flipping this fricking that

Okay, so now this post is a rant.  Because i just wrote this whole story and then my computer flipped out on me and didn't post it or didn't say it and I didn't save it because i typed it here and just wanted to rant and not save it. so maybe that is a bad idea.  I will be right back. Okay here it is....

I  typed an entire blog directly into the blog and then the stupid thing lost it. So now i have to type it again and i was already pissed off when i typed it the first time so now I am apoplectic. Good think I am not trying to speak to anyone right now. And forget my typos, i don’t have the energy to fix them.

I am supposed to be in Cape Town right now. But my stupid credit card company back in February decided to issue a fraud alert because i actually had used my card. Go figure. I told them when I left i was in Africa and would use it so leave me alone. Instead, they contacted my brother who contacted me and i told them to leave me alone again.  They however neglected to mention that in the course of this process they ended up blocking the charge for my air ticket Botswana to Cape Town.

So yesterday i arrive at the airport and have no ticket. And there are no tickets to be had. So i pay for a taxi to take me to the long distance bus people who could so happily get me to CT, but not until Friday morning. Well,  I would leave Friday morning at 6:30 but won’t get to CT until Saturday afternoon. Fun times. And it is two buses, one to Jo’burg (6 hours) then a 5 hour wait then the night bus to CT.  Then I have my return ticket back on Wednesday so I get to be there for 2 full days.

Meanwhile, they didn’t block my hotel room for 6 nights or my 2 days of jazz festival tickets, so i have those to pay for. And only will be there for one day of the festival.  I also missed my tour of Robben Island today – right now in fact – which is where they held Nelson Mandela for all those years.

At least the knowledge of that helps me realize that this isn’t that big of deal. I mean, my credit card company isn’t actually holding me locked up in a small cell for god knows how many years, they are just wasting my time and money for this next week.  And really, they did it for my own good, right? 

So I am now waiting for the airlines to confirm they can change my return ticket (I had booked each leg separately because I had wanted to take a train back from CT but the train company was to incompetent to manage that, so here I am). I want to recapture 2 of the days lost by flying back on the 5^th instead of the 3^rd. Will have to pay some bucks because no cheap fares are available. I have now talked to two people there who swore they would be back to me within 15 minutes each time. (not even close and still not.) See I can get a seat, pay more, but they can’t tell me how much more, that is a different  department and I am not able to talk to that department and they don’t know when that department will be able to talk to me.

With my luck it will be on the bus i need to now take. I will be recognizable as the only white woman on the bus screaming onto a phone because i can’t hear a word they are saying to me. (Yes, we do talk louder when we can’t hear, why is that?) I can’t call them back because my air time company charges me for time even when i am calling a toll free number. Then the airline will want my credit card number, which i will have to scream to them in a crowded bus. No, I will have to get off the bus, where ever it is and walk to my destination. Great. Fantastic.  Then tonight i pay for a hotel in Gabs because the bus leaves tomorrow too early in the a.m. for me to get there via the local buses. But i will get to see some of south Africa onthis journey. At least until it gets dark and then we will have only the sound of a cow hitting the bus (well, a bus hitting a cow is probably more accurate) to know nature is out there all around us.

It is a good thing that I am still thinking about Nelson Mandela. Without that perspective, really I would be in much worser (yeah, I meant worser) shape. 

Well, the 15 minutes have elapsed again and still no word from the airline.  Who ARE these people?

I have been a good girl today

Today I got to work at 7:45, slammed through a bunch of things that I thought would take me all day, helped a fellow with a grant application and had time to post some posts. What a difference having consistent internet AND being here early makes....It is almost 1 p.m. and I am feeling, well, like I could go on facebook or something important like that. Oh wait, I still have World Peace to organize. Shoot. There goes my nap and leaving early.

Otse Post Office

My post office is a quaint place. It is a place that doesn’t have a scale to weigh packages. Sometimes they run out of the stamps for the basic rate and then just simply want to sell me stamps for the next higher rate, because it might take weeks before they get the other ones again . It can also be a busy place.  This is where people collect their monthly retirement checks and other types of government assistance they might qualify for.  Certain times of the month you just don’t want to have to go there.  On the other hand, if I do, I am allowed to cut in front of all the people where are going to spend hours there waiting for their money anyway, and therefore don’t seem to mind if I cut.

