It has been over a month since I last posted a blog entry. July was a very busy month. We had our mid service training in Molepolole. This was the first time I’ve seen many people in our Bots 7 group since our last training in September – it was nice to catch up with everyone. We had 3 days of training, including a language test, and a day of check-up medical/dental appointments.

After returning from Molepolole, my college friend Jen came for a visit. I took two days off of work so I could show her the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, which is very close to Gumare. Luckily, my birthday fell over a four day weekend, so this was a perfect opportunity to relax and show Jen around the area. She also got to experience village life, as she spent a few days in Gumare and I took her to a malaria event in Tsau, a village about 120km away. She was my first (and probably only) visitor and I was happy to see her and show her where I live.

The weather was very cold in July. We bundled up in layers and we were still cold, especially at night. The temperature was in the low 40’s in the early morning and mid-60s during the day. It is now starting to get warmer – actually at an alarming pace. I’m quite sure that it will be very hot again in a few weeks. Unfortunately, September and October are by far the hottest, most uncomfortable months. The good news is that my chameleon has hung around all winter and is still living in my front yard.

We continue to work on several ongoing projects. Right now, Richard and I gathering health data, such as HIV, TB, STIs, Malaria, Mother to Child Transmission, and Unavailability of Medicine for our sub-district and entering the data in excel spreadsheets. We are then going to use the data to make a GIS map, which looks at health trends in the area and where resources need to be targeted. We are also planning a health fair in Xakao and I am collaborating with a NGO in Shakawe to do a Needs Assessment of adolescent orphans. In addition, my Orphan Caregiver’s paper bead jewelry group is starting to sell to Mothers for All – they have made amazing progress.

This time next month, we will be in the United States for a visit. Looking forward to it!!!

Monday was Richard and I’s 6th anniversary. Since there are no fancy restaurants, (though we do love the Chicken House take-away), it was a pretty low-key day. Friday was our 1st anniversary in Gumare, which was also a pretty uneventful day. Time really does fly, though.

The weather has gotten much colder, which means winter has arrived. There has been quite a decrease in bugs, to the detriment of the chameleon that has happily taken up residence on the bush in our front yard. Chameleons aren’t usual visible in winter – many believe they hibernate – so he is a welcome surprise, especially since he has stayed for over two weeks. I try to help him out by gathering grasshoppers and he thanks me by extending his long tongue. Funny enough, the UN volunteer found him in her back yard. She called me to collect him and said that it is a belief in Botswana that when you see a chameleon, it will rain. Sure enough, it rained the next day and a couple days after that, which is unusual for this time of year.

Richard has been learning to weave a basket and he is progressing quite well. He provides the ladies at the basket co-op in our village with a lot of entertainment, though they have been quite helpful and patient with him. The women in our area make beautiful baskets and Richard and I have spent a good portion of our living allowance buying them. Richard is actually helping the women assemble a catalog right now, in exchange for the basket-making lessons. The bead-making project for orphan caregivers is progressing well. There are 7 women in the group. Last week, 2 women from the Mothers-for-All NGO came and taught them how to assemble different types of jewelry. Hopefully, they will be able to start selling the jewelry next week.

June 16th marked International Day of the African Child, which commemorates this date in 1976 when hundreds of black school children were shot in Soweto, South Africa, as they demanded their right to equal, quality education in their own language. This day also brings attention to children’s rights, such as the right to education, health, lack of poverty, etc, in Africa. This day is celebrated in most schools in Botswana. Our office sponsored a commemoration in XaiXai, a mostly San village near the Namibia border. Richard attended the event, while I went to the celebrations at the Primary School and Junior Secondary Schools in our village. I keep forgetting that every time I go to an event at the primary school, they ask me and the other PCV in Gumare to lead an activity, without time to prepare. We ended up teaching (i.e. demonstrating in front of the whole school) the Hokey Pokey. I’m not sure if the kids got more fun out of learning the Hokey Pokey or watching us – actually I know the answer .

Time has been flying as usual.  It is June tomorrow, which means we have been at our site for almost a year now.  When we were in training, the PCVs that came before us kept telling us how the second year of service gets much easier and is much more enjoyable.  I definitely am comfortable at my site now and have established good relationships with co-workers and others.  These relationships definitely took a long time to develop, but have been worth the effort. 

I just finished spending a week in Molepolole with the new group of PCVs who arrived in April and who will be in training for another 3 weeks.  I was there for peer support since I am on the Peer Support and Diversity Network.  The new group was amazing and asked lots of great questions.  They had their site placement yesterday so they now know where they will placed.  We will have a few new people in our area, which we are excited about. 

It was interesting to think that we were in training this time last year, dealing with all the frustrations that go along with it.   Training was definitely the hardest part of the last year.  However, spending time with training staff this week, made me realize what a hard job they have.  While in Molepolole, I stopped by and visited my host family.  They were very happy to see me and told me how fat I have gotten (a complement here). 

