Thursday, July 16, 2009
Kachikau!
Hello all! It’s now been a month since I came to my site, Kachikau, located on Botswana’s northern border with Namibia. Kachikau is in the western part of Chobe District, which has the highest HIV prevalence in the country, but one of the lowest incidence rates. These last weeks have definitely been a time of adjustment to my new home but it really feels great to finally be living on my own in the place where I will be working for the next two years. Though my days cannot be considered “busy” in an American sense, my mind and a lot of my time is occupied with ways to establish friendships and collaborative relationships with people here, and trying to gain knowledge about the this community so I can understand specific challenges I might be able to help address in some way. There are many ideas of potential “projects” circling around in my head, but I know that for them to become of any substance they need to be mirrored in the minds of people in Kachikau. So my work for now lies in identifying individuals who have concerns about the community and who want to work with me to actively tackle certain problems in new or improved ways. I am most interested in working with out-of-school youth (16 years and above) in providing them with recreational activities, additional education, and job opportunities, but more details to come later.
Besides the requisite slowness of adapting to something new – new job, new town, new people, or new house (in my case, all of these at once) – and the patience, resilience and flexibility needed to lay groundwork for a job description that is ultimately up to me to create as well as to build relationships with others mostly without the comfort of the English language, I am really enjoying my life here so far! Even the challenges are satisfying to me because they are putting by pro-active, creative, and social skills to the test, and hopefully stretching and expanding them.
Sometimes I wonder how this past month would have been different if I had been assigned somewhere other than Kachikau, a small village (pop. approx. 1500-2000) surrounded by the beauty of Chobe National Park. I live in one of the top safari destinations in the world. During the 1.5 hour drive between Kachikau and Kasane – larger, tourist town where I do errands like grocery shopping, checking mail, using the Internet – we often pass elephant herds, giraffe, zebra, and buffalo along with lots of cattle. Warthogs wander along the main road of Kasane, and I’m continually in awe of the colorful diversity of insects and birds I see on a daily basis. The sun sets orange-magenta-vermillion over the front porch of my two-bedroom government-owned house which sits on the same compound as the local primary school. There are many clusters of government housing throughout Kachikau (and Botswana in general); these houses typically have running water (often also hot water), electricity, gas stoves, and even trash service. Because many Botswana volunteers have government housing, or the above amenities (though some definitely do not) and because we have access to stores, products, and services here that many other African countries do not, Peace Corps Botswana is dubbed “posh-corps” in some circles.
I have met some awesome people here so far, and knowing and getting to know them has been key in making Kachikau feel like a home. Although my site is one of the more remote Peace Corps sites in the country (it takes 2 days travel – about 15 hours drive, half on bad roads – on public transport to get to the capital), there are four other volunteers in my district though not in Kachikau. I did meet a PHD student from California who will be staying in Kachikau for a year starting in September, which is totally unexpected but I think will be great! I’ve been spending my free time playing darts with new friends, having neighborhood kids and students over to draw and play Uno, running, writing letters, reading, making a landscape plan for my big yard, trying to improve my Setswana, and cooking things I’ve never cooked from scratch before (so far this has included pizza and tortillas). There are times when I feel very alone or overwhelmed, or just tired of feeling like I’m on display as an outsider, “lekgoa”, or “china.” When I speak even the most basic Setswana, it’s treated as the miracle of all miracles. It’s constantly humbling to be in this minority position, but it is also very apparent that we are all human and I take pleasure and comfort in seeing our similarities across culture and language.
Being based in Kachikau’s clinic, I have had the opportunity to help with dispensing the free anti-retroviral drugs available to HIV-positive Batswana. The ARVs are given out on Mondays and Wednesdays usually as a month’s supply (if the client is defaulting/not taking their medication correctly or regularly, only a week’s supply is dispensed at a time). On each of these days, we’ve seen an average of 40 patients. For me now in my village, the impact of HIV/AIDS is not readily apparent. It is impossible to identify who has HIV, and this is largely due to the availability of ARVs which is keeping people who are positive healthy for much longer. There is still much for me to learn about how the epidemic is affecting those who live in Kachikau. In the coming months, I will be involved in trying to strengthen Kachikau’s support group for people with and affected by HIV.
