January 11, 2012
We had a very busy holiday. We went down a bit earlier to
Kumakwane to celebrate Hanukkah. Ya, we had Hanukkah in Botswana. It was a lot
of peoples first Hanukkah. Tija did an amazing job preparing the Jewish meal
with included latkes, matzo ball soup, Spanish rice, and a few other things
that I don’t remember what they were called. But all in all, it was delicious.
We did the whole candle lighting and the prayer. There were about 12 people that
came to this celebration. A majority of the people who were going to Cape Town
stayed here prior to leaving for our trip. There were a few tiffs and taffs,
where we could see how our group was going to be divided up. As we all know in
life, not everyone is always going to get along. Let alone when you stick a
whole bunch of type A personalities together. So to keep it real with all you
readers, we people here in peace corps are not always peaceful amongst
ourselves. In fact we are quite an awful group to be around when we are
together. but this is for another entry.
We all clambered into a combi at 5 AM in the morning so the
gang could catch the 630 AM bus from gabs to joburg. I on the other hand was
not leaving until 130 PM on a flight from gabs to joburg. Yes, I know I’m posh,
but I just got my tickets a bit later than the others. But at this point, I was
incredibly thankful to be traveling on my own, being that I hadn’t had a moment
to myself in about a week. So I welcomed the solidarity. I guess when you are
now used to being on your own for so long, it’s hard to adjust to being around
10 people 24/7 for a few days. I now welcome some peace and quiet, fancy that!
Lol. Anyways, we end up on Long Street in Cape Town. This place looks like a
combination of San Diego, New York City, and New Orleans put together on one
street. It’s pretty awesome. we are staying in a hostel that holds about 20
people in our room, but it’s the “penthouse”, where there is a bar on the
rooftop. Skyscrapers. Lights. Paved roads. Mix of races. We have landed back in
what we would consider the world we knew. Amazing. We go scouring for some
sushi and eventually end up at a karaoke bar. A couple of us sing, though not
me, just wasn’t in the mood, and we just drink to our hearts content. We met a
few Namibian volunteers. By the end of the night we are running up and down Long
Street looking for a slice of pizza, but instead find a shot of chocolate
tequila and a bbq chicken pizza with avocado to share. Ok, so not quite nyc,
but it kinda looks like it!
We wake up in the morning a bit confused…or hungover. Lol.
but hey, I think we deserved our night out. and what is the best cure to a
hangover? MCDONALDS. OMFG YES…MCDONALDS. Egg Mcmuffin, hash brown and orange
juice!!! OMG, is this really happening?! Am I in heaven?! Do you understand
that I now think that McDonalds is heaven?! AMAZING. I was the happiest camper
just eating an egg mcmuffin. I savored EVERY bite. All the grease from the hash
brown…DELICIOUS. Wow, what has my life come to? You know what, I could give a
shit less. I now appreciate my life. Lol. Today is a shopping day. We are in
shopping heaven. We find cute boutiques with absolutely adorable clothes and
dresses. We are looking for a new year’s dress. Of course boys will be boys,
and they part from us girls. In the process I found an almond croissant…BEAUTY
in a pastry. You know when the last time I had a croissant was? I HAVE NO IDEA.
I don’t even think I breathed while I ate it. I seriously stopped in my tracks
while eating this thing. Nothing else in life existed. Ok, I’m sorry, I love
food too much. Lol. I end up finding a dress, even though I don’t actually need
one. The thing is, I’ve lost a lot of weight since I’ve gotten here, and I can
actually fit into tight skimpy things now without my muffin tops bulging out.
so this would be the first treat for me to actually be able to wear something
like this in a LONG time. And it’s nice to feel like I’m dressed nice for a
change. I ran it through my head over and over again, debated, and after much
thought I left it to fate. If it was still there when I came back, I would buy
it. When I went back a few days later, fate told me to buy it. Hehe. It was
cute! Anyways, we spend most of the day shopping at various places, including
the huge mall on the waterfront. It was a nice break to finally be able to just
shop at a real mall. Oh!!! And then we got mani pedis. Ya, we were being girls,
but we couldn’t help it…it had been sooooooo long! After our relaxing mani
pedis, we ate….MEXICAN FOOD. Ya, I’m mostly going to talk about food. We all
shared some margheritas (which weren’t amazing but it’s better than nothing,
which is exactly what we’ve been having…no margheritas for the past 8
months) and I got enchiladas. I enhaled
them, and was sooooooooooooooo happy. Seriously, if you want to make me happy,
just feed me something yummy. J
We woke up early to get on a train to Stellenbosh. And what
is Stellenbosh, might you ask? WINE TASTING!!! We were bougie for the day.
