A little girl named Lorato (Lorato means "Love" by the way) came to check me as I left the house on the way to the Junior Secondary School. She often stops by and she's always disheveled and soiled any my temper is usually curt and my mood sour. It was hot and the sky was sparse, not many clouds, just clear blue with an unforgiving sun shining down on us. I don't particularly like it when she stops by. She doesn't speak much English and when she comes, she rarely has an objective. I'm never sure why she comes but this day, she looked listless. Sick. I'd blown her off the past several times she came and so I told her to come, have cold water under the shade of the tree in my yard where I keep a plastic table and chair set up.
After she sat and drank generous portions of very cold water from a plastic blue cup, we sat in silence as usual. I asked if she was alright. "yes" she said. Are you sick, "yes" she said.
"Mathata ke eng?"(What is the problem?) I asked
"Ke na le opa mo tlogho" (I have a headache) she said, and so I went in the house to prepare a small plate of food for her. I cut cucumber, carrots, and dill and mixed it with yogurt. She wouldn't eat it. She spit most of it out right in front of me. Batswana aren't shy about their culinary opinions, so I asked my neighbor for bread and I brought her jam. She devoured all of it, a quarter loaf--6 slices of bread, and I made her take half an aspirin. She went in her schoolbag and pulled out her math homework and so I called Katie to ask for help on how to find the area of a square. I called Katie multiple times, and Julie too for help. Lorato didn't need my help with her homework. She gets good marks in math and I always find her helping me with the homework as I call other volunteers to walk me through how to solve for X or find the circumference of a square or some other mathematical enigma.
Eventually Lorato said she could not see. She blinked long slow blinks keeping her eyes closed tightly for 5 seconds at a time. I sent her to go home to rest just as two women passed by. One said she was her mother, and after a lengthy speech in Setswana (she spoke fast and I couldn't understand her, nor did I want to) she asked me for 2 Pula for snuff and then Lorato trailed the two women home weakly. An hour later she was back and with a friend.
"My friend likes TV," Lorato said.
"I don't have one," I told her, and went back in my room to watch a movie on my laptop. Then I was disturbed by the sound of 10 children, all of them terrible little rascals, rummaging through my trash. The bizarre part is that I've never had children rummage through my trash before. Never. After I scolded them (and the boys ran away w/ a rancid carton of tomato cocktail), Lorato wouldn't leave. Meanwhile they boys were in the distance throwing rocks at a donkey. Lorato sat underneath the tree outside of my yard to wait for me to go back into the house so she could play on the swing I built on my tree. I came outside again to tell her to go home, and she wouldn't. Finally, she cried as she silently graffitied my tree with an old crayon. I had to pull it out of her unsympathetically.
"There is no food at home," she said. She looked down, and fidgeted with a dull shard of broken glass.
I was upset. I'd just seen the lady that allegedly was her mother. I'd also seen her pass out an hour before. I initially thought she was faking, and maybe she was. I don't know. I was upset because I never seem to know what to do anymore. In a lot of ways its easier to deal with children back home. They aren't supposed to spend much time unattended. If you tell them not to play with dulled shards of glass or throw stones at donkeys, they listen. I went to the kitchen and cut open a 1kg bag of sugar beans to dump 1 cup of them into a ziplock for myself and the rest I put in an old plastic grocery bag with a 500g bag of pearled wheat, and an unopened 1kg bag of samp (corn with the husk removed) and gave them to Lorato. I'd bought the pearled wheat just to see how it tasted and then I never touched it again. I was never going to eat the samp. I bought it impulsively just to show Craig, when he was visiting, what Setswana food was like. I bought the beans to make for other volunteers the upcoming Saturday...Mexican food isn't complete without sugar (pinto) beans. I was upset because I was giving food away. I've been in Botswana too long. I now give food away like a Motswana. Its kind but it's short term. She'll be hungry tomorrow and there's a chance she's lying (although I doubt it) and just wants to taste American food. There's an even higher chance that she won't get to eat the food, or she'll get a negligible amount because adults are served first. Children are served last, and served the less desirable parts.
The food didn't come completely free. I handed her the bag (heavy, about 4lbs) and told her to come with me. I asked if her mother had talked to the social worker, as I walked her next door to the social worker's house. At 2:30 the office was closed as usual and the social worker was in her house watching TV as she dozed. I asked her to find out if Lorato's family was registered for food baskets. As it turns out, Lorato's a registered orphan with 4 siblings. In their house 10 people are living off of the children's food basket. Of the 10 adults only 3 people in her household are children. The rest are unemployed adults and Lorato lied for her Aunt because if the social worker comes around asking why this child is constantly dirty and disheveled and is hungry, Lorato knows she will be beaten.
I went back home to lay in bed and finish watching my American TV show on the laptop. I finished a bowl of salsa (no chips, no bread. I'm weight watching so it was just salsa made with fresh homegrown cilantro) and fed my cat an old piece of boiled chicken, a leftover from the week before last. I looked around at all of my things. The plush couch, the large charcoal drawing of a loaf of bread on the wall and the bookshelf packed tight with novels, dictionaries, manuals, and other literature. Food and ceramic dishes bustle out of every cabinet in my kitchen so I have plastic shelves to hold the overflow of beans, herbs, spices, and vegetables. In my universe, it rains Mexican food, basmati rice, and tea seasoned with cardamom, cassia, cloves and cinnamon. I bake fresh breads and have an assortment of flours: rye, wheat, white, cake, self rising, and cracked wheat. The bean aisle and spice aisle are my favorite at the grocery store so I have beans and spices that I don't know how to use and piri-piri peppers, masalas, and dry roasted cashews from my holiday in Mozambique. I make gourmet poorman's food in the name of slimming and drink imported coffee made with a machine. My cat eats nutritionally balanced catfood, wears flea and tick collars, he gets vaccines and is neutered and sleeps in my bed at night. I live by myself and buy dried beans and rice in bulk.
