Some pics of my new village Tsabong, my desert :)

My African Nights With the Help of Some Modern Technology

Peace Corps journey starting to get a bit strange, which means so am I! So don't mind the randomness :))

(Jotted this down on my phone late last night, saved it, and now I'm posting it, because that's what you do in Africa. If you don't have Internet at your convenience and fortunate to have electricity (like I do!), and you want to email someone you type it out on Word, or if you want to research something you make a note of it. Then hopefully by the time you find some wifi, you remember to post it, send it, or goggle it.)

"My African Nights With the Help of Some Modern Technology"

Not always, but since settling in my new village most days after work I get the chance to rockstar-it-out on the guitar for about an hour or so (more like fumble thru a few basic chords). Shortly after, I psych myself up to work out again and either go for a jog or pop in that psycho Insanity video. Following that I cook myself dinner (with no microwave usage). Then I compliment the home cooked meal with NBCs comedy Community (thanks Dominique Freeman) by plugging my external hard drive (thank you PCVs for the hundreds of movies/tv shows) to my laptop and have a few laughs while eating. Once the twenty-one minute comedy ends (that's with no commercials, meaning everyone back home who watches Community on tv wasted approximately 9 minutes of their life), its off to cleaning up the kitchen and turning on the electric kettle thingie to boil some hot water for the glorious African bucket bath. Jump in the tub, and slowly wash the desert stench off. Then it's time for some brain stimulation, so I unlock the Kindle,

click The Help (thanks Jess Chambless for the recommendation, and again Dominique for the dl) and begin where I left off the night before. Nine o'clock slowly rolls by, this means it's time for some chocolate motogo (motogo is Batswana porridge). Swallow that up. Finally, I turn on the Kindle for the last time, read for another hour or so, and then it's bed time.

Back in the US I'd be lucky to have the chance to do one of these activities in a night. So far, enjoying this African free night lifestyle (with the addition of all the technological gadgets).

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Swearing-In Ceremony. Official Peace Corps Volunteer!

Tsabong

Placed in Tsabong for the next 2 years!

Pretoria

So...I right now I am sitting in my hotel room in Pretoria, South Africa with wifi!

Why am I in South Africa and not Botswana?

Make a long story short...I fractured my jaw 8 years ago during my "idiot days" and yah. Anyways, i had four screws placed in my jaw, and now one of them seem to be causing an infection in my tooth. This means a possible surgical removal of that one screw. 

So, Peace Corps has come to the rescue and has sent me to Pretoria in South Africa. Supposedly, this place has one of the best, if not thee best medical care in all of Africa.

Glad this is getting taken care of before I move to Tsabong! I have to say, Peace Corps does take care of their volunteers.

Bere: Out in the sticks!

Shadowing week

We just finished Shadowing Week. Shadowing week is when each Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) stays for 5 days with a volunteer who has already been in country for over a year. Its a small taste of what the next two years will be like. 

I had the opportunity to go to Bere, one of Botswana's most remote places. Botswana considers Bere to be too small to be called a village, they prefer to call it a small settlement. Bere has a population of 500 people. They are the Bosora bushmen. There's one primary school, a health clinic, no grocery store. For the most part people eat either their crops or cattle. The closest grocery store or any store is about 2 hours away. It's small, and very rural. 

My Shadower Ryan shared this joke about Bere, he said "Bere has bere anything! It is bere boring!" LOL its very true, but I must say he makes the best of it.

Bere is unique in community development as it is so small and everybody knows everybody! Comparing to a western standard, productivity in Bere would be considered on the slow side. So, Ryan has found ways to adjust to the collectivistic culture and has focused on building relationships. HIV/AIDS work is in progress. Day by day, small gains. The people are welcoming It's seriously reminded me of one big family. Such a unique place.

Wrote this while on my iPhone the day after I arrived in Bere:

"A day ago I journeyed on two buses for a total of 16 hours. Started at 6am and ended up at my location by 930pm. I was pooped... 

the night came quickly, driving in the pitch black. I was so tired, and I couldn't stop myself from nodding off. Then the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, everyone on the bus looked at me, and the bus driver yelled "Bere!" 

It was my stop. Someone was suppose to be waiting for me at the junction, where the bus dropped me off. But bc the bus was scheduled arrive at 8 pm, and I got there at 930pm the driver went back home. So, I looked outside to see if my ride was on the side of the road somewhere waiting for me. There was nobody. The bus driver asked me "somebody coming to pick you up?" I answered "Yah, suppose to", he replied as I stepped off the bus "good luck, watch out for lions." I was like "WHAT!?!? He better be joking!" I then thought "Crap! He might be serious...this is the Kalahari Desert" 

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty scared at that moment.

So, my ride came about 30 minutes later. And rather than freaking out that at any moment I was going to be some lions late night snack...and rather than being frustrated that it was 930pm (which is bedtime for us peeps living in Botswana) and my ride was not there, a question popped in my head "Look at where you are at, what if you just enjoyed this moment?" 

Believing God was trying to get my attention, I drew my thoughts towards Him and began talking. It was a surreal convo, gazing into the star lit black curtain sky. On an adventure, standing smack in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, amongst wild life, with no other human within miles, and as silent and dark as can be