Keep Your Pants On (err, at home)

Due to a recent conversation with a customs official while trying to figure out how come a box sent to me was charged 85 pula ($13 or so) when none of the other ones had been, I learned that clothing is taxed at 40% unless i get some paperwork done that allows for an exemption. And I was upset they were charging 12% for kleenex!  By the way, if you use the word "kleenex" to describe facial tissue here you just get a blank stare (well, it was blank silence, since it was a phone call, but still).  Any who, so collecting clothes is still good, if anyone out there is bothering, but sending it now would be bad, very very bad.  Stay tuned.

Since I go to Gaborone tomorrow to meet with my Peace Corps program manager for 2 hours to learn everything I missed out on in the 2 week training (god, I hope none of my co-PCVers read my blog or there will be hell to pay. lol), I might just make a  cross-customs-cultural trip to the customs office to see how hard it is to get this 85 pula fee reversed.  It sounds like so much when you say 85 pula, but when you say $13...It will cost me about 9 pula and like 5 hours probably, so if i bother, it will have to be for the experience. 

Some dumn schmuck at the customs office must have known I had just gone home and brought a bunch of facial tissue back without claiming it upon re-entry. Ooops. Now I hope no customs officials are reading this blog. Heck. I know they aren't.

And speaking of random pula, remind me to tell you next time about how many times I get asked each day by kids I don't know for money....if I got the 85 pula back I suppose I should give it tothem, minus the 9 and my hourly rate of pay to go and get the refund. I think at $300 a month, 40 hours a week I make about under $2/hour, so that is 13 or so pula. Jeez, I need a tea break.

How you can help

During my time at home, a number of people asked me how they could help me with my projects. There are a number of official and unofficial ways to help out and some ways yet to be determined.  Generally, it is probably not a good idea to send money through the mail.  I do have access to my checking account at home, so money put into that could be accessed for projects, but you would have to trust me and you wouldn't get a tax deduction.

More formally, Peace Corps has a grant making process that volunteers can apply for. If and when I do this, and it gets approved, you could go on line, visit the Peace Corps webpage, find the project,and make a tax deductible donation directly to that project.

A person could also make a donation to Camphill internationally, and designate it for Camphill in Otse, Botswana, further designating a specfic project.

Right now, I am also working on the project with my Rotary Club dubbed "Flo's Clothes" where we are collecting gently used clothing for the Tuang Disability Support Group.  This project is under development and the recent idea is to have the support group sell the clothing to raise money for their group needs, since, while they do need clothing, they don't need unlimited amounts of clothing but could use the clothing to get seed money for their plans for their garden.  If you wanted to donate clothing, you would want to send it to the Peace Corps Office directly in Gaborone, and inform me of this, so they would make sure I don't pay customs on the packages. I need to track down that PO Box again and post it on my blog. If this is something you want to do, let me know because I will want to let them know to expect boxes. I would have to work on how to get you the tax deduction - perhaps through Camphill.

The Mogobane Disabled Person's Committee also has land to develop a garden, and needs financial help to move this forward. They, like the Tuang group are registered Non-governmental organizations so donations ought to be tax deductible, unless donating to an NGO outside of the US isn't.

If I end up trying to help this young boy with the clubfeet, I may be working through STEPS.org in South Africa and the donations would be collected through their web page.

As you can see, there are different ways to help. So if you are interested, let me know what you want to do and we can figure it out to make it work for you. Also, bear in mind that any little bit helps and can make a huge difference.

Clubfoot

The Friday afternoon right before I left for the States, I was taking my usual route home from work when a woman called me over to her fence.  Her kids are always saying hi to me as I walk by, but I hadn’t ever really stopped and spoken to her.  She was carrying a young boy in her arms, he wasn’t an infant, maybe 3 years or 4. It was hard for me to tell.

She showed me his feet, which were both Club.  She was asking me for help.  Wearing white skin means that people will look at me and hope I have money or connections or something that will help them. Usually it is kids asking me for money, which I don’t give because I wouldn’t have enough to plug the hole of need in that department and how would I decide who should receive my meager earnings.  It is not because they are lazy or unwilling to work. For some, they are unable to work, for others, there are no jobs. For others still, they work but don’t make enough money to make ends meet in a culture where you share whatever you have with your family, and your family included uncles, aunts, cousins, and the like.  It isn’t culturally appropriate to have a bunch of food or money or whatever and not give it when needed.

So not only am I white, but I am culturally inappropriate, walking by poor families and not giving them everything I have because they need it too. I know my giving everything won’t solve their problems – it is about find ways to help them do better for themselves – gardens, education, small businesses, savings plans, jobs and hope for the future. Of course, I can’t do all that for them either.

