These are stories that have happened during our service thus far that we thought you would enjoy:
When we first moved to Salajwe, we experienced our water turning off frequently. Although our host family’s house did not have running, we were still getting used to cooking without it. One night as I was making soup in the dark (our kitchen was without a light), I was using a cup of water to add to the mix. Things were going well but the soup had a very sweet smell. Once dinner was ready, Lucas noticed that the cup of water I was using was empty. He exclaimed, “You didn’t use that to cook with, did you?” It turns out the cup of water was soapy water so that we could wash our hands in the sink. Needless to say we ate plain rice that night.
One early morning I walked to the general dealer for some eggs. It turns out the dealer doesn’t open until 10am, so I walked home empty-handed. I watched some girls up ahead of me brushing their teeth by a bush. As I got closer, I realized they had no tooth brushes; they were using branches from the tree to brush their teeth.
When I first came to Salajwe Clinic, I would observe the women weighing their babies. The babies were placed in a bag with long straps that reminded me of a purse with holes cut out of the bottom for legs. The straps were hung on a scale to weight the baby. In Salajwe I’ve noticed many babies and children wearing hand-me-down clothes that are torn, too big, or too small. I am surprised to see a good number of semi-formal clothes. But I suppose if it is only worn once, it can be purchased cheap and used again and again. Sometimes babies are brought in to weigh wearing Easter and Christmas dresses. When they are placed in the bag, the ruffles from the dress would be pushed straight up so that all you could see was an African baby face surrounded by sparkly fluff.
Every morning at the clinic, we have a prayer. Most times I am unsure of what we’re praying for because it is in Setswana. Everyone takes turns praying for us. For whatever reason, I always feel put on the spot when I’m asked to pray. I think it’s because I pray very different from them. One rainy morning when I was asked to pray, I had everyone stand up, hold hands, and sang Johnny Appleseed ( Oh the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord/For giving me the things I need/The sun and the rain and the appleseed/The Lord is good to me/Amen Amen Amen)
They LOVED it
I am very lucky to have Lucas. Even before we were married, he has offered to pluck my eye brows for me. One weekend, Lucas offered to pluck them as I was sitting out on our porch. At the time we had an unusual number of kids visiting us. As soon as Lucas started plucking, the kids were fascinated. After just a few hairs, Lucas admitted that he wanted to teach them how to do it. I reluctantly agreed. The first one to step up to the plate was a young boy about 9 or 10. Lucas showed him how to hold the tweezers and which hair to pluck. The boy was great. He had such a fear of hurting me, he would pluck so slowly. As soon as the hair was out, he would grab the hair out of the tweezers and study it. It wasn’t until Lucas decided to leave that I got nervous. They had no sense of shaping so just plucked whichever hair they wanted. But it was a fun experience nonetheless.
As you have read, we have a lot of student visitors. Many of them are boarders, that is they are from far away villages and stay at the school all year. For that reason many of them are tempted to ask for food. We try and set a clear boundary that our gate is always open to everyone but that we are unable to feed all of our visitors. During one visit, three girls were being particularly pushy about getting food. One girl tried to convince me that her 11-year-old friend was with child and the baby was hungry. As I was explaining that I could not feed them, one girl tried to show me how to feed a baby by putting her mouth over my nipple. It was funny and embarrassing at the same time.
A common means of transportation is Botswana is a type of van called a khombi. Khombis are most common on routes that are not used by buses or as a cheaper means of getting around larger towns than taxis. Because the more people on a khombi, the more money the driver gets, khombi rides are typically over crowded. On hot days, they are particularly miserable. Lucas and I were traveling around Gaborone via khombi and enjoying some grapes in the very back seat. I asked Lucas to lean back so that I could spit some grape seeds out the window. Instead the seeds bounced off the inside of the khombi and hit the lady in front us in the face. She was a good sport about it but I felt terrible!
The last 60 km before my village is dirt road and without public transportation. The majority of Salajwe is without a vehicle so we depend on hitch hiking to get to and from home. One trip hitch hiking back to Salajwe found me jammed between a rather large woman, and the driver. The woman took my backpack in her lap so that the driver could shift (I was basically straddling the stick shift). Not long down the road, I could feel my water bottle dripping water down my leg. I went to tighten the lid but found it wasn’t open. I worried maybe the cranberry juice in my bag had leaked all over so I tasted the liquid on my leg. I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew right away it wasn’t juice. It was warm and sour. The lady squeezed next to me was sweating down my leg and I just put it in my mouth! I still had more than half my trip to Salajwe. Every time I caught a whiff of the woman’s body odor, I could taste her sweat in my mouth again. I couldn’t wait to get home and wash my mouth out.
