Thursday, September 15, 2011

Daily life in Bobs...and camping on the Salt Pans

August 28,2011
Ya, so I’ve been a crackhead. In other words, I feel like I have been dying from pithiyis rosea, which is an autoimmune skin disease, where basically I break out in a rash all over my body, and just scratch until I feel like I am on fire. It started on my chest. Then onto the back. Then EVERYWHERE…and that include my head and face. By Monday, I was back in Gabs, after leaving the previous Thursday, and the doctors give me their worried look, give me an antihistamine shot, and sent directly to the dermatologist, who is unsure if I should be sent to the hospital. Luckily, they just dosed me with steroids, and placed in a hotel room to my own scratching devices. The thing about this rosea, I could have gotten it here, or I could have gotten it at home. So either way, this was gonna suck. After triple doses of steroids a day for a week, I am only getting weak stares from people. I seriously look like I have lepersy. LOVE IT. At least people have stopped hitting on me. Lol. instead I just get “uh….what’s wrong? What happened to you?” and might I add, these are strangers on combis that are asking me this directly with no dumelas or o tsogiles for a buffer. Though, people don’t seem to hesitate about touching me. They just grab my arm “WHAT’S WRONG?!” lol. And they are all convinced that it is something that I ate and am allergic to. I just let them believe whatever they want to believe, it’s too much of a hassle for me to explain what it really is. Either that, or people think that I’m HIV positive, which wouldn’t be so farfetched with where I am at. Oh well, people can believe whatever they want to believe, don’t think I’ll be seeing any of them again.

On the up side, I am going out and eating everything in sight. And it am SOOOOOOOO happy. I never realized how difficult going without a choice of food would have been. I have seriously not paid any respect to saving when it comes to food. I have cravings and I must satisfy them. so little piggy, Amanda, has reappeared in these past 2 weeks. I am going to list all the foods that I ate and thoroughly enjoyed. As I write these down, I want to you think about how EASY it is for you to get it. And then, I need you to be grateful for all the options that you have. Here we go: nachos, pizza, eggs benedict, chicken burgers, pizza, chow mein, pizza, dumplings, shrimp, real coffee, tortilla, lasagna, butter chicken, ice cream, pizza, pad thai, breakfast burritos, Indian food, egg drop soup, sandwiches, muffins, hummus, cake, mojito, and tortilla chips. And we only get this…once every 5 months here, that is IF AND ONLY IF you go to gabs.  And IF AND ONLY IF you are in the heart of gabs where it is easy to travel around. IF AND ONLY IF you are there for a week with absolutely nothing to do except think about food (like me J ). And as we all know, food is very important to me. Haha, so I made sure I ate everything I possibly could. But I can say, even though I was sick and ripping my skin off, I was very happy that I had the chance to eat everything in sight. It was ALMOST worth it. Haha.

August 30, 2011
My first day in my house…FINALLY. Yes, I know it’s been a while, but the day finally came. After not much tending to previously, I get back about a month later from IST/medical difficulties. My house is a MESS. There is a later of dust EVERYWHERE. I guess it has been windy, and it’s just been blowing dust right under the doors. My bath tub is matted in grim and dirt, and there is an uninvited tenant chilling in my bathroom sink, a cockroach. There are spiders and mosquitoes frolicking around in my bedroom. There is still no kitchen sink or cabinet in the kitchen. And a thick layer of dirt covering my empty sitting room, which my country director mistakened for a storage room, since there was nothing in there but bags.

Anyways, I get to my house and finally just drop my stuff after I had been gone in gabs for 3.5 weeks, a week longer than expected due to this annoying rosea (which makes me want to scratch my leg off right now…fuck). I am hungry. But I can’t cook anything because the stove isn’t set up yet. I hook up my gas to the stove. Test it out. Sweet it works. Shit…there is dust everywhere. So I can’t start cooking until I clean the oven. I wipe off the stove with some cleaner which I had bought before leaving (thank god). I do a thorough wipe down…and then heat up some ham and cheese potato balls that I had gotten from gabs the day before (luckily they were still edible after a day of traveling). I go and spray my bathroom with doom to try to kill all the bugs crawling around in the bathroom, mostly spiders, but some flying bugs. I close the bathroom to let the bugs suffocate a bit. Then I go and wipe off the fridge. Sweep the kitchen. Eat. Go back to the bathroom. Start on the tub. Shit, there is still brown dirt stains on it. I can’t seem to get them out, no matter how hard I scrub. no one else’s bare ass has used this tub, and it is still dirty as fuck. I hate when new things are not like new. It just bothers me. Looks like I’m gonna have to find myself some bleach. i take my soap box and shoo the cockroach out of my sink. I finally get it on the ground, and kick it outside. I’m not about ready to squish it, cuz it’s just gonna make more of a mess. I’ll let it fend for itself outside. Wash out my sink. Wash out my toilet. Do my dishes in the bath tub, because I have no kitchen sink. Spray my room down with doom, in hopes of killing all the bugs that are crawling and flying around my bedroom. Then off to Phikwe to grab the groceries that I need, like spices and cleaning supplies (btw, Phikwe is an hour hitch away from Bobs).

