Running Blog: Week 6

I am following a Hal Higden, 11 week Novice 2 training schedule. The weekday runs usually go as follows:

·      Monday: rest

·      Tuesday: 3 mi

·      Wednesday: 4 mi

·      Thursday: 3 mi

·      Friday: rest

·      Saturday: long run, each weekend run increases in mileage until running 12 miles the weekend before the race

·      Sunday: cross training

As I get closer to the marathon date, the 3, 4, 3 miles runs during the week turn into 3, 5, 3 miles and 2, 3, 2 miles the week before the race.

My body feels a lot stronger now, and my mile time has decreased. However, as a result of my training, I am hungry ALL THE TIME. I am really trying not to snack but it is so hard!

Books for Botswana

My primary assignment area as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) is the Red Cross, however my secondary assignment area is at the schools in my town. As a result, a lot of the work that I do in my service involves the schools. There are three schools in my village, two primary schools (elementary schools) and a junior secondary school (middle school, also called a J.S.S.). The two primary schools have about 600 students at them. The junior school has about 1,200 students.

My work with the two primary schools has been limited, and mainly my interactions with the students have been through Red Cross presentations for the Month of Youth Against HIV. However, I also participated in something called Books for Botswana, an American NGO that works to deliver books to schools in Botswana. The books are collected via donations in America, but shipped through donations to Africa.

The second of the primary schools is far away from the library in my town, and has no library of its own. As a result, when I received the email from a fellow PCV about schools needing books, I immediately signed my school up.  After a few months, the books finally came.

My school got 18 boxes of books, and each box contained 70-100 books for elementary school children. It was wonderful. Because the school has no library, the books were sorted by grade level, and distributed to the individual classrooms. The classrooms have no bookshelves, but I am hoping to work with the school PTA and find funds to build bookshelves for the books. My school actually received so many books that they couldn’t fit them all in the classrooms, and some had to be stored in the computer lab! 

Students opening the boxes of books.

Sorting the books.

 When we were sorting the books, it was surreal seeing books that I had grown up with that were such a huge part of my childhood.  Books like the Velveteen Rabbit, the Berenstain Bears, Charlotte’s Web, Norma Jean, Jumping Bean, and A Porcupine Named Fluffy. The students were excited when they were looking at the books, and kept getting distracted staring at the pictures.

Some very excited students and teachers!

Students reading the books!

Giving my school these books is one of the projects that I am proudest of since starting my Peace Corps service. As a younger child and teen, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV. As a result, the books I read and the fantasy worlds that they created shaped my childhood. I used to read Harry Potter and imagine what it would be like to use magic and be accepted into Hogwarts. I used to dream about solving mysteries with Nancy Drew. And I used pretend that I was off fighting battles with Aragorn and Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogies.  Because of the lack of access to reading materials, children in my town don’t know what it is like to loose yourself in book, exploring a different world for an afternoon. They don’t understand the joy of reading a book, the excitement it can bring to a dull day. And they don’t understand the support and feeling of togetherness and hope that reading a book can bring to a difficult time in your life. Giving children access to books is such an important part of who I am, and what I value, and I am so grateful that I get to share the world of books with them.

Working with the Red Cross

Peace Corps isn’t just about battling bugs and surviving difficult living conditions. The work I do on a day-to-day basis in Peace Corps is incredibly fulfilling, but also incredibly challenging. My primary assignment area, as an NGO volunteer, is the Red Cross. At the Red Cross, my duties mainly revolve around capacity building. To capacity build, I have given typing lessons to about half of the staff, and have taught basic lessons on different Microsoft programs like excel and PowerPoint. For example, when I first arrived at Red Cross, the monthly expenses tracking was done by hand. Therefore, I taught the Administration Officer how to use excel, and showed her some excel basics. Now the monthly expenses are tracked on the computer. In addition, I have also created some new contracts for the Red Cross. I created a contract between parents of children at the Centre and the Centre, outlining the duties and responsibilities of both parties. This was to clear up some challenges the Centre was having regarding the involvement of (or rather lack of) parents at the Centre. In addition, I am helping to apply for a grant for materials to start a garden at the Red Cross.

