So you're thinking Botswana...

So you’re considering Botswana! Good choice!

Another Amazing Sunset
 

Work Life- For my placement I am working at TOCaDI, also known as the Trust for Okavango Cultural and Development Initiatives. Within TOCaDI I am working with the Shakawe Crafts Centre project.  Basically how the Centre operates is we travel to surrounding settlements and purchase baskets from the registered groups there, and then bring them back to the Crafts Centre in Shakawe to sell them. The idea of this project is to give the producers, mostly women, the opportunity and the skills in order for them to improve their livelihoods.

The project has not been up and running for too long so there is a lot of basic marketing and promotion activities we have done so far.  We (Heather and I) have created basic press kit materials since arriving; posters, business cards, pamphlets etc…

I am working on a marketing plan that can be used for the rest of my placement and for use in the future as well.  In the New Year, I am going to be conducting a survey that I created to collect baseline data on the producers. This is important so that the progress and impacts of the project can be tracked when carried out next year.

One of my Favourite Baskets

 

Possible future tasks:

-          Stock diversification: right now the Centre mainly focuses on baskets, but there is a lot of room to grow. We are currently looking into traditional jewellery, pottery and wood work as other craft options.
 
-          Training and workshops for the producers: it is important not only to give the producers the money for their baskets as means of improving their livelihoods but it is also important that we also offer them other skills and knowledge.  Workshops on topics such as gender equality or health related topics could be very beneficial for the producers.

-          Continuing to create relationships with wholesalers across the county. This will allow us to sell more baskets and therefore allow us to buy more from the producers ( yay more trips to the field). Ideally the Crafts Centre would operate as a self-sustaining social enterprise, which is something future interns could work to as well.  If the Centre was able to become a social enterprise than it would not be reliant solely on donor funds, which can be frustrating as many of my classmates would agree.

Since this is a relatively new project, TOCaDI is open for suggestions and there are a lot of different ways to make this placement work for you. Although this is not what I was expecting to be doing on my placement, I am using it as a learning experience and have adapted to the situation.  No matter you where you end up on  your placement, if you go into it thinking you are going  to have a bad time, the you probably are. If you go in with a positive attitude, you will have a much better experience.

Traditional Dancing in the Okavango Region

Shakawe- Shakawe is so far one of my favourite parts of my whole Botswana experience. I love the location: situated right on the Okavango River you could not get a more beautiful place. We often hear hippos grunting, and so far I have seen more bird species than I have in my entire life. The people here are also very friendly. Although I still get the occasional marriage proposal, the small village (about 6,500 people) has a very strong sense of community; people are always saying hi and are very welcoming.  We are not Setswana experts by any means but every time we attempt to talk Setswana, people are very appreciative of us trying to learn. We are surrounded by many remote settlements, many of which I have had the opportunity to visit and those trips are one of my favourite parts.

Shakawe is rural, it’s no Hanoi or Kathmandu that’s for sure: Choppies is the only grocery store, there are no stop lights or street lights for that matter and the most traffic you will ever run into is when there is a herd of cows or donkeys on the road, but I have grown to love the town over the last 3 months.

 

 

The Hottest Week Yet

This past week was easily the hottest and most uncomfortable so far. The average temperature was probably 39 with a few days easily hitting 42. I knew it was going to be hot when I signed up for to come to Botswana, but little did I know it would be this hot. It makes every task you do take longer and requires to much more effort.  

Heather and I took part in a GIS workshop Thursday, Friday and Saturday to learn the basics of GIS. It was very interesting because I never ued GIS before. The only downside was that it was in a small trailer, there were 8 of us all together, 4 computers, no air conditioning and it was at least 42 outside and so much hotter in the trailer.  On Friday I drank 2 litres of water and had 2 glasses of juice and 2 cans of juice and had to go to the washroom only once because that is how much I was sweating. Sorry if that was too much information for anyone, just trying to illustrate a point.

On Saturday it rained and so it was much cooler (probably around 25) and it felt like heaven! I know November is the hottest month and I keep telling myself it will soon be the rainy season and a bit cooler but sometimes it is hard.  

