Two Lekgoas are better than one

In Chile, I was Gringo. In Ghana, I was Obruni. In Kenya, I was Mzungu. Now I’m locally known as Lekgoa, mostly to children. My walk to work affords me an interesting cross-section of the Gaborone demographics. I leave Village, an upper-middle class suburb where Gaborone originated in the 1950s, and pass major construction efforts on the main road, on the other side of which there is a shiny shopping centre with some of the latest fashions and home décor, at prices more or less in line with what I would expect to pay in Canada. I walk through a dirt lot, converted into a road-side driving school, a la bright orange pylons, and watch out of the corner of my eye as young people try desperately not to back over them, as they practice their parallel parking skills.

I take a shortcut through a muddy ditch, which is peppered with dry dollops of cow dung, but I have yet to encounter the bearers of such gifts on my walk. I pass Fairgrounds Business Park, which houses some of the leading corporations in Botswana, such as Barclays, KPMG, Mascom and Botswana Insurance. I greet Mamas selling sweets and fat cakes just outside of staff parking lots, sitting under umbrellas on cooler boxes, their stalls fully stocked for the day. I stride through intersections and three lanes of traffic, as if I’m invincible to oncoming traffic. Without the look of fearlessness, no one will ever give you the right of way. This look has also deterred much unwanted attention from the opposite sex, but given the right outfit, some men will be so bold as to profess their love, or ask me to marry them. My latest retort is, “Does that ever work for you?” has yet to solicit a response- most of them are smart enough to keep walking.

Opposite Fairgrounds, is the Hospice neighbourhood, known as Newstands, but the odd time I attempt to give directions, it arouses blank stares. Suddenly my celebrity status has multiplied. As I turn the corner of an outdoor welding shop, children stream from their houses, shouting,

“Lekgoa, Lekgoa!” and wave at me with wide eyes and excitement. I dodge the odd rooster or chicken, as I wave back with a dutiful “Dumela Rra/Ma!,” depending on my audience. As I walk down the dirt road to the Hospice, I observe the remnants of the previous evenings’ drink fest. When I first started walking this route, a team of community women with green felt badges and a silver star on their lapels was just beginning their efforts to clear the gutters of debris, in preparation for the coming rains. Several women sit in quiet conversation in front of their houses, and laugh at my feeble attempts at Setswana. I have tried to commend them for their hard work, in English, unsure if the message gets through. It has always frustrated me to see such pollution in neighbourhoods where children play and go to school.

Last night as I left the Hospice, I came upon a group of men in the exact same place the women has been cleaning in the morning. The men all wanted to greet me and shake my hand, as they were already in a happy state, well into their second round of Chibuku Shake Shake, a cheap local brew that comes in a milk carton. I point at the empty containers littering the street.

“What is this?” I ask indignantly. The oldest man in the group jumps up and tries to engage me in the typical, ‘Where are you from? What is your name?’ conversation. But I persist. I tell them the women have been working hard, and they are undoing their progress.

“When the rains come, everything will be flooded because of this mess.” The man tells me they have no dustbin. I tell him to get one,

“I know you can do better than this. You want to be friends with me? Than you clean up this place.”

“Okay, okay.” He agrees. “We can get one.”

“That would make me happy. I don’t want to see anymore beer and Chibuku in the gutters, alright?”

“Ay-ma”

“Ke a leboga Rra”. ‘Who knows if this will have any sort of impact?’ I think to myself as I walk home alone.

On my way through Newstands after picking up tickets to Freshly Ground (Band from South Africa, best known from singing the  remake of Waka Waka with Shakira for the World Cup), Leigh (who’s off this week after a weekend up north for a sporting event with Botswana Council of Churches),  and I were stopped by some neighbourhood women asking me what I was complaining about yesterday. I told them I asked the men to put their drinks in the dustbin. The women agreed, but were more interested in my half-eaten loaf of raisin bread. I gave it to them, and they shared it with their children, ecstatic about the presence of two Lekgoas.

Mochudi Cultural Weekend

It’s so weird to think I’ve been in Bots for half a month already! I feel like I just arrived, but so much has happened in the last week and a half. Mark and the other interns flew back to Canada on Friday, so we made sure to see them off in style on Thursday at NewsCafe, an ultra-chic lounge/bar not too far from our flat. It was a bit sad to see them go, but I know they have an exciting journey ahead of themselves, and they will likely be back in Bots in the not-too-distant future.

On Saturday my friend, Andrew Modiga, from the hospice invited the four of us to his hometown of Mochudi to watch the cultural initiation ceremonies of the Bakgatla tribe. Andrew’s friend Kabelo, who I had met earlier at the intern going away party, picked us up, along with his friend, Archie. We went on a wild-goose chase to find a cooler pack for our beer, which turned out to be unnecessary, considering it wasn’t really appropriate to drink at the festival, and we only arrive at 2:30 pm, and festivities were wrapping up around 4:30. It was really nice to get out Gabs for the day, since the city is so urban and modern, and I have so many Canadian and expat friends in the neighbourhood, I almost forget I’m in Africa. When we arrived at the cultural centre, there was a large group of men from the Bakgatla regime assembling in a circular formation, chanting and marching in time. It sounded amazing, and was beautiful to watch, with each man holding a wooden staff with white and black ostrich feathers, and a cape made from an impala or other small deer-like creatures. Apparently this meant to replicate the method the tribe uses to hunt animals in a semi-circle, and close in on them. The men of the tribe go away from their village, and live off the land in the bush for two months, to learn how to be a “real man”. This ceremony was performed to formally recognize their return to the community. We also got to eat some traditional food, which was prepared in ways I’ve never seen before, but mostly they were familiar foods- beef, green peas, beans and pumpkin. We also took a quick look at some of the vendors’ crafts, cultural items and photography for sale. I noticed they had many large, hollowed-out gourds for drinking and storing water, and I couldn’t help but think I would like to get a set for the house- they would likely fair better than our dwindling glass collection!

