Sorry I have been a
little neglectful to this blog. The last month has been pretty busy with
traveling (will talk about that in another post) and Close of Service
Conference.
Last week my
training group (Bots 9) was put up in the capital for a few days at the
Phakalane Golf Estate Hotel for our Close of Service Conference. The hotel was
by far the nicest place I have ever stayed in! The food was great, the rooms
were nice, the poolside was gorgeous, and I had to keep reminding myself that I
was still in Botswana. The few days were full of sessions about closing out our
service, i.e. saying proper goodbyes, cooping with readjustment when we return
back to the states, forms we have to fill out before we leave, reports we have
to do, and going over any other administrative and medical close out
procedures. The conference was to give our group one last chance to all be
together, give us a sense of accomplishment for (almost) completing our service
here, and go over all the things we need to do before we leave.
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| Dinner the first night with Sunny and Lucie |
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| Our awesome rooms |
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| The beautiful pool |
After the first full
days of session Peace Corps treated us to a game drive and braii (bbq) at the Mokolodi Game Reserve. Although over the past 2 years I have been on numerous
game drives, it's always nice to get to see the wildlife and enjoy being with
my fellow volunteers. We got to see a couple hyenas and a herd of giraffees, as
well as impala , wildebeast, kudo, ostrich, and worthogs. I will sure miss the
wildlife here. Once at the braii site we were fed an scrumptious dinner by a
lake and listened to the hippos calling into the night.
The next afternoon
Peace Corps hosted a formal luncheon to pay tribute to the volunteers along
with VIP government officials. Former
President Festus Mogae attended, which
was really great because he was one of the driving forces in brining the Peace
Corps Volunteers back to Botswana in 2002 (Peace Corps Volunteers had
previously served in Botswana since
1966, but left in 1997 due to the country's strong economic growth and
development). Other officials in attendance were the Minister of Health,
Minister of Local Government, a representative of the US Embassy, and the National Coordinator for the National
AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA). Many speeches were made, including ones from
four volunteers about their service. It was a nice luncheon and my counterpart
at the clinic, Interview, even attended to show his and Machaneng's support.
Botswana press even put out radio interviews, television reports, and printed a
great article about Peace Corps Botswana in Mmegi, a Botswana national
newspaper, in response to this luncheon.
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| Former President Fetus Mogae making his speech |
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| One of the PCV's making her speech in Setswana |
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| Me and my counterpart Interview |
One of the
afternoons we had a panel of RPCVs
(Returned Peace Corps Volunteers), who are residing in Gaborone, talk to us
about readjustment. I really enjoyed this session. It was great to hear first
hand from volunteers who had gone through similar things that we had and will
go through in the near future. It was fun to hear their stories and give me a
little bit of knowledge of what to expect when I get back. (Just a warning…you
will be getting a weird version of me when I get back in June, bear with me and
I will be back to "normal" at some point…hopefully)
It's crazy to think
that I am coming upon the completion of my service. I think back to those first
days when I arrived here. I had no clue what I had gotten myself in to and now
my time is almost up. There has been so much growth and changes in me and my
group and it has been neat getting to witness that.
During the
conference we got to sign up for our actual Close of Service dates. I signed up
for the 6th of June and just the other day I booked my ticket home. It didn't
feel real until then. All this time I've been saying that I am going home soon,
but now that I have a ticket that says I will be back in Ohio on June 7th. This
makes it feel real.
It feels weird to be
back in my village after the conference. All last week the staff kept saying
"you did it! you're (almost) done! congratulations!" and then we
were sent back to our villages until June.
It makes it a little difficult to be motivated to continue with the projects I
had going on. I know though that my projects need to be passed on and closed
out. With that, packing up, and all the paperwork I have to fill out, I will be pretty busy
the next few weeks. This past week I have started letting people in my village
know the exact dates when I will be leaving. I started tearing up when I was
letting one of my friends know. I am super excited to be going home and to be
closing this chapter of my life, but parts of me are very sad to leave. I will
miss my mostswana and volunteer friends here and my cat. Saying goodbye is different here. In America
when I said my goodbyes I knew in 2+ years I would be seeing them again. Here I
will have to say goodbye, knowing there is a good chance I will never see them
again. I am anticipating this will be very difficult to do over the next 11 or
so weeks.
