01/11/10

Pinch and a punch for the 1st of a month - I taught Tapiwa that this morning and also 'White Rabbit' (thanks Helen for instilling that in me!).

We had the most horrendous storm last night which started about 1 and went on til about 5! I was really scared (again) and kept hearing all these strange noises (which as you will know, in daylight, would be perfectly normal noises!). As I kept waking up, I was worrying about Sally so a about 4am I got up and went to see if she was ok. She was huddling in the corner of the porch trying to get shelter from the rain (and like any dog I have ever known, had chosen not to use the shelter). She looked such a sorry sight so I let her in, dried her off with a towel - she was so pleased to see me. I stayed in the living room with her and dozed off for an hour until the sun came up…..

When Petros arrived to pick me up, I asked him how his weekend had been. He said 'Not Good' and went on to tell me that his cousin had found his girlfriend (and mother of his 2 children) with another man. I thought that this was bad enough, but then he went on to say that his cousin had then killed his girlfriend, the other man got away. How awful. So his cousin is now in prison and they are trying to raise the bail money so that he can go to the church (perhaps this is so that he can ask for forgiveness and repent?) and also seek advice from a lawyer. The cost is 1500 pula for bail and 4000 for the lawyer. This may not seem much, but if you imagine that an average salary here is perhaps 400-600 pula per month, then it begins to seem pretty hefty. Petros and his family are all pulling together to try and get the amount needed. Apparently it turns out that this type of crime (crimes of passion) is quite common in Botswana according to Stella.

I spent the morning in Francis Town with Lovemore and Petros. We wanted to see what was in the 3 storerooms at the museum -and managed to bring back a couple of games, books, toys and a box of old Christmas cards which I thought might be useful for the craft fair. We also picked up some more yacht material for the sewing business and also two of the big Industrial Sewing machines that had been mended. The storerooms are in a bit of a mess (OK - well a lot!) and I think we will need to spend a few days sorting these out into some kind of order. Not a job I am looking forward to, but it will massively help so I think probably needs to be done soon.

Once this was all done, we quickly stopped off at the Spar to get some lunch. They have a hot counter at the back of the shop that sells Sorghum, Semp, Rice and meat. Knowing that the Semp I had eaten had pretty much made me constipated, I was reluctant to have anymore as I had been in a lot of pain over the weekend (I know. Nice!), but as Lovemore and Petros were having some, I thought I had better. Anyway it was lovely and also very kind of Petros to buy lunch. Apparently he was telling me that the driver buys lunch - and I thought that this was a little unfair! Surely it should be the other way round? Ha ha can you imagine if on a night out in St Albans, the person that was driving had to buy everyone else their alcohol?! I think everyone would be getting taxis!

The youth centre is quiet with only 17 children, so we do colouring with them. Emily stays tonight and we watch a film. My sleep is broken (again) and I wake up every hour or so.

02/11/10

In the weekly review meeting we agree that while the 0-10 year olds are catered for, the older children are less so. We decide to introduce Chess lessons and bicycles (once mended).

After the meeting we plan to go to the Primary School to sell the idea of getting pupils involved with the vegetable garden, chess club and also to find out what after school activities are being completed so that TOP Banana can see if there is a gap but also what it might be able to get more involved in. Unfortunately I get a cal from the landlord, Bonwell, who says he will be arriving in Tshesebe soon and would like to fix the electrics in the house (as Cecil sent him an email before he went away). I am afraid that if I go to the school then I will not be back in time to take Bonwell and the electrician to the house, so I decide that I had better not go anywhere….. As it turns out he is late and the others are back in plenty of time. That's Botswana timescales for you!

OK, to cut a long story short, Bowell turns up with the electrician and while he is working away, Bonwell wants to sit on the porch to talk with me. He is interested in my age, if I have children, if I am planning to and a host of other things including 'do you play rugby?' (When I ask why, he says 'you look like you play', how very rude!!). He has a charity about 2hours away and it sounds wonderful - he wants to take me to show me and says that it would take a day. But then he says that there is so much to show me that it might take two days. My instinct tells me to avoid being alone with this man - even though he has been very friendly (if I'm honest, a little TOO friendly for my comfort), a seemingly good cause such as a charity, or as I have also found Church, does not necessarily make a good man. His father lives next door, which adds to my anxiety….

After he has left I am relieved and feel like I can now relax. Later I receive a text telling me that he hopes we can be very good friends and over the next few days I receive more phone calls and text messages. I end up ignoring these so as not to mislead in anyway.

03/11/10

Woke up to take Sally out - it is a nice way of waking up in the morning really! SO that was the nice part of the day….

