I had a busy weekend week before last. Went to Ramotswa to visit Tom and wash my blankets in preparation for the arrival of guests for a week long language course here at my house. Peace Corps encourages us to make learning the local language an ongoing process during our two years and they will even provide a language instructor for week long training sessions if we provide the teacher with housing. Well, my house rocks, so that was no problem. Tom, Susan, Charlie and I were going to have a great session, but Susan and Charlie had to back out at the last minute. I was worried PC would cancel it, because they like a minimum of 3 students, but it was Friday afternoon and everything was in place so Tom and I scored one of the best teachers, Tonic, for 5 days of Setswana!!! Okay. Maybe I will be asking someone to shoot me by Wednesday, but with the no pressure, relaxed, wine for dinner and coffee from home atmosphere in my park like setting, I think we will be okay.
Tom and I are both trying to put in the way back of our minds the piles of work we have at our jobs, and the other pile of work PC has asked us to do in the next couple of weeks. Too bad the back of my mind is already full with so many other things I am supposed to remember not to think about.
So anyhow, I caught a nice hitch Saturday a.m. to Ramotswa, carrying my backpack with clothing, and two additional “carry-ons” with a blanket in each. A family with a three-ish year old girl sitting on the lap of a man in the back seat. She had a pencil in her hand. But nothing to write on. Heh, I am a Peace Corps volunteer, so I handed her my little notebook so she could work unimpeded by lack of paper. She didn’t draw big pictures. She wrote much like she was actually writing, except it was all squiggles and lines and obviously deep, deep thoughts in some language only three year olds can possible understand. The things she was writing were so important that each thought needed its own page, so she continued through the notebook writing quite a bit, or at least a little on quite a few of the pages. Her mom looked back at one point and asked her what she was doing. “Ke kwala.” “I am writing.” This she said quite matter-of-factly and rather seriously for such a wee one.
My god, I thought, I am in the presence of a future Motswana author and it is all because I built her capacity by giving her some paper. I might be getting the hang of this whole PC thing. I borrowed the paper back to ask her mom to write the child’s name on one of the pages and I wrote my Setswana name under hers. I told her that was her name, and this here was mine. She went back to her kwalaing, clearly unimpressed, so I left her alone. When my stop came, I borrowed the paper back one last time and ripped out any pages I needed and gave her back her manuscript. She at this point began to realize that she wasn’t just borrowing the paper anymore, but that it was hers. Finally, I got a smile out of the serious author. My work thus done, I hopped out with my laundry and headed on my way. To be in the presence of such youthful genius and energy. I can’t wait to see what happens when she actually starts to use words the rest of us can understand.
After doing the laundry and having lunch, Tom and I set off by foot in the 2 pm sun to the Kgotla for the cultural event going on that fine day. It was so darned hot that, even with my feet in sandals, they were on fire. I was carrying an umbrella, which helped except when the wind tried to take it out of my hands and poke Tom’s eyes out. We watched some of the dance competitions – various towns and villages had traveled there with their dance teams wearing their traditional garb. We noticed there were some displays of culturally relevant baskets, old tools, a display on foot and mouth disease, things made out of leather, etc. but no food or water for sale anywhere. Jeez, we though, that was an opportunity untapped. We looked at the shoes and I was reminded that even though people here do speak English, they don’t always understand it when they hear an Americanized version. I was looking at the sandals, which I liked, but there was a pair that had the toe thong thingies, which I hate because I hate having anything rub against my toe like that. So I told Tom this, but the only word the fellow sitting behind the table heard was “hate” which I admit is a very strong word to use to express dislike of toe thonged shoes, no matter what.
Tom and I started to move along, when the fellow stood up and said, “why do you hate these shoes so much?” He wasn’t angry or rude, but genuinely curious, because, well, there was nothing to hate about shoes in general and those specifically were really quite nice. Ach, I said to him, “I apologize, the shoes are beautiful, but my toes don’t like to have things touching them while they are walking about.” This seemed to appease him, and I was reminded about the use of language in everyday life.
From there I took my hot and now somewhat embarrassed feet to sit in the shade where chairs had been set up and mostly older folk were sitting. We weren’t there for more than 5 minutes when a woman came over and told us to go with her. Where, we wondered? Are we not supposed to be in these seats? No, she was taking us over to eat lunch. Hmm. Why us, with the hundreds of people sitting around us not being taken to eat lunch? Turns out the chiefs and their families from all the villages participating in the cultural event had already gone over to eat the traditional meal in a nice shady tent, and we had been invited over as dignitaries. Eish. If white sweaty people are dignified, then I guess we qualified, but it was obvious that the assumption was made that white skinned people should be honored in this manner. My radical feminist of my youth would have refused (which would have insulted someone, to be sure, even more than my shoe hating toes ever could), but my middle-aged, overheated and hungry feminist who respects cultural norms self went for it.
