Matt Thuso Jefferson
DHT OFfice
Private Bag 005
Molepolole
Botswana
Showing posts with label peac corps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peac corps. Show all posts
02 July 2009
I Pledge to Uphold The United State..blah blah...
We were sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers on June 18th, yes training is over. We got placed here in Molepolole, the same village we have been in since day 1. At first it was fairly uneventful as it would be nice to see some other parts of the country, but we are very happy. The rest of the country can wait as we will have plenty of time to travel in the coming years. I got placed at the District Health Team office with the PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission) coordinator and Laura at a Junior Secondary school developing a life skills curriculum.
Molepolole (Moleps) is a very large village, somewhere around 60,000 people with most every convenience you could want in Botswana. The grocery stores are filled with many things. I never thought all of these choices would be possible before arriving. Having spent some time in West and East Africa with really no options, I would have to say it is pretty nice to have some things available. Batswana (people from Botswana are called Batswana) call it a village but I consider it more of a town compared to some of the other villages. Nonetheless, it is the village we will be living in for the next two years and since it really is the only place we have been since we arrived, we have grown to like it very much, especially now that we have our own house.
About the house and ward! Moleps consists of many wards, or neighborhoods, and is very spread out. Many volunteers get placed in government housing, which all look the same and are surrounded by other government employees that usually are not from the community. We really lucked out because we are on a family compound in the community, more specifically the Lekwapheng ward. It is exactly what we hoped for as far as living in a locally. More importantly, it gives us a chance to fully integrate into the culture and community as a whole. It is definitely on the outskirts of town but only a 10-15 minute walk for Laura to get to school, which is quite nice. Being on the outskirts, it gets a bad rap as one of the more dangerous and impoverished areas of Moleps but we could not be happier about our location and house. The landlady, whose front door is about 30 feet from ours is super nice and maintains a nice compound. There are about 20 chickens running around and a “guard” dog named Lion. He isn’t much of a gurad dog but still tours the grounds like he owns it. She really wants us to be comfortable and feel at home and loves to call us her children. I guess we kind of are considering we are sharing her plot for quite some time.
Our house is brand new, just finished being built and is bigger than any apartment we have had in NYC. We have two bedrooms, yeah I said two bedrooms which means there is plenty of room for those of you that want the Botswana experience. We have a huge sitting room, full kitchen, and a nice bathroom. Moreover, we will hopefully have hot water and yes electricity is here as well. So here, you wont feel too far away from home other than the fact there are no ceilings in the house. Just rafters and a tin roof, which makes for very very cold nights right now. Seriously, it sounds crazy but right now there is frost on the ground in the mornings and it basically feels like you are sleeping outside with no insulation and/or heat. Our tent would be warmer. We were typical volunteers that really didn’t believe anyone that it gets really cold, simply because they were telling us this when it was snowing in NYC last year, but its COLD. Things should get really interesting when the temp reaches 115 F and radiating through the aluminum roof. In any case, the place is nice and as volunteers we are super lucky as many of our friends don’t have anything and they are getting the true Peace Corps experience , no electricity or running water.
The ward we live in is really interesting. Walking through the ward you definitely realize you are in Africa. Dirt paths, chickens, goats and of course our neighbors have the nicest donkey cart in town. It is strange that our house is so nice because most of the compounds in our ward consist of dirt round houses or very modest cinder block homes with a water spicket if they are lucky. Most of the compounds probably don’t have electricity.
In Botswana there are many cars, and some very nice, but in Lekwapheng there are many donkey carts cruising around getting the job done. We have yet to cruise the ward via donkey cart yet but we are slowly learning which dirt path takes us where.
We have a kitten. Definitely does not take the place of Nubs but he is sure nice to come home to. His name is Kgosi (chief in Setswana). I know that him and Nubs will get along famously. For all of you who are wondering- of course we are bringing the little flea bag home, we have very different ideas about how pets should be treated than the Batswana.
Our jobs are slowly coming along. We are meeting people in the office and trying to get their very difficult names down. It is challenging adjusting to a very different work environment and work ethic but we will find our roles soon enough. The school I am in is great. It is sooo good to be back in a school. No matter what crazy things happen or how frustrating a day is, I am always guaranteed to have some beautiful African teenager smile and make my whole day better. There is a lot of work to be done there and I look forward to two years of enhancing the already strong foundation at the school.
With that said, we still have great days and days when we question what we are doing here. This country is fairly developed and sometimes we both don’t know if Americans need to be here at all. There is an estimated HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 25% (depending on whose research you read). It seems like much of the countries economy is based on such a high prevalence rate. So many people are employed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It also seems like they have all correct programs on paper and are doing what they should be doing yet somehow the prevalence rate continues to rise. At this point behavior change is key, and we constantly ask ourselves if this a role that we as Americans can partake in without being to patronizing.
Overall, after being here almost three months, we are so happy and firm in our decision to see this thing through and learn as much as we can. We love living in Africa and waking up to the roosters crow and a magnificent sunrise that fills the horizon. We are so excited to have this to experience and learn all there is to learn from this crazy little place called, Botswana.
