A week before Thanksgiving, I was contacted by the Peace Corps office and asked to help facilitate a youth camp run by the Ministry of Education. I was told that several Peace Corps volunteers had been asked to attend, and we would act in a role similar to camp counselors. It would be ten days long, with the first day being devoted to planning the forum, and almost all of the volunteers were from my training group, Bots 11, who had sworn in two weeks previous.
The subsequent ten days at youth camp were unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and I will try to articulate it as best as possible. I do censor myself at certain points, but please keep in mind that what I write reflects only my opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the government of the United States of America. Thanks!
Day 1 - Friday
The majority of our first day at youth camp was actually spent on a bus, traversing the Botswana countryside. My group of 11 Peace Corps volunteers, made of myself, Supriya, Julia, Alex (a girl), Caitlin, Rachel, Sheburra, Karla, Adam, Corey and Nate, was heading from the nation's capital, Gaborone, northwest to the small village of Kgagodi. The bus trip was uneventful, excluding the continual waves of post-Thanksgiving farts that would suddenly overwhelm me, like a grenade tossed into the crowd by my nearby American friends. Luckily, I survived.
We arrived at Kgagodi in the early evening, with no idea what we were supposed to be doing, who was in charge, or where we should go. The camp was hosted at a public primary school and there were hostels for the facilitators and students, several communal pit latrines next to the hostels, a large assembly hall and a kitchen. After stretching our legs, the Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) stood in a cluster with no idea where to go or what to do, watching in awe as at least 30 children swamped and then destroyed a small bouncy castle that had been set up for their enjoyment.
As I looked around, I noticed that at least a hundred children roamed around unsupervised. As far as I had anticipated, children weren't supposed to arrive at camp yet. It was the last day of school in Botswana, I reasoned, perhaps these children were boarders waiting to be picked up. Since we were planning the youth forum on Saturday, there's no way the government of Botswana would have invited children to an event they hadn't yet planned The kids wouldn't have anything to do or anyone to watch them tomorrow!
In fact, those children were the campers. They had arrived on Friday with the facilitators, and proceeded to roam around camp unattended all of Saturday while we planned the rest of the week.
The facilitators congregated for a meeting in the large assembly hall, where a Motswana woman took charge. Clearly, I decided, she was our leader. She introduced herself as Mabel. Mabel began by discussing protocol and explaining that Saturday would be spent workshopping the program for the rest of the week. She then admitted there had been a housing mishap, so that there were not enough beds for the female facilitators. Next, she distributed bags and t-shirts to all the facilitators; there were not enough, and three PCVs did not receive anything. Mabel promised them shirts on Saturday.
Afterward, the girls set up camp. Our room was made entirely of concrete, with a high sloped ceiling and fluorescent lights. It was filled with bugs and metal bunk beds, all of which lacked a railing on the top bunk. I claimed a top bunk anyway, because (a) I am well practiced in sleeping in bar-less top bunks and (b) when one of those rickety pieces of tin collapses, I did not want to be underneath it. Unfortunately, because of the cramped quarters, Julia and Alex had to share a bottom bunk and a Motswana had to sleep on the floor. In the midst of this chaos, a small child brought us five buckets to share for bathing; the pit latrines, it turns out, also doubled as bathing stalls. Our group of 12 women would have to share these buckets amongst ourselves for daily cleaning.
We sat around and waited for dinner until 10pm, and after dinner was served the kids retired. As we prepared for bed, a few Batswana came and told us an emergency meeting was being called. The boys, fed up with camp management already, refused to attend while the girls grumpily took seats in the assembly hall.
A Motswana man stepped forward, introducing himself as Shaolin.
"We have recently learned," he said, "of a problem. It turns out that there are black mambas and scorpions on the premises, and we have already had two incidents with children today."
I did not know this at the time, but a black mamba bite will kill you within 30 minutes.
Shaolin then told us where staff vehicles would be parked should we need to rescue a child and, worst case scenario, where the clinic was should a facilitator have to carry a child there on his or her back. From what I gathered, it was at least 2km (~1.25mi) away -- no way could I carry an eight-year-old that far in time to save his or her life.