But today, this Friday afternoon, I am being asked to move a mountain taller than any of those surrounding our small village.  This mother asked me to help her son.  I looked at his legs, his soft little feet and realized that without medical care – the prolonged bracing process and eventual surgery, this boy would never walk on his feet the way god intended. He would undoubtedly be given crutches, routed out of the regular school system into Camphill (lucky for him he actually lives here where the school is located, rather than across the country), and the expectations for his education and life in general, greatly reduced. If he is lucky and gets into the school early and is loved, cared for and protected by his family, he won’t be subject to the physical and sexual violence people with disabilities often have forced upon them by the cruel and ignorant. But he will always be in physical pain. 

The mother showed me his health records briefly and yes, he has been diagnosed, but either because of her ignorance or the system not having the resources, nothing had been done for him.  My friend Byrd in Eureka had hosted a fundraiser for a former PC volunteer’s nonprofit that goes to Nicaragua to do surgeries for club foot, so I wondered what existed in Botswana.  I did an internet search and found the closest organization in South Africa and received information from its founder that showed me some hope, but also that this process, given this child is no longer an infant, would be long and arduous.

On my flight back from the States, I sat next to a South African doctor who teaches emergency medical care to ER staff around the world. He told me that the Princess Marina hospital in Gaborone (a public hospital) does, in fact, do this kind of surgery.  So now, I need to find out from the S. African organization how much this whole process will cost and what it entails, find out from Princess Marina if they do, in fact do it, and talk to the mother about whether she is ready to take this on and what  will happen if she does or doesn’t. 

Since this isn’t directly related to HIV/AIDS I guess anything I can do will get documented in the small space on our reports for secondary projects. Documentation schmocumentation. Seeing this kid’s two possible lives, depending on which road he quite literally is able to walk down, is going to be a huge burden if I don’t pick it up. 

Today, I walked by the house on my first day back to work. There was a dog and some chickens in the yard, but no sign of anyone else. No kids, no women cooking outside.  To be continued.

Back in the Saddle?

Today was my first day back to work since my trip to the States and my Dad’s death.  I didn’t make it to work, as it turned out.  While Sunday night found me going to bed late (1:30 a.m.) and sleeping straight til about 10 a.m., last night didn’t go so well.  Bed by 10, awake at 3:30 and for a multitude of reasons my usual ability to go right back to sleep was thwarted. After 30 minutes, I got up and decided to watch a couple of Glee shows.  Not thinking it would put me to sleep but needing something, well, “gleeful.”  Better than another episode of Dexter.

 By 5 a.m. I decided to try bed again, and took one of the “sleep betta” pills given to me by Ngaka Tanaka (Ngaka is Doctor in Setswana – pronounce it like Nahka and it’s a nice little rhyming thing) for the flights.  He was very concerned that I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours at a time on the plane, for circulatory reasons, so for some stupid reason I surmised that these pills must be lightweight and maybe even had some alarm, or muscle cramping mechanism,  that would wake me up in two hours.  Instead, I woke up at 12:30, just in time for lunch, with no cramping.  Hell, they didn’t work that well on the plane, but I guess being horizontal makes a big difference.

I got up, in a fog, ate breakfast for lunch (to make up for the lunch I had for breakfast on the plane back) and made my way to the bus to shop in Lobatse.  Everything feels surreal and different. For one, it is warmer. For two, there are more bugs out and about. Spring is springing to life. My kitchen sink had a row of ants lined up to drink from the trough in the bowl I left soaking overnight. Eish, guess I have to do my dishes every night, and right after every meal, until they figure out they aren’t welcome. Strange thing is, these ants are a bit bigger than the ones that surround the cat’s food bowl, but aren’t as big as the ones that really creep me out. Eskimos have 100s of words for snow, I am hoping there aren’t hundreds of words for insect sizes here….

For three, (yeah, if someone decided to say, “for one”, there must have been an expectation in aforesaid someone’s mind to continue it and not just lazily go the “secondly” route). Oh yeah, where was I?  For three, all the prices have gone up in the last two weeks here. Bus fares went up 30 tshebe, regardless of the distance.  So going 15 km is 30 tshebe more expensive. Going all the way to Gaborone, more than twice as far, also went up only 30 tshebe from Otse.  Sadly, they could have used this fare increase to rectify a ridiculous situation and they didn’t. Instead of changing all the fairs to round off to the nearest Pula or half pula, they still have 4.90 or 8.70, 9.20 or most stupidly 10.10 as fares. 

No big deal? Well, this is how we pay fares.  You get on the bus and grab a seat. You sit there until the man, or woman with the receipt book and bag of change comes along. You tell him/her where you are going and pay. A receipt is written, your money taken and then it’s time to dig around in their bag o’change to find your odd tshebe. If it’s the one woman I seem to get all the time, this is done with lots of moaning and groaning and digging.  She is also a true Motswana, of proper size, so if anyone is trying to get past her in the aisle while she is trying to work, it gets even more difficult for her to concentrate on that 5 tshebe piece she is digging for. 