I get back from Phikwe 4 hours later. I apparently bought way too much stuff. My backpack is stuffed, and I’m still carrying another bag. And they are fricking heavy. I still have a 30 minute walk from the bus rank, carrying heavy bags, and it’s getting dark. SWEET. I am basically staggering sideways home lugging all this crap. 45 minutes later, I finally make it home with bag imprints dug into my scarred blistery hands. And there is no electricity. AWESOME. Why? Because, apparently my landlord didn’t buy anymore electricity. Luckily, after about 15 minutes of fumbling around, they find the receipt of the electricity, and it’s back on...except for my kitchen light. Luckily my landlady and her kid are awesome. and they fix my light…AND give me chairs! CHAIRS!!! THANK YOU! Haha. She gets her daughter to pull up a barrel to check on the kitchen light. The bulb has fallen out of the filament, they replace it. My landlady is pretty awesome. she doesn’t speak any English, but when I need it, she’s there and understands. I’m gonna learn a lot from her, I can tell. Anyways, they go and find me a new lightbulb. LET THERE BE LIGHT! YAY! I do a little dance. J Now I have light in all my rooms. Baby steps…eventually this house will get itself together. Next, I fill my tub with a bleach and water mixture and just start scrubbing. Nope…nothing. Ok, fine, I’ll just let it soak. I’ll cook instead. But first, I need to wash all the dishes that I plan on using in the bath tub since they have been sitting in my “storage” room for the past 2 months and I have no kitchen sink still. I attempt to make a walnut alfredo ravioli dish. Epic fail. I find myself attempting to grate parmesan cheese on the floor or the plastic chair that my landlady has let me borrow. It is a no go. The grater sucks and does not mesh well with the height options of grating. I don’t care anymore. I just pour my food into a bowl, and just sit on the kitchen floor. I am eating on my kitchen floor and staring at the doorway because I have nowhere else to eat. I don’t care how dirty it is. I am exhausted. Shit, I still need to clean my tub again. Hopefully the bleach has helped get rid of the stains. NOPE. Still stains. I scrub and scrub. no go. UGH…I am so tired…all I want to do is bath and go to sleep! Forget it, I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll just fill up the kettle to get some hot water going. GOD DAMMIT. The kitchen cleaner has spilled all over my groceries and on the kitchen floor. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. It really is one of those days. It has spilled on the floor, luckily it spilled mostly in the bag with the canned tuna. I wipe off the canned goods…and just pour the kitchen cleaner in the tub. I guess it’ll just be another way to attempt to clean my tub. Of course, it doesn’t get any of the stains out, but at least I tried. OMG…I am sooooooo fricking tired. I find myself sitting in my hallway/porch…yes, my hallway is my porch, because ALL MY ROOMS GO TO THE OUTSIDE. So I’m sitting in the dirt of my hallway/porch, staring into the night. After I muster up energy, I finally set up my kettle. Best part of my day…my bucket bath. Haha, back to the god ole bucket baths. I honestly don’t even care at this point. I AM FINALLY CLEAN.

I can finally go to bed. NOPE. I AM SOOOOOOOOOO FRICKING ITCHY. Kafhtioa wq;reyutioawe urkjrehnfad ku;repowa. FML…I finally fall asleep at 2 AM. My first day in my house. SWEET.