After the meeting, a few of the PCVs panicked while the Batswana remained stoic. I pointed out the PCVs (not to mention locals) in other countries had to deal with this sort of stuff all the time, and that we agreed to serve in the Peace Corps knowing we could be sent to such places. After that, the conversation subsided and we resolved to see how we felt when we woke up.
Day 2 - 8
It's difficult to remember what happened on what days, so I'll summarize.
Over the next few days, we had a couple new additions to our bunk -- and each time, someone was put on the floor. By Wednesday, we had three girls on the floor, making it 15 girls. Tensions reached a high: every day, the Batswana woke up at 4:30am to heat water and bath, and then they would return to the bunk. Some would talk very loudly, and on Day 5 as a noisy Motswana chattered away while everyone else was sleeping, one member of our group lost her cool and dropped some bombs. Botswana is a very non-confrontational culture, so this was very taboo. Almost all of the Batswana women moved out of our room that evening, saying they did not feel welcome. They then threatened to take the issue to the kgotla.
Another problem was that the showers were in the same building as the pit latrines, and were just too repulsive to enter. So on our first morning, we gathered together behind the latrines, stripped down to our birthday suits and communally bathed. We shared buckets, splashing ourselves with water because most of us had not thought to bring cups or washcloths. A few days later, Rachel was comfortable enough to share her cup with us, and thus the joke "seven girls, one cup" was born. When the Batswana moved out of our room, they took almost all of our buckets too, so there were some mornings where it was 7 girls, one bucket.
Meanwhile, we as volunteers were floundering. We had no idea why we were at the Youth Forum and what we were supposed to be doing. The Botswana staff, angry at our ignorance and interpreting our questions as challenges, ignored or snapped at us. Mabel, in particular, did not like us. Two experienced PCVs, Paco and Abby, arrived late in the week and performed damage control. But nevertheless, we fought with the staff all week, especially about the role of the children in the camp. To make a sweeping generalization, Botswana is an ageist society so children are often an afterthought -- even at a youth camp. On Wednesday, the drama unfolded on the soccer pitch, when the children were kicked off so the adults could play a game. After several PCVs independently harassed the Batswana staff that the camp was for the children and the children should play, the soccer ball rolled across the field and stopped at Caitlin's feet. I will forever admire Caitlin for what she did next: it took guts. She picked the ball up, ignored all the Batswana men asking her for it, turned around and started assembling children to play. It took a solid ten minutes of arguing to get her to give up the ball, and even then she did not concede her point.
On Thursday, I woke up with a 101 degree fever. I slept for the next two days. A German volunteer, Hannah, burned her foot and was bedridden Thursday as well.
During these days, the PCVs became close friends with another group at the Youth Forum called, "Y.O.H.O." The Y.O.H.O. volunteers, who were Batswana, led almost all the sessions at the camp, though they got no credit for it, and genuinely cared about the well-being of the children. We loved them. It was also discovered, to my chagrin and Y.O.H.O.'s merriment, that I cannot dance. I was dubbed "the girl with the heavy legs."
Lastly, we made up a Peace Corps board game that I named "Farts of Darkness." It's somewhat like the game of Life, except you can get trapped in some places and might get malaria.
Day 9 - Saturday
Saturday was a quieter day, covered in fog and drizzle. Hannah left early in the morning, as per the clinic's recommendation, while everyone else prepared to go to the kgotla. The children had to walk, and so I opted to stay behind for prepare for the expo. Given that we had no forewarning about the expo and thus no materials, Alex and I drew on a piece of poster. Well, Alex drew and I colored in between the lines.
The children returned hot, sweaty and annoyed. They had been walking from kgotla to kgotla in the blazing sun for hours before walking back to the camp. After a break, they were divided into groups and then shepherded around the expo, visiting various tables of different organizations. I and four other women were assigned a group of 12 children to watch, and I simply followed the group as they listened to presentations made in Setswana.