Richard was in Gaborone the week before me.  He was helping to set up an internal Botswana website for PCVs as part of the PCV ICT (Information, Communication, Technology) committee.  While he was in Gaborone, he was invited to the Gaborone Senior Secondary School (GSS) to talk to a Business class and answer their questions for a couple of hours.  I have been working with the Tommie who teaches the class, as well as computer classes, at GSS.  Tommie has helped start several Students Against Malaria groups in Botswana and teaches students ICT skills.  We invited him to train a group of students in Gumare and he was finally able to come a couple of weeks ago.  Tommie is very dynamic and the students really respond to him.  Unfortunately, the internet is still not hooked up at Gumare’s junior secondary school so Tommie wasn’t able to show the ICT skills, like how to communicate with students around the world about issues like HIV and Malaria, that he would have liked.  Richard has been working the 2 last weekends, though, to demonstrate the internet and sign students up for email in his office at the RAC.  Hopefully, when the internet is working at Gumare’s junior secondary school, the students in this new group will be able to communicate with other students around the world about their work. 

The women I am working with in the Orphan Caregivers beadmaking group are becoming very good at making beads out of paper from magazine, boxes, etc.  In a couple more weeks, they will be given the equipment from the NGO Mothers for All to  make jewelry with the beads and the NGO will start buying from them.  The women in the group are wonderful and very enthusiastic.

Richard has started helping the local basket co-op with business development.  A couple of the women are actually teaching Richard how to weave a basket, which is fun to watch.  Richard and I have also started mentoring 4 students each at the junior secondary school, which we hope will be a valuable experience for them.  

The last month has sped by. We had a very nice 10 day vacation in Namibia. We went to the capital of Windhoek, the big sand dunes at Sossusvlei, the seaside resort town of Swakopmund, the rock paintings at Twyfelfontien, Brandberg Mountain, and Etosha National Park. We camped most of the nights, except in Windhoek and Swakopmund. I really enjoyed seeing how beautiful the desert can be. We saw lots of creatures like chameleons, a sidewinder, geckos, weird insects, etc. Namibia is very beautiful and much more hilly/mountainous compared to Botswana. We really liked Etosha National Park because you can just sit by the watering holes at the camps and see tons of animals like rhinos, elephants, warthogs, lions, zebras, etc. without having to get in a car and drive around for hours.

Since we returned from Namibia, we have been busy. The bead making group, sponsored by Mothers for All, for orphan caregivers has been trained and the women are working hard at practicing making jewelry from magazines and other types of paper. We finally had the Employee Wellness fair on Thursday and it went very well. Lots of people came for HIV testing, BP screening, Diabetes screening, BMI calculation, oral health screening, eye screening and information on STIs, nutrition, breast cancer, cervical cancer, etc. I was elected as the one to give nutritional information, while Richard did the opening prayer.

Last weekend was a three day weekend so we went to the Maun music festival. We had a great time connecting with friends. This week, we had a couple from the new Peace Corps group shadow us for a few days. We took them, along with the District AIDS Coordinator and a couple other volunteers, to Tsodilo Hills yesterday to see the San rock art paintings. They also got a good view of how the area has flooded because the water was all the way to the road in some spots. The water in our house is still going on and off. Even though the rainy season is over, it rained a few times in the last week, though the flooding is coming from Angola.

A wonderful thing happened this weekend- we got water back in our village. There has been a lot of flooding in the Okavango because of heavy rains in Angola and DRC. Several villages in the area are heavily flooded and we hear there is more to come. We are not close enough to the water to be flooded; however, the water plant in Sepopa, which supplies our water, flooded a couple of weeks ago. As a result, we didn’t have water in Gumare for two weeks. We are luckier than most because we have a Jo-Jo, which collects rainwater, in our yard as an alternate source of water. We have been sharing with people in the village who do not have an alternate source, although we have to be careful not to run out of water all together. Unfortunately, the toilets at work weren’t working and there was no alternate place (i.e. pit latrine) to go the bathroom all day. The village finally got the back-up generator up and running this weekend so we have water now, although off and on.

We had a 4 day weekend because of Good Friday and Easter Monday. We spent a couple days in Maun visiting friends and hanging out, then spent a couple days reading and relaxing at home. We are headed to Namibia this weekend for vacation for a little over a week. Although we are sad it’s not Madagascar, it is still much needed time away.

This weekend marks one year in Botswana. I can’t believe how time flew!!! The new group (Bots 8) will be arriving this weekend for their 2 month training and most of the group that arrived the year before us (Bots 6) will be leaving at the end of next month.

May will be a busy month. I arranged for teacher from Gaborone, who does work with the Malaria Foundation, come do malaria training for 25 students at the junior secondary school so they can form a Students Against Malaria group and provide education in the community. Then a NGO called Mothers for All, started by a PCV, will be coming to train 2 groups of 6 orphan caregivers in Gumare on how to make beads from magazines and paper for the purpose of income generation. We are hoping to get those groups going strong after the initial training. We are also holding an Employee Wellness Day in May, which I am helping organize. The schools are on break now until the first week in May so I hope to get the GLOW club going again when the students return. I am fundraising now for a regional GLOW camp in our district in August so I have been doing a lot of calling and emailing around for that.