I wear perfume, make-up and fashionable sunglasses and I'm hesitant to give out samp and beans to a hungry child because I don't want her asking me for enough samp and beans to feed a family of 10 everyday. I know she and the other two kids in her house may not get any, that the adults may eat it all, that the wheat may be thrown away because they didn't know how to cook it, and suddenly I am ashamed. The government employees pity me because I'm always too broke to drink at the bar and wear clothes that don't have holes in them but I have 2lbs of unopened beans and 2lbs of unopened samp and a bag of pearled wheat just laying around the house and suddenly I am ashamed of my opulence.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Office Chronicles: Prologue
I had several fellow PCV's read over the following blogs and I asked them all the same question: does this make me sound bitter? Each person I asked tilted their chins down and looked at me over the tops of their seeing-eye glasses. They begrudgingly said, "yes." I remember reading the first draft of this to Julie. It was a year ago. Everything had just happened and she told me it wasn't a good idea to put a three part tirade on the internet for the world to read; it made me sound angry (true) and bitter (in this instance--also true). It wasn't something people would understand unless they lived in Botswana, she said. She was right, but I also feel like I am supposed to articulate my experience in Botswana, the fun as well as the frustrating.
As usual, consider this prologue my disclaimer. I'll sob when I have to leave Botswana. I'll have to leave one home to return to another but whether I like it or not, my relationship with MD has shaped a large part of my Peace Corps service. I'll never be able to separate my run-ins with him from my time in Botswana. As time passed, and other volunteers have had freakishly similar situations in their offices, I think back on the lessons I've learned and I still can't figure it all out.
Just know that my blog, and these (lengthy) entries in particular, are slanted. Its my perception of things and my perception is far from the truth, whatever "the truth" is. Just as many good things have happened since I've been here, maybe more, but for every high, there's a low and don't let any PCV ever tell you different, because that, that's the truth.
As usual, consider this prologue my disclaimer. I'll sob when I have to leave Botswana. I'll have to leave one home to return to another but whether I like it or not, my relationship with MD has shaped a large part of my Peace Corps service. I'll never be able to separate my run-ins with him from my time in Botswana. As time passed, and other volunteers have had freakishly similar situations in their offices, I think back on the lessons I've learned and I still can't figure it all out.
Just know that my blog, and these (lengthy) entries in particular, are slanted. Its my perception of things and my perception is far from the truth, whatever "the truth" is. Just as many good things have happened since I've been here, maybe more, but for every high, there's a low and don't let any PCV ever tell you different, because that, that's the truth.
The Office Chronicles: Part III
MD would be unavailable and out of the office on the day my Associate Peace Corps Director or APCD (a woman from America) drove out from Gaborone to meet with my office, but that was okay my APCD said, because she had to go to Good Hope anyway to meet with Anna's counterpart (who avoided Anna shamelessly, like she was a tax collector.) It wouldn't be a problem at all.
In the meeting MD tried to intimidate (is that the right word?) Keitumetse and get her to leave.
The new District Officer is in the council chambers. Everyone is there. You should be there too, is what he told her.
But the APCD made it a point to say she came here for a specific meeting with KT, and that KT wouldn't have known the District Officer was around otherwise; it makes no sense for her to leave on account of that.
The plan was for me, KT, the APCD, and the Program Assistant (a Motswana man) to talk about my role as a Peace Corps volunteer and what the Peace Corps was. The meeting wasn't meant as a reprimand and the APCD made that clear. It was just a makeup session since KT, my counterpart, never attended any Peace Corps events. After meeting with my counterpart, the APCD and Program Assistant would meet with everyone who worked in my office: meaning me, KT, and MD. This is why MD said he'd be in the meeting with the Distict Officer until we finished and then he would meet with us all, thank you very much, and then he left. We waited for him for about 20 minutes before I called, and then we waited some more until he deemed himself ready to come meet with us. It was reiterated again, that this was not a reprimand but a simple clarification of my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The APCD and Program Assistant explained what the Peace Corps was and the concept of Capacity Building as well as my role in community outreach and MD elaborated that I don't come into the office on time, that he calls at 8am to see if I'm well---what if Gomolemo is sick? Then what do I do if she is my responsibility? And the meeting carried on this way, with MD missing the point and the APCD pulling him back on track. Other volunteers may say what they want about her, but the APCD came through when I needed her. When MD tried to monopolize the meting, the APCD wouldn't let him. When he implied that he was an authority figure, she corrected and explained that he was not a boss, or even my counterpart, but a colleague. After the meeting, the APCD seemed exasperated and I read the look on her face and offered an unwelcome/unprofessional answer: "Yes. He is always like that."