Day 10 - Sunday
On Sunday, I woke up in a good mood. Although I was not terribly excited for our field trip to a nearby game reserve, I was optimistic.After breakfast, the kids were packed a 100 person passenger bus. The facilitators were loaded onto a smaller bus and when there was no more space, Y.O.H.O. and the Peace Corps volunteers were put into the backs of covered pick up trucks. The lock on my truck was broken, so the driver tied the door shut with a piece of old cloth.I want to note here that auto-motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death of American expats in Africa. Most cars in Botswana are very run down, often because owners can't afford to maintain them or buy a new car.
With 8 of us squished into a pickup bed, legs intertwined and elbows rubbing, we entertained ourselves for the first three hours of our drive fairly well. We got two breaks, the first to fuel up in Serebi-Pikwe (which was 40 minutes in the opposite direction of our destination) and the second at a lodge to get directions to the game reserve. While we waited at the lodge, Mimi pointed out to Julia that our back left tire was so warped it had a huge bubble in it.After we crammed ourselves back into the pickup, the driver announced that the next 30km of road was packed gravel and that Shmabel was angry we were late so we would have to hurry. Julia made a face, and told us about that bad tire. I put my hands to my face and looked around our group.
"Guys," I said. "I take auto-motor vehicle safety very seriously."
It turns out that "packed gravel" is actually a euphemism for "dirt road with really big rocks." As we sped through the bush, all of us went airborne as the truck bounced over oversized potholes and huge boulders. Each time our butts took flight, our driver merely raised her hand in acknowledgment, as if doing the Queen Elizabeth wave. The door began flapping in the wind as our bumpy ride stretched the cloth rope further, and we desperately clung to each other in a large pile, convinced that we were about to die. Every time we heard something pop or rattle, which was often, we all looked around in terror.
It occurred to me that this drive was most like the "game drive" in which we were meant to view wildlife. It was probably the entirety of the field trip. Terrified, however, all I could do was meet the wide eyes of my fellow PCVs and laugh to keep myself from screaming. Out of desperation, we began to sing children's songs to cheer ourselves up (Rachel led a rousing round of "The Littlest Worm") before segueing into Christmas carols. We hollered "Jingle Bells," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" at the top of our lungs to cheer ourselves up and stave off panic. It worked.
We must have seemed manic to our driver, who just kept waving whenever we hit a bump.Somehow, miraculously, we reached our destination alive. With hair sticking up at odd angles and jelly legs, we all walked to see the main attraction of the trip: a gently flowing river that went through a four-foot dam.
This is it? we asked each other, still feeling like we were in motion. A shallow river and a small dam?The kids were lined up for lunch, and after eating headed back to the bus. After twenty-five minutes of rest, we were hustled back into the pickup bed. The kids were heading to see a waterfall, but a few of the trucks were going straight back to school. The result was that more people had to pack into fewer spaces, and our truck sped off with Abby in tow. About halfway down the road, we came across the facilitator's bus. It was parked at an angle, one of its tires flat.We then continued on to the snack stop, where lots of confusion ensued about whether or not the Peace Corps was supposed to go to the waterfall or head home. I lay in the back of the truck bed reading, refusing to engage anyone. Finally, we decided to go to the waterfall to be with the kids, but in a game-time decision our driver took us home instead. It was for the best, because the kids arrived back at camp shortly after us.By this time, we were all very cranky. The Peace Corps had spent nine hours sitting in the bed of a pickup to visit a dam for 30 minutes. We had not interacted with the kids at all, and had essentially wasted a day.
It turns out that the children also had an awful day, with 150 of them crammed into a 100 person bus. There were kids who had stood the entire nine hours, and others who had urinated and vomited on themselves while in transit because the bus wouldn't stop. I felt awful and very angry when I heard about their trip.
That evening, the Peace Corps and Y.O.H.O. had planned to do a nice dinner banquet for the kids. We were going to serve dinner in the main hall, while the kids sat at tables, and then we would put on a slideshow of photos from the past week.After we set up the tables and made the slideshow, we learned what the kitchen staff was preparing for our banquet meal: bread and margarine.They had all day to prepare food while we were cavorting around the Botswana countryside, but for our special evening meal every kid would get two sandwiches, coated in spread. As a last minute hurrah, they scrounged up bananas.We decided to make the best of it, serving bananas and margarine sandwiches with smiles -- until we ran out of sandwiches about halfway through the kids. The cooks hadn't even made enough food to go around! Julia and Caitlin took charge, with Julia furiously defending bread and margarine from hungry adults and Caitlin harassing the kitchen staff for more food. Finally all the kids were fed, and they really liked the slideshow.