Today was not a good one. I don't know if I am making a difference and I am being affected by some people's behaviours in a negative way. After some thought about the day, I realize that perhaps this is because I want and expect others to live to my values, and because this isn't happening I am being affected by it so much. But why is it getting me down so much? Perhaps I am still in 'corporate business mode' - which is not the way and just doesn't work over here. I know I have said that there are many similarities to the UK, but there are also vast differences which I perhaps need to pay more attention to.

To add to this, I have been unable to access the internet and unable to speak to any friends or family. I feel truly alone out here.

04/11/10

Today has been a better one thankfully! I managed to get to the post office and while all the metal boxes were empty, I was able to get onto the internet and load up what I typed up so far for my blog. I was able to send some emails and also to pick up a few, which made me smile.

When I got back to TOP Banana I wolfed down some bread and jam (very nutritious) and then the children began to arrive. It was a really chaotic afternoon, and I actually think that that word describes perfectly how the last 3 weeks has been at TOP Banana. The afternoon was great fun and we ended up with 85 children attending.

When I got home I realized that I had not managed to pick up any butter -and as I was planning to bake a cake for my birthday, this was a crucial ingredient! SO I grabbed Sally and walked to the Stopover shop by the motel. It only took about 25 minutes and Sally was glad of the walk. On my journey I said 'dumela' to plenty of people and plenty of people waved and tried to enter into conversation with me!

Once back home I started cooking…… four hours later I was done! I cooked a big chocolate cake and I also decided to bake biscuits for the children so ended up baking 90 of those (5 had to be eaten by me as they did not pass quality control!!). I was looking forward o the following day.

05/11/10

My birthday and the dreaded 33…

I woke up at 6.00 as still had to ice the cake. Not being able to get hold of any icing sugar, I had bought mars bar like chocolate to melt instead. With that done I settled down with my coffee and cards to open. It made such a difference having cards to open while away from home and the text messages I received also put a smile on my face. I even had a present to open! Thanks Ade!

I was all excited about seeing Giraffes this morning as it was my understanding that we were going to drop Lovemore off at a meeting and then Petros was going to take me to a place where you could see Giraffes in the wild. But that didn't end up happening, so no giraffes and no cake (as Petros had gone to do errands so could not go and pick the cake up). I felt a bit down in the dumps to be honest and rather sorry for myself. Luckily the afternoon worked out better….. I managed to pick the cake and biscuits up at 1pm so shared the cake with staff, it was rather scrummy indeed! (But totally forgot to take a photo of it!!).

In the afternoon 111 children were counted which was great (but unfortunately I couldn't give out the birthday biscuits as it would have meant some children missing out). All but 10 decorated paper crowns that Tapiwa and I had cut out in the morning. Once they had finished decorating they came to me so that I could staple the crown to the size of their head. That's was hot work indeed as they were all in a rush to get them on their heads! In the end I stapled and Thande put the crown in place. AT one point during all of this I thought 'I'm so pleased to be doing something for someone else on my birthday'. We must have been doing this until about 3.30 and then we split off into different activities. Lovemore took about 15 children to play Chess, Petros 8 to the vegetable garden and Thande and Tapiwa 35 to do singing outside. For a VERY short time, all was quiet in the youth centre…. I loved the afternoon and spending time with the children. One of the really young ones spent some time sat on my knee and was jibber jabbering away to me as if we were having a conversation (I don't think he was talking in his own language, he couldn't yet talk!).

Towards the end of the afternoon Petros ended up getting the children to play volleyball -girls vs. boys. The boys were caning the girls and looking very pleased with themselves, laughing at the girls - until I noticed that the wind was massively in their favour! So we swapped ends, and the next point, was won by the girls (cue huge cheering from girls), and the next, and the next!! The boys being boys (sorry male friends and family) started getting mighty agro when they started losing and began fighting amongst themselves. It was very amusing to watch and be part of.

In the evening there was a massive storm in Francis Town. It didn't reach Tshesebe but I did see all the lightening and it was amazing. I thought that this was my Botswana Bonfire Night! Fork lightening going horizontally and vertically, lighting up the whole sky. Beautiful.

I had one birthday drink of 'Amarula' (a drink made from the fruit of a tree and tastes a little like Baileys) and spoke with mum, Josie, Amy and Curly (having spoken with Nezza this morning). It was so lovely to hear familiar voices, it meant such a lot and I fell to sleep with a smile on my face….

06/11/10

So no rest for the wicked and it was up at 6.00 (ok well I was late so up at 7.00!) to walk into TOP Banana with Tapiwa ready for the arrival of the children at 8.00. We had a number of bags to carry as there were lots of T-shirts which we needed to give to the children and it was already getting hot! As we walked through the bush I suddenly felt something on my feet (which were in flip flops) - looking down I saw hundreds of ants on the ground, and a number of these had chosen to climb aboard and have a taste of my feet! Now these weren't your average UK sized ant. Oh no! These were about three or four times the size and their bite stung! I started jumping from one foot to the next, shrieking and screaming but laughing too. As I did so, I lost my flip flops so my bare feet were now on the ground, and more started climbing on! Tapiwa was also laughing at me and was trying to help. Eventually I managed to get over to the path where there were fewer ants and quickly jumped into my trainers. Ah, the relief!

