Shila Travels: Week one!

Friends!!!

Its the strangest thing… I live in Africa now!

I wanted to write earlier, but we have been having power outages and my laptop is in a perpetual state of low battery. I have finally found some time, and I will write you about my first week at Stepping Stones International (SSI). First of all, here are the basics:

- SSI is unreal! It is amazing. It is powerful. It is changing things here! I can't even believe my luck- as far as NGOs go, this is TOP NOTCH! Their work focuses primarily on orphaned and/or vulnerable youth, and we can already see the impact this place is having on the community of Mochudi. Check us out: www.steppingstonesintl.org

- Everyone seems to want to know where I'm staying. SO, until we find another place (likely by the end of this month), Kate and I are staying with a lovely 75 year old local. She's a retired nurse. Her house is very nice, although we're a little isolated from town so we're kind of stuck there at night. Kate and I are sharing a bedroom, which lets be real isn't the best set up for two 22 year old women, BUT, its temporary and we will know each other very well by the time we move out

- To get to work we walk 5-10 mins, take transit for 10, and walk 20-30 to SSI

- At SSI, as of now my job will primarily be working with their Leadership Skills program. In Botswana you're guaranteed education until grade 10, but if you don't pass the annual exam or you stop going, you aren't able to continue on to grades 11 and 12. SO, the leadership program is for older youth who are no longer in the education system. They run their own garden and have sessions three times a week on all kinds of things. I'll eventually be facilitating some of the sessions, but as of now I'm just getting to know how it all works. I'll also helping the special education reading program and the Mochudi Father's Group, a new group designed to eliminate some of the gender myths around parenting and a male's role in the upbringing of a child. Its a program adapted from men-care.org which is AWESOME!

I think leadership will rock, I KNOW the special education reading will rock (I already met the kids, they are SERIOUSLY the most endearing kids you will ever met) so my only concern is my usefulness with the Father's Group. I am female, 22, not from here, and also do not have children. The good news is I took a lot of developmental psych, so in THEORY I know some things about kids. Hopefully I will help this program.

- The kids/youth I'm working with are abbbbbsolutely incredible. I love them! I'm very sure that they are the reason this job will amazing. They are SO eager to learn and are generally super curious about us. Some of the kids have significant learning challenges, whereas others are little geniuses! I asked this precious little kid in grade two what she learned in school yesterday, and for fifteen minutes she spewed facts about red and white blood cells, plasma, and the different valves of the heart. Ummmm WOW! When I was in grade two I could barely tie my sneakers

So, here are some things about my life here:

- Everyday we wake up to the sounds of chickens, dogs, and these other god-awful creatures (guiney fowls?! something follers? they are not turkeys) and the sounds have been a bit of an adjustment overall

- Kate and I are the BIGGEST spectacles here. Especially for kids. They literally stare at us with their mouths open when we're walking around, especially on the grid roads. Mochudi is so rural, so unlike the capital where there's a little bit of diversity, here we're one of the very very caucasian faces in a village of 44 000!

- Mochudi itself it pretty rural compared to the capital. Theres a main road that has all kinds of shops, but the rest of the village rural rural rural. It doesn't feel like almost fifty thousand people live here at all. It feels like a very very small town. I guess its pretty spread out. Google map it if you're curious. Everyone is super friendly which is GREAT! Every day we end up having these life chats with random locals and I love it. Everyone here speaks Setswana more than English, so we basically never know whats going on, but most people have pretty good English so as long as we speak slowly we are able to communicate with everyone.

- My biggest challenge to date: hygiene. Showers arent really a thing here. I am learning to bathe in a tub thingy and basically rinse the important spots with a wet facecloth and a bowl of water. I'm wayyyy out of my comfort zone on this front. Leg shaving is such a pain. This week I didn't wash my hair for FOUR days!! I am greasy greasy greasy. Kate was a tree planter, so she is trying to ease me into the "roughin it" life style… we'll see about that

- Power comes and goes here, and the outages have been a major drag. I am SOOOO happy I bought a headlamp! Best purchase of my life!!! Its a constant battle to charge things as it is, and the outages always seem to be at the most inopportune moments (when we're about to make dinner/bathe/charge something/do something). We've been here for 7 days, and already 3 of our evenings have been power-free. When the power goes out, there is basically NOTHING to do. We can't go outside, its PITCH black, we can't do things inside, its PITCH black, so Kate and I usually end up going to sleep ridiculously early. The only redeeming thing: star gazing.