"You know," Julia said later, laughing, "all summer I busted my ass to get the Peace Corps. I kept thinking, 'Just make it to Botswana.' For what? To serve kids lunch and scream at hungry Batswana to stay away from food!"
Day 11 - Monday
By Monday morning, we were all ready to depart. The Ministry of Education had arranged for a bus to take all of the facilitators to Gaborone (ha-bo-ro-nee), which was five hours south of the camp. From there we would make our own ways home.There were running bets on how late the bus would leave, but after lots of lingering, loitering and Shmabel impressions, the facilitators boarded the bus for Gabs. Nate, in a fortuitous moment of foresight, suggested we bring our luggage with us on the bus instead of letting it travel separately. The driver reassured us that he had already fixed yesterday's flat, and we left around 10am.
About 30 minutes out of Kgagodi, Abby loudly announced, "Does anybody else notice the bus swaying?"
Accustomed to the rhythmic lull of boats, I hadn't thought twice about it. But indeed, swaying the bus was. It was a constant, gentle motion that would have been enjoyable had we not been on a bus traveling 100kph. In fact, we were rocking so far from side to side that at times we veered into oncoming traffic. All of the PCVs, especially after yesterday's field trip, were very alarmed.
Abby confronted the bus driver, who denied the possibility of any sideways motion.
"So you're swerving the bus on purpose?" she asked. Finally, begrudgingly, he pulled over.
One by one we trickled out of the bus onto the side of the road. As we all stopped to look at the flat tire that had delayed us yet again, something inside of me snapped.
"That's it," I thought to myself. "I am abandoning the slowly sinking ship that is the youth forum. It has held on to me for too long, and I must escape."
It turns out that Julia had reached the same point, and we attempted to rally the troops to hitch our way home. Hitching is a totally normal and sanctioned form of travel in Botswana; stops are built into the major highways for people to wait together. At first some PCVs agreed to go, but after Nate voiced reservations and the bus driver promised that help was only 20km away, they backed out. Then a few Batswana began cautioning us about the dangers of hitching.
"Where was that concern for safety three days ago?" I snapped, assuming they were speaking about car safety while yanking my backpack off the bus. "Where was that concern for safety when all the Peace Corps were jammed into the back of a truck that had a warped tire?"
They persisted, adding that witches liked to abduct hitchhikers.
Witches? They were worried about witches? That was the last straw.
I stuck out my hand and waited, hoping to catch a ride south to Palapye. Finally, a man pulled over and told me that we were on a road heading east towards the dam we had visited yesterday. It turns out the bus hadn't even been taking us home yet.
Julia and I began to walk west towards the road to Palapye, and within twenty minutes we were sitting in the back of a pickup truck heading south. The bed of the pickup was so large, we could have fit all 11 PCVs into it easily. Vindicated, Julia and I high-fived and then promptly fell asleep leaning on each other.
Once in Palapye, I peed behind a restroom that charged a pula (~$0.15) for its services. Next to me was a sign that read, "DON'T URINATE HERE."
Julia and I then caught a bus to Gaborone. While we were happily heading to our destination, we learned that the other volunteers were still stuck on the side of the road. The bus had broken down every time they tried to leave; it turned out that the axel was broken, and anytime the driver went faster than 40kph (~25mph) the bus began to sway. It took them six hours to reach Mahalapye. which is normally two hours away from Kgagodi, and from there they had to take a public bus to Gaborone.
By this point, the Peace Corps had promised to put us up in a hotel overnight. Julia and I arrived in Gabs around 4pm and checked into the hotel, nearly crying at the extent of the luxury it displayed. Palm trees lined the main avenue and the front desk was made of marble; standing in the lobby next to a man in a suit, I suddenly felt very dirty and out of place. Our room had real beds, a shower with hot water and flush toilets. We were in an oasis of modernity, a little patch of America in Africa. Five star America, that is.
"America is heaven," I thought. "I want to live like this again!"
