Kopo is off to Gaborone for what the Peace Corps calls IST or In Service Training, which is a chance to talk about how things are going at site, to discuss and refine one’s ideas for a primary PC project and to get a refresher on Setswana language. Two of the four subgroups of the BOTS 8’ers started on last Monday. She is in the Life Skills group that works in schools and is there with those who are in Non-governmental organizations. I will go up on Wednesday with the rest of my District AIDS Coordinator colleagues and the community capacity builders. There will be three days of overlap with the entire group and then I stay on for an additional 10 days. All in all she and I will be apart for the better part of four weeks. Not much fun, I can attest already, but a couple of phone calls a day to Maureen brighten the day.
The weather has been distinctly improved these last three weeks—cool but not cold at night, and warm but not hot during the day. I have developed a lifestyle routine—getting up early (4:30 AM) and into the office by 6:30. I try to get out by mid-afternoon to take in a few hours of pleasant sunshine on the back patio, doing crossword puzzles, listening to music as well as the sounds of the neighborhood and just being here and being now. Supper is simple and early, 5-6 PM and into bed by 8:30. I wonder if this would be a routine that I will fall into later in life. It wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but it seems to fit my biology.
A PEACE CORPS MOMENT
One thing that is difficult to explain about the PC experience is how a small and totally unexpected experience can come along and have a surprisingly deep meaning. I was in the office on Tuesday when two teens came in to work with one of the other staff on the planning for a “street bash” in September. It is a daytime street fair with an AIDS-related motivational theme, and hence under the purview of our office. Street bashes are attended mostly by youth, but some adults as well, and highlighted by a performance from a local musical talent. They were going the next day to meet with the “crowd puller,” Sliza by name, and had been told by the other teen organizers that they needed to get an agreement, but were quite unsure as to what that meant. The kids had been working for several weeks to arrange to get a “crowd puller” for the event. They had found a blank model contract to employ an entertainer, but couldn’t make hide nor hair out of the legal language. Out of the blue they said “Kgosi can you help us with this? We just don’t understand.” Suddenly I was in an hour-long teaching opportunity with two eager learners about a subject that I never dreamed I would be dealing with.
We removed most of esoteric legalese and simplified things as much as possible, while discussing issues like:
Why would you write all the numbers out in words rather than numerals? (So they can’t be altered)
How they themselves might have to sign contracts in the future (to get someone to fix their roof, to sign for cell phone service or maybe even to eventually get a house).
Why would you care if the contract prevents this same performer from signing up for another concert just down the street two days before yours? (The first performance would draw all the people and no one would come to yours).
Where would you go to get help a contract if a PC volunteer were not here? (An attorney if you could find and afford one)
What is a performer’s “agent”? (A blood -sucking leech that gets 15%--just kidding).
I certainly am no authority on contracts, but I had experience to share and I felt they just soaked it up like wide-eyed eager sponges. It felt great to have had a moment that both they, and I, will remember long after I leave the country.
ANOTHER MOMENT OF THE CORPS AND OF LIFE
If these words find their way onto a printed page some 2-3 years in the future, I will know when it started in earnest--August 22 at 5:35 AM. The moment, if you will, has really been coming for several days, and has been shaped by a confluence of events.
--I have been at home alone for almost a week now.
--I came home yesterday to find that we had no water in the pipes—reason unknown, but supposedly a rare occurrence in Ramotswa. Without water, you can’t cook many things, there is nothing to drink, food-stained dishes pile up in the sink and you can’t flush the toilet—ugh!
--Frank McCourt died. I have read two of his three books, Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. The crucial fact that sticks with me about him is that he did not write a book until he was in his 60’s. Not that I really need a role model of Baby Boomer accomplishments at a later age. I guess Colonel Harland Sanders set the standard by founding KFC at the age of 65 with his first Social Security check money.
--I downloaded the audio version of South of Broad, a book by one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy. After much success with a string of poignant, yet laugh-out-loud funny books in his early career, he had not published a book in 15 years. I spent 30 minutes listening to the prologue and first chapter of his wonderfully crafted words painting a picture of Charleston, SC and his early life. Although only a casual visitor to Charleston in our temporary work before the PC, he brings the city and an era alive with his prose.
