Measuring One's Impact - Initial Thoughts

In my previous blog I indicated that I was going to write about traveling in Botswana but I’m going to wait until after I’ve flown on Air Botswana in a couple of weeks, that way I’ll be able to cover the full spectrum of traveling in Botswana: Public bus, minibus, combis, hitching and air travel. In the mean time I want to focus this blog entry on a popular question that I’ve had a number of people ask: “What about the work? Do you feel like you’re making a difference there?” I posted this on Facebook a few days ago and have since made some additions and revisions for the blog entry.

My initial response to the question of whether I think I’m having an impact here in Botswana has been “I hope so” or “It’s too soon to tell.” I have realized though that I need to really step back and consider the question as it is as relevant now 4 months into my Peace Corps service, as it will be when I leave Botswana in June 2013. The question of whether we’re making a difference in our respective communities is a question that all current, past and future Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) ponder and debate exhaustively. Why? Because “making a difference” or “having an impact” is a primary driver in the decision making process for most of us and will be a key question to consider when we are trying to determine the “success” of our two years (or more in some cases) at our site in our assigned country.

At first it seems premature to even consider whether or not I’m making a difference after being in Botswana for just over 4 months. However, thinking it’s a premature question to consider is a good sign that when it comes to Peace Corps service I’m still looking for tangible results as a measure of success or impact and not considering the bigger picture in terms of my service here in Botswana. When you travel or live abroad you have a far greater appreciation of how much more results-orientated we are as Americans in comparison to much of the rest of the world. Our focus on results starts in school with grades and test scores being the primary methodology of determining the relative success of our education. The focus on results only increases once we enter the working-world, almost no matter our career choice. We are given goals, tasks and responsibilities and are evaluated based on criteria relative to the results associated with the given goals, tasks and responsibilities. Whether you’re a journalist, marketing executive, welder, trucker, professional voice-over actor, teacher, bartender, radio DJ, or CIA Operative, you will be judged by your results against a job description or financial performance or some other similar criteria.

I’m not judging American culture and its focus on results that can be measured. It is what it is, but it is not an adequate framework for evaluating my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer when much of the impact I am having and will have is intangible. Making a difference as a PCV is as connected to our day-to-day interactions and communication within our communities as it is to specific tasks we may perform or projects we are faciliating. Building a well, designing a water filtration system, teaching English, building a school, working as nurse in a clinic, designing an HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, setting up micro-financing for a small business enterprise are all examples of specific projects and responsibilities assigned to PCVs worldwide and are vitally important in the context of the local communities that are served by PCVs. Just as noteworthy, if not as important in the cross-cultural big picture, are the daily interactions of PCVs in their communities and countries.

I expect that work that I will be able to do at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) refugee camp in Dukwi (about 30 minutes from Sowa) to be challenging, meaningful, and potentially very rewarding as there will be some tangible results of my work to point to – whether its increased funding for a computer literacy center, or setting up income-generation projects for the refugees, or working on a strategy to increase the number of refugees that voluntarily get tested for HIV, as my work there will be more project-specific and focused. I also expect my work here in the District AIDS Coordinating (DAC) office to be rewarding and impactful, as well as frustrating, because I am now a small cog in the big wheel of Botswana Government bureaucracy and what impact I have will happen slowly, and will be met with resistance by the very bureaucracy I’m working for. That’s fine, I knew that going in and nothing in my first 7 weeks at the Sowa DAC office has altered my perceptions about this. I’ve worked at large, cumbersome bureaucracies (SC House of Representative) or bureaucratic institutions (SF Opera) so I feel like I’m prepared for the reality of incremental change, as different as that may look to me here in Botswana.