"I hate to say it," Julia said interrupting my reverie. I looked at her, expecting my thoughts to come from her mouth.
"Think about where those kids are now," she said. I cringed.
"You are a much better person than I am," I responded.
The subsequent ten days at youth camp were unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and I will try to articulate it as best as possible. I do censor myself at certain points, but please keep in mind that what I write reflects only my opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the government of the United States of America. Thanks!
Day 1 - Friday
The majority of our first day at youth camp was actually spent on a bus, traversing the Botswana countryside. My group of 11 Peace Corps volunteers, made of myself, Supriya, Julia, Alex (a girl), Caitlin, Rachel, Sheburra, Karla, Adam, Corey and Nate, was heading from the nation's capital, Gaborone, northwest to the small village of Kgagodi. The bus trip was uneventful, excluding the continual waves of post-Thanksgiving farts that would suddenly overwhelm me, like a grenade tossed into the crowd by my nearby American friends. Luckily, I survived.
We arrived at Kgagodi in the early evening, with no idea what we were supposed to be doing, who was in charge, or where we should go. The camp was hosted at a public primary school and there were hostels for the facilitators and students, several communal pit latrines next to the hostels, a large assembly hall and a kitchen. After stretching our legs, the Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) stood in a cluster with no idea where to go or what to do, watching in awe as at least 30 children swamped and then destroyed a small bouncy castle that had been set up for their enjoyment.
As I looked around, I noticed that at least a hundred children roamed around unsupervised. As far as I had anticipated, children weren't supposed to arrive at camp yet. It was the last day of school in Botswana, I reasoned, perhaps these children were boarders waiting to be picked up. Since we were planning the youth forum on Saturday, there's no way the government of Botswana would have invited children to an event they hadn't yet planned The kids wouldn't have anything to do or anyone to watch them tomorrow!
In fact, those children were the campers. They had arrived on Friday with the facilitators, and proceeded to roam around camp unattended all of Saturday while we planned the rest of the week.
The facilitators congregated for a meeting in the large assembly hall, where a Motswana woman took charge. Clearly, I decided, she was our leader. She introduced herself as Mabel. Mabel began by discussing protocol and explaining that Saturday would be spent workshopping the program for the rest of the week. She then admitted there had been a housing mishap, so that there were not enough beds for the female facilitators. Next, she distributed bags and t-shirts to all the facilitators; there were not enough, and three PCVs did not receive anything. Mabel promised them shirts on Saturday.
Afterward, the girls set up camp. Our room was made entirely of concrete, with a high sloped ceiling and fluorescent lights. It was filled with bugs and metal bunk beds, all of which lacked a railing on the top bunk. I claimed a top bunk anyway, because (a) I am well practiced in sleeping in bar-less top bunks and (b) when one of those rickety pieces of tin collapses, I did not want to be underneath it. Unfortunately, because of the cramped quarters, Julia and Alex had to share a bottom bunk and a Motswana had to sleep on the floor. In the midst of this chaos, a small child brought us five buckets to share for bathing; the pit latrines, it turns out, also doubled as bathing stalls. Our group of 12 women would have to share these buckets amongst ourselves for daily cleaning.
We sat around and waited for dinner until 10pm, and after dinner was served the kids retired. As we prepared for bed, a few Batswana came and told us an emergency meeting was being called. The boys, fed up with camp management already, refused to attend while the girls grumpily took seats in the assembly hall.
A Motswana man stepped forward, introducing himself as Shaolin.
"We have recently learned," he said, "of a problem. It turns out that there are black mambas and scorpions on the premises, and we have already had two incidents with children today."
I did not know this at the time, but a black mamba bite will kill you within 30 minutes.
Shaolin then told us where staff vehicles would be parked should we need to rescue a child and, worst case scenario, where the clinic was should a facilitator have to carry a child there on his or her back. From what I gathered, it was at least 2km (~1.25mi) away -- no way could I carry an eight-year-old that far in time to save his or her life.
After the meeting, a few of the PCVs panicked while the Batswana remained stoic. I pointed out the PCVs (not to mention locals) in other countries had to deal with this sort of stuff all the time, and that we agreed to serve in the Peace Corps knowing we could be sent to such places. After that, the conversation subsided and we resolved to see how we felt when we woke up.