Up until today’s ride, she also used to always wait to start collecting fares until we had left Lobatse town limits. This meant that depending on where all of us from Otse were seated on the bus, she had no chance in hell of collecting our money before the first Otse stop. For this we were all soundly chastised. If she did get to us early, and we had 100 Pula notes (about 15 bucks), we were in big trouble because she wouldn’t have change, other than in 10 tshebe coins, which at 100 tshebe per pula, could be quite an ordeal.  But today, she started to collect fares immediately and relatively efficiently, I had the correct change and was up front in the bus. Yabadabadoo! 

This woman struggles so, more than others I have seen that I daydream about finding her one of those conductor change machines that used to exist in America back when we had conductors.  I would buy one for her if I could find one. It all could be so much easier if the fares had been rounded off to the closest pula at this last increase. Which often is what they do anyway if they can’t find the 5 or 10 tshebe piece to give us in that  “bagopula.” I figure I have already paid for a Lobatse to Otse trip in all the change I didn’t get back.  And the taxi fares all went up too, again, from 3.50 to 3.90. My taxi today told me he “owed me” the 10 tshebe. Just make it 4 PLEASE, no one is being fooled.  I feel for these folks though, gas prices went up, there are too many competing taxis (unless you are in Otse, where there are no officially marked taxis that I have seen yet), combis and buses and 3.50 (or even 4)  is still around 50-60 cents USD.

At the grocery, prices were up too. But that didn’t stop me from filling my backpack and purple bag, per usual. Except for whatever reason I spent 400 pula instead of my usual 200 to 300. Was it the olive oil? Or the ant poison?  Whatever it was, pound for pound I think I got my money’s worth, or just two weeks has put me grossly out of practice with carrying heavy bags. You’d think moving the million collective pounds of my mother’s possessions during my time in the States would have kept me in shape?  Maybe the “sleep betta” pill is the culprit.

And for four, knowing someone is going to die isn’t the same as after they actually have died. This is the number one surreal maker. I don’t know how people just keep acting the same after a parent dies. I want to act the same, really I do. And I know everyone around me would certainly appreciate it if I do. And I know I probably will, once this jet lag thing is confounding things.  I have no idea if this is really true.

I ran into my landlord’s son, Lentswe, on the bus home. (He was on his way to work as a night security guard at the nearby game reserve, where the animals are less dangerous than the people who come at night looking for food.) He checked on my cats for me while I was gone.  He told me he was sorry to hear about my dad but was glad I was back. Sweet. He also told me that John, Camphill’s former pottery supervisor from Zimbabwe had died as well. John had left his position early in August and was planning to go back home.  No one said anything, but looking at his emaciated body, I knew he was sick and dying.  He hadn’t been around work much his last couple of months, so I hadn’t gotten much time to get to know him, but we did talk one day and he was a wise and gentle soul who knew his time on earth was short.

I am not good at guessing ages, and John’s gauntness made him look older, I am sure, but there is no way he was older than 50.  He didn’t make it back to his homeland before he passed.  Lentswe said John died in Botswana, but his body was going home to Zimbabwe, and added, “what a terrible thing, to not die in your own country.”

I am thinking, what a terrible thing to die so young and how blessed and fortunate I have been to have a father who was able to see so many things in his life, a wonderful career, mostly great kids, all awesome grandchildren and a loving and patient wife. In his last years, he had great access to medical care and medication, a comfortable bed and place to live and then, finally hospice, which included a very special nurse who was so kind to him.  He had his faith which sustained him and if this faith was justified, he has already been welcomed home.  I should be celebrating our fortune.

My friend Nancy gave me a refrigerator magnet that says, “go slow: life is progress.”  Yep.  Tomorrow I plan to go slow all the way to my office.

Tripping in the States

I have probably lifted over 2000 boxes on this trip. Or maybe lifted the same 100 boxes 20 times. I have probably run up my mother’s new stairs with those same boxes, it feels like at least 2000 times.  But we managed to get her moved, her old tax files ready for the shredder (yeah, had to move all of them to the new house first. Why was that again?), her pictures hung on the walls, furniture arranged, cat box properly parked, and donations taken away (yes, also moved first to the new house and rearranged a few times). All I can say is that since my mom has moved way more times than the national average, at least she had less than her new roomie, Ann, who moved out of a four bedroom house she had been in for 20 years.  Ann’s daughter Laura came from Minnesota and she and I were the superstars of lifting, hanging, trashing, and slapping our mothers around until they succumbed to our will.  There will still be a battle of who’s yucky knickknacks get to be where, but the daughters will be gone before that happens and I am pretty sure it won’t come to blows.  These are civilized basadi bogoles, (old women – said respectfully, of course) after all.

