Novels are good, right?...

I am writing this update from our front porch with our newly rented dog, Wilbur, sitting by my feet. We moved to this house last Friday (May 30^th) and will be house-sitting until we find a place of our own or until the owner comes back from England in August. This is the nicest house I have ever lived in and it will be a beautiful spot to spend our days until we have a place of our own.

Our new temporary home
(with my writing porch visible)

Weather (since some people actually do care about this - I don't get the fascination)

As you know we are living in the southern hemisphere so winter is quickly approaching. The evenings are becoming very cool and there is frost on the ground in the morning. The temperatures do not dip too low but living inside cement houses with tile floors, no insulation, no heat, and ventilation holes in every room makes it hard to warm up without going outside to stand in the sun. We had another gentle rain last week during the night – amazing for this time of year. I have heard that the river beds are almost always dried out by the end of April and now, in early-June, there are still puddles of standing water in some of them. This has brought on a bumper crop of citrus and has kept the scrubby brush green. Many missionaries feel uncomfortable in the winter because the cows, goats, and donkeys that wander for food get nothing to eat and are gaunt and starving – hopefully this will be an experience I get to do without during my first winter here because of the rain.

Housing

So far housing is still the most pressing item on our to-do list. This past week when the advertiser came out there were no listings for Mmopane proper but there was a listing for Mmopane block 1. We weren’t sure where this was but arranged to see the place. The house could have been habitable but its location was several miles away from Mmopane in the wrong direction. We also looked at a house that Flying Mission owns in Gaborone – it was a very nice house with a sizable shaded yard and included a guest house on the property. We had a few issues with it and we will continue looking in Mmopane but it is a great backup plan in case we can’t find anything out there. It makes me feel better knowing that if the end of July comes and we still haven’t found a house that we won’t be left without options. There have been a few new leads as well: the sister of the Flying Mission receptionist lives in Mmopane and has been enlisted in the search for our housing. We heard about a realtor who had a listing in Mmopane for a two bedroom house on a big lot with fruit trees – I doubt that listing is still available but at least we may have found someone who does work out there. The Advertiser comes out again this Tuesday which gives us another opportunity. We are still hopeful and trusting for the right place.

Enthusiastically Going in a Direction

At the time of my last post I was struggling to figure out how to make connections. What a difference a week makes! For those of you who have more important things to do in life than read my lengthy blog posts I will try very hard to be brief and offer only snippets of information about the events that I am most excited about.

• Students and Worms - I met a professor in Crop Science from Botswana College of Agriculture named Valentino who was very helpful and encouraging. After explaining my desire to grow and/or raise food with people affected by HIV he animatedly began telling me about his passion: researching and promoting crops that are especially nutritious for people living with HIV/AIDS. He has been working with this plant, moringa - sometimes called The Miracle Tree, which is nutrient dense, contains complete proteins (very unusual for a plant), and is a tremendous boost to the immune system (the very things people with HIV need). It is native of West Africa but grows very well in Botswana’s climate. He was very excited to have me spend some time with him and his students in the hopes that some of them would catch a piece of this vision.

Upon hearing of my interest in worms Valentino directed me to an organization in Kanye, a city 80 kilometers away, who is experimenting with vermicomposting (composting with worms) and humanure (human waste). He said they would be able to give me some trustworthy advice on vermicomposting here in Botswana and would most likely also be able to provide me with some worms of my own. If I was able to get some worms he made me promise to start a vermicomposting project at the College. I tried going to visit the org in Kanye but even with his very specific directions (“you’ll see it on the left side of the road as you are coming into town”), I somehow couldn’t find it. Oh well, it was a nice drive. Next time I’ll make him give me some contact info so I can set up an appointment and get better directions.

The view from the road to Kanye

• My First Garden? – On Monday I stopped by the Flying Mission office again to see if I could get a Setswana language guide from Tina, the woman in charge of orientation, as well as to inquire again about Beginning Setswana lessons, potential places that I should visit, and to inquire after our residence visas. I didn’t get any of those questions answered but I was able to introduce myself to the woman who coordinates the HIV/AIDS ministry. I explained my background and interests and she asked me to come back Thursday morning for the HIV/AIDS team meeting to share with everyone else. Before I left someone else poked their head around the corner and said, “Hey – what about the Holy Cross garden?”

Apparently Holy Cross, a day center hospice, requested help preparing garden beds so that the patients could grow food for the kitchen. The beds were prepared in February by a group of US high school students and have been left sitting since. Both Saralee (the HIV/AIDS ministry coordinator) and Peter (the guy who suggested this) thought that I would be perfect to help give the garden the little push it needs. Some time over the coming week I will be going with someone to meet the director of the hospice program. I am excited about the possibility of working in this garden where the participants are already on location (saves having to wander around to figure out why people aren’t showing up) and in a place that has instigated it themselves and most likely just needs a push start to get it going. I do feel awkward about having myself inserted as a leader into a situation that isn’t directly asking for it, I REALLY don’t want to be the overeager outsider white person who comes in and takes over. Right now I am just meeting with the director to see what their vision is for the garden and where she thinks things have been hung up, I feel comfortable with the first step – we’ll see where it goes from here.

