Rains Down in Africa

As I’m writing this I’m sitting in my house with all the windows open letting the cool breeze from the cloudy day and the praise music from the church behind my house waft in. Its summer but its also the rainy season here which can be pretty fickle. The clouds roll in every afternoon with the promise of a storm banging on my tin roof each night. The mornings are cool but as the sun appears the village heats up to oven like temperatures becoming more and more humid as the rain threatens to destroy all the laundry hanging on the line. I’m amazed by how much it has rained in my little village set in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. We’ve had more rain here in the last month than I see in Arizona in a year! Everything has become green!!!! There is still plenty of sand but grass and weeds have sprouted up everywhere!

This pic was taken back in mid-October when I first arrived 

This pic is today, mid-December, so many weeds and grass has sprouted up and with it come more thorns and bugs.

So what have I been up to for the last few months now that I’m in Kang? The truth is, not much. I’ve been both busy and idle at the same time. This community assessment is an odd thing. Because I’m not allowed to start projects I’ve had to become comfortable with just following people around and tagging along whenever I can. I’ve had to be social, which, as an introverted person is a huge challenge for me especially when most of the villagers don’t speak English and some don’t even speak Setswana. I’ve felt completely useless many times especially when my limited Setswana excludes me from knowing whats going on. But during this time I’ve also noticed so much opportunity for projects and growth and identified some incredible people who care about this community and want to be involved with community projects. My future activities are shaping up but its still some time till I’ll be starting things. After PST it’s a lot of “hurry up and wait” type feelings. We are bombarded with information of all the things we can do but once we’re unleashed at our sites we’re told to hold off.

This quote does a good job of describing just how important this phase of listening, observing, and absorbing is:

“From the beginning, what has been unique about the Peace Corps is not what it offers host countries, that is, technical expertise, but the way that expertise is delivered- in the form of volunteers who speak the local language, understand the local culture, and live in local towns and neighborhoods. The manner of service is as important as the service itself and adjustment for volunteers is not merely a means to an end, but a virtual end all its own. The cross-cultural adjustment of volunteers is not just what enables them to make a contribution; it is itself a significant part of that contribution”