But on the bright side, the animals have started staying in the bush a bit more so no elephants roaming the streets ruining fences (yay), everything is SO green (Botswana was a dry barren place when I first got here. It makes sense when you think about the fact that the country is 3/4 desert), mangos, and cooler temperatures (cooler than skin melting that is).
I am at the very end of my community entry phase of PC service. I will be back in Gabs for the first time in 5 months next week. For the past few months all I have been doing is getting to know the place I will be working. I have done a lot of watching and question asking. I have met more people than I actually know. I probably meet a good 10 people a day. I also go on more walks than I ever have in my life (walking 4-12 miles a day). I am now putting together a massive report for Peace Corps relaying all the information I have found out about my community. I will also be putting together a rough outline of issues and suggestions to solve them/suggested projects.
I'm ready to really start work about now. Come February I will be hitting the ground running with my counterpart at the Red Cross. I will also be the new (stand in) Monitoring and Evaluation officer for the District Aids Council (basically I get to gather data, put it into an official report, and send it off to the national agency). I'm actually really excited about this one. I'll get to know a lot of really important people pretty well this way. But besides that I am hoping to put together some kind of young woman's club in the lower socioeconomic area of Kasane called Kapamadi. Then there will probably be a few smaller projects. I'm really excited basically. There's a lot of work to do and not much time to do it.
So actually the main reason I wanted to write this is to tell you guys about this wonderful thing I am doing instead of a new years resolution. A full year of behavior change is super daunting to think about but something like a month seems much more manageable and will also result in more behavior change (in my opinion) than trying to rough it for a year. So what I am doing (an idea that was in a PC news letter a few months ago) is doing a year of "month of". A different thing for every month. and once the new month starts, the previous "month of" does not have to be continued. Some of these are harder than others and some are strategically placed. But here it is, my new years resolution.
2014:
January- This one's kind of personal.
February- Daily meditation
March- Daily journaling
April- Daily new music
May- Vegan (p.s. I'm not veggie anymore. So this will be interesting)
June- Reading (at least 10? books in the month)
July- Home cooked (Everything I eat must be home made. It's something I have always wanted to do)
August- Daily exercise
September- Daily exploring
October- 1/2 hour a day job searching/grad school research
November- Daily gardening/yard work
December- Letters (because this year's christmas cards went so well... I still have them)
So those of you that can or talk to me often, push me to actually do this. So far so good :)
Questions? Comments? Nothing?
Cool
Erica (Tebogo)
