Monday, June 29, 2015
Week 98: On the Banks of the Zambezi
Week 97: High Tea
As a side note, winter hit hard this week and it is now time
to wear mittens to bed and really I don’t see a reason to ever remove them.
Week 96: Scheduled and Rescheduled
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Week 95: No Goats Allowed
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Week 94: A Lesson in Setswana
Dumela mma/rra Good
morning/day madam/sir The most common way to greet
someone
O tsogile jang? How are you? Literally, How have you risen?
Ke tsogile sentle I am
well
Literally,
I have risen well. This is
rude to ask people older than you
in
some parts of the country.
Le kae?
How are you?
Literally,
Where are you? The “you”
is plural in this greeting however
it can
be used to address a group of people or
a single individual. If it is
used for a
single individual it is assumed the asker
is inquiring after the
person’s family.
Re teng
We are fine Literally, We
are here.
Go siame
Goodbye or Alright
Ke kopa… I am
asking for…
Dijo Food
Metsi Water
Week 93: All Volunteer Conference
This week there was an All Volunteer Conference for Peace
Corps Volunteers in Botswana. I spent three days surrounded by more Americans
than I have seen in months. This is usually a source of some anxiety for my and
leads to some inevitable comparisons amongst volunteers. However, with less
than 5 months left of my service and only two more working moths (the last
three months I am not supposed to start new projects but simply stay in my
village and start saying goodbye) my attitude was very different this time. I
was able to celebrate the accomplishments of my peers, provide stories of both
my successes and my failures and mostly just have a great time catching up with
people. It was the first, and probably the last, time that I saw some
volunteers who were not in my intake group. I was able to make new friends and
catch up with old ones. For many people in my group who do not live near me, I
will see them one more time at our close of service conference in July (before
we are all commanded to stay put in our villages until we leave in October). I
am so grateful to have shared this experience with so many amazing people.
Through out our service there has been a lot of talk of the “Peace Corps
Family” which I did not necessarily buy into and was more of the mindset that
these were some “government mandated friends” however after over 21 months
together and a multitude of shared experiences, even if they were happening on
opposite sides of the country, I know that this is my peace corps family. These
people will be my Peace Corps family no matter where in the world we are.
Week 92: A Compliment
Change takes time. I have been living in Moshana village for
19 months and working regularly with 14 teachers. Many of these teachers have
come and gone, left to have babies, and returned, however there are a few that
I have been working alongside since I arrived. After my initial push to get to
know my co-workers and my new community, I identified people that I felt I
could work well with and simply tried to keep up a polite relationship with the
others. One teacher specifically appeared to only ever want to talk about my
physical appearance and although I also think about my physical appearance, I
wish I didn’t and consequently I have tried to keep my distance. I did not feel
like this affected my performance since how I look on any given day did not
appear to me to be of vital importance to the education of her students. However,
in recent months, this teacher has started to bring her kids to the library
regularly, where I teach reading comprehension to them for one hour a week.
Even more exciting is that this teacher has started to stay for the lessons
which gives me hope that she will continue to utilize the library after I am
gone. I know she is there of her own volition as it has taken her over a year
to decide that the library is a useful place for her kids. This week the
teacher even complimented me on my teaching style and told me I am doing good
work. Those few words took me months to earn and felt like the biggest victory.
I wanted to sing and dance and say, “see I am more than this week’s pimple or
yesterday’s cute outfit.” Which reminded me, I may be doing some good things in
the classroom but I still need to work on not taking it personally or being
vindictive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)