Miss you all more than you know....
- written jointly by matt and laura
Molepolole (Moleps) is a very large village, somewhere around 60,000 people with most every convenience you could want in Botswana. The grocery stores are filled with many things. I never thought all of these choices would be possible before arriving. Having spent some time in West and East Africa with really no options, I would have to say it is pretty nice to have some things available. Batswana (people from Botswana are called Batswana) call it a village but I consider it more of a town compared to some of the other villages. Nonetheless, it is the village we will be living in for the next two years and since it really is the only place we have been since we arrived, we have grown to like it very much, especially now that we have our own house.
About the house and ward! Moleps consists of many wards, or neighborhoods, and is very spread out. Many volunteers get placed in government housing, which all look the same and are surrounded by other government employees that usually are not from the community. We really lucked out because we are on a family compound in the community, more specifically the Lekwapheng ward. It is exactly what we hoped for as far as living in a locally. More importantly, it gives us a chance to fully integrate into the culture and community as a whole. It is definitely on the outskirts of town but only a 10-15 minute walk for Laura to get to school, which is quite nice. Being on the outskirts, it gets a bad rap as one of the more dangerous and impoverished areas of Moleps but we could not be happier about our location and house. The landlady, whose front door is about 30 feet from ours is super nice and maintains a nice compound. There are about 20 chickens running around and a “guard” dog named Lion. He isn’t much of a gurad dog but still tours the grounds like he owns it. She really wants us to be comfortable and feel at home and loves to call us her children. I guess we kind of are considering we are sharing her plot for quite some time.
Our house is brand new, just finished being built and is bigger than any apartment we have had in NYC. We have two bedrooms, yeah I said two bedrooms which means there is plenty of room for those of you that want the Botswana experience. We have a huge sitting room, full kitchen, and a nice bathroom. Moreover, we will hopefully have hot water and yes electricity is here as well. So here, you wont feel too far away from home other than the fact there are no ceilings in the house. Just rafters and a tin roof, which makes for very very cold nights right now. Seriously, it sounds crazy but right now there is frost on the ground in the mornings and it basically feels like you are sleeping outside with no insulation and/or heat. Our tent would be warmer. We were typical volunteers that really didn’t believe anyone that it gets really cold, simply because they were telling us this when it was snowing in NYC last year, but its COLD. Things should get really interesting when the temp reaches 115 F and radiating through the aluminum roof. In any case, the place is nice and as volunteers we are super lucky as many of our friends don’t have anything and they are getting the true Peace Corps experience , no electricity or running water.
The ward we live in is really interesting. Walking through the ward you definitely realize you are in Africa. Dirt paths, chickens, goats and of course our neighbors have the nicest donkey cart in town. It is strange that our house is so nice because most of the compounds in our ward consist of dirt round houses or very modest cinder block homes with a water spicket if they are lucky. Most of the compounds probably don’t have electricity.
In Botswana there are many cars, and some very nice, but in Lekwapheng there are many donkey carts cruising around getting the job done. We have yet to cruise the ward via donkey cart yet but we are slowly learning which dirt path takes us where.
We have a kitten. Definitely does not take the place of Nubs but he is sure nice to come home to. His name is Kgosi (chief in Setswana). I know that him and Nubs will get along famously. For all of you who are wondering- of course we are bringing the little flea bag home, we have very different ideas about how pets should be treated than the Batswana.
Our jobs are slowly coming along. We are meeting people in the office and trying to get their very difficult names down. It is challenging adjusting to a very different work environment and work ethic but we will find our roles soon enough. The school I am in is great. It is sooo good to be back in a school. No matter what crazy things happen or how frustrating a day is, I am always guaranteed to have some beautiful African teenager smile and make my whole day better. There is a lot of work to be done there and I look forward to two years of enhancing the already strong foundation at the school.
With that said, we still have great days and days when we question what we are doing here. This country is fairly developed and sometimes we both don’t know if Americans need to be here at all. There is an estimated HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 25% (depending on whose research you read). It seems like much of the countries economy is based on such a high prevalence rate. So many people are employed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It also seems like they have all correct programs on paper and are doing what they should be doing yet somehow the prevalence rate continues to rise. At this point behavior change is key, and we constantly ask ourselves if this a role that we as Americans can partake in without being to patronizing.
Overall, after being here almost three months, we are so happy and firm in our decision to see this thing through and learn as much as we can. We love living in Africa and waking up to the roosters crow and a magnificent sunrise that fills the horizon. We are so excited to have this to experience and learn all there is to learn from this crazy little place called, Botswana.
Miss you all more than you know....
- written jointly by matt and laura
14 May 2009
Same same but different.... kinda
Hello Everyone. Just a short note to catch you up on our lives. We are starting to get the feel of how things are going to be in Botswana over the next two years. Slowly, slowly is what we have to come to realize. The projects are going to be exciting and the work is going to fulfilling. All of this will come at the cost of great patience and learning to following the protocol of this country, that is so different then ours.