My dear college friend Nancy came all the way down from Ashland to spend 24 hours with me and help my mother move. We ran all the fragile items from my mom’s apartment to her new home so the moving guys didn’t freak us out with their abandon when it came to handling techniques.  We then went to a fancy Croatian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, had a couple drinks and lots of yogurt based sauces and hit the movie theater to see Sarah’s Key. We munched on our mutually favorite candy - peanut M&Ms - and enjoyed the film in our mutually favorite foreign language (French). This is what makes friendships last for the long haul.  Merci beaucoup mon ami! She got a call right before she headed home that a dear friend of hers had died (not totally unexpectedly). So she was needed there. She totally rocks.

I also was lucky enough to be able to connect with my high school bud Barbara, the first friend to send me a care package with ground coffee, chocolate chips, and some of her company’s wonderful skincare line with sunscreen (MED – check it out!) We walked around the lake at Shoreline and had a beer and onion rings while watching the kids and adults paddle, canoe, sail and often crash into each other on the lake. Good times and I needed the laughs!

I try not to make a visit to Palo Alto without spending an hour with my elementary school best friend Diana and her two young adopted kids (Sophia who is 3 and Blake, who is a little over 4) so I was thrilled they were in town.  Both kids have some language and attachment issues because of their initial start in life and Diana is working hard, with all kinds of specialists, to help give these kids everything they need to catch up to their age groups, and the way I know Diana, eventually far surpass their peers.  This was only the 3^rd or 4^th time I have seen them, but they remembered me. Sophia started crawling on top of me right away, Blake took a bit longer but eventually they had both climbed to eat their boxes of raisins in my lap, with me catching the random ones so we didn’t all have to step on them later.  Those kids and their mom (and grandma!!!) are so awesome.

Since I came home, I was able to collect some of the things I couldn’t fit into my bags initially, and go out and buy some things I thought I would need. Thus, I once again have too much to fit into my bags for this trip to Africa. What was I thinking??!  My mom thinks I should ditch some of this junk and make room for the 56 oz. bags of peanut M&Ms. She is so obviously an enabler. I have a couple of days to decide if I am able to allow this type of codependency.  I also have a large duffle full of clothing I am taking back to the disability support groups I am working with in my area.  While here I had to go to the DMV because they had sent me a notice that my car (which I sold in March) had not been registered. We decided I should walk in and say, “I am a Peace Corps volunteer, home because my dad just died and I am helping my mother move. Please fix this for me.” And then break into tears.  I may try this at the ticket counter at Delta when I check in for my 100 hour flight. Can’t go too overboard or they won’t allow me on. A fine balance must be struck. 

Over the last week, during this arduous move of two mothers over 70, two otherwise respectable daughters decided that both of us should be able to use the “peace corps volunteer, dad died, mother being moved, please help me god or I don’t know what I will do” for anything we need. Cutting in line at the grocery, buying copious amounts of beer, grabbing the disabled parking space, etc.   The news would report a strange rash of Peace Corp Volunteer inappropriate behavior in the Palo Alto area, and we decided this might get me in some trouble back at the African Ranch. Fun while it lasted, but better not.

My sister called me from the road the afternoon before my dad’s funeral. My niece was driving the car they were in, somewhere near Vallejo during commuter traffic and they reported to me that a couple of African Americans were at the side of the road, apparently peeing.  They were a bit shocked. I asked them how far away they were from the public pee-ers.  Oh, they were on the other side of the road, so maybe 30 feet away. I told them that was no big deal and I have had short conversations with men peeing three feet away from me along dirt roads in Botswana. But I only did this when they greeted me first, because it would have been rude not to say hello back.  When I can walk by without being greeted, then of course I don’t start the conversation.  That gave my sister and niece something besides the terrible traffic to ponder during the remainder of their road trip. We all know that men can talk while they pee, but I am just not sure why they feel the need to.

I was able to see both my father’s younger brothers who came from back east for the service. My oldest brother Rudy was there. Terry’s family was represented by my wonderful niece Jazlyn, who has the most incredibly wondrous if not slightly disconcerting laugh. I represented me. Paul’s family couldn’t make it but his brilliant daughter Sarah, on her way to Boston University to study pre-med and her grandparents on her mom’s side sent beautiful flowers and plants. Kathleen, Gary and their kids Gillian and Kaitlyn were there, on their way to taking Gillian to college in Monterey.  Stan picked Jazlyn up in Ukiah and she served as his co-pilot for the drive (trying hard to tune out the constant companion of the GPS sexy voice.)

Old family friends where at the service and reception, including one of my father’s law partners Karen and her husband and the Tatums, who’s three kids were in the same grades as me, Paul and Kathleen.  My dad’s old babysitter from Massachusetts, who now lives in the Bay Area, also showed up for the service!  She has got to be 90 something, since my dad was 82, but she looked quite fit.