I had told MD before that the computer wasn't supposed to be in Pitsane, it was here as a favor to us but after he showed up at dusk, I put the computer in the back of a government vehicle, just to be an asshole, and watched it ride off in a flurry of dust. The following day I locked myself in the house, kept the curtains closed and confined myself to the cavernous emptiness of my bed. There would be no more computer lessons. No more movies or blogs. This was my life. I had melted from periodic waves of anger; burned to a stump like a candle. The rest of me laid where I had melted below; a flat, wax-blob of my former myself; I was disappointed that this was all I was made of. I confined myself for the entire day before I got a text message in the late afternoon from Julie. Is it true, she asked. She saw MD at the RAC and he said he didn't work in Pitsane anymore, that he now worked in Good Hope; and like that, my day began to look up.
Soon, I found out it wasn't true. Not exactly. After I'd had the APCD speak to MD, he was finished with me and so he conducted all of his affairs out of the offices in Good Hope to avoid further conflict. When pushed to our limits, when we couldn't make an answer, we reverted to our cultural norms. The Peace Corps volunteer strapped on battle armor and took up arms whereas MD, the Motswana, did whatever it took to avoid civil commotion. Keitumetse, I would imagine truly hated me for getting her involved, especially since her attachment to me was involuntary, but now MD was out of her hair too, although he was still on her couch some Friday nights. Eventually, KT was transferred for reasons beyond anyone's control (at least that's what she told me) and the new social worker, is allergic to the office. To work. To me. She'd likely been warned of my inflammatory talents, of my ability to draw tension from all living tissues around me, of how I'd pulled pus and moisture into a raised abscess which burst into a hot sore. I can't help but wonder how much more I've hurt my office than helped it. In his defense, MD was a genuinely helpful social worker and KT was lackluster but she also did her job and did it with limited resources; but now the door to the office is scabbed shut and taped off by a (white-people flesh tone) band-aid.
No Motswana will ever do much of anything directly. There will be a barbed wire fence of propriety, tight toothless smiles, but the next time MD needs transport, it won't appear; when he wants help with assessments, it will fall through. He'll find himself eating lunch alone. Everyone will collectively and silently disappear to eat together or go to a football game which he wasn't told about (read: wasn't invited to). When he speaks, demands, gives ultimatums they'll play along, shake their heads but nothing will happen. MD is a man who is (at best) tolerated among his colleagues, but never liked. It wasn't until months later that I began to better understand this and feel somewhat validated. In a lot of ways, we are the same, MD and I. Maybe that's why we couldn't get along; we both wanted results, to make things happen. But Setswana culture is about fellowship. It is within fellowship that you'll achieve results. With me it seemed that MD tried to push disrespect off as culture but with Batswana he pushes it off as western culture; modernity.
MD was transferred from the main office to an extension office in S&CD (a whole other department) for a reason, but MD and I were two-tone lions, conflicting prides that couldn't be in the same space. He came to Pitsane and was MD, Alpha-male Social Worker. He boomed and roared; but when I roared back he clutched his tail and unofficially transferred himself away to Good Hope, to the comfort and cordial tolerance of Batswana employees. All that's left in Pitsane is my solitary pride. I now sit alone under the office's naked jacaranda tree, my unwanted territory, and my bitterness has dissolved into loneliness and regret.
In the meeting MD tried to intimidate (is that the right word?) Keitumetse and get her to leave.
The new District Officer is in the council chambers. Everyone is there. You should be there too, is what he told her.
But the APCD made it a point to say she came here for a specific meeting with KT, and that KT wouldn't have known the District Officer was around otherwise; it makes no sense for her to leave on account of that.
The plan was for me, KT, the APCD, and the Program Assistant (a Motswana man) to talk about my role as a Peace Corps volunteer and what the Peace Corps was. The meeting wasn't meant as a reprimand and the APCD made that clear. It was just a makeup session since KT, my counterpart, never attended any Peace Corps events. After meeting with my counterpart, the APCD and Program Assistant would meet with everyone who worked in my office: meaning me, KT, and MD. This is why MD said he'd be in the meeting with the Distict Officer until we finished and then he would meet with us all, thank you very much, and then he left. We waited for him for about 20 minutes before I called, and then we waited some more until he deemed himself ready to come meet with us. It was reiterated again, that this was not a reprimand but a simple clarification of my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The APCD and Program Assistant explained what the Peace Corps was and the concept of Capacity Building as well as my role in community outreach and MD elaborated that I don't come into the office on time, that he calls at 8am to see if I'm well---what if Gomolemo is sick? Then what do I do if she is my responsibility? And the meeting carried on this way, with MD missing the point and the APCD pulling him back on track. Other volunteers may say what they want about her, but the APCD came through when I needed her. When MD tried to monopolize the meting, the APCD wouldn't let him. When he implied that he was an authority figure, she corrected and explained that he was not a boss, or even my counterpart, but a colleague. After the meeting, the APCD seemed exasperated and I read the look on her face and offered an unwelcome/unprofessional answer: "Yes. He is always like that."
I had told MD before that the computer wasn't supposed to be in Pitsane, it was here as a favor to us but after he showed up at dusk, I put the computer in the back of a government vehicle, just to be an asshole, and watched it ride off in a flurry of dust. The following day I locked myself in the house, kept the curtains closed and confined myself to the cavernous emptiness of my bed. There would be no more computer lessons. No more movies or blogs. This was my life. I had melted from periodic waves of anger; burned to a stump like a candle. The rest of me laid where I had melted below; a flat, wax-blob of my former myself; I was disappointed that this was all I was made of. I confined myself for the entire day before I got a text message in the late afternoon from Julie. Is it true, she asked. She saw MD at the RAC and he said he didn't work in Pitsane anymore, that he now worked in Good Hope; and like that, my day began to look up.