The children had already started arriving when we got there at about 7.30, so at about 8.30 we started organizing. I gave Thande Amy and Peter's birthday present to use -a megaphone!! (Thanks so much both!). I think that she must have been shouting into it at the same time as her voice came out SOOOOO loud! But it did the trick and the children ran off in the direction of their activity. The children would either be playing Chess, Volleyball, Netball or on the playhouse. I had pumped up the netballs donated by the England Netball Association ready to use, so with one of these in hand, I walked to the court.

I don't think I had really quite prepared myself for the next 50 minutes and hadn't really anticipated me needing to 'referee' as such…. But I did! In hindsight I should have checked what rules the children had played with before as they quickly started shouting at me for not picking up on things like footwork and replaying the ball (catching it with both hands twice). Now luckily I had refreshed my knowledge of the rules a few weeks ago (when I play with work we use 'rules' in the very loose sense of the word!) so I was able to start being stricter and pulling them up on things. However, the language barrier was proving rather problematic as it made it extremely difficult to explain why I had blown the whistle and stopped play (NB whistle fromChristmas cracker, not very powerful, so I would often resort to frantically waving my arms. Amusing to watch I am sure). Added to this was the constant bickering between the girls about who knows what (when asked they just shrugged ) and occasional shouting of 'the referee should referee!!'…. So it was an interesting 1st attempt at refereeing a netball game and one which I am sure I will be doing again. I was exhausted after it, even though we had only been out there for less than an hour.

The children kept coming and coming until we had over 170. It was absolute chaos! Petros was not there so there were just three of us trying to create some kind of structure! Luckily Petros turned up at about 10.30 and we all sorted out the gifts for the children. We only had 126 T-shirts so we tried to split it so that the older children had a T-shirt or baseball cap, and then the children under 6 would get some bright crayons and a biscuit each. The children were all happy for about 10 minutes, until the older ones that had t-shirts realized that baseball caps had been given out…. So they asked for a cap. And the ones that had caps wanted t-shirts! Next time, we need to give all the children the same thing to avoid this! After, the children played in different areas and the staff walked around to check that all were ok.

In the youth centre one of the really little ones (maybe 3?) had hit his head on a table and burst into tears. I was quick to pick him up, and Tapiwa pointed to a little girl (maybe 11-12?) who must have been looking after him. I handed him over, and as I did so I noticed that his trousers and my arm were soaking wet. And looking at it, so was the concrete floor where the little boy had been sat. It was quite saddening. The little girl took the boy from me and about 10 minutes later disappeared outside, to return with having removed his trousers. I was touching to see the little girl acting as 'parent' in this way. I wonder who cares for her.

After we finished I drove the truck back to the house! How exciting indeed! It was quite funny as I needed to fold over a cushion and have the seat pulled forward to make sure I could get my foot all the way down for the clutch! So the track is very bumpy, and when it hasn't rained because of the dust it is skiddy too. Lovemore and Petros want me to be confident driving the truck so that I can take myself home in it at night and also use it at the weekends if I want. It was good fun!

07/11/10

Had a lie in this morning and when eventually I did get up, I noticed how burn my shoulders were from the previous morning. Ow! I had a really leisurely day which was needed after the week I had had. I read, did some washing, wrote in my diary and cooked.

I have had to get used to spending a lot of time in my own company - which is most certainly a good thing. I have not yet got a CD player so have not been able to listen to the CDs from Helen and Ade, although am planning to get one next week. I can't wait!

We only have Botswana TV on one channel, which can be a bit hit and miss. The picture is still very bad so when the weather is on I try to make out what the symbols are, and when the news is on I have to guess what the news might be! I did manage to catch an episode of 'Two and a half men' the other day and it reminded me of Chaddy and the flat! They seem to love debate shows over here and very dramatic soap operas with awful acting!

Later I take out Sally and as we do I spot some donkeys with their front two legs tied together. I saw this for the first time about a week ago and I am told it is because these particular donkeys will have strayed too far from home at one point. The legs are tied together so that they cannot travel far again. They do not look to be any pain, but it is odd to watch as their back legs walk normally and their front ones 'hop'.

I am becoming very domesticated (I know Tracey! Can you believe it?) and have cooked homemade soup on a number of occasions, various pasta dishes and I even attempted bread today!! I have been watering the vegetable garden, and enjoying the tomatoes, onions and green peppers from here.