--Listening to the book was a welcome relief from the back-breaking and knee pounding experience of hand washing clothes in the bath tub at 4:30 AM. After a cup of coffee and finding to my relief that the water was back on, what better time to do it?--even if it was a disgusting brown color for several minutes as it started to come through in sputtering splats and stops.
Without my wife to comfort and enliven the hours out of the office, I have had much more time to sit and think. Of course I have had times to reflect on my life before the Peace Corps, but there were always so many easy distractions, mostly that intrusive, yet seemingly alluring invention, cable television. It has always had enough different snares to keep me away from reflecting on life for more than a few moments at a time.
Several PC volunteers have talked about the PC as their journey to “discovering” themselves or at least learning some essential truths about themselves during their service. Many have voiced how it is a “life-changing” experience. I will not speculate whether my life will be altered in some revolutionary way yet, and I feel in many ways that I have come to know many things about myself already. One of things that PC service does though, whether you anticipate it or not, is that it forces you to understand the basics of living. Life as it is uniquely yours, and simultaneously how different nationalities share so many common experiences partially disguised by cultural differences. I have found myself sifting out the needless chaff; as well as refining, clarifying and emphasizing the essential. It is not that I could not have done this in America, but I just didn’t. Perhaps others are better at shutting out the noises of distraction to do so, than I have been.
These paragraphs are not intended to elucidate all of the “truths” that I have come to know in the past few days, but a few are:
That I love my wife and depend on her more than I have previously admitted even to myself.
That when you don’t have water even for a short time, there are an amazing number of routines that get altered.
That the computer and the Internet have woven themselves into the fabric of my life even more than in the States and that is never going to change in my lifetime.
That I know I can put words together in ways that educate and amuse.
That it not to late to take on another project, at least for me at the age of 63.
All of this is to say that there is another book in the offing, probably about my African PC experience. I know enough about myself to say then that when this level of certitude finds me, I will make it happen one way or another. At the same time, I have learned with increasing clarity that I never quite know what is around the bend, so I and anyone who reads what I might write, will have to stay tuned.
SWEET STUFF
Food gathering, preparation and consumption in Africa are necessary but royal pains in the rear end. If my newly acquired sweet tooth doesn’t develop some self control, I am going to have to pay for two airline seats just to get my enlarging rear end back home. Fortunately there is no Setswana translation for Pillsbury Dough Boy.
(Kopo, please pass me another hostess cupcake)
Recession. What recession? Damn the marketing analysis. I am opening the first Krispy Kreme franchise in Africa. It is going to be a little gold mine. I already have the idea for our signature item—a double chocolate éclair filled half with custard and the other half with whipped cream, and topped with extra frosting. We will call it the Ramotswa Rotunda. We could even couple it with a Diet Coke as the daily special for the calorie conscious. Of course Kgosi will have to be the taste tester, trying at least one per day to maintain quality control.
(Kopo, don’t hog all the Ho Ho’s)
Kgosi
PS If a book deal doesn’t materialize, I can always start an airline that only sells extra wide seats……….. or start to take in laundry---NOT!
PPS Whatever happened to boys clothes in size “husky”? At the age of 12 it was the staple of my wardrobe. Growing up however, I knew quite a few girls who might have been termed “husky” but they all got to wear sizes that had just numbers. I always felt embarrassed to have to wear clothes that needed a………...a……...…. NAME.
“You can’t shop in this aisle Bozo, you need to go over to the …….(gasp) …. “Husky” section.
I also found that it was very hard to pick out clothes when you were wearing a brown paper bag over your head. If you didn’t position the eye holes in the bag correctly, you walked around looking dazed and confused. This would lead to the dreaded “ATTENTION KMART SHOPPERS. There is a boy in the store who has lost his mother. He is the fat blond kid with the bag over his head in the “Husky” section.”
I suppose “husky” is better than having to wear size “Chunky” or “Blimp”. It is definitely better than the Botswana size equivalents---- “Rhino” and “ntlo ntona”(house built for your entire extended family),
or my personal favorite---Rufus Humongus.
You would have thought that the humiliation of my youth would somehow keep my appetite in check, but Nooooooooo………………………. (Kopo, that Twinkie has my name on it. I also don’t care if it is three weeks old, but if you touch one more crumb of my birthday cake you are toast. ……………….Hmmm………………….toast………………….
perhaps with jam……………I wonder if the market can special order some raspberry Smuckers………… ……………What a concept.)
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