A large part of my service also consists of working closely with the Field Officer (FO), Karabo, and recruiting more Red Cross members, and raising awareness about the services the Red Cross offers. To accomplish these goals, a few months ago we spent several weeks going around to different institutions in Sefhare and presenting about the Red Cross, the services it offers, how to become a member, and its programs. Red Cross programs in Sefhare include Disaster Management (Sefhare is a disaster area for high winds and rains that destroy houses during the rainy season), HIV/AIDS, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), and Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC). My work mainly focuses around the HIV/AIDS, CBR and OVC programs.

For the HIV/AIDS program, the Field Officer and I are in charge of raising awareness about HIV.  In service of this, during April (the Month of Youth Against HIV/AIDS) we went around to the three different school in Sefhare and presented on topics of HIV/AIDS, peer pressure, multiple concurrent partnerships, stigma and discrimination. The presentations were gave were interactive, and usually included a game. For example, the game that we played at the Junior Secondary School was called HIV Limbo, and it was adapted from the Grassroots Soccer curriculum. During the activity, two students held a limbo pole, and the rest of the students were supposed to limbo under the pole without touching it. If a student touched the limbo pole, they were “infected” with HIV. During the first round of the limbo game, the limbo pole started out high, above the students’ heads. During this first round, students were pretending to abstain from having sex. Because the pole was so high, all students were able to make it under the pole, and they did not get “infected” with HIV. This represented how it was easy to avoid contracting HIV while a person is abstaining from having sex. During the second round, the pole was lowered to the students’ shoulders. During the second round, students were pretending to be engaged in a sexual relationship with a classmate their age. While all students were able to make it under the pole, it was harder to avoid “contracting” HIV. During the final round, the pole was at the student’s hips. During this round, students were pretending that they were engaged in a sexual relationship with a partner who was 10 years older than them. Nearly all of the students touched the limbo pole, and as a result were “infected” with HIV. This last round demonstrated the difficulty of avoiding catching HIV when engaging in an intergenerational relationship. Partners who are five, ten or fifteen years older than the students are more likely to have had more sexual partners, and therefore have more exposure to STDs and HIV. During each round of the game, there were follow-up questions for the students like, “What are the benefits of engaging in a relationship with a partner your age?” or “What is the balance of power like when you are dating someone who is much older than you?” The students loved this game, were engaged and asked a lot of great questions.

Another HIV/AIDS program that the Field Officer and I carried out was delivering presentations to teachers at the schools on topics such as HIV/AIDS prevention, epidemiology, stigma and discrimination. The purpose was to help inform educators about issues that school children are facing surrounding HIV and accepting their HIV positive status. 

Girls attending the Month of Youth Against HIV talk.

HIV Limbo.

Explaining about family planning options to the female students.

A male student demonstrating how to correctly put on a condom with the hospital nurse.

Students looking at pictures of STDs.

My work with the CBR program is mainly involved with helping the Rehabilitation Technician establish a Disability Support Group. The support group, which is for the Tswapong South area (the area Sefhare is in) is to advocate on behalf of those with disabilities, and establish a support network to those with disabilities and their families. I helped draft the constitution for the support group. In addition, I through Peace Corps networking, I received a grant of 20 wheelchairs for people in the CBR program and children at the Centre.

Lastly, I am involved in the OVC program. The OVC program mainly consists of helping out at Kids Club for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) on the weekends. In addition, I have taught the pre-school teachers at the Centre fun games to play with the Stimulation Centre children.

However, the Red Cross recently retired the Stimulation Centre pre-school Principal and transferred the Field Officer. Seeing as most of my work was with the Field Officer, I am anxious about what this next phase of my service will look like. No matter what, though, I love working with the Red Cross. They are an incredibly important part of the community in Sefhare, and the work that they do benefits many people. In addition, they support me in every aspect of my service, which is one of the reasons my time in Sefhare has been so productive and successful.

To Hitch or Not To Hitch?

