go siame

Reading: Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Listening: Arcade Fire’s Suburbs

Since my last posting, I have had the opportunity to shadow another Peace Corps Volunteer. It was a chance to experience the typical traveling circumstances and allowed us to get a change of scenery for a few days. I traveled six hours by bus to Tsabong, Botswana in the southwest portion of the country. Apparently, the general mentality here is that if you ride with the windows open, you will most definitely catch the flu. You can imagine the stale and musty air that occupied my bus ride. I am playing with the idea of investing monies in billboards that debunk that myth and maybe even suggesting the reason for alarm at catching TB from such circumstances! Kidding. Anyway, Tsabong is more of a deserty/savannah climate and it was significantly colder at night than in Kanye. Many government workers were on a 10-day strike (that seems to be continuing for another few days). Because of this, there were not many people in the office where this volunteer worked and many left town to return to their families is larger villages. Tsabong is a small village that feels rural but still has an area with a grocery store and even has a library! We had the opportunity to make some good food and even be innovative with the available ingredients. We made delicious lentil burgers in the absence of black beans and a chocolate cake topped with a melted chocolate bar without having any icing. The small familiar flavors were amazing and it’s funny to see how easily I’m entertained and pleased in this new place. On Saturday we went to a camel farm that was on a miniature salt pan and rode camels in a little farm area! That was a first for me!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned some of the quirky things I’ve experienced that seem just new or different. In the kitchen there are two to three electrical outlets, both of which have two different types of plugs. The refrigerator permanently occupies one, and the other ones rotate between the microwave, iron, teakettle boiler thing, and stove +/- various cell phone chargers strewn across the kitchen. You can imagine my dilemma in the morning when it’s tea time and also time to iron our clothing (which the Batswana are quite persistent about) or cook some breakfast. It’s actually pretty funny to watch 6 women navigate a kitchen that is probably the size of your utility room.
Another thing I’m slowly getting accustomed to is the radio…the constant radio. When the TV goes out we resort to the radio. When we wake up in the morning, we don’t run to the coffeemaker, instead we saunter to the radio and to blast some hip-hop and r&b. I will say that being even slightly familiar with that genre of music has been beneficial for the impromptu dance parties that ensue or the small moments of familiar sounds. However, media in general I haven’t totally come to terms with because so much of it references American culture in music, tv shows etc. It’s sad to think how sounds and genres of music were once geographically identified or associated with particularly cultures. In coming to Botswana, I guess I had these misguided hopes of experiences a totally unadulterated culture with a distinguishable sound in its music or a particular color or design in the patterns of the textiles. Botswana is ultra modern in this sense. The music and the dress (among other things but these being what I’ve most noted) have migrated and been filtered in the distance to what becomes skinny jeans and mickey-mouse sweaters and pop music ringtones. When my host mother, Cecelia, gets a phone call, I hear Chris Brown singing to the “hearts all over the world,” taking the universalist approach, crossing all national and cultural borders. Yes, it’s familiar, but it’s sad. Why and how did Chris Brown and the like make it here? To be fair, it may be that I live with a group of younger women and as a part of their generation this is what they choose to listen to. I’m sure there are older Batswana that still are very much invested in the traditional Botswana culture in music and dress and that just isn’t in my world here.
I might also add that these kind of portrayals of American lend to the idea that all Americans are rich…imagine trying to explain that you are in fact American but a poor volunteer from America…I even tried to explain that I enjoyed shopping at thrift stores, particularly in college and they didn’t believe me at all, and looked at me like why the hell would I decisively shop at second-hand clothing stores when I have access to so many better and nicer things.
Another scenario: One of my friend’s host families has a really nice setup and we were watching TV and somehow Miley Cyrus came on the screen…(she is also on the blankets at the bus stops here and teenage boy’s backpacks. Why?!) Anyway, the host sister mentioned that she genuinely hated Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber and if it were possible she would trade them in to bring back Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac. Biggie and Tupac (granted my knowledge is limited) wrote music about their upbringing in their respective urban dwellings as African-Americans and whatever experiences that might entail. While I recognize the obvious overlap and reasons for identifying with these figures, I am still surprised that there isn’t a readily available current of pride in a Botswana sound or dance. Sure, there are traditional dances and ceremonies that continue throughout the country but they are more memorialized as something from the past, rather than being something that is retained and developed throughout the generations here. So Tupac, Biggie, and Chris Brown are all here, parading and procreating American culture, but they have a displaced kind of sound and are erasing something that I see as more valuable.
In fear of sounding like some old fart traditionalist, I am slightly disappointed in the way the communication and the sharing of information has affected populations and the culture here. It’s the first time I’ve consciously acknowledged the negative effects of globalization. Maybe, this is what Batswana want, and that is totally fine if so. I just didn’t anticipate coming to Africa to find so much of America.

In hopes of reviving both your and my spirits, I wanted to mention that I will be including a wish list on here so if you feel SO INCLINED to mail a little loving then you can know a few things that would be greatly appreciated. I might also wait until I move to my official site where I will live for a full two years after training. I find out my site placement on May 14 and am thrilled at the thought of planning my life and figuring out a more permanent situation here…it’s all really finally happening!

More later, friends!

Love,
VA