The Office Chronicles: Part I

MD had previously worked somewhere in Good Hope at the Rural Administration Center (the head office for the sub-district's council and district operations; referred to as RAC). He was transferred to the little yellow and orange S&CD extension office in Pitsane--an office with no cleaning lady, nobody to clear the yard, no electricity, fax, or copier. It has four cement walls, a cement floor, a tin roof and a disproportionate amount of doors, none of them in places that allow air to cross ventilate. The keys to the doors are lost except the front door and despite having several windows, the office is dim. The office's only redeeming features are an old borrowed desktop computer--which can't live in an office with no electricity--and the purple jacaranda tree growing in the corner of the office plot. The tree is the only pretty thing on an otherwise shabby plot; a welcome contrast to an overgrown yard filled with thorn bushes and sun cracked patties of cow shit.
In his great move to the office in Pitsane, MD arrived with a large moving truck. He brought with him a brown wooden couch set complete with matching furry velveteen cushions. The set had a sofa, love seat, a chair and a squat side table. None of it is comfortable to sit on, but it is better than what the office previously had, which was old office chairs. He brought two pictures which he adhered to the wall with putty: one of himself standing on train tracks and another of him and his wife at their wedding. In the first picture he looks chic in a 70's style leisure suit and aviator sun glasses. Has one hand in his pocket with one foot positioned in front of the other giving him a slight lean. The second photo is of him and his wife at their wedding--they're peering in opposite directions, neither of them are looking at the camera. They both look tired. The picture, taken with a 35mm camera, captured a man who was wearied by dullness, as if dullness had drilled a hole in him; he looked bored. It was a huge contrast to MD moving forward on the train tracks in a leisure suit and aviators, and just as big a contrast of himself in real life but many Batswana it seems, display unflattering wedding photos. I cannot say why.
The first day I met him was when I accompanied Keitumetse (KT) to the RAC. I also met with Julie and Anna and together the four of us walked in a flank to a destination that I can't remember. We were distracted by MD who called us all into his office where he kept his heater turned up to full capacity. MD was noticeably short and thin with a face that looked like it was whittled and lightly varnished leaving sharp edges under a glossy finish. He was probably in his mid to late 30's. His face was angular and there were no eyebrows to speak of. Where eyebrows would be was a lump of flesh compensating for its baldness, always furrowed in concentration or raised to show interest. He was not bad looking, just plain. He'd just been transferred and was telling me what great friends we would be. He offered the etymology of his name (it means "writer", he said) and he had vivacious eruptions of energy. He presented himself as a man of order and results. Keitumetse meanwhile looked herself: quiet, a notch past laid-back and leaning heavily toward apathetic but not quite there yet. He promised to take me with him to do assessments, visit kgotlas (traditional courts/meeting places), and attend Village Development Committee meetings.
Together we would do very important work, MD said.
He had a distinctive way of speaking. His sentences were staccato and towards the end, he held the last word like a long note. As he continued speaking (about how he was taking classes in Mafikeng, South Africa to expand his C.V. and get into project coordination/management, etc) Keitumetse just shook her head complicitly, never affirming or denying any action or responsibility. When we left MD's office, I said he seemed like a nice guy--someone with a lot of initiative. Julie said this might be good for my office. Anna said he sure did talk a lot and Keitumetse just left for lunch.
This was all exactly a year ago. I was still new. It was still winter and I would go into the office almost everyday, never at 7:30, but I was always there by 10 because in Pre-Service Training we were warned about being wise about the precedents we set. If you start coming in at 7:30, you'll always be expected to come in at 7:30, we were told, and so around 10-ish Keitumetse and I would sit at the office desks quietly. The desks made an L shape; my desk faced hers and hers faced forward. When I wasn't reading a novel, I was studying Setswana from a blue and white book. I'd break the silence with a question (usually pertaining to Setswana) and Keitumetse would answer concisely. With that, I'd go back to the drawing board, and try to think up more conversation, but then came MD.
