Happiness Comes in Many Forms

I feel like to often I hear from people that we are not happy and that we are struggling here. I really want to set this straight and talk about it.

Is life here an effort and it is it hard for us to adjust, accept and understand what is going on in around us- yes, without a doubt. But traveling for 6 weeks at a time, like we do every summer is also a challenge, and we still have chosen to make it a huge part of our life. It is nice to actually look deeper into a place rather than just a romanticized view through a month long journey. We are happy and at this point, this is where we are in life and this is what we are meant to be doing. We are surrounded by amazing people, both PCV’s and Batswana, that look out for us and care deeply about whether or not we like their country and that we learn more about their country. We knew what we were signing up for when we joined the Peace Corps. Is it exactly what we expected or wanted- no. But we should have known better than to have expectations. However, we are happy and we love what we are doing.

In all reality, this is no more challenging than what I did in the South Bronx for ten years. I have not seen anything worse or more devastating here, this is just compounded by the fact that I have stepped completely out my norms and I am trying to navigate in a completely foreign world.

I need people to understand that when we vent in this blog, we are venting, as we hope we can confide in you as we would an email. This is just an easier way for us to communicate with mass people and not have to write many emails. These are truly just our opinions based on our very minimal interactions and they are purely anecdotal and should be taken as such. We do not want you to only communicate negative stories to your friends. We would love for you to extract the good that you are reading and communicate those stories. Africa and her people are amazing and we are happy to be welcomed here and able to learn and grow from this country. I would hate to think that we are contributing to all the negatives images that already flood the media about Africa.

So enough rambling but please help us in succeeding in one of our biggest goals: that by living here and learning about Botswana and Africa, we will show Americans that Africa is more then the negative images we see and hear about. It is a beautiful, magnificent and rich place both environmentally and spiritually but also culturally.