Capacity building, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS and the cultural behavior change(s) necessary to positively impact the lives of my community is by nature subtle and methodical. Measuring success will prove more challenging, and in fact the most significant impact I could have here may not happen while I’m here or even become apparent to me (or anyone else) while I’m here or for many years after. It could be something as simple as reaching one teenager about the importance of not taking sexual activity lightly, helping him or her understand that here are consequences to their decision to engage in, or not engage in, sexual activity in a country with such a high rate of teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and HIV infection. He or she might attend a workshop sponsored by the DAC office here when they are 12, but act (or not act) on the information in that workshop for 2-3 years down the road. It could be a mother-to-be who suspects she might be HIV+ deciding that she should get tested for her sake and the sake of her unborn child because she hung on to a pamphlet that she received at an outreach event in her village three years prior. I may not ever truly know or appreciate the measurable impact I can have in my two years here, and that’s perfectly fine.

What is equally important during my time here is how I interact on a daily basis with the members of my community. Two of the three Peace Corps goals are about the “intangibles” of our service, promoting positive impressions of Americans, and facilitating education and communication about our host country. In that context, I and all other PCVs are really on the job 24/7. When I smile and say “Dumela rra,” or “Dumela mma” for the umpteenth time, no matter how tired or cranky I am, I’m having an impact. Every time I hand wash my clothes, or walk to my office, or take public transportation to travel, or allow a neighbor’s child to tutor me in Setswana, I’m acting like a member of the community, not a visitor, or tourist and therefore having an impact. When I smile and laugh at the kids running towards or after me yelling “Lekoga!” instead of getting mad or frustrated or ignoring them I’m having a positive impact. When I keep my cool and try to go with the flow when hardships or challenges arise, as they inevitably do, like power outages, non-functioning ATMs, or empty grocery shelves, I am having an impact.

Am I perfect in maintaining my composure, my enthusiasm in engaging with and living in my new community? No, but I, and my fellow PCVs are mindful of this and try the best we can to live at the level of our neighbors and integrate into our communities. I have a feeling that the impact I have here may not be known to me for some time, if ever, and as long as I live in the present, focusing on my daily interactions and communications, then I should be ok and it will be a rewarding and successful time spent here on the Salt Plains. At least that’s what I’m telling myself when there’s no power and its 120 degrees in my house for the 8^th straight day. So yes, I and all of the PCVs here in Botswana are having an impact, every day, every hour. We, and our friends and family, may occasionally overlook daily interactions in our communities as part of the work we are doing because it’s not the “sexy” part of PC service (living abroad, traveling, learning new languages, teaching children) so often advertised and associated with life as a PCV, but it is a vital component of what makes our service so unique and hopefully fulfilling.

Initial Impressions of Sowa

Our team of 36 Bots 10 trainees was officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers on June 8, 2011. This marked the end of our 2 ½ months of Pre-Service Training and the beginning of our new lives as District Community Liaisons (DCLs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Capacity Builders and Community Capacity Builders (CCBs) working throughout Botswana in HIV/AIDS Capacity Building programs. I have been assigned to Sowa (pronounced “Sua”) near the giant Sowa Pan (Salt Plain) in the northeast of Botswana. Sowa is approximately 160 km (100 miles) west of Francistown, Botswana’s 2^nd-largest city with a population of just under 100,000. Sowa is a mining township of just under 4,000 people and most of the residents work at Botash, which runs the soda ash mine 5 miles west of Sowa (soda ash is used to make commercial glass), or for one of the local government offices/utilities in Sowa. In many ways Sowa is a “company town,” a planned community built by the mine in the early 1990’s, modeled after (in my opinion at least) after middle-class American suburbs that were developed around industrial cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh. Most of the houses are similarly structured one-story, 2-3 bedrooms, tile floored, tin-roofed structures that are painted various shades of beige, tan or cream, that typically look pretty bleached out because of the intense heat and sun that is prevalent most of the year here. With its paved streets, cul-de-sacs, industrial working vibe and transient population it at times feels very American, then you see random cows, chickens or goats roaming around and you realize that no Toto you really aren’t in Kansas anymore.