August 31, 2011
I desperately needed to do my laundry, after being in Gabs for a month. Unfortunately, my hands are still too torn up for me to be doing any laundry by hand. LUCKILY, another volunteer in the area has a washing machine. HALLAJUAH! haha. Unfortunately, he is all the way across the village. So here I am, I shove all my dirty clothes in my gigantic red hiking backpack (which was completely full), and start trekking it through Bobonong. I know where he lives, but I don’t want to take the main roads. So I just head in the general direction, hoping I’ll find it eventually. I just end up getting lost. So here is this little Chinese girl, wandering around the back paths of Bobonong, with her gigantic red hiking backpack, lost. I don’t think I’ve ever looked more out of place. People would just stare. “wa o kae?!”, “where are you going?!”, “ke a tsamaya go ntlo tsala ya me!”, “ I’m going to my friend’s house!,” “KGKALA!!!”, “ FAR!!!”, “ee, le ga ke itse ya kae!”, “yes, and I don’t know where I am!”. This was basically how all my conversations went with people as I wandered around lost for an hour and half. They just laughed, and would point me in a general direction. People are very helpful and kind, so no one gave me problems (except for the few that kept hassling me for my number). EVENTUALLY, I made it! WEEE!!! and ALL to use a washing machine. Sigh. APPRECIATE YOUR WASHING MACHINES!!! And don’t complain to me about how you guys have to do laundry out there in the states, unless you are doing it by hand. Then you can complain to me about doing laundry.

September 1, 2011
Today I went into work to help them calculate and consolidate their month end child weighing report. My goal is to help my clinic output better data that they are gathering, and to teach people how to use the computer as well at the same time. MULTITASKING. Lol. Anyways, after that, I needed to go get the check from the RAC. Luckily, I was able to get a ride to the RAC (which is about 3 miles away from my house). I get the check, walk to the mall to cash it. Buy a small table for my kitchen. I LUG the table a whole 2 miles home in the midday heat. I think it took me an hour to get home with that table. I think people think I’m stupid or crazy, cuz I’m always carrying oversized items around and just wandering all over the village dragging these enormous objects. I gather a lot of perplexed stares as I walk around. People don’t even ask me for money anymore. Cuz CLEARLY I don’t have any, if I am dragging around objects that are just way too big for me to be lugging around, when I could just be getting a taxi. But, hey! At least people are gonna remember who I am! But finally I have something to put my food on, and a place to grate and cut things at a reasonable height. Then hike another 2 miles back to hitch a ride to Mahalaype to start the camping journey. In half a day, I was still able to walk 6 miles in the heat. WTF, man. Ugh…and I can’t believe I lugged a table almost the size of me, across Bobonong. And ugh…I REALLY wish I had a donkey cart.

September 4, 2011
So we spent our “Labor Day” weekend at the Sowa Salt Pans (we didn’t actually have labor day off, but we gave it to ourselves).  We left for Francistown on Friday, and wandered our way over (after some yummy Indian food) to the Sowa. There were 9 of us, so we hired our own combi to take us to Sowa. Best combi ride, EVER. haha, I can’t get into the details, but it was pretty awesome, and we had fun. And most importantly, we had control to ALL the windows. Lol. We make it to Sowa about an hour and half later and meet up the rest of the gang, totaling up to 14 of us. We pile into another combi, and head out to the pans. We get there at night, so we can’t see anything. But we set up camp, make a fire, and cook us some dinner (BRAII = BBQ...we braii up some sausages, corn, and potatoes…using BEER CANS, ya we’re in Peace Corps!). And once again, since we’re Peace Corps and not used to doing a whole lot of anything all day, we were all passed out by 11. Lol. yay, we can be pretty lame too. But hey…we were pretty tired.

Wake up…at the crack of dawn. Well, first, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking that scorpions were crawling under my tent and that they were trying to sting me through the tent. And NO, I was not on anything. I was just in the middle of the salt pans! Who knows what’s out there?! I finally go to sleep. Then at around 2 AM, Clayton freaks out with an “AH!” and wakes ALL of us up. I literally shot up…I had NO idea what was going on. Haha…apparently…he had sneezed (or so he says at that moment). Lol. It’s just funny, cuz he literally woke ALL of us up. Haha. Any ways…we wake up at the butt crack of dawn, cuz people are making noise. We make a fire, people want coffee. Someone told me they were disappointed in me, cuz I didn’t wake up and 15 minutes later have a beer in my hand…have I really be coined that much of an alcoholic?! (I actually only ended up having ONE beer the whole day…that’s another strange one too though…) Lol.