The time I had with my family, Stan and friends of my Dad was very short, now looking back maybe a bit too short, but I knew my two kitties in Otse would be running out of food and litter sometime soon, and sleeping at my mom’s on the couch couldn’t go on forever.  I have two homes now – US and Otse – and I needed to get back to my African home and get back to work.

I appreciate all the loving thoughts and cards sent to me and my family at this tough, tough time.  I feel very lucky to have all of you.

I Love You, Pops

I will go into my sudden trip home in more detail when I have had a chance to process a bit more, but here is something I wrote for my Dad, who passed away on August 10, at the age of 82.  The service is in Walnut Creek tomorrow, then I head back to my Batswana friends, family and home on Friday.

I have dread this day ever since I first realized Dad was my father. Over the years, I would come to call him Pops.

Pops was, as our longtime family friend Shirley always used to say, “a kick in the pants.”  I remember how loud he could be, how funny, how silly and sometimes, how serious and even frightening when I was very young.  I remember when he came home from work and would sit reading the paper with his bourbon and water and pipe, back in the days when he did such things. I would sit on his lap and ask for sips of the nasty stuff. I remember running to him moaning about having the hiccups. “Dad, I have the hiccups.” He would ignore me. “DAD, I have the HICCUPS!!!” Still nothing. Finally on the third or fourth whine, he would turn to me suddenly and in his massive voice say, “WHAT DID YOU SAY????!!!”  Scared them right out of me, every time.

I remember dancing on his feet as he led me around to soundtracks of various musicals. I remember watching him do the same thing with my sister Kami when she was young and wondering how I so quickly become too old to do that. Pops loved to dance and if we didn’t readily dance with him, he would just take off on his own.

I remember him cooking us up scrambled eggs, served with Danish, the morning before we headed off to Disneyland in our large station wagon. I hated that mixture. I remember his love for ice cream, brownies and other sweets. One afternoon one of my brothers cooked up some brownies that we had to make disappear before Pops could have any, because they weren’t the right kind of brownies. I got my mother to talk to him on the phone so my brother could take care of things. Pops arrived in the kitchen looking for brownies that were now gone and blamed his missing out on my mother for talking too much. That was probably the only time I really heard him say anything unkind about her in front of us after they divorced. But it was a matter of brownies, after all. I remember at Easter how he would walk around the house chanting “Easter time is the time for eggs and the time for eggs is Easter time.”  He could be so silly.

We liked to tease him about his “ill-fated expeditions.”  I remember the picnic with a bunch of folks on the top of some dry hot hill covered with dry prickly grass and a few old oak trees in the middle of a hot summer.  We hiked up and Pops kicked aside a large pile of dirt and put the blanket down. Kathleen sat down and a few minutes later started shrieking.  Never really the outdoor type, he had managed to kick over a decent sized ant hill.  I think on the way to that particular outing he may have prefaced the whole trip with one of his great lines: “you are going to have fun dammit, whether you like it or not.”

And then there were those evenings sitting in front of the TV at 3222 Cowper Street when we kids would get a bit unruly.  We could hear him marching down the hall. He would slide open the door and say, “You’re getting silly. Go to bed” then close the door and march right back down the hall. We didn’t go to bed or stop being silly, but heh, he tried.

Years later, we had fun using these “Dadisms” on him. He would just look at us with that look, all twinkle in the eye and smiles, saying, “heh kid, you better watch it!”

Even though my parents made their livings as attorneys, using words seemingly constantly and teaching us all of us to do the same, Pops wasn’t big on some words when we were growing up. I know when he was older he regretted he hadn’t told us more often how much he loved us and how proud he was of us.  But we knew it.  He showed it by his actions, by always encouraging us to do what we wanted to do in our lives.  As a girl growing up with a strong mother for a good role model, I remember that my father also reinforced in me my ability to be whatever I wanted, and do whatever I thought was important.  He instilled in me my work ethic, my willingness to do things for others, my sense of humor, and my self-confidence.

Another thing I really appreciated about Pops is that with all the years he spent listening to people getting divorced saying pretty vile things about their spouses, he was never one to say mean things about others.  He never said an unkind word to us kids about our mom when they divorced - except for the brownie incident. He had seen too many parents play tug of war with their kids and he wasn’t going to be that person.  As we all grew up, I realized he did the same with us kids, refusing to listen to any harsh words any of us might have for our siblings, or saying anything harsh or critical about one of us to another.  He would listen, but he wouldn’t judge.  And sometimes, he would just say, “okay, that’s enough.” Invariably, he was right.