Day 2 - 8
It's difficult to remember what happened on what days, so I'll summarize.
Over the next few days, we had a couple new additions to our bunk -- and each time, someone was put on the floor. By Wednesday, we had three girls on the floor, making it 15 girls. Tensions reached a high: every day, the Batswana woke up at 4:30am to heat water and bath, and then they would return to the bunk. Some would talk very loudly, and on Day 5 as a noisy Motswana chattered away while everyone else was sleeping, one member of our group lost her cool and dropped some bombs. Botswana is a very non-confrontational culture, so this was very taboo. Almost all of the Batswana women moved out of our room that evening, saying they did not feel welcome. They then threatened to take the issue to the kgotla.
Another problem was that the showers were in the same building as the pit latrines, and were just too repulsive to enter. So on our first morning, we gathered together behind the latrines, stripped down to our birthday suits and communally bathed. We shared buckets, splashing ourselves with water because most of us had not thought to bring cups or washcloths. A few days later, Rachel was comfortable enough to share her cup with us, and thus the joke "seven girls, one cup" was born. When the Batswana moved out of our room, they took almost all of our buckets too, so there were some mornings where it was 7 girls, one bucket.
Meanwhile, we as volunteers were floundering. We had no idea why we were at the Youth Forum and what we were supposed to be doing. The Botswana staff, angry at our ignorance and interpreting our questions as challenges, ignored or snapped at us. Mabel, in particular, did not like us. Two experienced PCVs, Paco and Abby, arrived late in the week and performed damage control. But nevertheless, we fought with the staff all week, especially about the role of the children in the camp. To make a sweeping generalization, Botswana is an ageist society so children are often an afterthought -- even at a youth camp. On Wednesday, the drama unfolded on the soccer pitch, when the children were kicked off so the adults could play a game. After several PCVs independently harassed the Batswana staff that the camp was for the children and the children should play, the soccer ball rolled across the field and stopped at Caitlin's feet. I will forever admire Caitlin for what she did next: it took guts. She picked the ball up, ignored all the Batswana men asking her for it, turned around and started assembling children to play. It took a solid ten minutes of arguing to get her to give up the ball, and even then she did not concede her point.
On Thursday, I woke up with a 101 degree fever. I slept for the next two days. A German volunteer, Hannah, burned her foot and was bedridden Thursday as well.
During these days, the PCVs became close friends with another group at the Youth Forum called, "Y.O.H.O." The Y.O.H.O. volunteers, who were Batswana, led almost all the sessions at the camp, though they got no credit for it, and genuinely cared about the well-being of the children. We loved them. It was also discovered, to my chagrin and Y.O.H.O.'s merriment, that I cannot dance. I was dubbed "the girl with the heavy legs."
Lastly, we made up a Peace Corps board game that I named "Farts of Darkness." It's somewhat like the game of Life, except you can get trapped in some places and might get malaria.
Day 9 - Saturday
Saturday was a quieter day, covered in fog and drizzle. Hannah left early in the morning, as per the clinic's recommendation, while everyone else prepared to go to the kgotla. The children had to walk, and so I opted to stay behind for prepare for the expo. Given that we had no forewarning about the expo and thus no materials, Alex and I drew on a piece of poster. Well, Alex drew and I colored in between the lines.
The children returned hot, sweaty and annoyed. They had been walking from kgotla to kgotla in the blazing sun for hours before walking back to the camp. After a break, they were divided into groups and then shepherded around the expo, visiting various tables of different organizations. I and four other women were assigned a group of 12 children to watch, and I simply followed the group as they listened to presentations made in Setswana.
Day 10 - Sunday
On Sunday, I woke up in a good mood. Although I was not terribly excited for our field trip to a nearby game reserve, I was optimistic.After breakfast, the kids were packed a 100 person passenger bus. The facilitators were loaded onto a smaller bus and when there was no more space, Y.O.H.O. and the Peace Corps volunteers were put into the backs of covered pick up trucks. The lock on my truck was broken, so the driver tied the door shut with a piece of old cloth.I want to note here that auto-motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death of American expats in Africa. Most cars in Botswana are very run down, often because owners can't afford to maintain them or buy a new car.