Sipping on wine and tasting cheese, basking ourselves in the beautiful scenery
of the wineries and the backdrops of breathtaking hills. We were also drunk by
12. Classy. Hehe. But we couldn’t help it! It’s good wine! We’ve been drinking
out of boxes here, so when we get good wine, we go at it. AND CHEESE…ya,
there’s not stopping us. We were those cheap fucks that were eating all the
free cheese and got at third and fourth rounds. I’ll make you a promise now,
when I am no longer broke and have made a decent amount of cash, I will taste
my wine and spit it out, and only go around the cheese tasting once. But until
then, and I’m broke as fuck, cuz I’m a volunteer for the government, let me be,
and don’t judge me! The tour took us to five wineries, where I eventually
bought a bottle of wine and a bottle of sparkling wine for new years. Overall,
and very happy, fruitful, drunken day.
If you’re gay, and you’ve been shoved back into the closet
for the past year, this was the place to be to run screaming back out of the closet.
Me and a couple of us went out to the gay bars. Very distinct placement, and couldn’t
miss the scenery. Men wearing tight shirts. All dressed nicely. Nicely groomed.
Well built. To many, they look to be the perfect specimen of man. Lol. We
danced the night away. And at one point during the night, we ended up at a
lesbian bar, where my friends conveniently disappeared on me when a girl began
to hit on me. Lovely. Luckily, she was distracted quite easily by the two men
ribbon dancing in the corner. We went out to the gay bars again later in the week,
this time with a bigger group. There we just danced up a storm, and all the girls
who went were definitely all hit on, some in nice ways, and some not so nice. but
amusing nonetheless. Fabulous nights!!! J
For New Years, we celebrated at a partial dress up rave. We
got all dressed up, pre-gamed, or just got drunk before getting there. I was
wearing heels, though I never would at a normal rave, but this was an
exception. There were five stages, and we just danced the night away to
blastingly loud electronic, while teetering to the music. It was such an
eventful night, I barely remember it. Lol. Though I do remember stumbling to
mickey d’s at 5 AM to get an egg mcmuffin and being VERY happy with it. As for
the new years kisses, I gave EVERYONE in our group a new years kiss. You can’t
have new years without a kiss!!!
After our new years bash, we decided to head to the beach.
The ride down was so beautiful. You basically go up over the mountain, and you
get the whole view of the bay as you’re going down. It was soooooooo amazing.
We watched people hang glide off the top of Table Mountain. Though once we
reached the beach, it reminded me of what Labor Day looks like at Santa Monica
beach. It was packed like sardines on the beach. And people were swimming all
over each other in the ocean, or more like screaming in each other’s ears cuz
the water was sooooooooooooo cold, that’s all you could do, but scream. We went
into the water, and it was the COLDEST water I had ever had to swim in. I now
know what it must have felt like for those that had to swim when the titanic
went down. It was FREEZING. I attempted to stay in for 3 waves, and got my hair
wet. And after that I was done, it was soooooooooo cold, I was wailing. Anyways,
after our freezing dip, some sun bathed, while some of us went to the rocks to
check out the tide pools. Jerms and I had fun pulling off barnacles and small
crabs and poking them. Then we gave them new homes in other tide pools. We also
buried two others in the sand, while kids gather trash and rocks from all over the
beach and placed them on their mound of sand that they were buried under. Apparently
burying people in the sand is odd, cuz everyone was staring at us like we were
nuts. Hehe. I think we might be just a teebit. Hehe.