It was his first order of business to get the council to arrange for a cleaning lady and for someone to come clear the yard (neither ever came to fruition though). The office was uninviting, he said. It didn't inspire self worth to those who came to use its services and that is why he brought the sofa set, he said. His first day in the office, I can't remember where Keitumetse was, I helped him clean. He asked to borrow the broom from my house and we swept and pulled down cob webs.We attached the broken blinds back to the cement walls. We had worked so hard, he said, and we deserved a tea break, a tea break at my house and so MD and I had tea.
He could magically make transport appear and true to his word, I would go to kgotla meetings in Tlhareseleele and VDC meetings in Dinatshana--villages in the catchment area that I'd never seen because you need transport to get there and it usually either wasn't available or it didn't show up when KT called for it.
MD didn't take the house he was offered in Pitsane. He was offered the house next door to mine. It was was too small. "Unsuitable" is the word he used. Instead, he opted to commute from Lobatse where his wife and children lived (maybe 30k away, 15 minutes in a car, about 20-ish on a koombi) and so he would show up for tea at my house nearly everyday. One day, quite early on, he said we should go dutch on ingredients and cook lunch together on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or Mondays and Wednesdays, whichever day worked better for me. For some reason--indistinct and misty; more of an inarticulate vibe than a reason--I didn't want to and so I hesitated with an answer. I hesitated because MD was friendly and self confident, yet to me, his confidence felt hollow, like an over confidence; a hubris that casted a shadow and muted vivids into dimmer shades of themselves. I considered myself bright but MD's shadow was becoming saturating. Around him, I felt like I had to be darker, sterner than with KT who would just let me be. I saw MD far more frequently than I did my next door neighbors, one of whom was KT, a woman I wanted to love me. A woman who I had to reach out to. Who wouldn't come to me. I'd have given my left foot, my first born child, some other cherished appendage for a moment of her attention.
I would have to think about it, I told him.
Afterall, I said, I don't eat Setswana food. MD didn't eat phaleche and those things anyway, he said. He preferred motogo which was healthier than phaleche. I would have to think about it, I said, since I would be going to events and things and not just working out of the office; that would mean that he would miss lunch some days.
And with that, I never brought up the subject of lunch again.
Gradually things changed. There was a tension surrounding the computer that I inherited. The volunteer before me got a laptop for the office. Someone stole it and so he worked out an agreement with the volunteer in Good Hope who gave him the government purchased computer from her house--a desktop. She (the volunteer in Good Hope) already worked at an office with a computer and electricity. Once I secured a laptop for my office, the desktop would go back to Good Hope but until then, it was stationed at Keitumetse's house. When the volunteer before me moved away, KT kept the computer safe. I asked her to move the computer back into my house so that I could help her learn to use the programs on it, and she did.
My house and the office face in opposite directions. Their backs are turned to each other but they're a stones throw away. MD proposed to fix the electricity problem by running a long extension cord out of my kitchen window, and in through the back window of the office so the computer could be moved to where it belonged. According to MD, that is what he would do if he lived in one of the houses behind the office. I declined because afterall, people and cattle cross the walkway between the backs of the two structures all the time plus a computer needs a surge protector, I said. It sounded like a fire hazard to me and so the computer stayed at my house where I would teach Keitumetse to use Microsoft Excel for government toiletry/food ration vouchers and try to help MD draft things he needed.
When MD needed to type something, he invited whoever this was for to come along to my house and sit on the couch to wait for the document that Keitumetse and all the other social workers with computers just hand wrote and stamped because it was quicker. MD deemed it unprofessional to hand write notes and such, but his typing was slow and choppy; he was like Elmer Fudd hunched over the keyboard hunting, using the caps lock key to capitalize a letter and then hitting it again to resume his work in lower case letters. Gradually, others would come with and sit on the sofa awaiting help from the social worker. Soon, he was running the office out of my sitting room, doing consultations as he sat at the desk with his back turned to the computer and his leg crossed.