The two women who work there are pretty relaxed about things.  I make a point to be nice to them because they are the keepers of any packages I might receive and I would hate for something to make it all the way to Otse and then get lost.  They would prefer I open every package then and there so they can see what I get and ask me to give it to them.  So I feign being in a hurry whenever possible.  I probably already told you about them wanting to try real coffee and that I finally did take it for them to try and they thought it was way too strong.  Well, duh.  That’s how we like it in America. I can’t believe I used to drink 3 or 4 cups of decently strong coffee a day at home.  Now if I have more than one I get the jitters.

This is the security sign above the door outside the building:

For security reasons, the safe on this premises cannot be opened without a delay, which will vary at each opening.  If necessary to wait, please be patient. Outside working hours the safe cannot be opened, even with the keys.

I have to wonder who this sign is directed to.  Is it the staff who open the safe, who surely must know this, or the thieves, who surely don’t need to be given these courteous tips.  It’s a bit odd, but so be it.

I have another package to pick up this week (thank you to whomever sent it!!!) so I will need to be in a hurry. I have a feeling it has chocolate in it.......

Growing Pains

The Otse Disability Support Group I work with has it’s share of challenges, like any other start up NGO. I went to a meeting to remind them all why I was there and what I could do for them in terms of training and what I should not do for them, in terms of what they should be doing themselves.

One of the issues I had was that I was carrying a key to the building, which I didn’t think I should have. I tried to give it to the vice-chair at one point and she didn’t want it.  A few small items had disappeared from the building and I and the Chair, who has a huge family and people in and out of her house all the time, were the only ones with a key. But when something went missing, she would imply that, “well, Katlego has a key.....”  So what I really wanted to tell them was that I didn’t quit my job, leave my loved ones, travel thousands of miles away to a foreign land to steal their cookies. Admittedly, if I were to steal a food item, it would be something sweet, but Peace Corps pays me enough to buy my own.

So I used this situation to remind the group of my role and to turn the key back in, without pointing any fingers back at the fingers pointing at me to distract any of the other fingers from pointing at them.  Everyone in the group already knows what is what and oddly enough seem to think that I couldn’t steal from them, not because I would personally never consider it, but because I am white.  They don’t know as many white people as I do or they would reassess that assumption.

So I put the key on a stone in the center of the meeting circle and it sat there, unclaimed until a long  discussion about what to do. It was a good discussion because members took ownership and tried to be as honest as they felt they could be about the issue of responsibility, theft and life in a poor village. It was finally decided that another member would take the key and the chair would only keep one key and not carry the extra sets of keys to her home. And that she would hide her key from her family. Not likely, but whatever.  The group has to deal with this.

I told them I would only come to meetings when then specifically needed me and that I would like to do monthly trainings for them to help develop their skills in running their organization. The chair then waxed poetically about how she saw me as like a watering can, there to help them grow by sprinkling needed water/nourishment/knowledge on them.  Where water is life, this was meant as a compliment. Where we are still trying to get the village development committee to hook up our water to the site, so we can begin the garden, I felt like I wasn’t doing my job of watering anything.

Garbage Redux and Teen Aged Ponderings

I spent 8 ½ months here carting off my trash from my house to random waste receptacles around town because I thought it was stupid to go to one place in the village inconvenient to me (and everyone else) to pay the fee and then to yet another place to turn the receipt in to be signed up for the actual pick up of my trash.

But once I had to go there to get rid of my 5 bags of trash from the birthday party I have to admit that this kind of stupid was better than my kind of stupid which required me to carry crap everwhere.  Now I am spoiled and may just keep paying the P5 a month for the whole time I am here. Even if I do have to go back to that stupid place again to do so.

I had a feel good moment yesterday when one of my teen age girl friends came over and I handed her the book “Chicken Soup for the Teenager’s Soul.” She sat right down and started reading it, took a break to make chocolate pudding and while that was cooling I pulled out my hammock, hung it outside and had her climb into it with the book, where probably only a very hot fire started under her butt would have moved her. Oh yeah, and the pudding.  We also had a nice cross cultural interchange about who lives with who here compared to in the US. She totally understood why I didn’t want to go home and live all alone in my big 4 bedroom house, but wanted to know why I didn’t live with my mother. I explained some people do that: some by choice and some because they have too, but usually either the daughter or the mother will need to have lost or be losing their minds to entertain such a though. This went over her head but I figure my mom will think it is funny so I am sharing it here for you.