Last big thing that I can remember from the trip, was that
we went down to Simon’s Town, which is south of Cape Town. Here, we wanted to
see the penguins! We took a train down about an hour to an hour and a half. Along
the way up, we got the most gorgeous views of the western coast line of South
Africa. It reminded me a lot of Route 1 in California, except much flatter, but
it was beautiful. I saw ocean pools, manmade ocean pools, but ocean pools
nonetheless. I really wanted to go swimming in them, but we had a destination
to reach. I also saw people surfing, so that means, I’m just going to have to
go back to go surfing. It was an amazing peaceful ride up, just what the doctor
ordered. God, have I missed the ocean. It’s been the only place in my life that
gave me peace of mind, and was my life saver over my small span of life. So I
thanked it again for everything it has done for me. We stopped at a cute little
seaside town. Had a definite European feel to it, it was adorable. We found a
place that would let us kayak to the beach where the penguins hang, Boulder’s
Beach. This was my first time kayaking, and luckily we had buddies. I was with
my bestie, so we worked well together, and I applaud him for his patience, as
much hands cramped up a lot. We kayaked for about 25 minutes before we reached
the beach where the penguins were hanging out. When we got there, we saw the
penguins swimming around and them just sun bathing on the beach. We were allowed
to swim around and we could see the penguins in the water in the distance, so
it felt like we were swimming with the penguins. I freaked out a little, since
I don’t like swimming so far away from shore cuz of the damn fish and animals,
but it was REALLY awesome. and for some reason, the water wasn’t freezing like
it was at Camps Bay. It must have to do with the currents, but it was
sooooooooo awesome. We found penis seaweeds, where the seaweed just looked like
large floating penises. That was amusing as well. We also saw a seal. We
kayaked back, which was more challenging, as we were paddling against the wind,
but we made it back, and I was so proud of…me. Haha, I was soooo tired
afterwards! But so worth it. And the awesomest place to start kayaking, so I’ve
got no complaints. J
We ran back to try to
catch the train back to Cape Town. We were late, and as we were running, my
dress was coming down. I think I may have flashed a few people, but we made it
onto the train, on the second to last carrier (ding ding ding, kinda something
to take note of). Half way through our ride, some supposively drunk teenage
boys got onto the train, where they proceeded to hold a very loud and scenic
argument in Afrikaans, with some other women that were on the train. I was
trying to sleep, while others were trying to listen to music, and we had no
idea what was going on. We just figured they were just arguing with each other,
no big deal. At the next stop, the boys get off the train, and move to the back
carrier. Apparently, these “drunk” boys were planning on robbing us. But
luckily, the women knew what they were up to, and that was what the arugment
was about. These women had chased these boys off the train so they wouldn’t rob
us. OMG, we are some lucky clueless tourists. The women then told us that they
had gone into the back carrier and robbed every person on that train. Then they
tried to come back to our train, where the women threated them with a drinking
glass. We watched all this in confusion until the women told us. Wow, we are
dumb and lucky. So note to self now, don’t take the last few carriers on a
train in South Africa. Though, this was our only close encounter to the known
violence and crime of South Africa.
Now for the most part, I guess I’ve kind of lost track of
everything else that we had done, so let me just kind of outline it all for you.
I’ll start with food, I ate dim sum (duck char sui buns and a ton of
dumplings), and honestly the best meal I had the whole trip, uh, brunch, where
I had yummy eggs benedict, cuz that’s what I always get for brunch. We had
seafood, where I got some yummy fish. I also had delicious sushi, where I ordered
too much, but enjoyed every bite I put in my mouth. I have to highlight my
meals, because food is way too important to me, especially when I’m on
vacation. Oh! And we also go thai massages (and not the ones with happy
endings, for those of you that would have asked!), and they were heavenly. We
didn’t get to hike Table Mountain, because the day we had planned to hike it
was the ONE day it decided to rain, so we couldn’t walk it, for fear we would
slip and die off the side of the mountain. But all in all, a very happy happy,
and necessary vacation that we all needed super badly to keep our sanity. Happy
2012!!!
