The Pitfalls of Sustainability

At the beginning of Peace Corps, during PST, every Peace Corps Volunteer was talking about their “failed projects” and how we will eventually have projects that fail. I resolved never to have that happen to me. Unfortunately, it did.

One of the first projects that I started in my village was a Karate Club. My intention was to start it and center it on informing community members about Gender Based Violence, in addition to teaching them simple self-defense moves.  I was so excited to get started! I had about 20 people signed up, and I was ready to go. However, my excitement soon turned to dismay. The first month that Karate Club started, no one came. Why? It was the rainy season. It rained almost every single day for about a month when Karate Club first started. Because Batswana walk everywhere, and most don’t have cars, Batswana don’t usually brave the elements and go out. This included going to Karate Club.

However, after that first month of disappointment, I soon had about five people who came to Karate Club on a regular basis. I was teaching them my style of karate, Uechi-Ryu, of which I have a black belt in. My little sister just tested for her second-degree black belt, and so I was inspired to start karate up again. It was incredibly challenging. Not everyone came to every class, and so having one teacher teaching five people all at different levels was tricky. However, against all odds, I managed, and I managed to graduate everyone to their first stripe on their white belts.

Then, disaster struck.

Karate was two times a week, for an hour each. However, soon I became too busy to maintain that schedule. I was leaving Sefhare for workshops and trainings almost every month and couldn’t keep a consistent schedule. I eventually had to tell the members of Karate Club that I couldn’t keep the classes going. I was disappointed, but not being able to have a consistent Karate Club schedule was stressing me out. Also, it wasn’t fair to Karate Club members if I couldn’t keep the schedule I had created.

The failure of Karate Club was my first lesson in sustainability. I never envisioned my karate class lasting beyond my service. No one in my town knew my style of karate, but that didn’t matter. My plan was to train the members of Karate Club in GBV and basic self-defense, and then they would inform other community members about what they had learned. It was supposed to be a short-term project. However, I never envisioned that I would become so busy that I couldn’t maintain it even short-term. Thus, my first lesson in sustainability was this: always make sure that you have a clearly defined timeline for projects you want to carry out. I wanted my project to be “short-term,” but I didn’t define short-term. How short was it? One month? Two months? Six months? I didn’t have a time frame, and therefore couldn’t plan at the start of the club to make sure that I could carry out and finish the project.

My second lesson in sustainability was this: always make sure that you have a community partner to carry out projects with you. If I had located an enthusiastic member of Karate Club and trained them separately on the topics I wanted to discuss with the group, they could have continued without me when I was busy, and helped shoulder the burden, ensuring a sustainable project.

While failing at a project was not something I ever wanted to have happen to me, I am glad it happened. It has given me a better understanding of steps that I have to take to ensure that future projects are successful and sustainable.

Running Blog: Weeks 8-9

For these next two weeks I am participating in the beginning of a series of five GLOW camps in the Central District of Botswana. I will write a blog post about the camps later on. However, in summation, the camps are for four days each, and about 40 at-risk youth attend each camp. Sessions run from 8 am to 8 pm almost every day, and are on the topics of life skills, HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence.

Because of the camps, and how exhaustive they are, running for these next two weeks has been a little tricky. Because I am partially in charge of logistics, and am facilitating sessions, I have to get up very early and run (so early I have to run with my headlamp). Luckily, there are three other PCVs attending the camp with me who are also training for the marathon, and therefore also have to run early. It is exhausting but the exercise helps mitigate the general stresses of the camp.

In any event, running with a headlamp makes me feel badass. And like a true runner. And it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

Running Blog: Week 7

So. Sick.

I drank jojo water (not the cleanest, and it really should be boiled before consuming) because the water was out and I was really thirsty. As a result, I probably gave myself a parasite, and myself sick. Bad life decision. Whoops.

No running this week as I recover.

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).