Since it was earlier and still kinda cool out, a few of us decided to explore the vast unknown of nothingness. Literally, they are salt pans. It is flat. It goes on forever. We don’t see the end. It is just a horizon of just WHITE. Not snow…but just salt. Flat emptiness. It is crazy beautiful. we walk into the salt pans, and you honestly feel like you are walking to nowhere. It reminded of the desert that Jack Sparrow was stuck in and the end of the world in the third movie. There was no one around, except us. We were completely isolated. You can see for miles, but there is nothing to see. It was amazing. As you walk, the ground crunches. There are no tracks anywhere. The only tracks we find are of a truck, which we follow so we don’t get lost going around in circles. The ground is cracked from the salt ground. It feels like we’re walking towards a beach…that is WAY WAY WAY out there in the distance...somewhere. Lol. Anyways…it was SUPER cool. It is the biggest salt pan in the world. Pretty awesome. Apparently, we had walked until we were itty bitty specks on the horizon, according to the rest of the group that we had left behind. It’s an awesome concept to be on the edge of a horizon to someone.

So after we got back, and cooked eggs, all we did for the rest of the day was hang out under a shelter that a mine nearby had built. It was dusty, but WAY cooler than out on the pan. It was probably in the upper 90s out there. We just hung out, talked, drank, played board games and card games. The wind was blowing dust everywhere. There were even sand tunnels blowing out on the pans that we could watch. Some were small, somewhere huge. We tried to find wildebeest. We saw two things approaching us…though had no idea what it was. We decided that they were aliens that were trying to abduct us (which I really don’t think is unlikely out there…we found some strange children footprints that appeared and ended out of nowhere). But turns out, we think they were just 2 4x4s. damn, wish we coulda been doing that. Oh well.

Eventually, the boys decide to start up the grill and create these little ovens/firepits by digging up the dirt and surrounding them with bricks. We watched the sunset on the pans…AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL. Then watched 2 volunteers cut a prickly tree branch with a leatherman knife. Needless to say, they did not come out unharmed. That tree is a feisty fucker. Unfortunately for them, it is never easy to burn a living tree, so their efforts were a bit unheeded. Felt bad for them, but eh, live and learn right? Apparently, we were all passed out by 11 (ya, we’re pathetic…we are just so used to going to bed early!).

We wake up early because the combi is supposed to come pick us up at 7 AM. We watched the sunrise on the pans…gorgeous. We pack up our things, clean up all of our trash. And the combi arrives at 730, not bad for Africa time. We head back to Francistown, have lunch (amazing iced coffee), then back off to Bobonong.
So I get home after 12 hours of traveling from Sowa and being stranded at Phikwe for 2 hours, and there is NO WATER. TIA. FML. The only thing I’ve been looking forward to was the bath that I was gonna take. And there is NO FUCKING WATER. UGH. Apparently all of Bobonong is out of water. Ukherf jkawd kjfhbaji ruoaiwgjkfba kjd.

The interesting thing that I’ve realized though, no matter what is happening or what has happened, or what situation I have been in (minus the staff not being supportive), there is no place else I’d rather be at the end of the day. If I’m stuck in a bus with the windows closed and sweating (yes, I’d rather be in an air conditioned car), I’d still rather be here in Botswana. Even when I have to shoo bugs away, and deal with having no water, this is part of the life here. And as frustrating as it may be, I would still rather be here. I know some of the other volunteers may wonder wtf is wrong with me. But I think when you are stripped of all luxuries that you have known, you begin to notice and enjoy the little things. And at the end of the day, my simple little life out here is exactly what I needed, and I can’t really think of anything that I would want to change (except maybe the layout of my house…lol).

September 6, 2011
Today I went to a mobile stop at Maiswe. It is a small little village on the outskirts of Bobonong. It takes about 30 minutes of driving into the bush to get to this little settlement. I found it incredibly interesting. Mobile stops are medical stops that our clinic takes to go to other villages on the outskirts of Bobonong, or as we like to call it…going into the bush. Many of these people are unable to make it into Bobonong to the clinic or the hospital, so we go to them to make sure they get their checkups and rations. We had been waiting for transport all morning to take us to the mobile stop. We finally reach there at around 1:30 PM and there are about 75 people perched under trees on their blankets just waiting for us. They had all brought their children to be weighed. So there were about 30 kids between the ages of 6 months and 5 years just running around, waiting for us. We get there, and the health educator gave a little speech/health talk in Setswana (unfortunately, I have no idea what she told them). I introduced myself (because clearly, they were curious as to why a little Chinese girl just came out of the back of the ambulance). And the nurse gave an introduction about why I was here and where I was from. They were all incredibly sweet, they thanked me for being there. That made me happy. J