January 18, 2012
I know we bitch a lot about how we hate it when people keep
asking us for money because we’re different. I say different because most of
the volunteers are white, but there are a few Asians and a few African
Americans. Anyways, for the most part, we all get asked daily for 1 pula or 10
pula, so on so forth. I mean, people ask for that on the street in the states,
but they don’t discriminate as much to who they are asking. Where people here,
they tend to ask because they think everyone that comes from the states must be
rich. But the thing about it is, they don’t actually need the money. They
aren’t asking because they are starving. They are asking just because they
think we have money, and that we like to give it away. Which really is a pain
in the ass and kinda gets under my skin, but I just ask them to give me double
the amount they were asking me. Or tell them I just don’t want to give it to
them. Most people that ask for money even have their own jobs and make more
money than I do. But what I’m trying to get down to, I guess I would rather be
asked to give money by people that don’t need it, than be asked by people who
really do need it. At least here I can say no without having a tinge of guilt
or regret. But say if people daily asked me for money, and they haven’t eaten
in days, especially children, I wouldn’t know what to do. It would be a lose-lose
situation. If I didn’t give it, then they would be starving. But if I did give
it, I would be setting precedence that I am one to be asked and would actually
give. So I must say, I am happier to be in the position that I am in, than if
it was otherwise. It just becomes more annoying when people ask me for money
than it is sad here.
February 12, 2012
Things that now excite me
- When I turn on the faucet and water comes out
- Rain…
- And when it does rain, that it doesn’t rain in my house or on my bed
- Ceilings
- A grass lawn…
- A CUT grass lawn
- Showers
- Washing machines
- Dryers
- Cloudy days
- Rain boots
- When people ignore me or don’t notice me
- A house with all the doors on the inside
- A chair that reclines on transportation vehicles (buses, airplanes…)
- A chair that I can actually fit in and sit comfortably in on a bus
- Window screens
- Cold weather
- Not being itchy EVERY DAY
- Sales clerks having change for a purchase or service
- Customer service
- Water that doesn’t taste salty
- Finding mixed salad bags instead of just lettuce at the market
- Finding tortillas at the market
- Finding sour cream at the market
- Boneless meat
- Getting alone time
- Curling up under blankets to sleep
- Sleeping past 8 AM
- Running hot water, when it’s cold
- Running cold water, when it’s hot
- When people immediately recognize that I am not from China
- Toilet paper in the bathrooms
- Soap in the bathrooms
- When I can ORDER food off a menu and NOT have to cook it myself
- When ordering a rum and coke, that they are actually mixed together before reaching me
Things that no longer excite me:
- Cow
- Chickens
- Goats
- Sheep
- Donkeys
- Drinking
- Off-roading in a car…because it’s technically always off-roading here, lol
- Walking just to walk…because I HAVE to walk everywhere and now it’s a necessity
- Internet
- Homemade mac n cheese
- Going out/night life
May 22, 2012
My bad. I guess it’s been a while. Lol. And for those of you
who may be wondering, no I didn’t stop writing cuz I early terminated. Haha.
Anyways, HOLY SHIT…I’ve been here for over year, and I’m half way done with
service. It’s crazy to think how time flies. I remember just waiting for
service to start, like two years ago, and here I am, half way done with my time
in Botswana. And now when I put it that way, I guess I kinda wish it wasn’t
moving so fast. I think maybe since today has been the first cold day since
August, I’m just happy to be here. Haha. Wasn’t so happy when it was blazing
hot. It’s funny though, when I look back, it feels like time went fast, but
when I live it day to day, it feels slow. So I guess the best way to describe
it is that days go slow, but months go by fast. And to those of you who are
wondering if I’m going to come back early…I highly doubt it. I honestly really
like it here. I’m happy. I smile a lot. I feel sort of peace in me at times,
which is better than never. I like the quiet. I like seeing stars every night.
I like breathing fresh air. There are more donkeys in my village than there are
cars. I’m relaxed. I have good people that surround me. So as much as you may
hear me bitch about things, underneath it all, I am happy and am enjoying my
time here. So for those of you who care if I’m happy or not, not to worry, I am
a smiling, happy, little panda. J
As to that, let me tell you what I’ve been up to for the
past five months. On Mondays and Wednesdays mornings, I go to the library to
teach computer lessons to anyone in the community that wants to learn. Then in
the afternoons, I either go to Home Based Care to hang out and help out, or the
DAC to check in to see if anyone needs help. Then on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Fridays mornings, I go to the clinic to help weigh babies. Then in the
afternoons, it’s once again I either go to Home Based Care to hang out and help
out, or the DAC to check in to see if anyone needs help. Lately I’ve also been
going to the District Health Team to see if they need help with creating and
teaching the people there how to use and create report templates. On the second
to last Tuesday of each month, I help my clinic staff with ARV day, where we
dispense our ARVs for HIV+ patients. I help enter vital signs for the doctor
into their ARV monitoring system. With the DAC office, I’ve been attempting to
show STEPS videos, to children, to support groups, to patients, which are
videos about HIV. Not so much about what HIV is, but more so about stigma,
discrimination, and getting people to openly talk about the disease, and trying
to get people to relate to the videos on their own levels, so getting
emotionally involved. I still go to some of the mobile stops in the afternoon
with my clinic. And in the evenings, I have my kids come over and they color. I
got them a coloring book and some crayons, so they come over to color. They can
color in the lines, but have problems or just don’t care to color things with
the correct color? Like, they colored a pirate’s beard purple and his face pink.