Soon, I found out it wasn't true. Not exactly. After I'd had the APCD speak to MD, he was finished with me and so he conducted all of his affairs out of the offices in Good Hope to avoid further conflict. When pushed to our limits, when we couldn't make an answer, we reverted to our cultural norms. The Peace Corps volunteer strapped on battle armor and took up arms whereas MD, the Motswana, did whatever it took to avoid civil commotion. Keitumetse, I would imagine truly hated me for getting her involved, especially since her attachment to me was involuntary, but now MD was out of her hair too, although he was still on her couch some Friday nights. Eventually, KT was transferred for reasons beyond anyone's control (at least that's what she told me) and the new social worker, is allergic to the office. To work. To me. She'd likely been warned of my inflammatory talents, of my ability to draw tension from all living tissues around me, of how I'd pulled pus and moisture into a raised abscess which burst into a hot sore. I can't help but wonder how much more I've hurt my office than helped it. In his defense, MD was a genuinely helpful social worker and KT was lackluster but she also did her job and did it with limited resources; but now the door to the office is scabbed shut and taped off by a (white-people flesh tone) band-aid.
No Motswana will ever do much of anything directly. There will be a barbed wire fence of propriety, tight toothless smiles, but the next time MD needs transport, it won't appear; when he wants help with assessments, it will fall through. He'll find himself eating lunch alone. Everyone will collectively and silently disappear to eat together or go to a football game which he wasn't told about (read: wasn't invited to). When he speaks, demands, gives ultimatums they'll play along, shake their heads but nothing will happen. MD is a man who is (at best) tolerated among his colleagues, but never liked. It wasn't until months later that I began to better understand this and feel somewhat validated. In a lot of ways, we are the same, MD and I. Maybe that's why we couldn't get along; we both wanted results, to make things happen. But Setswana culture is about fellowship. It is within fellowship that you'll achieve results. With me it seemed that MD tried to push disrespect off as culture but with Batswana he pushes it off as western culture; modernity.
MD was transferred from the main office to an extension office in S&CD (a whole other department) for a reason, but MD and I were two-tone lions, conflicting prides that couldn't be in the same space. He came to Pitsane and was MD, Alpha-male Social Worker. He boomed and roared; but when I roared back he clutched his tail and unofficially transferred himself away to Good Hope, to the comfort and cordial tolerance of Batswana employees. All that's left in Pitsane is my solitary pride. I now sit alone under the office's naked jacaranda tree, my unwanted territory, and my bitterness has dissolved into loneliness and regret.
The Office Chronicles: Part II
On a morning when MD called my cell phone around 8am, I damaged my shoe hopping over a fence. He'd began making a habit of calling me at 8-is, to see if I was well and if I was, then I should be in the office by now. Not long before, I'd explained to both KT and MD, my role as a Community Capacity Building volunteer and the whole of my day was not supposed to be spent in an office. When I would leave the office I told KT where I was going. When I never intended on coming in, I text messaged what I was up to. She never cared either way, but should the Peace Corps or any authority figure call, I didn't want her to stand clueless. More importantly, I wanted her to feel some sort of link to me, some sort of responsibility. When MD called at 8, I wanted her to be able to interject and say "Gomolemo is at the clinic today," something that would shut MD up, strip him of (what I thought of as) self granted authority. It never happened. One of the volunteers in Good Hope said I should put up a calendar and pencil in my scheduled activities but I never did. It was mostly because I'm bullheaded. I didn't want MD to feel any sort of tangible link to me. I didn't want him to feel as if he had any authority, as if he deserved to know where I was. I would furnish no reference materials as to my whereabouts. Not for his benefit.
I'd just left the house and was near the train tracks. I was stepping over a mangled wire fence, the one everybody steps over. Its a shortcut, the clearest cut path to the main road without having to trail along the fence for an actual gated door/opening. The fence was rickety. It's made of wire, but not chain links, just threads of wire that run horizontally to block livestock from the train tracks. I was crossing the part where the wires sag from frequent (human) crossings. I usually step on it and just walk right over without having to climb in any awkward position but that's when MD called and told me to to turn around, go back to my house and leave the keys where he could find them. He had documents to type. I when I said I wasn't comfortable with that, MD got upset and abruptly hung. That's when I got my left foot tangled in the wire fence. It snagged the foamy sole of my Reebok (the snag is still there on the inner sole of my left shoe) I had to balance and pull my foot out and I stomped across the train tracks to the main road and hitched a ride to Good Hope, where I was headed for the day.
This wasn't the first time MD urgently needed the computer. The last time he needed it and told me to leave my keys where he could find them (that was his phrasing), was when I had a workshop at the far reaches of my village. I didn't leave him the key but let him use the computer when I got home at the end of the day. The urgent purpose? Revising his 6 page C.V. on a Friday night. He was looking for another job, trying to get out of council, he said because they're unorganized and sloppy.