Random Sightings

I was walking back from my neighbor’s bottle shop and came on a woman with an umbrella, followed a few paces behind by an older man. I realized after a moment that music, loud music, was emanating from the top of her head and she was singing along just as loudly.  The source: a small square transistor radio sitting on top of her head.  They  both were blaring and I understood why her old man was walking a few paces behind her.  He wasn’t sure whether he even wanted to be part of the parade, but it was obvious he didn’t want to appear to be leading it.

I saw my host family in Kanye briefly last weekend. We had a PC regional meeting there and were released after the day to either go home or stay the night and leave in the morning. Those of us who lived close by skadaddled. I decided to forgo the relative luxury of a hotel room with air condition and definite, but not too exciting meals and headed to see my family, in a house with no air-conditioning and mixed food opportunities. I arrived with a bag of frozen chicken pieces so I knew we would be having a decent dinner at least.

My host mom spent most of the afternoon and early evening sacked out asleep on the living room floor while we all did whatever we did with the kids and watched the tv just above her head. She woke to greet me enthusiastically and told me something that I thought was simply hilarious, though I couldn’t laugh out loud.  She said that PC had asked her to host one of the incoming volunteers during the 10 week training, just like I did last April.  She said she was very happy with her  eldest daughter Katli (my nickname at the homestead) but didn’t want a “newborn.”  My niece Lucia is crazy about the whole Twilight thing, so I looked at her, raised my eyebrow, and tried not to laugh.  Well sure, if you put it THAT way, what upstanding Citizen of Botswana would willingly accept a PC Newborn into their otherwise peaceful home?

Had an interesting hitch out of Gabs the other day.  It was 4:30 or so in the afternoon so competition was fierce and I knew the buses would all be standing room only. A guy pulled over and I and two other women hopped in the back. I realized after I was the eager first in that this time of day you don’t get in first if it places you on the sunny right side of the car, which it did for me.  Still learning these things.  Not too far out of town I started to be distracted from my random thoughts and persistent sweating by the mannerisms of the driver, who sat in front of me given we drive here on the other side of the road than in the States.

He kept squirming in his seat and glancing over his left shoulder. It was as if he was expecting someone or something to hit him from the left back seat. I saw no threats, but it still started to worry me a bit.   Meanwhile, the music was also a bit off, but in a more welcoming, or at least unthreatening way.  It sounded a lot like Pink Floyd, but if it was them it wasn’t anything I had ever heard before.  So a twitching driver playing Pink Floyd-ish music and me sweating in the back seat.  Hmm…the silver lining?  Well, it was literally there in the sky. As I looked out my window the sun went behind a humungous cloud and created a fantastic vision of light lining the entire thing– and blocking the sun from my eyes. Now I could relax and enjoy my music and twitching chauffer in relative comfort.

On December 14, on my way home from the airport, I convinced my taxi driver to stop at Game City so I could buy a much needed vacuum cleaner. On February 8, aforementioned vacuum cleaner decided to stop working. Now my one in the states is pushing 10 years, so this came as a bit of a shock to me.  Sure, I paid P499, which is less than $100 for it, but P499 is also just less than 1/3 of my monthly salary, which means this was an expensive item.  My friend Erwin was headed to Gabs so he took me and the defunct relic to the shop to see what could be done.

They looked at it, looked at me, tried to imply I must have done something very strange to cause this, but ascertained that it indeed did not work. They said they would have it repaired.  It would take 3 weeks.  I am not sure our short term relationship of just two months can handle this kind of separation, especially since it IS a dirt bag that doesn’t work. But ever trusting, and somewhat interested to see what three weeks in repair shop time translates to in Botswana time and then into American repair shop time, I agreed.  I have seen what three weeks means in so many other areas….but still I kissed it sweetly goodbye and hoped for the best.

The other thing I learned on this trip is that Game the store is owned by Walmart. The OTHER, other thing I learned on the way home that day is that Game, owned by Walmart sells really cheap umbrellas.  As much as I will never say a discouraging thing about the wind here, no matter how cold it blows in the winter because it is a lifesaver in the summer, it does wreck havoc on cheap umbrellas.  But Batswana don’t give up on an umbrella lightly, nor shall I.  At home we would laugh at someone carrying an umbrella that didn’t open and stay completely open and upstanding, right? Well here, I have seen people carrying umbrellas that only have half of their former selves working.  I scoffed once.  Now I am one of those people.