We have no stop lights or traffic signals in Sowa, but we do have a general store that sells basics like sugar, milk, sodas, eggs, etc., a butchery, a Barclays bank with ATM, an internet café, one take-away restaurant, a gym that’s no Gold’s but still pretty nice considering the small population base here, a small clothing store, a place to get haircuts and/or styling (not for me though, I have to go to Francistown to get a haircut, unless I want to buzz it all off), 3 schools, 3-4 bars and a Country Club for the Botash executives and government officials. It may at times feel like a small American suburb, but a lekogoa (“white person” in Setswana), much less an American lekogoa, is still an unusual site in the town, which has been clear to me every day as children follow me yelling “Lekogoa!” They don’t mean it derisively; it’s more that they are expressing their happy surprise at seeing something unusual. It would be akin in the US to children yelling out “Giraffe!” at the zoo or “Snow!” if they lived in Texas. Now that my predecessor has left I’m pretty sure I’m the only American lekogoa here – the other twolekoga  I’ve met so far both work at the nearby UN Refugee Camp and are from Holland and Canada.

The climate in Sowa is hot, dry, windy and dusty, similar to the climates of desert cities in the US like Phoenix or Palm Springs. Right now its Winter and pretty pleasant, with highs in the mid to upper 70s and lows in the high 40s/low 50s. Even on these short winter days the sun is very intense and I have yet to see a cloud in my 2 weeks here, but of course we’re not that far north of the Tropic of Capricorn down here so that’s not unusual weather by any stretch. The rainy season, such as it is, is typically in the beginning of summer in late October, early to Mid-November. From November to February, highs in the 100s will not be uncommon. The dust and pretty-constant desert winds will take some getting used to but I’m not all that worried about the heat. Of course it’s dead winter here; we’ll see how I feel in January.  I really lucked out on my housing here in Sowa, that’s for sure. The house I’m in was originally built for executives at the mine but was turned over to the Botswana Government in 2002 and has been utilized for Peace Corps Volunteers since 2006. It has 3 bedrooms, a bath tub and indoor toilet, a spacious living room and a kitchen. I have hot running water, a gas stove, refrigerator, and a nice bit of furniture in good condition that was left by the previous PCV. There’s also a guest house (originally servants’ quarters) with a running shower and bedroom, though unfortunately the shower is not connected to the hot water geyser (heater). There’s plenty of room here for me and for the many guests I expect to visit, other PCVs and of course friends from home. If the combi/minibus ride from Francistown (the closest airport) doesn’t scare you off, it’s not a bad place to visit, except in the summer of course.

Next post I’ll write about the adventure that is traveling around Botswana on public transportation.  

Here's some pics of the house.

More Photos

In lieu of a blog post I'm going to post photos from the last few days of our training here in Kanye, where it's been nice and cold. Today, June 7, 2011 we all swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. PULA!

Pictured from Top to Bottom:

• Me and Michelle at Sunrise in Kanye
• Me on the road to training
• Sunrise over Kanye
• Our Ntsweng language group at the Goodbye Party thrown by Mr. Khan (owner of Your Choice Super Store)
• Me and Rebecca before the Goodbye Party on Sunday
• Me and Clayton before the Goodbye Party on Sunday
• Me and Tija before the Goodbye Party on Sunday

New Address in Botswana

I'm moving to Sowa, Botswana effective June 8 to work in the District Administration Office in HIV/AIDS Capacity Building projects. My new mailing address will be:

Todd Heustess
District Adminstration Office
Private Bag SOW2
Sowa
Botswana

More blogs soon about Sowa and traveling in Botswana.