This particular day, the day I caught my foot in the fence as MD hung up the phone, I was at an event at a Faith Based Organization (FBO) where a famous gospel singer was performing. As part of her backup singing posse, Tebbie (the gospel singer--who wore in a racy red get-up) had a midgit among other tall people. It was by far one of the bizarrest things I've ever seen in Botswana. I sat next to Julie and we've never felt as uncomfortable as when we saw the little man dance. The audience laughed; when they weren't pointing, they would applaud. The two volunteers in Good Hope walked through the crowd taking pictures, passing out fliers, busying themselves by helping implement the event. Me and Julie's only job was to sway and dance to the sounds of Tebbie and her small/medium/ large backup singers, but for us dancing boiled down to swaying like we were blown by a breeze and clapping complicitly. There were less than 50 people in the audience and so there was nowhere to hide, no way out of participating. We looked over our shoulders and glanced at our cell phones for the time and I rotated between the lazy clap-and-sway and sitting down to prepare my brief. I had to talk to MD. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers unanimously told me to keep my distance from "Peace Corps" the institution; it just makes things more complicated, they all said, but I was considering calling my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) to help me work things out with MD. Until then, I wrote my case to document it and organize my thoughts. I was preparing to talk it out, trying to write out the previous things that made me uneasy, how I could contribute, how we could move forward; lots of "I" statements and therapy talk, but then my phone rang. The office phone is what popped up on my cell phone screen so I ran behind a building to take the call.
On the end of line was MD. His voice cracked and his words were staccato like a man tap dancing to the shots of a machine gun. His words rammed together; they bumped up against one another like a mouth of over crowded teeth, like a loud echo in an empty auditorium. I didn't shout back at him. All I did was enumerate the facts: My house is being used as a professional space, I said, and that's not the way its supposed to be. God forbid, if anything were stolen (a semi-frequent occurance for Peace Corps Volunteers) by someone I knew or someone coming to my house for help, I wouldn't know where to lay blame. I told him how early in the morning people report to my house for help if the office is closed. Lastly, I didn't feel comfortable with him being there while I wasn't. I didn't tell him, but the truth was that I didn't feel comfortable with MD ever being there. My counterpart was in the office, at her desk watching him on the phone yelling at me in a high pitched hysteria. Listening but silent. Not wanting to be involved. She never said anything to him during his fit or afterwards.
Although its petty, that was the official beginning of my hatred.
I did not approve of that, she said.
She was looking at the ground as she spoke about MD’s behavior that day. She spoke about it because I spoke to her about it and it was the beginning of a muted rage. A silent hatred that I would forget if only she would just like me or even half-heartedly care about anything I did or said. Our relationship had gone bitter like a tea bag left to steep too long. It went from mild, to strong, to a thick brown baste of disgust.
It was when MD came to my house at 5:45pm to use the boxy desktop computer in my sitting room that the hairline fracture broke into a thousand tiny pieces. There was a dead hum of violins so high pitched, so akin to a banshee's song that it sounded silent and the discord could only be felt. MD, Keitumetse and I sang this tune like a cacophonous choir and then we were broken shards of ourselves being swept up like broken beer bottles from the dancefloor at the end of a reckless night.
Work is over at 4:30 and MD lives in Lobatse, not next door to me but he appeared at 5:45 to use the computer. It was dusk and he wore a longish trenchcoat that billowed in the wind. I swear I'm not making this up (this and the little man really happened). All evidence pointed to a standoff. Just 2 hours ago, I was in the office and I talked to him about attending the Peace Corps counterpart workshop at my upcoming In-Service Training with KT. MD had a special way of ignoring me. It was slightly annoying but it still allowed for me to speak my piece. I was through no fault of my own that he didn't listen and so I tolerated it.
This workshop may be a good idea, I said, just to know what the Peace Corps is and to clarify my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
He nodded, yes, yes, okay, but he never mentioned needing the computer, only needing lunch for the following day.
You will cook me lunch tomorrow, he said said.
I’ll be busy. Maybe another time, was my reply.
But at dusk, he showed up on my porch to use the computer and I stood in my doorway. I told him he had 30 minutes. I was very clear. I had not invited him in. 30 minutes only, I said. He agreed, yes, yes that's okay; just 30 minutes. He could be finished in 30 minutes but 45 minutes later, he had forgotten the agreement and was appalled when I asked him to wrap it up.
MD argued with me. Told me I was a terrible volunteer, that I should be helping him help the community and that I was kicking him out. He was shouting. Pushing the line to see how far he could get me to go. In America, I'd never stand for this. I'd have called the police, a burly friend, a relative who'd just been released from jail. Such an option doesn't really exist in Botswana. I stayed calm because I couldn't afford to look bad but I could have bitten MD's bald little head off and spit it across the yard. I could have torn MD's skeletor shaped head off his thin neck with my teeth and spit the hollowed remains past my front yard, across the fence, and into the bush of thorns under the tree with sagging bird nests--but I didn't. Before he could even push me that far, a deux-ex-machina swept across the room and we were swallowed by darkness. The power went out for a brief 5 seconds and MD's document evaporated into the blank monitor screen. The power shuts off for a couple seconds and then comes right back on to give you a heads up that there is a scheduled black out and that's when MD said he thought it was time for him to leave. With that, he pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up to walk out of the door, leaving the door open behind him. MD had finally stepped over the line and he did it deliberately.