Some other things I am looking forward to in the near future are my co-worker’s wedding, a Chobe River boat cruise with some other volunteers, and tagging along on the monthly mobile clinic that goes out to the safari camps and more remote bush areas of the region to provide medical services.
I miss and love everyone back home very much. It’s hard to compare my life at home to my life here as far as quality – each place has its own irreplicable value. Xoxo
My address: Tori Mason, Peace Corps Volunteer
P.O. Box 1073
Kasane, Botswana
Besides the requisite slowness of adapting to something new – new job, new town, new people, or new house (in my case, all of these at once) – and the patience, resilience and flexibility needed to lay groundwork for a job description that is ultimately up to me to create as well as to build relationships with others mostly without the comfort of the English language, I am really enjoying my life here so far! Even the challenges are satisfying to me because they are putting by pro-active, creative, and social skills to the test, and hopefully stretching and expanding them.
Sometimes I wonder how this past month would have been different if I had been assigned somewhere other than Kachikau, a small village (pop. approx. 1500-2000) surrounded by the beauty of Chobe National Park. I live in one of the top safari destinations in the world. During the 1.5 hour drive between Kachikau and Kasane – larger, tourist town where I do errands like grocery shopping, checking mail, using the Internet – we often pass elephant herds, giraffe, zebra, and buffalo along with lots of cattle. Warthogs wander along the main road of Kasane, and I’m continually in awe of the colorful diversity of insects and birds I see on a daily basis. The sun sets orange-magenta-vermillion over the front porch of my two-bedroom government-owned house which sits on the same compound as the local primary school. There are many clusters of government housing throughout Kachikau (and Botswana in general); these houses typically have running water (often also hot water), electricity, gas stoves, and even trash service. Because many Botswana volunteers have government housing, or the above amenities (though some definitely do not) and because we have access to stores, products, and services here that many other African countries do not, Peace Corps Botswana is dubbed “posh-corps” in some circles.
I have met some awesome people here so far, and knowing and getting to know them has been key in making Kachikau feel like a home. Although my site is one of the more remote Peace Corps sites in the country (it takes 2 days travel – about 15 hours drive, half on bad roads – on public transport to get to the capital), there are four other volunteers in my district though not in Kachikau. I did meet a PHD student from California who will be staying in Kachikau for a year starting in September, which is totally unexpected but I think will be great! I’ve been spending my free time playing darts with new friends, having neighborhood kids and students over to draw and play Uno, running, writing letters, reading, making a landscape plan for my big yard, trying to improve my Setswana, and cooking things I’ve never cooked from scratch before (so far this has included pizza and tortillas). There are times when I feel very alone or overwhelmed, or just tired of feeling like I’m on display as an outsider, “lekgoa”, or “china.” When I speak even the most basic Setswana, it’s treated as the miracle of all miracles. It’s constantly humbling to be in this minority position, but it is also very apparent that we are all human and I take pleasure and comfort in seeing our similarities across culture and language.
Being based in Kachikau’s clinic, I have had the opportunity to help with dispensing the free anti-retroviral drugs available to HIV-positive Batswana. The ARVs are given out on Mondays and Wednesdays usually as a month’s supply (if the client is defaulting/not taking their medication correctly or regularly, only a week’s supply is dispensed at a time). On each of these days, we’ve seen an average of 40 patients. For me now in my village, the impact of HIV/AIDS is not readily apparent. It is impossible to identify who has HIV, and this is largely due to the availability of ARVs which is keeping people who are positive healthy for much longer. There is still much for me to learn about how the epidemic is affecting those who live in Kachikau. In the coming months, I will be involved in trying to strengthen Kachikau’s support group for people with and affected by HIV.
Some other things I am looking forward to in the near future are my co-worker’s wedding, a Chobe River boat cruise with some other volunteers, and tagging along on the monthly mobile clinic that goes out to the safari camps and more remote bush areas of the region to provide medical services.
I miss and love everyone back home very much. It’s hard to compare my life at home to my life here as far as quality – each place has its own irreplicable value. Xoxo
My address: Tori Mason, Peace Corps Volunteer
P.O. Box 1073
Kasane, Botswana
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