Daily LIfe in Kanye

Kanye is an “urban village” according to the Batswana, meaning that it has more amenities than a regular village (chain grocery stores, a couple of internet cafes) but is it not a town or city because there is not one primary industry that drives the local economy. Most towns and cities in Botswana were created and are sustained by their proximity to the major industries in Botswana – mining, trucking/distribution, and high-end tourism. None of these industries are a focal point of the Kanye economy and in fact life in Kanye is dictated by its location as the largest village between Gaborone (45 minutes) and Lobaste, a trucking/distribution city very near the South African border about 25 miles southeast of Kanye. Our trainee class just completed our second full week in Kanye and we’re slowly settling into a routine that is dictated by our Setswana language classes in the mornings and Peace Corps project specific training and seminars in the afternoon that go until 4:30 or 5:00. Botswana is a “dawn to dusk” culture and Kanye is no different, so my mornings begin around 6:30 when I get up to make coffee (instant) and heat the water for my morning bath. Breakfast is usually cereal, scrambled eggs (if I have time) or mabele, a sour milk porridge for which I’m slowly developing a taste. It has the consistency of oatmeal or grits and with a little brown sugar it’s pretty tasty. Setswana language training is done in small clusters based on where we live. My current language cluster has 7 of us who all live on Ntsweng and our classes go from 8-12 each morning. We then have a walking/lunch break until 1:30 and the walk from our Kgotsi (village center) to the RIIC Center where our large group sessions are held is about a 30 minutes. Once our afternoon session is done we have free time until it’s dark which right now is about 6:30 pm, when we return to our host families for dinner. Most of us use the afternoon free time to do internet before making our way home. Kanye on the weekdays really shuts down at dark. The main streets do not have lights and with the random livestock roaming around it can be dangerous to drive unless you know where you’re going and there are no real pedestrian rules or laws, so walking the dark streets at night is bit of a roulette game with pretty high stakes. Most of the locals go to bed around 8:30-9:00 which has been a big adjustment for a lot of us, especially yours truly. I typically read, study Setswana (we have homework) or watch old American shows (The Hills, American Idol, Prison Break) on South African TV until 11-11:30. The weekends are a little bit “livelier” with drinking beer and cruising the main pastimes for the locals on Friday nights and apparently all day Saturday. Sundays are especially quite with many of the locals going to church all day. Saturdays and/or Sundays have proven to be the best time for most of us to do laundry, which for just about all of us means hand washing our clothes in big tubs/buckets and hanging them out to dry. Most of our group has never hand washed before and while it’s a necessary skill for living here in Botswana, I’m wondering how long it will take us (especially me) to negotiate a deal with one of my neighbors to wash my clothes or work out barter trade with someone who actually has a washing machine. My first attempt at hand washing 2 weeks ago was enlightening (to say the least) and apparently quite comical as I had the whole neighborhood entertained with my exploits. If hand washing clothes once a week is my new normal, then my definition of “clean” is going to expand greatly while I’m here in Botswana. The other challenge with hand washing is that it’s dictated by the weather and with the rainy season starting early here in Kanye, I’m glad I brought extra deodorant! Most of us have wanted to wash for a week now but it’s rained every day for 7 straight days, not all day, but at least once every day and when it rains here in Kanye it’s like someone turns over a big bucket in the sky. You can go from dry to soaking wet in about 2 seconds and the umbrellas and rain slickers we all brought are no match for Botswana storms. We’re expecting a break in the weather this weekend – fingers crossed!

Next week we embark on one of the highlights of our PST – shadowing. From Wednesday to Sunday next week we all will be traveling to, and staying with, current Peace Corps volunteers and shadowing them at their job sites and learning about their communities, villages, towns, etc. I will be traveling to Sowa, in the Northeastern section of the country, south of Zimbabwe and west of Francistown, along with Blake (who incidentally is from South Carolina as well, a Wofford alum actually) to shadow a current District Community Liaison, Jillian at her work and in her village of Sowa, which is a mining town at the border of the Sowa Pan which is a giant salt plain. According to Lonely Planet, the Sowa Pan is “a single sheet of salt-encrusted mud stretching across the lowest basin in northeastern Botswana.” In fact it’s one of the largest salt plains in the world. We will be traveling by bus/combi from Gaborone which is around 7 hours and I’m sure will be in adventure in and of itself but I’m sure it will be “gaunna matata” (no problem – seriously, pronounced “ha una ma tatta”) to use a popular local phrase. On my next post I’ll give a brief overview of the work that the Peace Corps is doing here in Botswana in advance of our first real exposure to the type of work I’ll be doing once I’m assigned a site and project in June.