When Microsoft Word gave me to option to recover his documents, I deliberately deleted them because I am a petty and vindictive person. I've never claimed to be big and I was tired of his power games. That night, when the power went out, I sat in the dark at my counterpart’s house and told her she needed to do something. She shook her head in agreement and that was it. She did absolutely nothing and I knew she wouldn't do anything but I sat in the dark and was satisfied because MD was toppled off his high horse and trampled by the truth. Everyone knows the house always wins and that you can't beat the computer, but all of us in that office were now just shards of broken glass; a mess that needed cleaning up.
I'd just left the house and was near the train tracks. I was stepping over a mangled wire fence, the one everybody steps over. Its a shortcut, the clearest cut path to the main road without having to trail along the fence for an actual gated door/opening. The fence was rickety. It's made of wire, but not chain links, just threads of wire that run horizontally to block livestock from the train tracks. I was crossing the part where the wires sag from frequent (human) crossings. I usually step on it and just walk right over without having to climb in any awkward position but that's when MD called and told me to to turn around, go back to my house and leave the keys where he could find them. He had documents to type. I when I said I wasn't comfortable with that, MD got upset and abruptly hung. That's when I got my left foot tangled in the wire fence. It snagged the foamy sole of my Reebok (the snag is still there on the inner sole of my left shoe) I had to balance and pull my foot out and I stomped across the train tracks to the main road and hitched a ride to Good Hope, where I was headed for the day.
This wasn't the first time MD urgently needed the computer. The last time he needed it and told me to leave my keys where he could find them (that was his phrasing), was when I had a workshop at the far reaches of my village. I didn't leave him the key but let him use the computer when I got home at the end of the day. The urgent purpose? Revising his 6 page C.V. on a Friday night. He was looking for another job, trying to get out of council, he said because they're unorganized and sloppy.
This particular day, the day I caught my foot in the fence as MD hung up the phone, I was at an event at a Faith Based Organization (FBO) where a famous gospel singer was performing. As part of her backup singing posse, Tebbie (the gospel singer--who wore in a racy red get-up) had a midgit among other tall people. It was by far one of the bizarrest things I've ever seen in Botswana. I sat next to Julie and we've never felt as uncomfortable as when we saw the little man dance. The audience laughed; when they weren't pointing, they would applaud. The two volunteers in Good Hope walked through the crowd taking pictures, passing out fliers, busying themselves by helping implement the event. Me and Julie's only job was to sway and dance to the sounds of Tebbie and her small/medium/ large backup singers, but for us dancing boiled down to swaying like we were blown by a breeze and clapping complicitly. There were less than 50 people in the audience and so there was nowhere to hide, no way out of participating. We looked over our shoulders and glanced at our cell phones for the time and I rotated between the lazy clap-and-sway and sitting down to prepare my brief. I had to talk to MD. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers unanimously told me to keep my distance from "Peace Corps" the institution; it just makes things more complicated, they all said, but I was considering calling my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) to help me work things out with MD. Until then, I wrote my case to document it and organize my thoughts. I was preparing to talk it out, trying to write out the previous things that made me uneasy, how I could contribute, how we could move forward; lots of "I" statements and therapy talk, but then my phone rang. The office phone is what popped up on my cell phone screen so I ran behind a building to take the call.
On the end of line was MD. His voice cracked and his words were staccato like a man tap dancing to the shots of a machine gun. His words rammed together; they bumped up against one another like a mouth of over crowded teeth, like a loud echo in an empty auditorium. I didn't shout back at him. All I did was enumerate the facts: My house is being used as a professional space, I said, and that's not the way its supposed to be. God forbid, if anything were stolen (a semi-frequent occurance for Peace Corps Volunteers) by someone I knew or someone coming to my house for help, I wouldn't know where to lay blame. I told him how early in the morning people report to my house for help if the office is closed. Lastly, I didn't feel comfortable with him being there while I wasn't. I didn't tell him, but the truth was that I didn't feel comfortable with MD ever being there. My counterpart was in the office, at her desk watching him on the phone yelling at me in a high pitched hysteria. Listening but silent. Not wanting to be involved. She never said anything to him during his fit or afterwards.
Although its petty, that was the official beginning of my hatred.
I did not approve of that, she said.
She was looking at the ground as she spoke about MD’s behavior that day. She spoke about it because I spoke to her about it and it was the beginning of a muted rage. A silent hatred that I would forget if only she would just like me or even half-heartedly care about anything I did or said. Our relationship had gone bitter like a tea bag left to steep too long. It went from mild, to strong, to a thick brown baste of disgust.
It was when MD came to my house at 5:45pm to use the boxy desktop computer in my sitting room that the hairline fracture broke into a thousand tiny pieces. There was a dead hum of violins so high pitched, so akin to a banshee's song that it sounded silent and the discord could only be felt. MD, Keitumetse and I sang this tune like a cacophonous choir and then we were broken shards of ourselves being swept up like broken beer bottles from the dancefloor at the end of a reckless night.
Work is over at 4:30 and MD lives in Lobatse, not next door to me but he appeared at 5:45 to use the computer. It was dusk and he wore a longish trenchcoat that billowed in the wind. I swear I'm not making this up (this and the little man really happened). All evidence pointed to a standoff. Just 2 hours ago, I was in the office and I talked to him about attending the Peace Corps counterpart workshop at my upcoming In-Service Training with KT. MD had a special way of ignoring me. It was slightly annoying but it still allowed for me to speak my piece. I was through no fault of my own that he didn't listen and so I tolerated it.