Leigh, Archie and I, overlooking Mochudi

Work at the hospice has been interesting, but a little slow to get moving. Presently I’m reviewing some of the proposals Mark worked on, and meeting the hospice’s board members and the bishop of the Anglican church to discuss the strategic direction of the hospice’s future. There’s a lot of work on my end, but I’m excited and grateful to pretty much get free reign to develop my own ideas for fundraising strategies. I’m looking forward to establishing some long-term partnerships with local business in Botswana and possibly Southern Africa.

The kittens I see sleeping at the hospice every morning- too bad they're scared of people.

Getting into the Groove

I'm back in Africa again. This time it’s Botswana. I’ve felt more relaxed on this journey than I ever have in my previous travels. Probably because I’m accompanied by three of the most beautiful, intelligent and kind women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. And because the Coady International Institute spent three weeks of extensive training preparing us for every situation imaginable…almost.

Let me rewind back to how I got here. From the beginning. In March, I started panicking a little bit about what I would do upon August graduation from my MA in International Development and Global Studies. Even with my experience in Ghana, teaching at a school for the Deaf in ’07, and working as a research assistant on HIV awareness amongst Nairobi’s Deaf population for Handicap International in Kenya in ’09, it was made clear to me that getting a full-time position in a development field that interested me would be tough without some more extensive time working overseas.

I scoured the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) website for internships that suited my background and would allow me enough time to wrap up my major research paper before shipping out for a six-month placement. The only one that met that description was Coady’s fall batch of internships. I indicated a preference for two positions in Botswana, one with Botswana Council of Churches working on an HIV awareness project for young males, the other with Holy Cross Hospice, as a resource mobilizer, as I was keen to develop my fundraising skills, as I assumed this would be extremely transferable to a number of different sectors.

A few weeks later, I was selected for an interview, and within another week I knew I would be working for the Hospice. I also learned there were already four Canadian interns from the Coady working in the same Botswana placements the new interns were about to step into.

The nice thing about being selected for a Coady internship is that there’s a tremendous amount of support offered through the three-week pre-departure training on campus at St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish Nova Scotia. During training I made 19 fantastic new friends, who make up the other interns from across Canada, with diverse travel, volunteer, work and educational experiences, all perfectly suited for their internships in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Botswana, Ghana, Peru and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We did plenty of cross-cultural training, were introduced to nationals from our host countries, developed facilitation, proposal writing and budgeting skills, and interacted with Coady Leadership Diploma participants from around the world (many of whom were from Kenya and had me brushing up on my Swahili!).

After traveling independently to Africa twice, and not having much cross-cultural support pre- and post-adventure, I feel pretty confident that I won’t have any difficulty adapting to Botswana, affectionately called “Africa-lite.”

The trip here was about as good as any 40-hour journey to a foreign country can get. We departed from residence at the Coady at 2:30 am Antigonish time, and cruised to the airport in style in a limo-taxi, upholstered with burgundy velvet, trimmed with flashing disco-coloured lighting. We shared a bottle of red wine, which pretty much knocked us all out for the 2-hour drive. We got through customs without too much delay, and met the pair heading to Peru on the other side. We flew to JFK/New York in about 2 hours, and waited around in the airport for about 5 hours, eating over-priced and unappetizing sandwiches and checking facebook. The flight to Johannesburg, South Africa was about 16 hours, and despite having an extra seat next to me, I struggled to get any descent sleep, yet somehow managed to miss one of two in-flight meals. I spent the majority of the flight watching the first season of Lie to Me, and trying to keep my legs from getting stiff and swelling up.

When we arrived in Jo’berg, we realized we had a 5-hour stopover, so we took our time getting through customs, checking our emails and finding somewhere to grab lunch. Getting on the express flight to Gaborone, Botswana was the first time I allowed myself to get really excited about the trip, since the built-up anticipation from three weeks of training had led me to distance myself from any expectations and emotions about life and work in Botswana.

When we stepped off the plane, we were the only plane or passengers in the airport. All but one of our bags arrived with us. Amy was missing one duffle bag. We wheeled our stack of luggage out to the arrivals gate and were met by at least one staff member from our host organizations, along with all four of the current interns.

Mark, who also worked for Holy Cross Hospice, carried my stuff to the hospice van, and two staff members brought us to our new apartment. The short drive was much calmer than Nairobi traffic, and from the brief tour, everything seemed safe, clean and organized in Gaborone. It was bit overwhelming to talk to all the previous interns and our landlords once we arrived at the apartment, but it was really nice to have somewhere to shower and nap, before meeting up for dinner with the other interns. Dinner was really fun and informative, but more than anything I felt like I never left home. The Riverwalk mall is modern with designer clothing, hi-tech shops and a cinema. After a quick perusal of the grocery store, we realized we could buy nearly anything we wanted here, and wi-fi was free in the restaurant, so long as we order some food or drink.

First Safari... in Jo'Burg Airport

I’ve just been catching up on sleep and getting organized these past days. I already feel at home in the new flat, and I’m hoping to head over to the Hospice tomorrow, to get a tour, meet the staff and see what Mark’s been up to the past six months. I already have a lot of ideas about fundraising, which I’m hoping will be turned on their head as soon as I know exactly what the Hospice is doing now, and its plans for the future.

Roomies deep in discussion at our new place

Who needs air fresheners when you have a Jasmine (?) tree outside?