Blog #19 – More Than a Dayful

Day 2…there is no way it can be as crazy as the first, but it still is going to be interesting!

I have tried my best to walk as much as possible. It is what the majorities of locals do and so it is a small attempt to try and understand their lifestyle at least a little better. It is a fifty-minute walk from my home to work, so a good chunk of my day. This lets me reflect and think about things, but also gives me time to practice my Setswana. Today I feel more confident than normal about saying hello and greeting people. Not everyone will say greet me back, but the majority of people do. It makes everything seem so much more friendly and inviting. I also haven’t decided whether a person greeting me back in English is a good or bad sign? I am taking it as a sign of respect for me trying to speak Tswana and not a remark at how poor my pronunciation is, haha!

Work today was busy. I spent a good portion of it briefing Kenny on the education classroom curriculum and making sure that he understood what we were talking about and what messages we were trying to get across.

The rest of my time was spent working on the press release with the local newspaper The Ngami Time. Maun is in the province of Ngamiland (the most north-wesst province of the country. The slogan of the newspaper is “the last newspaper established in the 20th century”…I am not really sure what they are getting at or the story behind it, but they were a little bit of a challenge. We decided the best thing to do would be to actually reformat the press release into an advertisement and publish it in the paper, where we wanted. That we controlled what was said and where is placed – much more effective than relying on a local writer… as far as I am told!

Then it was off too a quick lunch before school visits. You can get a full lunch here for around two dollars! It’s incredible! It was also the first time I have had pap! A mix between a grain and dough, with the texture of kutia or runny buckwheat. It is one of the local replacements for our North American rice or potatoes. It is REALLY filling, but quite bland – but nut sure if that was because I got a ‘value meal’ or if that is just the way it is!

Our first school visit was going to be one of the three private schools. The nice thing about this was that they would speak fluent English and I would be able to do the whole presentation by myself! Yes, it was a good thing! It allowed me to try out the curriculum with no language barriers – to see whether the content was too heavy or the concepts to difficult. It also let Kenny see what I envisioned the presentation to be in actuality and to start working on how he would translate into Tswana.

Okavango International School went really well! The kids were enthusiastic and participated well. They asked questions and shared their thoughts. The visual aids were basic, just vocabulary, but seemed to do the trick. For the first school, I couldn’t have been happier and it was a huge weight off of my chest. Kenny also said that he understood much better what was going on and felt more comfortable. The next school would be one of the government schools, Matlapana, which would be much more challenging. It was one of the poorer schools and the students had barely any English. Luckily for me, the teacher and football coach stayed for the presentation and helped to translate and encourage the kids. This was where I found out that my visual aids might have worked for English fluent students, but that they were near useless for those only spoke Setswana.

Today was a really neat day. I learned about the large divide between government schools for the public and the private schools that only a select few can afford. I came to appreciate the full extent of what the ability to speak English opens up for Batswana (all people of Botswana). If a Motswana (one Batswana) can speak English they immediately have a huge range of jobs available to them and the opportunity to go abroad and leave the country: to study, to work or to live! The ones that speak English now are the ones that provide the greatest amount of support and can connect their communities with external help and support. Without English these people would be much more isolated and alone.

Now I realize I probably sound like ‘we white man are the saviours of these poor helpless black people’, but that is not what I think or intend. It is more to make you realize how much English has dominated the world (much like Christianity), which may be for the better or for the worse. The challenge here is that if people do not speak English they have many more barriers to overcome if they want to break out of their current life cycles. And that gets to the crux of the problem. The current life cycles mean a limited education and are part of the reason that HIV/AIDS is so prevalent.

People back home generally want to help people in Africa. But what people don’t appreciate is that to help means going to the people and connecting with them, not expecting them to come to you for help – and in regards to the language that is what I have really thought about.

Now we get into the issue of, who are we to just give help when we are not invited? That one I am still working on, but what I hold onto is that I are not trying to change people. I am working to provide people with the education, the knowledge and the tools to change their lives (and their future) if they choose to. I only play a small part, but I am thinking in context of the bigger picture…perhaps I am still too altruistic about all of this who knows…

Another day down and I could write about another million things that I have observed and learned. While I constantly change my opinion on things – sometimes optimistic, sometimes cynical – I take refuge in that I am thinking. It is a long process with no definitive end and I do not expect to be ‘right’ about everything. But, I do want to think about it, I do want to debate about it, I do want to engage about it! I am no longer ignorant to the fact that I have given far too little consideration to the lives of other individuals, not just others as a group, a nation, a culture. If there is one thing that I can accomplish, it is holding onto that belief and sharing it with others.

…So, that got a little heavy and probably a bit controversial…so I apologize if anything was offensive or depressing... All I can hope was that is was thought provoking :)