Dumelang!

So I am here, safe, and oh so happy! Africa is everything and nothing like I expected. There are certain aspects like the livestock wandering the streets and the chickens, dogs, cows, goats, donkeys, or any other number of creatures waking you up at god-awful hours in the morning (Whoever said roosters only crow at dawn lied to us. They lied.), that I kind of expected but the kindness of the Batswana and the community commitment and mindset is something I didn’t expect. Here when you walk around when you greet someone they are eager to ask you where you are from, when you got to Botswana immediately followed by when you got to Serowe, and if I know any number of famous musicians.

Here, greetings are incredibly important to people. It is a way of acknowledging a person and saying, yes I know and respect the fact that you are here with me. As many of the Peace Corps documents say, “You are acknowledging their personhood, their being.” So when I say Dumela mma (hello, ma’am) or Dumela rra (hello sir) I am telling you that I value you as a human. It’s really fun to walk down the street and greet people. They all look at you like WOAH this white girl knows some of my language. You will always get big smiles and normally a little giggle especially if you follow it up with a “Le kae?” or an “O tsogile jang?” (both of them basically mean how are you). The other day I went to the mall (more like a bunch of small shops and produce stands) and had a decent conversation with one of the locals and the woman I was purchasing my airtime from. They thought it was hilarious that I couldn’t remember my Setswana name but could remember how to say thank you two different ways. For the record, I do remember my Setswana name now. The language has been slow but it is definitely coming along considering last week the only thing I knew about Setswana is that there are two distinct clicks that basically sound the same. Now I can ask you how you are about 7 different ways and I know a ton of random vocabulary.

I am living with a host family for all 2 months of training. It’s really been great so far. It’s just my host mother and I in the house. She has two grown boys who live and work in Gaborone. Most nights when I get home from training, we sit and talk for a bit, have dinner and then she will help me with my Setswana. My mme is a hoot. She’s a real spitfire. She is in her 60s and has arthritis so she tends to stay in a lot but I am trying to get her to go out and walk with me more. But she is so incredibly smart. We have had many a discussion about politics, the healthcare system in Botswana, language and learning (she was the head of the secondary school), HIV/AIDS, malaria and countless other subjects. That tends to be my favorite part of the night even though I have been too tired out for the past two days and have just eaten, studied, bathed and gone to bed.

My walk to the college every morning. That white wall is my home!

Training is not easy. Our days are long and full of lessons upon lessons on everything from policy and procedure to how to take care of ourselves when we finally get intestinal troubles… if you know what I mean. We start at 8:00a and end around 5:00p every day and then Saturdays we have language from 8:00a until noon. We get some small breaks but besides that it’s session after session all day.

And right about now (8pm…) I get exhausted and end up passing out.  So that being said, I hope things are going well stateside! I miss you all more than I can say and wish you could be here with me right now.

Erica