With 8 of us squished into a pickup bed, legs intertwined and elbows rubbing, we entertained ourselves for the first three hours of our drive fairly well. We got two breaks, the first to fuel up in Serebi-Pikwe (which was 40 minutes in the opposite direction of our destination) and the second at a lodge to get directions to the game reserve. While we waited at the lodge, Mimi pointed out to Julia that our back left tire was so warped it had a huge bubble in it.After we crammed ourselves back into the pickup, the driver announced that the next 30km of road was packed gravel and that Shmabel was angry we were late so we would have to hurry. Julia made a face, and told us about that bad tire. I put my hands to my face and looked around our group.
"Guys," I said. "I take auto-motor vehicle safety very seriously."
It turns out that "packed gravel" is actually a euphemism for "dirt road with really big rocks." As we sped through the bush, all of us went airborne as the truck bounced over oversized potholes and huge boulders. Each time our butts took flight, our driver merely raised her hand in acknowledgment, as if doing the Queen Elizabeth wave. The door began flapping in the wind as our bumpy ride stretched the cloth rope further, and we desperately clung to each other in a large pile, convinced that we were about to die. Every time we heard something pop or rattle, which was often, we all looked around in terror.
It occurred to me that this drive was most like the "game drive" in which we were meant to view wildlife. It was probably the entirety of the field trip. Terrified, however, all I could do was meet the wide eyes of my fellow PCVs and laugh to keep myself from screaming. Out of desperation, we began to sing children's songs to cheer ourselves up (Rachel led a rousing round of "The Littlest Worm") before segueing into Christmas carols. We hollered "Jingle Bells," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" at the top of our lungs to cheer ourselves up and stave off panic. It worked.
We must have seemed manic to our driver, who just kept waving whenever we hit a bump.Somehow, miraculously, we reached our destination alive. With hair sticking up at odd angles and jelly legs, we all walked to see the main attraction of the trip: a gently flowing river that went through a four-foot dam.
This is it? we asked each other, still feeling like we were in motion. A shallow river and a small dam?The kids were lined up for lunch, and after eating headed back to the bus. After twenty-five minutes of rest, we were hustled back into the pickup bed. The kids were heading to see a waterfall, but a few of the trucks were going straight back to school. The result was that more people had to pack into fewer spaces, and our truck sped off with Abby in tow. About halfway down the road, we came across the facilitator's bus. It was parked at an angle, one of its tires flat.We then continued on to the snack stop, where lots of confusion ensued about whether or not the Peace Corps was supposed to go to the waterfall or head home. I lay in the back of the truck bed reading, refusing to engage anyone. Finally, we decided to go to the waterfall to be with the kids, but in a game-time decision our driver took us home instead. It was for the best, because the kids arrived back at camp shortly after us.By this time, we were all very cranky. The Peace Corps had spent nine hours sitting in the bed of a pickup to visit a dam for 30 minutes. We had not interacted with the kids at all, and had essentially wasted a day.
It turns out that the children also had an awful day, with 150 of them crammed into a 100 person bus. There were kids who had stood the entire nine hours, and others who had urinated and vomited on themselves while in transit because the bus wouldn't stop. I felt awful and very angry when I heard about their trip.
That evening, the Peace Corps and Y.O.H.O. had planned to do a nice dinner banquet for the kids. We were going to serve dinner in the main hall, while the kids sat at tables, and then we would put on a slideshow of photos from the past week.After we set up the tables and made the slideshow, we learned what the kitchen staff was preparing for our banquet meal: bread and margarine.They had all day to prepare food while we were cavorting around the Botswana countryside, but for our special evening meal every kid would get two sandwiches, coated in spread. As a last minute hurrah, they scrounged up bananas.We decided to make the best of it, serving bananas and margarine sandwiches with smiles -- until we ran out of sandwiches about halfway through the kids. The cooks hadn't even made enough food to go around! Julia and Caitlin took charge, with Julia furiously defending bread and margarine from hungry adults and Caitlin harassing the kitchen staff for more food. Finally all the kids were fed, and they really liked the slideshow.