I’m not quite sure if it’s just that they don’t know what color it should be,
or if they just don’t care. Haha. Then after they color, I go see and play with
the baby (my sister that lives on the compound just had a baby, back in March.
The baby’s name is Pretty. She’s really cute and doesn’t cry much. So I really
like her!), I cook dinner, eat, and watch a show on my computer. Then I study
for the GMAT, then bath, then off to bed! On the weekends, I’ve been going
around and about, relaxing, watching TV shows and movies, studying, cleaning,
and I’ve been helping my friend with her garden. Yes, I am gardening now. but
not really. Haha. I think I’ve never been into planting, but more so
destroying. Haha. So I’ve helping her clear out the grass and weeds so she can
plant tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, morogo (basically like spinach), and
onions. So it’s just been a pretty chill five months, got a little routine
down.
On the down side, I’ve been dealing with fungi trying to
gnaw my feet off for the past five months. I’ve been trying to fight off fungi
that have been creating itchy feet. So I’ve been up and down to the doctors in
Gaborone. We have no idea where it’s coming from, but I’m hoping now that it’s
getting cold, it’ll subside, and just pray it doesn’t come back in the summer.
Cuz I seriously thought about cutting out chucks of my feet cuz they itched so
badly.
In April, I went to Durban with my boyfriend. We went and
played in the Indian Ocean, surfed, swam, skydived, went to the botanical
gardens, ate Mexican food, ate seafood, ate won ton noodles, drank real mixed
drinks, went to a reggae club, and had absolutely no desire to go to a club!
Lol. What’s even better about the whole idea that I didn’t want to go to the
club, was that the club that we could have gone to, was exactly the same club
that I would go to back in LA, Boulevard! Same name, same look, same
atmosphere. And I had absolutely no desire to go. The only reason why I felt
like I should have gone, is because that’s what I used to do. And to be
perfectly honest, I could care less now. I taught Mpumi how to surf…or at least
I got him to actually stand up on a moving wave. He loved it! I guess I found
myself a new surfing buddy! J
And of course, I caught a couple of waves. Took me a bit to get back up, but I
did it! It was nice to just battle the ocean again. We also went skydiving.
Mpumi was nervous as we were going up, cuz when we went up, it went around in
circles, so it took some time to get to 12,000 feet, so it gives you some time
to think about what you were actually doing. Haha, I forgot to mention, when we
first got there, we went to the wrong place and almost joined the accelerated
jumpers group, which is the group that does solo jumping for the first time.
Haha, Mpumi would have had a heart attack. Anyways, we went up, and he jumped,
and we were both so happy afterwards. This time I could scream. And it was
awesome, though I almost got choked by the harness when the parachute was
pulled. Lol. But I got to control the reins of the parachute which was super
awesome. We landed differently than when I did it San Diego. In San Diego, we
did a running landing, where here we did a sliding landing. Dunno what the
difference is, but thought that was interesting. Now I can say I skydived and
surfed in Africa! We went to a mall, and they had a section that would have
been heaven for me about 4 years ago…all the skater shops in one little area.
In fact, I still loved it, and made me miss home a bit, but it was amazing to
see. I hadn’t even seen such a compilation of stores in one area in the states!
So it was pretty awesome. I wanted to buy everything! The cool thing about
Durban is that there is a much larger Asian community than I had seen in Cape
Town. And when I mean Asian, I mean Indian. When we went to the Mexican restaurant,
about a third of the people there were Indian, though not unlike the states,
they still kept to themselves, where they were in large groups of other
Indians. And I did meet someone that spoke Cantonese at a Chinese restaurant,
which is the first real life person I’ve talked to in Cantonese in over a year.
