how do you make people care?

In a word: Disenchanted
That’s how I am feeling these days. My notions of living a life in a foreign country and working among the people, just learning to do life how they do it have disseminated into a myriad of futile little endeavors and lost hopes. In talking to other volunteers, I’ve realized that the things that I initially thought would be difficult like adjusting to the food and water are the least of my worries. While I did struggle with the overload of MSG intake, I have found that what is most difficult is working in an environment where the dynamic is totally new and out of your control. Working with the people and trying to explain why they should care about these initiatives is actually the hardest part of my life here, even when you create these projects to address a particular, mutually acknowledged need in the community. After a while, it wears on your morale and general disposition with pursuing any projects because you just wonder what’s the point. We have “capacity building” drilled into our heads even since the beginning of training. I had a headmaster (school principal) approach me to help out at his school and when I asked him what he wanted help with, all he said was “capacity building.” Yes, but what does that mean!? To me it means working alongside the Batswana to implement projects and activities relevant to the people and guided in such a way that they can be continued and implemented even after the Peace Corps Volunteer is gone. I haven’t had all that much trouble with eventually finding someone interested in giving an affirmative yes and endorsement, but moving beyond the sparked interest to find someone with real initiative and willingness to act is next to impossible. Early on it my service, it was enough to show my face and introduce myself to the many stakeholders in my communities. As I approach the one year mark here in Botswana (can you believe it?!), I need something to show for my time and efforts. I have started several projects that required no money, but just involved me being present and helping to facilitate an activity or organize some data. Those fell by the wayside when the responsibility to maintain any of those activities became my sole responsibility. Some people are afraid we volunteers are spies or that we are here to take their jobs, others gladly step aside and ask that we do their jobs. There’s got to be a middle ground.

I’ve realize that if I sit around waiting for someone to act and work with me on these projects, I will never accomplish anything. Most all things are slow to start and easy to quit. It’s good intentions with no work ethic, or maybe it’s no insight on how to go about it. Either way, I’ve resolved to begin these projects and make it work with what little support I’ve found and hope that more people will join me along the away.

In talking to another volunteer, she acknowledged that we foreigners and the Batswana are working on two completely different time frames, which is totally relevant to how we approach everything we do. Where I used to think that two years was adequate to integrate socially and really do meaningful work, now I wonder if a lifetime is even sufficient. We are working in a 27-month period and just when you think you feel like you have a home, a social setting to constitute a life in your village, and a working knowledge of the systems and structure of things to navigate the politics you only have about 12-14 months left to really successfully accomplish your projects with the competency you wish you have 10 months ago. With the Batswana, they will be here forever and ever amen and it seems that a year passes with little difference from the year before; before you know it a decade has passed. There’s always time here in Botswana. Really, now more than ever, what’s the rush? My goal now is to convey a kind of urgency with these projects in addition to trying to spruce up the preexisting activities that they are already familiar with. Because there is such reverence for tradition and little deviation from the norm/convention/rule, there is little room for exploration or creativity because that is often seen as a threat to the foundation of the familiar or a challenge to authority. So to try to change the annual beauty contest fundraiser to a girls’ night/movie night or a dinner night out is close to blasphemy. The old are always the wisest, men are always right, and you always do what you’re told. While these laconic notions may scream irreverence, these are the silent little obstacles that really put a damper on things. Children are having sex as young as 11 and 12 years old, but OH MY we could never give a condom demonstration to the Standard 7 students (ages 12 and 13) because they are just too young to be exposed to such information. Hell, even talk about sex even in terms of personal health.

So this is where I am, 11 months into my life here and I have little show for it besides some frustrations and a tinge of lingering resilience. Apparently this is normal at this point in time to feel like I’m in a rut with my service. It feels a bit uphill, but I am hopeful for that downhill momentum of my second year. If I have learned anything, it’s that there is no real pattern to my days. My Monday could be as low as one can get and Wednesday finds some way to redeem you from a month of defeats. Just this week I was feeling the pressure of raising money to do some activities in the schools and it seemed like the teachers that said they would help have just abandoned the project. This is also after I called Botswana Telecommunications Network (the only phone company servicing all of Botswana) and they told me that I wouldn’t be able to get a phone line installed in my house for another year because they were out of line. Out of line? Yep, the line that they install in your home is done and the “distribution point” is backed up so that they can’t service any more customers. Unlike the Virginia of my past life quick to go on my tirade, I kept it cool and sweet talked a few people in Networking and Planning in Gabs and the branch office in Kanye. We are now on first name basis and after being told that it could take a YEAR to get a phone line for me, Tsolo and Tuelo called me to say that they have found a line for me and could have the phone installed as early as next week! I should know better than to get too excited, because there are still a lot of logistics to figure before it actually gets done. Also, I should note that getting the phone line is just the first step to getting internet installed, so there is more to come. Keep your fingers crossed people.

I’m ok. I’m doing fine. I’m just living here and making the most of it, adapting where I can, making suggestions where they seem fit, and learning a new level of humility and patience, probably the most fruitful learning experience through it all. It may sound a bit self-righteous to want people to listen to me and implement the things that I think would be beneficial to the community. I really have been sensitive to this, having good intentions to benefit the people around me, but you can’t blame someone for being contented in the present status of things no matter how much BETTER you THINK it COULD be. I’m learning to work within that complex web of ambitions and stipulations.

p.s. Furniture is here! pictures to come!