Finding My Niche

I have been at my site for 3 weeks now. This integration thing is very hard. I always considered myself a very talkative and outgoing person but these past few weeks I can't seem to find that side of me. Maybe it's because everyone around me speaks a language I barely understand and when I speak to them in English they barely understand me. I guess it's just going to take some time and patience for me to find my niche in my village. So I'm sure you all are probably wondering what it is exactly that I have been up to these past few weeks? The first few months at site we are in "lockdown" meaning we are not allowed to leave our villages until sometime in August when we go to Gabs for our In Service Training. This is to allow us to meet people within our communities and form relationships. We are supposed to be assessing the community and finding out it's needs. So what does that exactly all mean? Beats me! I find myself going through each day clueless as to what it is exactly I am supposed to be doing. I go to my clinic at 7:30am every morning and sit through the staff meeting for 30-45 mins (which is all in Setswana so I understand none of it). After the meeting I try to find something to do. Sometimes this means helping out with the child welfare clinic (weighing babies) other times it's writing down dates and genders of people getting their immunizations. Sometimes I get lucky and there actually is something for me to do. Today I typed up a chart on excel and word for them. Maybe I should teach them how to use Micorsoft Office? I am sure with time things will get better. It just takes time for people to trust me and know that I do have ideas and can be useful.


One day I got to go out with Keitumetsi (the Senior Health Educator Assistant for my clinic) and tell people on the Tuli Block about coming in for their H1N1 vaccinations. This was a very cool day. The Tuli Block by Machaneng is a bunch of privately owned game reserves. As we traversed through people's property's I got to see all sorts of wildlife! I just wish I had my camera. I'll have to remember it next time. At every property we stopped the people living there gave us meat or fruit to take with us. It's all part of Botswana's giving culture. In Botswana many people do not have jobs or make much money, so they have a known policy of what's mine is yours. They are very giving people. Which is great when you are a volunteer and are living on less than $3 a day. Throughout the day I ended up with dried impala meat, a big hunk of steak, wildebeest liver, kudo bones, and oranges. I let my coworkers take most of it at the end of the day. I only took the steak, oranges and impala meat (tastes kind of like deer meat). At one ranch I got to see the entire butchering process of a wildebeest. From the live beast in the corals all the way to the hunk of meat on a hook. It was pretty interesting. I was literally two inches away from a live wildebeest with only a flimsy wall in between us. It was pretty awesome! Some other animals I saw were kudo, springbok, wild boar, impala, and buffalo. That day was defiantly one of my better days here in Africa.

Another thing I have been busy with is helping my clinic with the Mosadimogolo World Cup Football Tournament. All the clinics in the Mahalapye Area are putting together this football tournament to promote women in sports and also use the matches as ways to educate people about HIV/AIDs. My village's game is this Saturday so I will be going and helping out with the set up and education part. I would play in the match but you have to be at least 25 to play (darn). My Football skills are not all the great anyways so I am not too disappointed I can't play. I have practiced a couple times with the team though, the exercise was nice. The team had a scrimmage game yesterday against Makwate (another village in the area), but they didn't do well. Hopefully they will do better tomorrow.

This week my counterpart decided she wanted me out of the clinic and she wanted me to get more into the community. This is great because I do not feel like I am much help at the clinic. I got to go hangout with the preschoolers on Monday. That was pretty fun. I will probably be going and spending time with them every week. Children are fun to work with and they have soo much energy! We just played with puzzles, legos, and did a craft. I am not sure what else I will do with them. I haven't really worked with children that young before, but in time I know I will come up with some ideas.

Another group I am excited to work with is the PACT team at the Jr. Secondary School. I met with them once and will be meeting with them every Monday afternoon. They are a Peer Counseling Team that promote awareness about different health related issues in the school. They gave me a list of topics they want to talk about at their meetings throughout the next few months, so now I just need to come up with some fun activities that go along with their topics. Their leader is very proactive so I am also excited to work with her. I just hope my shyness will go away soon. I want to be useful in my community but I am finding it hard to communicate with the people around me. Most of the time I don't know what to say to them. Hopefully this will change over time. I just need to take it one day at a time.