When I first arrived in country and heard about people “hitching,” I thought it was insane, crazy, and frankly, quite dangerous, and I therefore resolved never to do it. When I received my site announcement during PST, and after meeting my counterpart, I was relieved to know that my site, Sefhare, had transport to and from my shopping villages (Palapye and Mahalapye) daily. For about the first two months to my site, I learned the bus schedule and exclusively used buses to get to and from my shopping villages. However, after two months of taking the buses, I finally understood the appeal of hitching.

The bus system in my village is horrible. Buses often don’t come; they break down, are incredibly slow, and there is never sitting room.  My shopping village is 2 hours away. Standing for that long with 60 pounds of groceries on your back is difficult. In addition, waiting at the bus rink for hours with that much food (much of it perishable) increases the likelihood that food will spoil. It took a few months, but I eventually became comfortable with hitching, and even switched my main shopping village to Palapye because it is easier to hitch out from.

Hitching is relatively safe in Botswana, and, because of unreliable public transport, everyone does it. Botswana is a nation of hitchers. There are standard fares for car rides that are usually the same as bus fares. When hitching it is always important that you carry mixed bills with you so that you can pay the driver. When hitching, as with everything else, it is always good to be mindful. When hitching, I always seek out another person (usually a female) who is going the same place as I am. I always make sure that the driver is not drinking or rude.  

I have had some great hitches (new car, leather seats, AC), and some odd hitches. The oddest hitch occurred recently, only a few weeks back. It was a weekday, and another volunteer, Kate Slisz, and I had only thirty minutes to get our shopping done before the next bus left. We had a lot to do. First, we had to take a special cab to Builders World to get screws for a solar dehydrator project we were working on. Then, we had to go to SPAR to buy food for the next few days. Luck was with us, and we finished all of our shopping in time to make it to the bus stop and hitching post. While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, a black car pulled up to the hitching post. It stopped and waited for a few minutes, but people weren’t approaching it. Usually, this means that the car is not picking up passengers. Kate decided to check it out, and found out that the car was going straight to our village! As it turned out, the reason that people were not getting inside was because it was a funeral car. Kate and I, not being particularly picky and in a hurry, decided to take the hitch. Which is how, we ended up hitching in the back of a funeral car next to a white coffin that, while not currently holding a dead body, clearly had held dead people in it at some point (as evidenced by the coffin stains and rolling wheels).

Running Blog: Weeks 3-5

My body hurts. Everywhere. 

Running Blog: Week 2

My Dad, using satellite imaging of my village (who knew?), tracked out different distances in my village for me to run. Turns out, what I thought was 5k turns out was actually a 10k. I was running about five miles every morning, not 3. Hence why it took me about an hour.  I feel much better about my general level of fitness now.

It is getting easier to get up in the morning and run. However, because it is winter, it is also getting darker in the morning. The sun doesn’t come up until about 6:30!

Running Blog: Week 1

For those of you who don’t know, I am training for the Victoria Falls Half-Marathon. About half of the Bots ‘14 group (my intake group) is going, and it is going to be ridiculously fun. The run in on the Zimbabwe side of the falls, and the race route follows the edge of the falls. Therefore, I am not really sure how much running I will be doing, as I anticipate I will be taking photos every few feet. It might hinder my race time.

Training in my village presents two main problems. First, the sand. There is one paved road in my village. It runs from one side to the other, and splits Sefhare down the middle. To get to the main road takes about 10 minutes of running in sand. Running in sand is difficult, and you have to train carefully to be able to run in sand well. Therefore, I make sure that I really stretch my ankles before running, as I don’t want to twist an ankle while running in the sand.

The second problem about running in my village is the distance. I don’t have a clear measurement of how far I am running. According to the combi driver at the Red Cross, from the Hospital to the Immigration Office in my town (from one side to the other, following the paved road), it is about 2.5k. Which means, there isn’t really anywhere to run except from one side of my village to the other. It is very boring.

Today I did my first 5k training run. It took me 1 hour, based on what I was told on distances. I usually can do a 5k in about 30 minutes, and even if I was walking, I don’t think it would take me that long. And I am not that out of shape. I swear.

Therefore, problem number two: I don’t know how far these distances are! The race is at the end of June, so I have a lot of time to train. So, fingers crossed it goes well!