This past weekend we got to go camping in the great Kalahari desert. It was great and truly in the middle of no where. We got to hang out with some friends, the incredible full moon, and or course a baby giraffe. Oh did i forget to mention all the impala and crazy wildlife that i do not even know the name of.....
The weather is absolutely amazing. The day is sunny and warm and the night cools down to about 60. The lack of humidity is so great. The sun is warm but not hot. If you ever feel to hot the comfort of the shade is amazing. We hear summer is terrible here (Jan) but it is hard for me to believe considering that they do not even have the least bit of water in the air. It definitely will not be the swamp like feel you get in Indiana or say NYC.
We have obviously made many cultural observations up until this point- yet we are going to wait to comment until we have more time to fully analyze what we think.
The other Peace Corps volunteers are great. WE live near three people that bring laughter to our long training days. One of the volunteer is 72 years old and I absolutely adore her. I keep telling her I want to be her when I grow up. Every Sunday we meet at this lodge down the street to take back some beers and vent about the boring aspects of training. We also get to reflect together and talk about what we all think the inherent problems are associated with development. It always makes for a very passionate conversation, considering many of us have studied development theories in school.
That is all for today. I am heading to the grocery store- this is always one of the big excitements here for the day. I hear they have feta in the store today. YEAH!!! Matt is off to play basketball with all the local Batswana ballers!!!
Hope you are well and would love to hear what is going on in your lives. don't forget to update us on your lives. Hearing about you guys and your lives is truly the only reason to come to internet at this point- since are lives are not yet fascinating. If you email me , Laura, send to the hotmail account it has an easier time loading.
Robert happy birthday!
Bryn thank you for the pictures- it was so good to see nubs.
jamie- thanks for the email. first one i have gotten from anyone in a while. It was magical being transported back to carlton ave and malik.
Can’t wait to get all the surprises everyone is talking about. I can’t wait to make everyone jealous on mail day. I love you all- my friends and family!!!!
For all of you that have questions of what to send- wait until we move into our own house. It is not easy thinking about what we want, when we do not have any of our own stuff or freedom for that matter. Also, I have gotten reports of tons of people sending magazines. This is great, considering the only news we get here is WWF. I hope you keep sending them throughout the two years here. A Sunday edition of the NY Times would be a dream come true!!!!
We love you and think of you often.
Laura07 May 2009
We are in Botswana- It seems like for longer than TWO weeks!
Hello to all of you out there. This is going to be short due to time restrictions yet I finally have some information to share and something positive to say. Training is long and somewhat tedious. We are living in with this lovely family in Molepoloe. They are very old and it is refreshing to hear about their life and the changes that have taken place in their life time. I am still learning to deal with my role in the house as a women. But overall no complaints about them and our living situation.
We have met same great people and they have really been helpful with the processing and reflecting of our new life and surroundings. I am traveling with my friend, Jillian, this weekend to another volunteers site and home. It is really nice to see what our future home might be like and what a typical work day is like. As much we like our host mom and dad, it will be great to live and cook on our own.
There is so many stories and insights to share but all of this will have to wait- as the Internet time is running out. When we get our computer back from the PC headquarters- we will definitely be able to write things at home and them upload at the archaic Internet station in Molepoloe.
Miss you all and would love to hear from you. any news is welcome as there are days when the missing home is worse then others.
Matt's Number- 011.267.729.455.36
Lauras Number- 011.267.729.455.34
Our Address for the next six weeks- we sent our selves a packages and it only took two weeks. So the packages can start coming.
Matt Jefferson/Laura Caito
Peace Corps
Private Bag 00243
Gaborone
Botswana
* these phone numbers and address are not going to be posted for long. I need to maintain some privacy.
We will definlty send a more secific list of things we need sent when we get settled into our new home.
matt is at another site and we are hoping to meet up this weekend.
miss you all and kisses from bots
laura
We have met same great people and they have really been helpful with the processing and reflecting of our new life and surroundings. I am traveling with my friend, Jillian, this weekend to another volunteers site and home. It is really nice to see what our future home might be like and what a typical work day is like. As much we like our host mom and dad, it will be great to live and cook on our own.
There is so many stories and insights to share but all of this will have to wait- as the Internet time is running out. When we get our computer back from the PC headquarters- we will definitely be able to write things at home and them upload at the archaic Internet station in Molepoloe.
Miss you all and would love to hear from you. any news is welcome as there are days when the missing home is worse then others.
Matt's Number- 011.267.729.455.36
Lauras Number- 011.267.729.455.34
Our Address for the next six weeks- we sent our selves a packages and it only took two weeks. So the packages can start coming.
Matt Jefferson/Laura Caito
Peace Corps
Private Bag 00243
Gaborone
Botswana
* these phone numbers and address are not going to be posted for long. I need to maintain some privacy.
We will definlty send a more secific list of things we need sent when we get settled into our new home.
matt is at another site and we are hoping to meet up this weekend.
miss you all and kisses from bots
laura
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