Week 44: “Happy Birthday to Me…” June 9th-15th

I am now the wise old age of 22. One year ago I graduated from University and became legally able to drink in the States and then promptly moved half way across the globe to Botswana. A little geography lesson, Botswana is located in Southern Africa resting just above South Africa and bordered by Namibia to the west, Zimbabwe to the east and touching Zambia at the site of Victoria Falls.  The official languages in Botswana are Setswana and English although there are also a variety of other languages spoken including Kalanga, Sarwa, Ndebele, and Afrikaans.

As of June 13^th I have been living in Botswana for 10 months and in the village of Moshana for 8 months. Frequently I question what I am actually accomplishing here, however, I have some how managed to worm my way into the hearts of the teachers at my school. In the staff room there is a small calendar where I post my monthly schedule. The calendar is mostly so the staff can see when I will be working in other villages however I also marked my birthday. This did not go unnoticed (it also probably helped that I told everyone) and the teachers threw me a surprise party complete with cake, presents, and speeches. Highlights of the party included the photo shoot, where everyone took a photo with me, which is made better by the fact that one of the teachers tricked me into going home at tea for my camera saying she needed it to film her students. She was a very convincing liar and although the project was fictional, now that I know the idea, I would love to see it come to fruition, and am grateful that the party was well documented. The presents consisted of a space heater and a blanket, which could not have been better, I am currently sitting under the blanket next to the space heater and I am quite toasty. Hilariously I was a bit late to school today since I could not rouse myself from the cold, with my new heater, I have no excuse. To conclude the party the school head said, “This is love,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Week 43: Back to Village Life

Sadly there were no metal cowboys to be found this week, however, I did feel vaguely like a cowboy (okay more like a dairy farmer) as I learned how to milk the goats my land-lady keeps

Term two at school has started up and the temperature has dropped. Morning temperatures this week reached a whopping 27 degrees Fahrenheit, which lead me to put on all of the warm things I owned and then dance around my house singing, “I am a marshmallow, marshmallow, marshmallow.” The temperature is likely to reach the 60s by the afternoon, which brings an end to my marshmallow dance and the feeling back to my toes. As a native Chicagoan I am used to temperatures much colder for longer periods of time, however, I am also used to insulation, central heating, and indoor plumbing. Lucky for me, the winter is much shorter in Moshana than it is in Chicago.

Week 42: Ghanzi Metal Festival

The last week of May marked Ghanzi’s fifth annual metal music festival and my first metal concert. Initially when my friend invited me to the event I thought, “Oh fun, I love crafts!” It was not until weeks later that I discovered I had actually agreed to go to a metal music festival and not a craft fair. Knowing that I may not have agreed to attend, however, I am so glad I did. The festival draws bands and metal enthusiasts from all over Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (as well as an unsuspecting peace corps volunteer). The weekend was also quite informative as the mystery of what constituted a metal cowboy, was unraveled. From what I saw a metal cowboy wears leather chaps, fringe, and a whole lot of studs.

During the day we were doing HIV/AIDS education and community outreach and by night we were all just a few metal enthusiasts. Highlights for me included the march across town, in the name of ending poverty however more like an excuse for the metal cowboys to strut their stuff. The march was very informative for me as I also learned the appropriate way to strut, even if my bright orange shirt did not exactly match the leather body suits, I did learn to strut with the best of them. Although I am still partial to crafts I am also excited for next years metal music festival.

Ghanzi is a village in the northern part of the Khalahari desert on the western side of Botswana, not far from the Namibian border.