Pops managed to genuinely mature as he aged, and when he met Lorna, it was a very good thing.  I always joked that only a child psychologist would be able to handle him. Lorna helped him as he spent the latter part of his life looking at his skeletons and softening his edges.  I don’t know if he ever forgave himself for not being a perfect person. I know he was always hard on himself and felt responsible for any mistakes we kids ever made. I would tell him that he and mom did the best they could and at least I turned out okay.  That always got a chuckle.

No visit to Pops and Lorna over the years could ever properly end without him first discussing with me at some length the best route to drive wherever I was going and often pulling out the map, even if it was back to the same place I had just come from. I have always loved looking at maps and I am sure I got that from him. Then as I drove off, he would always give the same sage advice, “take two and hit to right” and “don’t shoot til you see the whites of their eyes.”

In the last few years, during our visits Pops, Lorna and I would enjoy doing puzzles and watching mysteries or old movies on television. His sense of humor was as good as ever, and while sometimes he would miss what was going on for a while, he’d pop back in with a typical quick witted remark.

Leaving to join the Peace Corps was a difficult decision for me. My biggest fear was exactly this.  Before I left, he sometimes would ask me whether they couldn’t place me somewhere where they spoke German, so I could use that skill. I studied German and lived abroad in high school because of his love for that part of our heritage and it continues to be an important part of my life and will always connect me to him.  I would remind him that pretty much anywhere where German was spoken didn’t need Peace Corps volunteers, and he would laugh as he realized this was probably true.

I miss my Daddy, but free of a body that simply couldn’t hold up to such a vast spirit, he can now joke, and dance and laugh to his heart’s delight.  For this, I am grateful. Pops, May the Force Be With You.

Distance is Irrelevant

The other day I set off to Mogobane to attend the disability support group’s meeting. The meeting was to start at 9 a.m., and since Mogobane is maybe 10 miles away, I figured I could head out and catch the 8:15 bus to the junction, then the combi from there and arrive probably way too early, but that would be fine.

I got to the junction quickly enough and was able to buy a couple magwinya while I was waiting.  These are yummy freshly deep fried balls of flour and yeast that during our pre-service training we all spent a lot of time eating and thinking of ways to improve them with yummy fillings. Yet slowly, I get that just having this warm yummy ball of fat fried dough was good enough. And there, my lucky stars, came the combi up the road to drop off passengers, make the turn around and pick us up and head out.  Life is so good sometimes but you just don’t realize it till it is as simple as a warm ball of dough and a ride.

But just a minute. The combi driver has gone off to chat up the magwinya seller, the Orange airtime seller and a guy behind a shed who had a bag of something that all four of them started to look at.  I stood with a few people waiting for the combi on the other side of the road, watching this and figuring, well he should get a short break, he has probably been driving the last 2 or so hours straight. Gotta stretch the legs.  So we waited. 

Buses along the main route came and went, dumping people off who walked over to the combi stop and joined us.  Some of them caught hitches going down the road further than I needed to go, some of them just headed out walking down the road. That should have been my first clue. But I stood there thinking, “heh, it’s 8:30, I have time.”  So I stood there and marveled at the variety of birds that seemed to be hanging out at the combi stop with us. There were these small light brown ones with neat speckles. Bigger ones with striking red breasts.  There was a black one that on closer examination (well not real close) appeared to have this psychedelic bluish sheen. THAT was cool.  I am not a bird watcher, so frankly I can’t even describe what the other one’s look like. I just know that was a lot of variety for such a small spot. Time passed. At one point the 4 little brown birds all started talking at once, then just as suddenly stopped.  I looked at the guy next to me and he shrugged. There wasn’t anything that appeared to cause them to go off like that. No lions, other birds, people moving suddenly or anything. Maybe it was just a really good tiny brown bird joke.

More time passed. More people got off another bus on the main road and walked past us down the road or got hitches. The combi driver was looking quite content on the other side of the road. As I continued to commit to standing there, I realized I was stuck standing there because time passed and I would be late if I walked. Plus, it was probably a 4 mile walk.  Now it was 9 am.  The driver had grown roots that had wrapped around the chair he was sitting on.  Shit. Now I am just annoyed, so I set off on my walk.  This is Botswana, and better getting to a meeting late than not at all.  And no way this guy is now going to get my 3 Pula after a blatant disregard for good business sense. Besides, if I left it would guarantee by the Laws of Murphy that he would suddenly jump into the combi and drive. I took one for the common good.

It was a pleasant walk, after all. The beauty of winter here is that the sun is shining and it is not too hot or too cold if you are moving, which I was, quite quickly, down the road.  I expected that almost immediately the combi driver would take off and thereby pass me, but believe it or not, during my lovely 40 minute walk, he never came down the road. Whatever was in that bag must have been very worthwhile.  Or maybe he is a magwinya freak like me and was waiting for the next hot batch. Or next three hot batches.