This workshop may be a good idea, I said, just to know what the Peace Corps is and to clarify my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
He nodded, yes, yes, okay, but he never mentioned needing the computer, only needing lunch for the following day.
You will cook me lunch tomorrow, he said said.
I’ll be busy. Maybe another time, was my reply.
But at dusk, he showed up on my porch to use the computer and I stood in my doorway. I told him he had 30 minutes. I was very clear. I had not invited him in. 30 minutes only, I said. He agreed, yes, yes that's okay; just 30 minutes. He could be finished in 30 minutes but 45 minutes later, he had forgotten the agreement and was appalled when I asked him to wrap it up.
MD argued with me. Told me I was a terrible volunteer, that I should be helping him help the community and that I was kicking him out. He was shouting. Pushing the line to see how far he could get me to go. In America, I'd never stand for this. I'd have called the police, a burly friend, a relative who'd just been released from jail. Such an option doesn't really exist in Botswana. I stayed calm because I couldn't afford to look bad but I could have bitten MD's bald little head off and spit it across the yard. I could have torn MD's skeletor shaped head off his thin neck with my teeth and spit the hollowed remains past my front yard, across the fence, and into the bush of thorns under the tree with sagging bird nests--but I didn't. Before he could even push me that far, a deux-ex-machina swept across the room and we were swallowed by darkness. The power went out for a brief 5 seconds and MD's document evaporated into the blank monitor screen. The power shuts off for a couple seconds and then comes right back on to give you a heads up that there is a scheduled black out and that's when MD said he thought it was time for him to leave. With that, he pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up to walk out of the door, leaving the door open behind him. MD had finally stepped over the line and he did it deliberately.
When Microsoft Word gave me to option to recover his documents, I deliberately deleted them because I am a petty and vindictive person. I've never claimed to be big and I was tired of his power games. That night, when the power went out, I sat in the dark at my counterpart’s house and told her she needed to do something. She shook her head in agreement and that was it. She did absolutely nothing and I knew she wouldn't do anything but I sat in the dark and was satisfied because MD was toppled off his high horse and trampled by the truth. Everyone knows the house always wins and that you can't beat the computer, but all of us in that office were now just shards of broken glass; a mess that needed cleaning up.
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.
****
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.
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.
****
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.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Alone Time
At first living alone seemed like bliss. Kinda. I'd just finished training only to discover that my house wasn't ready so I went from a host family to living with another volunteer. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was overwhelming. Then I moved into my house. It was winter and I'd only been on malaria meds for 3 months. I was jittery and paranoid. My dreams were like real life and so were my nightmares but on Friday or Saturday nights I used to put on my patent leather pumps, fake eyelashes, and wear red lipstick. I would think about how I should be out wearing an expensive pair of jeans. I would think that I should be wearing a skimpy top with no bra and in my right hand should be a mojito. In America it was summertime. In Botswana it was the dead stone of winter.
After a year, a good night was a hot cup of coffee and walking on my borrowed carpet with Simon (the cat) following behind me twitching his tail back and forth. I'd close the curtains and wear an old LMU sweatshirt with the pajama pants Craig left behind last December and I would watch movies on a laptop. I can now admit to myself that moving pictures on a screen eventually get boring; it’s then that I'd retreat to a book but one particular time I watched a movie called Synecdoche. I couldn’t help but appreciate the title since it’s got a double meaning. In the movie it refers to a city in New York, but in literature the word synecdoche refers to the act of using a part to represent the whole (for example, the phrase lend me your ears, or sit your ass down), At the very beginning a professor of literature reads a poem about the onset of autumn--a melancholy season that signifies the beginning of the end. She reads a poem that goes thus:
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone, will stay alone
Will sit, read, write long letters to the evening
And wander the boulevards up and down restlessly while the dry leaves are blowing. (Rilke)
I'd sit alone, read and write long letters to the evening and call them blogs, or I would date them and call the journal entries. Batswana (and Africans in general, I think) wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to be alone. When the shit hits the fan Batswana always have someone who comes through for them--a flock of people: family, friends, neighbors that never particularly liked them b/c their dog killed three of his/her chickens. Everyone. In their darkest hour a Motswana is never alone. If they are its a disgrace and they've been shunned. I can't think of anything they could possibly do that would earn that kind of punishment. I however begged for solitude and alone time until I got wise. Living alone is great for a while but solitude is just a border post. Its the invisible line where Overwhelmed and Lonely meet. Like the literature professor said: whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters and wander the boulevards of her mind restlessly while the dry leaves of shriveled opportunities and the shrapnel of broken promises are blowing.
And so I stopped walking barefoot on the borrowed carpet with my cat. In Botswana you don't necessarily have to do anything labor intensive to keep company with people. Not in modern day Botswana at least. I learned that I should spend my weekday nights going to my neighbor Neo's house to watch Soapies. The moving pictures on the screen never get boring and by the sheer art of sitting, my Setswana has improved two fold. By doing nothing together I've learned to stir phaleche like a real Motswana. I can cook madombi. Together Neo, Tebogo, and I sit on the red velveteen couch and watch a South African soap opera called Generations while eating meat and phaleche--we are the only vegetables, sitting; watching; being together because no man is an island and Botswana is land locked anyway.