Adjusting to Kanye

So I’ve been in Kanye for almost 2 weeks now and I’m still adjusting to the culture shock of living with a host family in a small, yet very spread out, village in Southwestern Botswana. All of us are very much living, eating, breathing Batswana (the people of Botswana) culture right now, which means getting used to the chickens, goats, donkeys that roam freely in the village and on the roads, running water as a concept not a reality, learning to like mmidi the corn/maize mixture that is in nearly every dish, and the very real fact that all of us, even the African-American members of our group, so obviously stand out, that we all might as well be wearing white robes and turbans at a suburban Cincinnati strip mall.  All of us will be living with our host families until the beginning of June, when we graduate from Pre-Service Trainees with the Peace Corps to full-fledged volunteers with the Peace Corps. Unlike the rest of Botswana which is very dry, hot, dusty and brown (80% of the country is the Kalahari desert), Kanye is in the mountains and is relatively cooler, greener, and lusher than the rest of the country. Most of Kanye can be divided into “downstairs” (Mafhikana and Gakebuang) which are settlements in the valley and “upstairs”  (Ntsweng) which is a collection of developments (called wards here) on the two highest mountains/hills here in Kanye. Most of our PST group (30) live in Gakebuang or Mafhikana while 9 of us (including me) live in Ngsweng and I specifically live in the Chibana Ward of Ngsweng. Which means that I live near the end of the last paved road on the main mountain, about a 30-minute walk downhill from the major “shopping” area (there are grocery stores closer to me here in Ngsweng) and about 45 minutes by foot from the majority of the group. Of course it’s 5-10 minutes by taxi or combi bus (shared bus taxis) but the walking is a nice way to pass the time, especially since it’s not nearly as hot here in Kanye as in the rest of Botswana. It’s been a mixture of sun and clouds since we arrived with highs in the upper 60s/lower 70s and lows in the 50s for now and the last few days it’s rained more than we were expecting and when it rains here it’s like someone turned over a bucket from the clouds. We’re in Fall now, with winter approaching in June which means that it’s going to get quite a bit colder with lows all the way down to upper 30s and high 40s and daytime temperatures in the 50s. Here in the Chibana Ward I live with Mma (Miss) Mpotsan Sephetsolo at her home which has electricity (yeah!) and what I’m calling “water on request.” She has a big (3 bedrooms), nicely decorated house and her son Snoek (his preferred nickname), who’s 42 and lives in the house next door. Mma Sephetsolo is 71 a little set in her ways and is not a big talker, especially when her nighttime soaps are on, but she’s nice and is proud to be hosting a Peace Corps trainee again – she hosted a volunteer in 1998.  My situation is pretty unique to the rest of my group since most of the time it’s just me and her here at the house. Many of the other trainees live with actual families, parents, kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc. My situation is also unique in that I have a private bathroom and many in our group live with families that have pit latrines outside. We have two sources of filtered water, one that we use for washing dishes and for baths, and one for the kitchen tap for drinking water, which means I don’t have to boil the water, which is a huge relief. Even with the recent rain, water is a precious resource in this country so there is a big emphasis on conserving as much water as possible. Overall I like my situation with Mma Sephetsolo in that what I’m losing in more daily interaction with the locals I’ve gained by living in a relatively nice house and I’m VERY happy I don’t have a pit latrine for a toilet!  