Along my walk I passed a road crew using machetes to cut the grass down on the side of the road.  Some of them were more seriously dedicated to this task than others. There was a guy leaning over the hood of the truck that had transported them and their machetes to the site, reading a newspaper.  The truck said “animal control” on the side of it.  I was thinking if this is how they control for snakes in the grass it definitely explains the lack of zeal by at least one of the workers.  Let hibernating snakes lie, I say.

A bit further up the road I saw someone with a wheelbarrow full of wood.  People go into the hills and fields to collect wood for building their cooking fires. The women carry huge bunches of this wood on their heads, so this wheelbarrow must be driven by a man, I figured, which turned out to be the case.  And I could hear him loud and clear talking up a storm about something. There was no one else in sight. Except me of course. Luckily I know how to work with people with mental illness: be polite, be agreeable, and keep moving.  When I reached him he was smiling at me and pointing towards something – all I could see was houses, trees, dirt, rocks and some water running along on the other side of the gully he was looking ready to try to cross with the wheelbarrow. Hmmm.  Dumela rra, o tsogile jang?  Ee rra.  Walking, walking, waving goodbye, smiling.  When I got a bit further along I looked back and someone had come to speak to him from the other side of the gully. So maybe he wasn’t insane but had been yelling for this guy and was telling me that his good for nothing son hadn’t shown up to help get the wood. That would make anyone act deranged, after all the work he had gone through to collect it.  And he really was quite friendly to me.

Ah, this fresh air is wonderful!  The view of the surrounding hills and Mogobane is really lovely and oh, there is the damn with the town’s water all stored up.  Otse has a pathetic little damn – more like a pond really, but this one looks like a small lake.  Nice. It’s good I know people here in case Otse runs out of water. Ah, I can see the community center, another 15 minutes and I will be there. Wait. Is that a bull up there starting a stampede across the bridge I need to cross?  Still no combi. 

The meeting was just getting started as I arrived at about 9:40 after practicing my Setswana on a group of mules just outside the community center. The support group members were all sitting on plastic chairs up against a sunny wall out of the wind. It is too cold inside to meet.  They were kind enough to periodically translate things for me as they went along and I sometimes got the gist of some things if I paid superhuman attention and knew what the topic was.  I was stymied for about 10 minutes when the woman next to me started talking about money and holding a large pill container and rattling it about.  I kept hearing “270 pula” then “170 pula.”  Is she saying that the price of these pills has gone from 170 to 270 pula? How is that possible, how can these poor people afford that? I thought they had good medical care here? This poor woman. And it looked like the pills were to kill microbacterial organisms.  A person really needs those, when they need those. What is she going to do?!  Translation:  she is the group treasurer and was reporting that they had 270 pula but now have 170 because they had to pay for something related to the garden plot. The pill container was the kitty, so to speak. Ohhhhh….I am glad for her but that really isn’t very much money for this group, less than $40.  We decided that at each meeting anyone who could would contribute some change to the treasury and if they did that every week they should have enough over the course of the year to pay the land board for the land taxes on the garden property. 

Okay, I’m in. Here’s the 3 Pula I didn’t give that combi driver and when I come back to the meeting next week, I may just plan to do the 4 mile walk each way and then can give them 6. Minus the one I will need for magwinya to fortify me for the hike.

To FB or not to FB, that is the Question

There is so much to write about. I am not sure if it’s because I am less distracted by television in the evenings, but by the time I come home each night, my brain is full of thoughts. Uh, let’s correct that. Should read: “not distracted by television because I don’t have one.” Some of the thoughts are admittedly quite inane, and since I don’t have internet at home they all fall in the garbage where many Facebook comments belong, never to be written down by me, or read by anyone. For that, let’s all utter a sigh of relief.

Any news I get is on the morning radio or on Friday evenings, when I stop to buy the Botswana Guardian newspaper, or when I have conversations with colleagues about what is happening out there. I buy the paper at a grocery store, along with a can of 100% mango/orange juice that I mix, or not, with the bottle of white wine I buy at the bottle shop/bar just next door. It’s only on Friday’s mind you, and it is only to help me with my Friday evening chores, which consists primarily of washing my laundry in my bathtub, to have it ready to hang on the line early Saturday morning. My secondary “chore” is to read the paper I bought and write down any inane thoughts that haven’t already escaped me and are perhaps less inane than I anticipated.

The paper is in English and I am getting used to the English vs. American sentence structures, so it isn’t as taxing as it used to be.  Quite the window into the Botswana world.  Culturally and integrative-ly speaking I am batting 3 for 3: I am drinking; I am doing laundry by hand; I am reading about Botswana stuff.  Okay, I am not drinking Chibuku with a bunch of other people, which is by all accounts a fairly strong, nasty, and cheap alcoholic beverage, but I can only do so much to integrate at any one time.