"You know," Julia said later, laughing, "all summer I busted my ass to get the Peace Corps. I kept thinking, 'Just make it to Botswana.' For what? To serve kids lunch and scream at hungry Batswana to stay away from food!"
Day 11 - Monday
By Monday morning, we were all ready to depart. The Ministry of Education had arranged for a bus to take all of the facilitators to Gaborone (ha-bo-ro-nee), which was five hours south of the camp. From there we would make our own ways home.There were running bets on how late the bus would leave, but after lots of lingering, loitering and Shmabel impressions, the facilitators boarded the bus for Gabs. Nate, in a fortuitous moment of foresight, suggested we bring our luggage with us on the bus instead of letting it travel separately. The driver reassured us that he had already fixed yesterday's flat, and we left around 10am.
About 30 minutes out of Kgagodi, Abby loudly announced, "Does anybody else notice the bus swaying?"
Accustomed to the rhythmic lull of boats, I hadn't thought twice about it. But indeed, swaying the bus was. It was a constant, gentle motion that would have been enjoyable had we not been on a bus traveling 100kph. In fact, we were rocking so far from side to side that at times we veered into oncoming traffic. All of the PCVs, especially after yesterday's field trip, were very alarmed.
Abby confronted the bus driver, who denied the possibility of any sideways motion.
"So you're swerving the bus on purpose?" she asked. Finally, begrudgingly, he pulled over.
One by one we trickled out of the bus onto the side of the road. As we all stopped to look at the flat tire that had delayed us yet again, something inside of me snapped.
"That's it," I thought to myself. "I am abandoning the slowly sinking ship that is the youth forum. It has held on to me for too long, and I must escape."
It turns out that Julia had reached the same point, and we attempted to rally the troops to hitch our way home. Hitching is a totally normal and sanctioned form of travel in Botswana; stops are built into the major highways for people to wait together. At first some PCVs agreed to go, but after Nate voiced reservations and the bus driver promised that help was only 20km away, they backed out. Then a few Batswana began cautioning us about the dangers of hitching.
"Where was that concern for safety three days ago?" I snapped, assuming they were speaking about car safety while yanking my backpack off the bus. "Where was that concern for safety when all the Peace Corps were jammed into the back of a truck that had a warped tire?"
They persisted, adding that witches liked to abduct hitchhikers.
Witches? They were worried about witches? That was the last straw.
I stuck out my hand and waited, hoping to catch a ride south to Palapye. Finally, a man pulled over and told me that we were on a road heading east towards the dam we had visited yesterday. It turns out the bus hadn't even been taking us home yet.
Julia and I began to walk west towards the road to Palapye, and within twenty minutes we were sitting in the back of a pickup truck heading south. The bed of the pickup was so large, we could have fit all 11 PCVs into it easily. Vindicated, Julia and I high-fived and then promptly fell asleep leaning on each other.
Once in Palapye, I peed behind a restroom that charged a pula (~$0.15) for its services. Next to me was a sign that read, "DON'T URINATE HERE."
Julia and I then caught a bus to Gaborone. While we were happily heading to our destination, we learned that the other volunteers were still stuck on the side of the road. The bus had broken down every time they tried to leave; it turned out that the axel was broken, and anytime the driver went faster than 40kph (~25mph) the bus began to sway. It took them six hours to reach Mahalapye. which is normally two hours away from Kgagodi, and from there they had to take a public bus to Gaborone.
By this point, the Peace Corps had promised to put us up in a hotel overnight. Julia and I arrived in Gabs around 4pm and checked into the hotel, nearly crying at the extent of the luxury it displayed. Palm trees lined the main avenue and the front desk was made of marble; standing in the lobby next to a man in a suit, I suddenly felt very dirty and out of place. Our room had real beds, a shower with hot water and flush toilets. We were in an oasis of modernity, a little patch of America in Africa. Five star America, that is.
"America is heaven," I thought. "I want to live like this again!"
"I hate to say it," Julia said interrupting my reverie. I looked at her, expecting my thoughts to come from her mouth.
"Think about where those kids are now," she said. I cringed.
"You are a much better person than I am," I responded.
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