• On the team – I attended the three hour HIV/AIDS team meeting at Flying Mission and am now officially on the team. While they do not have anyone doing what I am interested in, they have been receiving requests for someone like me and are excited to assist me in whatever way they can. Its nice to know I have someone to turn to for advice. Saralee, the director, also gave me a list of organizations who are working in a similar area to talk to for resources, models, and potential sources of funding.

A very old picture of Saralee,
the director of the Flying Mission HIV/AIDS team

• Income Generating Activities – Much of the spread of HIV/AIDS (it would be impossible to calculate how much) can be attributed to poverty. Women, in particular, who are left caring for children and without a source of income are often left to: at best, attach themselves to any man who will provide for them and at the worst, resort to the world’s oldest profession. If women had a way to provide for themselves financially, it could allow them to care for their families better, build confidence in themselves, and mitigate some of the need for the relationships that have helped this disease to spread so quickly. Roberta (the one mentioned above who took me to Otse and works in capacity building), hearing women speak of the need for this, has started several income generating activities(IGAs) including doll making, fabric painting, jewelry making, sewing, etc. Some of these projects are going on their third year of activity and are, for various reasons, yet to make the women money in the way they were intended to. Roberta, in sharing about this work, asked if I would be interested in taking on the IGA projects as this is it is not an area she is particularly passionate about and she would rather focus in another direction. I am very interested in finding ways for these women to make money but making crafts to sell to tourists or market overseas does not appeal to me as much. I would love to see income generated in a way that benefits local people and economy. Both Saralee and Roberta seemed very excited about the possibility of an income generating scheme that centered around local vegetable production. Food is becoming increasingly expensive as it is all brought in by truck from South Africa – this could be a very good solution to several problems. We are talking about the possibility of proposing this model at a home-based-care centerthat has just started talking about IGAs but hasn’t picked a direction yet.

In addition to the group based IGAs discussed above, Flying Mission has also been considering working with microcredit lending. Somehow, it fell on me to do some research over the next month so that I can make a presentation at the next HIV/AIDS meeting about the mechanics of micro lending, the inputs required, and the feasibility in this environment. This is a scheme I have done some reading on before so I am excited to have the opportunity to give my input.

• All the rest - I know this is getting long so I'll be good and just list the rest out in brief.
  
• Setswana lessons - Will be taking Setswana lessons Monday morning, the class is about nine months ahead of me but at least it is something (plus I have a book so now I can make flashcards - I LOVE flashcards).
  
• Baby shower - Next Saturday I will be co-throwing my first Botswana baby shower for a new friend - she is very sweet and I am so pleased to be part of the planning (and cake making - my first cake here).
• Otse - Otse is the community that I visited in February that 'knew' I would be back because they had been waiting for someone like me. Roberta told me that when they heard I was coming back for sure that they were ecstatic. I will be going out there on Tuesday to participate in a meeting between CampHill (a local community for people with disabilities) and the home-based-care organization - to see how they can partner together better and to work on vision setting for the community. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for us.
  
• Research - I have been busy researching everything I can think of about HIV/AIDS - more about the virus, what helps people who have it, who funds related projects, how Botswana is handling it and its effects, what types of related projects have been successful, and so forth.
  
• Math/English tutoring - The teenage daughter of a pilot here just failed the entrance exam to her high school. They were able to pull some strings and the school is now allowing her to retake the entrance exam in six weeks. Knowing that I love math, her parents asked if I would be willing to tutor her every day after school for an hour or two in math and English (the two subjects tested, English is not her native language). We'll see how this works out, it is a big commitment - but it does give me an opportunity to do math so how could I say no?
• Churches - We have now been to three local churches and have been pleased with them all. Both of us would like to go to a church that has a Motswana (the term for a person from Botswana) pastor, that does not have many missionaries that attend, and that emphasizes discipleship. This makes a church a little more difficult to find, but we have a few more that we look forward to visiting.
  

A Summary of the Rest
Last Wednesday we invited a family over for dinner. Jon and I intended to make a chicken pot pie. We roasted the chicken the day before, boiled the carcass overnight to make stock, and had all the vegetables chopped up so that there would be very few steps left in making the pie. We knew the house we were staying in didn't have a pie plate or any other baking dishes that we could find except a 9x13. Our plan was to pick one up on the way home Wednesday afternoon. Guess how many stores we checked before we finally gave up to come home and make something else? Three! Who knew - people in Botswana do not make pie or use any round baking dishes. Our company arrived while Jon was still out at the supermarket buying pre-made pizzas to serve our guests. Yes, I know. Very lame. We had a good laugh about it - when this family had invited us over for dinner the electricity was out and we ended up at a restaurant. Good thing we aren't trying to impress each other.

Today is Sunday and Jon left this morning at 7 to do an observation flight to South Africa (that way he will know how to do all the paperwork when it is his turn to fly there). I tried a new church on my own this morning. Tonight we are going to have dinner and play games with some Peace Corp friends that we met at church. Tomorrow another week begins.