Chibuku comes in a container that looks like our milk cartons. The first time I saw it in a large quantity was early one morning when women with wheelbarrows were collecting stacks of it from the side of the road in Kanye.  Cool, a milk delivery. Nice that some places still do that.  No sir. Don’t got milk. Milk comes primarily in those long life packages that can’t be recycled. I used to buy Costco soymilk in the same containers and feel really bad about it. Now I buy full crème milk in those containers and feel really bad about it for multiple reasons.

None of this is what I wanted to write about, but whatever. I was just thinking on my walk home from work today that I have a great life here.  A great house, great colleagues at work who really care about the people they work with/for, dedicated disability support group leaders who against all odds are still trying to make things better for the people they are caring for and for themselves, despite their disabilities. I have great friends at home who support me and send me great packages full of things I love!!

Check in with me again once the weather shifts from being like a pleasant spring or fall Eureka day to the insanely hot thing they call summer which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I am sure the things that really matter will still be good, but instead of cold and reasonably content, I will be sweaty and cranky. And I will probably switch to beer. And no, I don’t drink the whole bottle of wine on Friday night. What would I mix with the juice Saturday morning?

The only downside so far has been a mistake I made myself. Thuso, our security officer warned us, but I was still scammed. Thuso, by the way is Setswana for “help” so he obviously never had a choice in life as to his profession.  Anyway, he talked to us about various ways we could be victimized and scammed and thought us what he called a song, but we kept saying WASN’T a song because, well, he didn’t ever actually SING it to us. But it essentially is:  “all volunteers must do it every day.” Each word representing various aspects: awareness, vigilance, mitigation, defuse, escape, defend.  “It” is just, well, “it.” And yes, I had to check my notes, but I had the main idea. And I am pretty good at it, but got caught in the Loveridge scam (my name for it) while not being vigilant and now am working on the mitigation plan before someone has to have me poke his eye out.

The Loveridge scam is when you pass someone in the village and say “dumela” which means “hello.” Normally they say hi back, we exchange “o tsogile’s” or “le kae’s” and keep moving. Well, the Zimbabwean men here deny speaking Setswana and speak English. Fine, no problem, I still keep moving.  Fast forward a few weeks and there standing at my work place is this same Zimbabwean, there to see one of my co-workers. This is where I get scammed. Okay, he knows my co-worker, I know my co-worker. I like my co-worker, he is a nice guy with a nice wife. So now this guy must be nice and have a nice wife, so no problem. 

See how the logic works?  (NOT) Wish I had. So I am giving Loveridge (yeah, an odd name at home, but here, who knows) my cell phone number.  And then he texts me how he “looks forward to taking our friendship to new levels.” Eh???!!! Then I ask my co-worker about him and….he doesn’t really know the guy at all. Scam-o-roo.  I can at least see if he calls and just ignore the call, but then he calls on another number to see what I am doing for the weekend. Uh, I am really quite busy (and honestly, I am…) Cool. Blech.  And I am 110% sure he has a wife, I know he has at least one young child because he had him there at the office.  I just hope a village of 12,000 is really big enough for both of us.  I feel for our younger, more attractive female volunteers here. I mean, jeez, if someone is coming after me?

The good news is my cats are adapting quite well to their new life of luxury.  Sisi is getting fat and Pudi is recovering nicely from her trip to the vet ordeal.  It has been so long since I have had a 6 month old cat that I wasn’t sure if she was mental or not until I saw my friend Matt in Lobatse who has one of her siblings. Now I know that both cats are mental, but that it is probably normal.

But they have their uses. The other night I walked into the bathroom to find a rather large cockroach. That’s how they come here; large and out of nowhere. I haven’t seen one in the house before or since.  I had it on good authority that Sisi liked to hunt these buggers so I called her in. Being just after dinner, she didn’t come so I grabbed her and threw her at the roach.  Yep, definitely she eats too much because she didn’t go after it with the kind of zeal I had been promised and frankly at that moment, hoping for.  But she did the job and Pudi came in to see what was up and lend her support.  Eventually, Sisi ate it, but left two legs, which I had to sweep up. Blech.

At least I know when I leave the house for training for two weeks in August, any bug will be deader than dead. Sigh. It is these future tense sentences that remind me how bad my Setswana really is and will always be.  Love to see that written in Setswana.  No, I am not leaving them for 2 weeks without food. I am borrowing an automated feeder from Matt and coming home half way through the training. As long as they don’t claw the door anymore, I am good to go. My landlord/supervisor will check on them if I ask, but then I have to explain the door…I guess I could ask Loveridge, but that is just inane Facebook talk.

Watched "the Social Network" the other night. Did Mark expect more from us than he is getting? Probably he could care less, given his can't see anyone through his billions....