Project Update (Katie)

Here’s a short recap of various projects I’ve completed in the past six months, to give you guys a quick glimpse into the life of a Peace Corps volunteer:

HBC and Compost

The soil in Salajwe is very sandy, which makes gardening difficult. The role of Home Base Care (HBC) at the clinic is to provide care to terminally ill patients at their homes: volunteers bathe patients, clean house, cook food. In addition to that, the clinic provides a plot to the HBC to garden and provide vegetables for the patients.
When I first arrived at Salajwe, the garden was dormant. In order to encourage the HBC volunteers to get involved in gardening again, I wrote up a list (in Setswana) of what food scraps to save at home in order to make compost. Compost is made up of wet organic material (fruit/vegetable scraps), dry organic material (hay, straw, dry leaves and grasses), and animal manure. The dormant garden had a good collection of dry organic material leftover from the winter. The HBC volunteers began bringing in their food scraps from home and even brought in boxes of goat manure (the best!) from their goat crawls. I taught the ladies how to layer the materials, keep the mound wet so that everything would decompose, and to continually add to the pile.
After a few weeks we had rich, sweet-smelling planting soil. The HBC sold peaches collected from the orchard in order to buy seeds to plant in the garden. The Salajwe Clinic now has a successful, active garden.

English Club

Some of you may know, I have started an English Club at the primary school. At the end of the school year last year (2009), many teachers and parents were concerned at the low test results of the primary school students. I attended a teachers’ meeting at the start of the new school year (2010). After reviewing test results, it appeared the majority of bad scores were due to the students’ lack of knowledge of English. I offered to teach an English Club during the students’ study hour four days a week to a group of Standard 6 and 7 students.
I started the classes off slowly to ensure that everyone would be caught up on the same page. I taught English the same way I was taught Setswana: I started off with greetings and introductions. Then I taught vocabulary for various topics such as family, professions, and verbs. I was surprised how well the Standard 6 students performed. I was a little disappointed that teachers sent me their best students to the English Club. The Standard 7 students however had lots of challenges with English.
I tried to use a variety of teaching approaches to engage the students. We played memory using common phrases in both English and Setswana, hangman, 20 questions. I do find that the more conversational English I try to engage them in, the harder the lessons are for them. I plan to keep teaching the English Club for the remainder of the school year (Nov 2010). I look forward to seeing an improvement in student scores.

Fundraiser Video Show

The community had come together to decide what to do about three deaf girls living in Salajwe. No one in the village knows sign language or how to communicate with those with hearing disabilities. So they paid for the girls to attend a workshop to learn how to mend and sew clothes so that they would be able to have some sort of a livelihood. Sewing machines were donated, and a house was started to be built so they would have a place to work. About half way through the housing project, the committee assigned to help these girls ran out of money. A committee member approached me for help. Lucas and I went to survey the house to see how much was left to be built. After deciding the materials needed were within reach, I suggested we have a video show to raise funds to finish the house.
I gave instructions to get quotes on all building materials needed so that we could estimate how much money we needed to raise. It came out to be about P1000 (~$150). We decided to charge P5/adult and P2/child. Even if only adults attended, we would need 200 people. When I announced how many people we needed to attend the video show to reach our goal, the clinic staff burst into laughter. Not really encouraging...
After determining we would show the video at the community hall, we realized the hall had no electricity. Thankfully one of the ambulance drivers at the clinic owned a generator but we needed to provide money for petrol. So all staff at the clinic donated P5 to pay for petrol. An ambulance driver from another village was willing to provide wiring for the generator and to light the community hall. We borrowed a projector from the District Health Office (DHT). A generous teacher from the primary school contributed a stereo system and DVD player for us to use. Things were coming together.
After making fliers advertising the show, we were ready to party. We set up chairs in the community hall and projected a huge screen on the wall. We thought the community members were going to be so excited. The first night we had only children but almost 50 showed up. Not the numbers we needed but we were excited nonetheless. We showed Disney’s Tarzan because of the lack of dialogue in the first 20 minutes (we weren’t sure of their English level). The first scenes of the movie are the story of the gorilla finding baby Tarzan and rescuing him from the cheetah that killed his family. Kids were screaming and cheering; it was great. By the end of the show we had made just under P100. Not very much but if we had as many or more the next night, we could make quite a dent in the fundraising.
The next night we were ready early. But the crowds were nowhere to be seen. There were a handful of children at the door. All of them were haggling us, trying to convince us to let them into the movie show for free. By the end of the night we had a whopping 8 people in the theatre. It was a huge disappointment. We thought this would be an experience that no one in Salajwe had experienced. It turned out there were three funerals in Salajwe that weekend; many adults were making preparations for those. Another huge factor was that boarder students from both the primary and secondary schools were not allowed to leave campus. So we had a limited audience.
In the end the video show was a bit of a failure. But I suppose that is part of the deal. We are making plans to have another fundraiser.