We passed by the stadium where the World Cup was held two years prior. Wish I
was there for it! Oh well, guess I’ll just have to wait for Brazil…if I have
the money! All in all, we had a great time, and I really enjoyed the ocean. The
ocean always makes life better. J
So, I’m also going to
talk about how I felt races ran in South Africa in Durban. I am specifying
Durban, because I didn’t feel the same in Cape Town. But when we went to Cape
Town, it was holiday season with a ton of tourists…and I was with a bunch of
white people. And unfortunately, that is a huge difference, though some may
disagree. I am American, but you can’t tell that by looking at me, I just look
Chinese. And with races, that’s really what it comes down to, how you look.
There is no specific category for me to really belong to in South Africa. So
let me tell you, that I may have a bit of a different perspective than others.
I am neither black nor white. Given, I believe that South Africa has done an
amazing job of coming together after the apartheid 18 years ago, but there is
definitely still a bit of a divide. But I can’t blame them, it’s been 50 years
for the states, and definitely still do have our own divides. Being with Mpumi,
we really didn’t fit in anywhere. There were bars where everyone in my line of
sight were black, and then there were other bars where everyone in my line of
sight were white. So which one do I go
to? Either way, it was uncomfortable, cuz either way, people would stare. So
that was first for me and an interesting eye opener. At home, I was able to
avoid situations as such, so I had never understood them. But, TIA, it doesn’t
work that way. But I’m glad I saw and participated in it. It really opened my
eyes to the fact that race still does play a role in many things, and as much
as I believe the world is improving, you can’t deny that it is still around. I
am not trying to diss anyone, I’m just telling you how I felt. I know race is a
very touchy subject, but I found it to be an important insight that I had
gathered from the trip. I was very much reminded that as much as I would want
to believe that race shouldn’t matter, and it should be about who you are, it’s
just not so quite yet. And it’s also very much opened my eyes to how it’s also
still the case in the states in many ways.
In May, I learned how to drive a donkey cart. It’s the same
as driving, except with donkeys and reins. You pull the right rein to turn
right, pull left to turn left, whistle for the donkeys to start moving, and
pull both reins to make them slow down or stop. It’s a much bumpier ride than I
had imagined, but a ton of fun anyways. I don’t think the Mirwa had ever seen
an Asian driving a donkey cart. People were either shocked or laughing to see
me driving the donkey cart. But I had so much fun. My family on my compound is
pretty awesome to let me give their donkeys and donkey cart a test drive and of
course teaching me how to drive it. Haha, I completed one of my main goals for
Botswana!
May 23, 2012
I am exhausted today. Partially in a good way. J Today, I went around
with the National Health Laboratory gathering results/doing surveys on all the
clinics in the Bobirwa Sub District on discordant HIV tests, meaning how many
HIV tests gave mixed results of positive or negative. They are doing this to
help monitor the test results and test kits, and to see if there may be a
pattern as to why some results or areas may have discordant results. Here, not
every clinic has a fax or even a phone, so they have to send someone out to
each clinic to collect the data. Oh, and I got pulled into this cause I just so
happened to be in the room with the guy collecting the results at my clinic,
and he wanted me to start up the skeleton of the database that all the data
will be gathered into. Ya, haha, looks like I’m back at my old job! Haha. So I
found out that there are 676 health facilities in Botswana, that encompasses
hospitals, clinics, and health posts. Just an FYI. Anyways, today, we went
north east of Bobonong to the health clinics and posts and gathered data. That
also means, that we needed to go into the Tuli block, which is where game
drives occur, to collect data. I think I saw at least 40 elephants, 20
giraffes, a ton of impala, baboons, and guinea fowl. It was soooooooooooo
awesome to see so many elephants and giraffes. I saw baby elephants and baby
giraffes. And what’s even better about this whole situation…was that my “game
drive” was free! It was just a part of work. That is why living out here is so
awesome. Just on a work drive, you will see the awesomest wild animals that you
would only be able to see at a zoo in the states. And they are just wandering
around in their natural habitat. It made me happy to see the animals in the
wild. That’s where they belong, not in a little cage, gawked at in a zoo. So
all of you, stop going to the zoos and come visit me instead!!!