We sat with the Kgosi and his daughters from a town called Manayana, which isn’t too far from Ramotswa and boasts rock drawings, the Livingstone tree, a river that never dries up, the greenest grass in Botswana, and a newly discovered gorge (I didn’t quite get how a gorge could be newly discovered. Did someone just for the first time walk off a cliff that no one knew was there until he did so?) I explained to the daughter of the Kgosi, who was telling me how great this village was, that back home we have things called Chambers of Commerce to welcome people to the community and give them lots of brochures about fun things to do and ways to spend money while in town. I told her she was a great Chamber of Commerce all on her own and made me want to visit. I told her she did a great job of selling her village. Her sister sitting next to her said, “don’t sell it all, we need some for ourselves.” Then the two of them went back and forth, “I am not selling it, I am telling her about it.” “I know, that was a joke.” And a pretty clever one, I thought. I put the village on my list of must sees. The chief had 9 children, 7 girls and 2 boys. The oldest is a boy and now actually the acting chief. I am sure he is happy to see his sisters’ wit and give and take on a regular basis.
The Kgosi from Ramotswa came over to glad-hand and we paid our respects. She is one, if not the only, female Kgosi in the country, so I like saying hi to her. Tom was wishing he had worn a suit and tie like all the other men surrounding us, but who knew we would be dragged back to hobnob and Tom in a dark suit would have guaranteed a trip for sunstroke to the nearest hospital. We left the area and returned to the masses. The male elders of all the towns were now being called back to the food tent to eat. Then, they started feeding the masses. Everyone there – hundreds of people – were being fed, for free, as part of the event. Surely many (especially the male youth) had come primarily for that meal and to watch the dancing girls. The lack of food and drink vendors was perhaps partly poor entrepreneurship, but the bigger part was that this was a community event and the community was eating – uh, communally. Sure there was a pecking order – kgosis and families and other VIPs first, village elders second and then everyone else. Best of all, the older or disabled didn’t have to fight their way to the food. It was brought to them – they were served first before the young. It indeed looked like the intention was to serve everyone there, but we didn’t wait to see because it was time for us to hit the market then get ready for another event.
Tom had tickets to a dinner dance sponsored by his catholic church. Yippee. I get to dress up, put on heals and wear one of my new dresses bought at Nordstrom Rack on my recent trip home. We arrived a little after 7 p.m. and walked into a well decorated hall that was almost totally devoid of people. The folks getting the food ready were there, as was the DJ and his crew, which was unfortunate, because they tested the sound system at the highest possible volume for the next 30 minutes as the hall began to fill.
One of the church elders and a friend of Tom’s came and sat with us and we chatted. Two other church elders joined us. Then a nice woman came over and told us we had to move to the front of the room – unfortunately right under the speakers. Wha? Okay, off we went. Eventually the official program began and the beautiful MC, dressed to the nines, began saying what she needed to say, also at very high volume with us seemingly just inches away from the speakers. I plugged my right ear because the left one was already shot. During a break in her comments, she comes and asks for our names and writes them down. Jees. Turns out the elders we are sitting with are important people in the church and apparently we are also important enough to be introduced to the masses as part of the protocol of the evening. Twice in one day we are being treated beyond our pay class. Although at least at the church they know Tom; he is friends with the elder woman and she chose to sit with us so maybe she singled us out.
Tom turns to me and says, “stick with me, I know people.” The best part is our table got to be at the head of the buffet line and we left way before the drinking and dancing got into full swing. On our way out, the mc, in her tight black dress and high heels actually ran across the parking lot to catch us. She had wanted to talk because she is a singer and sings with a national trio called Women of Jazz. They do fundraisers and since we were volunteers she hoped to connect to see what we were doing and how maybe they could help us in the future or work on a project together. Blow me over. I had just spent an hour on Thursday on the internet trying to find this group for the very same reason! We exchanged emails and numbers and will be in touch to be sure.
That Sunday evening over a spaghetti dinner (with parmesan cheese – thanks Mom!) Tom and I were telling Tonic, our language instructor, about our weekend in Ramtoswa. Tonic is also catholic and used to sing in that church’s choir and knew Nnunu, the woman I spoke with. Botswana really is a small town. I have to ask her how to say that in Setswana.
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