been like.

First of all, I want to recommend a couple of books I’ve read since I’ve been here in Digawana that I think you would enjoy and that have greatly helped me understand Batswana culture and history better. These books will give you a much better understanding of what the world is like here in Botswana than I will ever be able to write in my blog entries.  There are a lot of things that I can’t explain or describe here that you will find well presented in these books. Reading them will make my communications more understandable.

The first is Seretse and Ruth, (by Wilf & Trish Mbanga ISBN. 978-1-85425-101-5) an account of the challenges faced by Botswana’s first president, Seretse Khama, and Ruth Williams (whom Seretse met while he was studying law in Britain in 1947) when they decided to marry. Their marriage resulted in multinational consequences.  The book is an intriguing love story, but it also gives insight to the ancient democratic processes that are endemic to Botswana.  It is written by Wilf and Trisha Mbanga and published by Tafelberg Publishers out of Cape Town.  It might be a challenge to find, but worth the hunt.

The second book I found at the Lobatse Public Library.  It is called The Dixie Medicine Man by Christian John Makgala.  This is a novel written by a Motswana.  It is about an orthopedic surgeon from Mississippi who, after serving in the Viet Nam war, gets a job in a hospital in Botswana.  He decides he wants to study traditional medicine and apprentices himself to a local practitioner.  He stays in Botswana for over 30 years.  This fictitious account reads like a newspaper description of life in Botswana over the years, providing a chronicle of the changes in lifestyles and attitudes.  Even the slightly formal sounding dialogue will give you an idea of the way things are said and done here.      

Ntwalang Junior Secondary School

Now to what’s gone on the last few weeks.  I arrived in Digawana at Ntwalang Junior Secondary School in November just as the school year was ending. The teachers were busy giving tests and preparing grade reports.  The boarding students were packing up to go home to their families.  Everyone was focused on getting things completed so they could go on Christmas break.  I was focused on getting acquainted with my surroundings and trying to attach names to faces.  

School Counseling Office on Right

I spent most of the time with my “counterpart,” the school’s Guidance and Counseling Director, who took me around the community and introduced me to community leaders at the kgotla (City Hall), the clinic, and the social work office. 

My second week here was spent attending an Emotional Intelligence Workshop conducted at the school for the staff by presenters from the Ministry of Education. This gave me a chance to get more closely acquainted with the dozen or so staff members (of around 70 staff members at the school) assigned to the same study group I was in and to see the issues that are of most interest to my co-workers. It gave me some ideas about how I might be of use to the community conducting training modules addressing interpersonal relationship concerns.  I also got to conduct a few individual counseling appointments that week as the Guidance and Counseling Director referred individuals to me. 

During my third week, the school head arranged for me to go to the neighboring village of Gathwane and get acquainted with a group of thirteen peer counselors at the Diphalana Counseling Center.  Most of these young men and women are in their twenties and have already started their families.  They work in surrounding villages talking to children and youth in their schools and homes about HIV/AIDS and health related issues.  This group welcomed me with open hearts, and when they learned of my background in counseling they requested that I join them at a four day, in-house workshop planned for December 17- 20 and invited me to present an introduction to counseling on the morning of the 19^th.  That week turned out to be a great learning opportunity as I interacted with the group and its board members and got to hear other presenters at the workshop, too.  I was satisfied that my presentation was also well received, and that gives me hope that I can do similar things at my school once it reconvenes, and perhaps expand it to other schools or peer counseling groups in other areas if it proves useful.  

My Home in Digawana

At my home I have been slowly nesting.  I say slowly because whatever I need has to be brought from the town of Lobatse which is a twenty minute bus ride away.  I go out to the nearby “tarred road,” as it is called here, and wait for a bus or kombi.  There’s no schedule, so the wait may be five minutes or half an hour. Once I’m in Lobatse, I can easily walk to the bank and all the shops I need, or get a taxi to the library on the far side of town.  I can only carry a limited supply of things in my over the shoulder bag and two tote bags as I head back home on the bus, so that’s why I say I’m nesting slowly.  I have to see what extra household items my budget can accommodate each week, and what extra things I can carry in addition to food.  I find it hard to believe, but I can’t buy essentials in Digawana.  Not even fresh vegetables.  If they are available closer than Lobatse, I haven’t discovered them yet.  

Lobatse Bus Rank

One good side effect of having to go to Lobatse for everything is that I am meeting my neighbors on the bus.  Since everyone else also has to get what they need in Lobatse, and people use the bus to commute to school or work in Lobatse or Gaborone,  I am most likely to meet my neighbors there rather than on the many paths that spider through this big, spread-out community. The bus ride also creates a nice space of time for a get-acquainted conversation.

My landlord/neighbors are great.  They are just such kind, even tempered, happy people. They are happy to help me with anything I need, and they even volunteer information I need that I don’t know I need, like how to keep the surface on the cement floors nice by polishing them with a mixture of kerosene and candle wax.  For the first time since I have been here, we were without water on the compound from Saturday, December 22 until Tuesday the 25^th.  I had to use some of the reserve water I’d been storing.  Christmas morning at 4:00 there was banging on my door and the neighbor’s daughter saying, “Barbara, wake up, there is water, and it will be gone by 5:00.”  I got my water containers and joined them at the tap.  They filled my containers first.  It took us about an hour to get all the containers filled.  It was a GREAT Christmas present to have water again. 

I had a guest over the Christmas week-end.  A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Mary, came to spend a couple of days with me.  It was good to see that I can accommodate a guest.  I cooked things I hadn't tried here before, like my flour-less peanut butter cookies, and she put a whole library of books on my computer that I can download to my Nexus 7 (Google’s answer to the iPad) as I select what I want to read.

Lobatse Public Library

Someone asked how I am feeling about being here.  I would say the best descriptive word is, contented.  I enjoy having to learn new things every day and to solve new dilemmas and figure out how to manage limited resources and make things work.  I enjoy being innovative.  I enjoy looking through the shops in Lobatse for the things I need. I enjoy exploring how people think here and trying to figure out how the culture is structured.  I enjoy the barnyard sounds that surround me during the daytime.  The only thing I don’t like is other people’s loud music in the evenings and the night.  That is the fly in the ointment.  Even earplugs don’t work to block it out.  That situation is going to take some thought and creativity on my part.  My 18 year old neighbor has offered to help me learn how to use my cell phone as a radio.  It requires the use of ear plugs. That might just be the solution.

These first weeks in Digawana are meant to be used to get acquainted with the community and assess what kind of work I will be involved in over the next two years.  That process has been slowed by the Christmas Season.  Many people in Botswana use this time of year to go to their rural places of origin and spend time with their extended families.  So institutions and offices are relatively deserted except for a skeleton staff.  Things will pick up again in January, and I will have a chance to formulate a plan with the appropriate people.  I look forward to telling you about what develops.

At "home" in Botswana,
Barbara