After a year, a good night was a hot cup of coffee and walking on my borrowed carpet with Simon (the cat) following behind me twitching his tail back and forth. I'd close the curtains and wear an old LMU sweatshirt with the pajama pants Craig left behind last December and I would watch movies on a laptop. I can now admit to myself that moving pictures on a screen eventually get boring; it’s then that I'd retreat to a book but one particular time I watched a movie called Synecdoche. I couldn’t help but appreciate the title since it’s got a double meaning. In the movie it refers to a city in New York, but in literature the word synecdoche refers to the act of using a part to represent the whole (for example, the phrase lend me your ears, or sit your ass down), At the very beginning a professor of literature reads a poem about the onset of autumn--a melancholy season that signifies the beginning of the end. She reads a poem that goes thus:
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone, will stay alone
Will sit, read, write long letters to the evening
And wander the boulevards up and down restlessly while the dry leaves are blowing. (Rilke)
I'd sit alone, read and write long letters to the evening and call them blogs, or I would date them and call the journal entries. Batswana (and Africans in general, I think) wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to be alone. When the shit hits the fan Batswana always have someone who comes through for them--a flock of people: family, friends, neighbors that never particularly liked them b/c their dog killed three of his/her chickens. Everyone. In their darkest hour a Motswana is never alone. If they are its a disgrace and they've been shunned. I can't think of anything they could possibly do that would earn that kind of punishment. I however begged for solitude and alone time until I got wise. Living alone is great for a while but solitude is just a border post. Its the invisible line where Overwhelmed and Lonely meet. Like the literature professor said: whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters and wander the boulevards of her mind restlessly while the dry leaves of shriveled opportunities and the shrapnel of broken promises are blowing.
And so I stopped walking barefoot on the borrowed carpet with my cat. In Botswana you don't necessarily have to do anything labor intensive to keep company with people. Not in modern day Botswana at least. I learned that I should spend my weekday nights going to my neighbor Neo's house to watch Soapies. The moving pictures on the screen never get boring and by the sheer art of sitting, my Setswana has improved two fold. By doing nothing together I've learned to stir phaleche like a real Motswana. I can cook madombi. Together Neo, Tebogo, and I sit on the red velveteen couch and watch a South African soap opera called Generations while eating meat and phaleche--we are the only vegetables, sitting; watching; being together because no man is an island and Botswana is land locked anyway.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Winter in Pitsane
Pitsane (and most of Botswana) is yellow and brown right now. The pans in Pitsane are dry but still pretty in their wide expanse of blond emtiness. Meanwhile the tree in my yard has balded like a chemo patient. Winter is cancerous and it goes in and out of remission with the passing seasons. When the sun sets during the winter, the worst falls down on us. A frost sets in. I see it on the grass on the few early mornings when I leave the house. I see it, an opaque white layer of ice, as I cross the train tracks to hitch hike to Lobatse or Gabs. When the sun is out, the cold is at bay but still salivating, licking its lips at what greenery is left to kill. My flowers stand dry and splotchy. They're pathetic, sad and nearly dead.
In the mornings I see a shadow of breath retarded and then destroyed by the cold air when I exhale from my mouth. This is usually while I drink my morning coffee in the stuffed chair by my bookshelf. The cat lives in my lap and I need him there. Before I make it out of bed though, I usually pick up my cold cell phone and text Julie or Laura (who live nearby) that humans were not made for this. Batswana often tell us that this must be nothing compared to winters in America. We're two Californians and a Texan. We're not accustomed to cold, but even Americans who are have always enjoyed insulated houses and heating. We often wonder whose idea it was to live in the coldest region of Africa but it's when I see pictures of this past summer that I remember. I have a hard time believing this is the same place that was full of birdsong and shimmering curtains of flickering bugs that hummed with energy. Although the pans are still pretty with breathtaking views of pink, blue, and purple cotton candy skies, I'd rather not be out in the chaffing cold. It blows through me and takes something away with it--a chunk of my high spirits. Winter blows its cold dry breath during the bright warm sunshine to let you know its still here and will be back on the hunt when the sun sets. All of Borolong is miserable. We just bundle, and wait with frozen hopes that will thaw when the frost does.
In the mornings I see a shadow of breath retarded and then destroyed by the cold air when I exhale from my mouth. This is usually while I drink my morning coffee in the stuffed chair by my bookshelf. The cat lives in my lap and I need him there. Before I make it out of bed though, I usually pick up my cold cell phone and text Julie or Laura (who live nearby) that humans were not made for this. Batswana often tell us that this must be nothing compared to winters in America. We're two Californians and a Texan. We're not accustomed to cold, but even Americans who are have always enjoyed insulated houses and heating. We often wonder whose idea it was to live in the coldest region of Africa but it's when I see pictures of this past summer that I remember. I have a hard time believing this is the same place that was full of birdsong and shimmering curtains of flickering bugs that hummed with energy. Although the pans are still pretty with breathtaking views of pink, blue, and purple cotton candy skies, I'd rather not be out in the chaffing cold. It blows through me and takes something away with it--a chunk of my high spirits. Winter blows its cold dry breath during the bright warm sunshine to let you know its still here and will be back on the hunt when the sun sets. All of Borolong is miserable. We just bundle, and wait with frozen hopes that will thaw when the frost does.
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