- Everyone has multiple names and its a nightmare to remember. I am trying SO hard, but its not coming along as easily as I'd like. People's given names are like… 18 letters long!? And make no sense whatsoever when you read them. And then most people have a nickname from their initial name, which is usually a little more doable, but then they ALSO have random nicknames that represent things about them. So THAT has been a challenge

- Being the gender enthusiast I am, I think it will be a challenge for me to accept the strict binary here. Men and women are quite segregated and there are definite barriers to equality for women in Botswana, although it is improving slowly but surely. SSI is doing phenomenal work on that front, so that makes me really happy. I'm hyper aware of it all the time though

- We got groceries a couple times this week and for the most part we'll be set to go. There were a few things I was hoping to get (whole grain bread, celery, spinach, fresh veggies and berries in general, almonds/pistachios/whatever kind of nuts, granola bars and real fruit juice, for example), but we'll make due and maybe even learn a thing or two about cooking here

- "Winter" is just starting here, and we're pretty entertained by it all. It will be bright and sunny and 10-15 degrees, and the Batswana will have tuques, winter coats, and MITTS on! They think its SO cold! Meanwhile, Kate and I are rocking capris and t shirts and LOVING the climate! We're lucky we get to ease into the summer. By the end of July/early August, it will be hitting 35-40 degrees celsius in the daytime! I'm looking forward to it though. The only thing we're struggling with is that its completely dark by 610pm. We get off at 530 and by the time we're home we basically have to pack it in. Most people don't leave their houses after dark.

- I already feel my language changing. Our English sounds very strange and fast to the Batswana kids (as theirs does to us) so I need to slow down big time when I'm speaking. I feel like even though it has only been a week, I'm already speaking FAR more clearly. I enunciate to the max. I pronounce Ts at the ends of things and rarely use conjunctions. It feels robotic to say "It is" and "We are" and "I would" instead of "it's", "we're" and "I'd", but I'm already into this new groove with speaking. Its neat!

Some other random things about Botswana:

- Everyone says Dumela (hello) to everyone, ALL the time! In the run of a day, we probably say Dumela a zillion times. Sometimes when you're walking by shops or something I'm like "Dumela dumela dumela dumela dumela" forever. Its LOVELY though! Everyone takes time for everyone else!

- Botswana runs on Botswana time. Its really something else that way. In Canada if you say something is at 8am, its 8am. Here, 8am means 830 or 9, or maybe even later. Schedules are generally super flexible and you almost organize things by days, not by hours. I like it, its laid back!

- Paper in Botswana uses a two-hole hole punch. 3 holes don't exist in paperwork (wow, isn't that the most interesting fact you EVER read?!)

- Batswana say "What is it?" to ask how you are

- Music in Botswana is AMAZING! If the kids sing for us, they automatically harmonize and use their feet as percussion too sometimes. Its deep in the culture here and I am LOVING it!

What we did this weekend:

- Yesterday we went to Gaborone (Ha-bo-ron-ee), the capital! It was SUCH a nice day trip, although our trip there was a bit of a gongshow. Kate and I were the first people on the bus, so we sat across from each other. We figured we would have space. Three stops later, the bus picked up a TON of people! Then, maybe 20 minutes down the highway, the bus was making grinding sounds, so it just pulled over and everyone got off. We were so confused! Finally we managed to find out that the bus had broken down (evidently) and we were to wait on the highway for another one. Eventually (like 40 minutes later) a bus did come, but it was cramped to the max and we sat on this ledge thing at the very back. SO random!

- The "bus rank" in Gabs is a tiny city within itself! All the buses going to and from everywhere congregate there (there were probably 100 or so) and there are vendors EVERYWHERE. It was super neat to see.

- We made it JUST in time to see a REALLY stupid idiotic movie, The Hangover III. Don't judge me. There were only 4 choices and it was the best option. And you know, it WAS kind of nice to shut my brain off, chow down on popcorn, and take in the absolute silliness of it. It was nice. We even stopped for DELICIOUS desert and the place had WIFI! It was a dream to quickly check our Canadian phones. I really appreciated the quick lapse back into civilization as we know it, and then it was back to Mochudi for us.

- Today we went to church! I am not religious, but I was raised Catholic so we figured we would check it out. It was LONG!!! But the music was SO SO SO SO SO SO SO GOOD! WOW! People just harmonize like its the easiest thing in the world and this guy had this makeshift drum thingy so a lot of the songs were extremely rhythmic and upbeat. LOVED it! It took us from 8-1030am though! I'm considering joining the church choir since I miss singing so much, but I'm conflicted on that one. We'll see.

So… yeah, thats my new life in a nutshell! Maybe it hasn't sunken in yet, but as of now I feel pretty peachy about this new set up! I also have a newfound appreciation for a LOT of luxuries I took for granted, so thats cool too!

Ask me questions if you have any!

Write me emails and tell me about your life!

To the people who have written me so far, you have brightened my days more than you know! shilaleblanc@gmail.com

I check my gmail Monday to Friday over my lunch break.

Boroko means goodnight :) <3

Peace and love!