More than ever, people began reporting to my door at 7:30am to ask for help when the office was unoccupied. MD lived in Lobatse and Keitumetse's house would stand undisturbed since my house was the one where people were usually helped. It became the first point of inquiry when the social workers were away but I was rendered silent and useless when they knocked on my door since I was officially registered with the U.S. Peace Corps as a "novice" Setswana speaker. "Ga ke Mmaboipelego. Ga go na thuso. Sorry." I'd say. (Literal translation: Not me social worker (feminine). There is no help. Sorry.) Ironically, I always thought of myself as a wordsmith, someone who could craft them, twist, contort, and forge them into beauty or blunt force but in my doorway at 7:30, it was like talking to a baby, except not cute.
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MD thought it was a good idea that someone be in the office at all times and so the next time that he and KT were out, I should sit in. I protested. I was not a social worker, but neither was he until he was transferred to Pitsane, he said. My assignment was to build capacity, I told him. Taking up an office job was unsustainable, but MD thought it was a good idea and so I did it, but only this one time, I said. When they came for help, people were frustrated that I could not speak Setswana. It was like going to the DMV where all of the clerks only spoke Spanish. As I sat at the desk waiting for people to come in, I kicked myself for obliging (I was too eager to contribute, too eager to be liked) and I studied Setswana from a Peace Corps issued list of verbs and nouns. In the book, I ran into the word "MD". It meant "secretary". I was beginning to notice that MD was full of these types of redefinitions. When people came into the office that day, I took down their phone numbers and told them that the social worker would call them once they returned, but they never did.
Soon, MD began to call my cell phone at 8am to see why I wasn't in the office yet and that I must report there now because he has things for me to type, simple inquiries. I refused every time and elaborated on how that doesn't build capacity; when I leave, he'd be no more able to type documents swiftly than when I came, I'd say. When KT needed help typing a document, I'd show her various features in Microsoft Word that would make her job easier. After 30 minutes of her typing a one page document by herself, I would type the rest for her so that she could get back to the office and work on something more important. When I tried to show MD features, he preferred that I wait until he had a specific question. Months later a volunteer would see her at the computer in Good Hope skillfully navigating Microsoft Excel and Word. It was a good feeling to know I'd been useful where as working with MD, became KT and me working for MD. MD, with no credentials and minimal experience, became the boss. Keitumetse, a woman with a degree in Social Work, became his assistant. I, the Peace Corps volunteer, became his personal secretary imported from America. MD demanded respect--respect that he hadn't earned by deed or credential, but then again, I'm American. Unequal/unearned power distributions set me on edge and a tension was building. I could have stayed home to be a secretary (and gotten paid for it too) and so I explained my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer and elucidated what my contribution to the office could/should be.
I found myself wondering. Was this a cultural thing, or a MD thing? No other male social worker was like this. When cultural sensitivity can only be bought at the price of my self-respect, I opt to hold on to my basic American values. I consider myself laid back and flexible. I voice my opinions and think of myself as assertive, but not bossy. This is how I was raised but beyond that, as an individual I don't consider myself someone to be trifled with and I don't think MD had ever worked with an American before. Especially not an American, 10 years his junior who looked like a Motswana.
On Saturday mornings I would come outside to water my flowers only to see MD to my left, walking out of Keitumetse's back door wrapped in a blanket greeting me as I filled a greenish bucket with gray water. Keitumetse hated him too, I know she did, but she didn't know how to set boundaries with MD, who pushed the line slowly and habitually without formally stepping over it. Somehow it was imperative that you allowed him to do this or that for the sake of work, or for the sake of something else and so he'd invite himself over on a Friday night and sleep on her couch. On those Saturdays it would take everything I had not to drop the bucket, not to ask what the fuck he was doing around on a Saturday, my designated day not to see or hear from him. All he did was greet me, but it left me exasperated and angry. Despite how KT or I felt, he hadn't actually stepped over the line by inviting himself to spend the night over KT's house on a Friday. I would fill the green bucket, wave listlessly and then water my plants before I prepared to leave my village and go to Lobatse to get a day off.