So Far So Good

Greetings from Gaborone, Botswana.  Our Peace Corps team of 39 (we lost one at JFK) arrived here on Sunday after a LONG day/night of flying from NY-JFK to Johannesburg, then connecting to our very small plane from Joburg to Gaborone.  Our South African Airways flight was just under 15 hours and while we were all in Economy, I actually had it pretty lucky: My seat 74D was an aisle in the middle section next to a trap door. I’ve flown a lot and never been on a plane with a space set aside for a trap door. The end result was that in a row in the middle that should have had 4 seats, there were only 2 seats and the seat next to me was empty, which meant I had a lot of room and space (relatively) to stretch out and somewhat enjoy the flight. Sunday was a blur as we arrived at the Big 5 Lodge in Gaborone (the Economy Lodge of “Safari” lodges) dazed and confused and trying our best to fight the jet lag. Since arriving in Botswana we’ve spent 90% of our time at the lodge getting administrative briefings, studying Setswana (the language here in Botswana), and getting presentations from the local Botswana Peace Corps staff on the nature and scope of the projects we’ll be assigned to after training. Position-wise our group is mostly Community Capacity Builders (CCB), with a handful Non-governmental organizational Reps (NGO), and District Coordinator Liaisons (DCL) which is my position.  We leave for Kanye tomorrow, which is about 1.5 hours from Gaborone. Kanye is where we will do our Pre-Service Training (PST) and live with our host families. We meet our host families tomorrow which has everyone excited and nervous as from what we know there is a wide range of living situations that we will experience. I will give details about my host family next time I post.  Internet access in Kanye is apparently a bit of a challenge so I have a feeling e-mail communication and blog posts may be somewhat sporadic and limited until I actually move to my permanent site in June.

I have a Botswana cell phone now, the number is 011-267-7656-9961 and incoming calls are free! For those of you in the know technically you can Skype to my cell phone directly for very reasonable rates.

Go siame (Go in peace)

Todd

Time to Go

It's time to go. All 40 of us are ready to go, even our 84 year-old volunteer. I'm combining quotes here but it seems appropriate: "Do good things and be the change you want to see in the world." I look forward to updating when I get to Botswana!

The Packing Crunch

24 hours out and packing is proving to be quite challenge. Even me the nomad is finding it difficult to consolidate my life into 2 checked bags + a duffel. However, I know that by the time I'm ready to go to Charlotte airport on Thursday that I will have spent way more time agonizing about packing than was really necessary and I also have a feeling that a year from now I'll laugh at how stressful I thought this was. In fact it's a bit liberating to downsize my life this much. It boggles my mind to think that on Sunday I'll be in Gaborone, Botswana about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, serving for and working with the Peace Corps in Botswana. Wow!

Welcome to my Botswana Blog

Dumela (hello) everyone! I have finally gotten around to creating a blog about the exciting new chapter in my life - serving in the Peace Corps and working with the Botswana government in HIV/AIDS Capacity Building and NGO Development. I leave on Thursday 3/31 for Staging in Philadelphia and then leave for good on Saturday 4/2 for Gaborone. We leave NY-JFK at 11:15 am on Saturday and will be flying South African Airways non-stop to Johannesburg, South Africa - a short jaunt of 16 hours and then connect to our 1 hour flight to Gaborone and will arrive in Gaborone at 1:30 pm on Sunday afternoon. Ambien and Xanax will be my good friends during that 24 hour period.

There are 41 others going with me to serve/work in Botswana with the Peace Corps and I've met a few through Facebook. We will spend our first week in Gaborone going through an intense orientation and preparing for our Pre-Service Training (PST) which will begin on April 8. Our PST will take place in Kanye, at the Peace Corps training village. In Kanye we will live with host families (advanced cultural immersion to say the least), while undergoing Setswana language, Botswana cultural and job-specific training through the beginning of June. Once we complete PST we will be sworn into Peace Corps service on June 7 and then will report to our post. I will be working as a District Coordinator Liaison with the Botswana government in their HIV/AIDS programs at a location that will be finalized during my PST.

During PST I will have pretty limited access to internet so my blog posts may be infrequent at best. Once I start my job in June I believe I will have more consistent internet access and hope to be able to post to this blog with increased frequency to give all of you who want to follow the blog a sense of what daily life is like in Botswana and the work I'll be doing with the Peace Corps. I can't promise the most visually stimulating blog with fancy design templates but I do hope that the content itself will be interesting to those of you who sign up to follow the blog and I'm sure once I get the hang of it my blog posts will be reach "must-read" status with all of you waiting in eager anticipation for my latest post. 

I look forward to staying in touch via the blog and maybe seeing some of you in Southern Africa in 2012 or 2013.