Then we weighed the babies under the trees. Of course, they gave me the part of the job that did the most, so I got piled up with children’s health books, while trying to record all their information on our log book. I spent the next hour asking “ngwana, o kile alwala?” (child, has he/she been sick?) or “nana, o ja eng?” (baby, what does he/she eat?). As I went through each book, I would ask the mother these questions. They would wait in line, and watch as their book was getting pulled from the stack, and would answer my questions. It was pretty cool. We stayed out here for about 2 hours, as the nurse gave vaccines and gave out meds to the people of this little village. The other interesting thing about today was that I found a box of condoms, and realized they weren’t being distributed. So I took the box of condoms out, and in 30 seconds, all 100 condoms were GONE. People were grabbing them by the handful. A lady told me to give more to another lady because she had 5 boys and that she needed the condoms. I think that’s just how things roll out here. No condoms, more babies. Hopefully I helped save one of these women another unwanted pregnancy with these condoms. That would be pretty cool.

I did laundry today at 4:15 PM when I got home. And it is so hot, they were dry by 6 PM. I’m scared shitless for this summer and what the heat has to bring. I am going to cry. I guarantee it already.

I wanted to touch up on how things work in terms of patients records out here. You know how in the states, we don’t bring anything but our insurance cards when we see a doctor? And they have all the records and your history? Well, here everyone is in charge of their own records. They are basically called patient health cards. All the children and provided with a Child Health Book, where we record each month how much a child weighs, what their ailments are when they get sick, their HJV status (as well as the mother’s HIV status), and height. We measure the children’s height once every 6 months (February and August). We weigh the babies every month. But even if you’re an adult, you have your own records as well, that you bring in whenever you get a check up, get meds, or need to see a nurse for a problem. Everyone here is in charge of their own records. Which actually seems to be a decent system. I like it at least. I feel like in the states we waste too much paper and space with that. It also makes sure people here are more in charge of their own health needs and helps them understand more of what their ailments are.

Something I’ve noticed is that people are incredibly patient here. They can be left waiting, and not a peep or complaining. They will be asked to do things, because someone is clearly too lazy to move, and someone will go and do it if asked. I don’t know if it’s just that they don’t have anything better to do. Or if they are just used to be kept waiting. I guess the whole “Africa time” concept is incredibly ingrained into their culture. “Africa time” meaning that there is no real set time, and people can be as late as they want. Nothing really starts on time, and nothing really gets done so much on a schedule, they happen when they happen. Haha, for Americans, this can be incredibly frustrating since we value ours and others time so much. But here, this is just what they are used to. I guess…when in Rome, do as the Romans do. A thing that we Americans need to remember…is that we are NOT in America anymore, and we are not going to turn Botswana into America. So we just go with what we’re given and just roll with it. Otherwise, you will find yourself pulling your hair out, and that just won’t do for the next 2 years.

September 7, 2011
Today, I had to ask someone how to mop a floor. Well, more so along the lines of “am I supposed to squeeze the water out of the mop before I start mopping?” ya, ok…I grew up spoiled. I’m not going to deny it. But…HEY, give me credit! At least I’m trying and not complaining about doing it! Ya ya ya, pathetic, I know. I’m getting there. Lol. And my bedroom finally feels clean. J

September 8, 2011
Today I played with a baby. He was adorable. Then I went to a preschool in Molalatu, which is about 20 km away from Bobs. One of the ladies, or I would like to consider as one of my “moms” from the Home Based Care, has started a preschool out there. She wanted to show it to me, and of course, I love going to places like that. So I just watched kids play around for about an hour. We’re thinking about having me come out once a month and teach them English. Doesn’t sound too bad of a job.

Then I went and picked cabbage in a cabbage patch for an hour. Seriously. Haha, life is funny sometimes.

September 14, 2011
Today I did my first “capacity building.” We have been doing reports by hand, where we do all our calculations in a notebook and by cellphone. I got tired of writing that could simply be created on excel. So the past couple months, I have been working on creating an easy report on the computers. But, I was the only one that knew how to do it. So today…I taught one of the health educators how to use to computer…and input the data into the report!!! YAY!!! I will continue to monitor her inputs, but the basics were there. She was super happy to learn and was surprised how easy it was to do. Step one. Baby steps, Amanda, baby steps. J

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