Local Enterprise Authority (LEA)

Because of the size of Salajwe, there are a limited number of jobs. The major organizations include the primary and secondary schools, the clinic, and a few general dealers. The schools are employed by teachers from outside of Salajwe (placed there by the Botswana government) as well as the clinic which is employed by nurses and counsellors from outside the village. The major general dealer is owned by an Indian family whom commute in and out of the village weekly. Very little revenue is circulated within Salajwe. The lack of job opportunities leaves the majority of Salajwe unemployed.
Right before Christmas, a handful of out of school youth were approaching me about wanting to start small businesses but didn’t know where to begin. I was made aware, by another Peace Corps volunteer, of several companies in larger villages that aid in helping to start small businesses, especially those in rural villages. I made connections with Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) to come to Salajwe and make a presentation.
Along with the leader of the Botswana Youth Committee in Salajwe, we made arrangements for a meeting at the kgotla (a traditional meeting area), inviting all the appropriate protocol, and leaving an open invitation to anyone interested to attend the presentation.
The LEA presenter, Mr Semakaleng, had asked me beforehand how many people I expected at the presentation. Based on the number of out of school youth who had approached me for help, I estimated about 15, maybe more, maybe less. The day of the presentation, over 100 people attended. They were taking notes and asking questions. The community seemed to really embrace what LEA had to offer. Afterwards two community members made appointments with Mr Semakaleng to discuss applying for a loan. I had requested that the presentation be given in Setswana so that the community members would be more likely to understand (rather than giving in English). So I missed a lot of what was being said. Including a 15 minute speech by the kgosi (chief) of Salajwe which included a lot of my name and a lot of laughing; um....But the Youth leader, Taylor, assured me the presentation went very well. Several community members approached me to tell me how much having LEA come to Salajwe had helped them. Even Mr Semakaleng thanked me for inviting LEA. The presentation was a huge success. I am so excited to learn if any businesses materialize out of all this!!!
Self Defence Demonstration to Women’s Support Group
Out of school youth are a large target group for Peace Corps volunteers. Out of school youth include youth that have dropped out of school or those age 18-30 who have finished school. Most have children but are not married. Because of the lack of job opportunities, most are unemployed and are a huge risk for HIV. A couple placed in Molepolole, Matt and Laura, have started an out of school youth support group in their ward (ward is kind of like a designated neighbourhood). Unintentionally, only women signed up to join the support group. Together the group decided on what topics they want to cover at meetings. One week Matt and Laura focused on domestic violence. They invited two counsellors from the local women’s shelter to come and discuss options for women who are being abused. I was invited to show a few self defence moves.
I was careful not to give the women the impression that they would be able to successfully fight back. In most cases, a woman is unable to beat a man. And the situation could become much worse if a woman decided to fight back. In fact a few women chose not to attend the domestic abuse meeting for fear that their husbands would find out. I focused my demonstration on defending against punches and slaps and for the goal to be to get away and flee to a safe place. The women totally embraced it. It made me sad that so many women could relate to situations I was giving as examples. I taught how to throw a jab and a cross just so they would know what was being thrown at them. Then I showed how to block a jab and a cross. And I demonstrated how to escape from a man who had control of her wrists. Matt and Laura were so thankful and let me know how well the presentation went.
Word got back to the women’s shelter about my demonstration. They are now interested in having me as a regular guest to come and speak with abused women and teach them how to defend themselves. It amazes me how far behind women’s rights are placed in a country that has progressed at such a fast pace. I am ecstatic that I may be one of the first people in Botswana to teach women self defence.