I used to think that I was a person who preferred to be too hot as opposed to too cold, but I have changed my mind on that front. To hear that there is frost and snow at home, makes me so jealous and that is definitely not something I thought I would miss. It is funny how perspectives change; in Canada I would say a nice day is when there are a few clouds in the sky and the sun is shining but in Botswana, I classify a nice day as a cooler overcast one and its even nicer if you through some rain in there too.  

Our First Trip Out of Shakawe

Dumela!

How is everyone one on this Monday morning/very early morning, depening on where you are when you are reading this.

Walking across the 'Old Bridge'

It has been a little while since I have blogged so I will start with updates from last weekend ( Nov 2-4).  Heather and I travelled to Maun as our first real trip out of Shakawe. It was a nice change of scenery and it was nice to be able to go to a restaurant and have a sit down meal. We stayed at Old Bridge Backpackers; it was a very nice place to stay. I bought a tent before I came to Botswana so we camped while we were there. Although the ground was a little hard, it saved us a lot of money which is always good.  I am going to look into a foam pad when we are in Maun next because that would make the sleep much better.

My very own tent! : )

By coincidence we met up with three other Canadian volunteers who came through WUSC and who did the orientation at the same time as us in Gabs.  It was a nice surprise and it was nice to catch up with them and to see how their first two months of placement has gone.

On Friday we walked around Maun and looked in some Craft Shops and looked at some local vendors along the road. There were a lot of nice things, and if I didn’t have to think about how I would get it home in 6 months I might have purchased a few more items. I got a really cool painted fabric that I now have hanging on my wall at home; it gives my room a little colour.

Notice the Giraffe in the Background

Saturday was nice, we read by the river, walked around Maun a little more and then we went on a horseback ride. It was a really awesome experience! We got within 3 metres of lots of different animals, the most exciting being the family of giraffes. Because we were on horseback, the giraffes weren’t as scared of us. We also saw springboks, gemsboks, kudu, ostriches and a few others. It was a really nice activity and we did it just before sunset so it was a nice setting too.

Enjoying a Local Botswana Beer - 'St. Louis Export'

Sunday we hung out and had breakfast and then Heather and I went to this little market called Mosana. Although it was clearly targeted to the ex-pat and the tourist community, it was very nice. There was a little farmers market outside and an assortment of stores inside.  I had breakfast and a chocolate milkshake: both were delicious.

From there we went back to the hostel, packed up our stuff and headed to the bus station. We did not know when the bus was leaving, but we got there and a bus left ten or so minutes later so it was perfect timing.  The bus ride from Maun to Shakawe was about 6 and a half hours so needless to say we were very hot and tired by the time we arrived home.

It was a nice weekend out of Shakawe but it also felt nice when we got back to our houses, showered and got into bed. Guess this place is starting to feel like home after all.

 

 

 

 

End of another Month

Hello faithful readers (if I still have faithful readers and you haven’t decided to stop reading my blog because I haven’t made an entry in a very long time).  We have been in Botswana for nearly two months now, it is kind of crazy to think about.

Last week we had an entire week of rolling power, meaning parts of the town had power for parts of the day and other parts of the town had it for other parts of the day.  In Shakawe, we get our power from Namibia but apparently there was a big storm there and the power lines were knocked out. We survived the week, we were pretty bored at work for a few days because we could not charge our computers but it gave us a good chance to catch up on our reading. As for cooking that was also a little bit of a challenge.  Up until the end of last week, we only had an electric hotplate/mini oven combo to cook on, which obviously did not work when the power was out.  We survived and now we have cooking gas, so that next time the power goes out we can use our gas stove.  

This we have had power for most of the week and we are very thankful for that. This week has been a busy week by Botswana standards. I have been working on an inventory list of all the baskets and that includes pictures, price, pattern and producers. I will see if I can put it on my blog for everyone to see the lovely baskets that we have in the Shop.

On Wednesday, I also got to take a trip with the pottery makers out onto the river to collect clay for their next pottery session. It was a great day.  We took a ride down the river and pulled over and got out to collect the clay. I walked around with the boat driver, who takes people out onto the river for his living, and we saw lots of evidence of animals all around. We saw hippo and elephant footprints and poop.  We also saw the paths that the hippos take through the reeds to the water. I am not going to lie, I was nervous the whole time that a hippos was going to charge out at us but luckily that did not happen. As for actual animals, we saw two crocodile (one regular size and one baby), a couple fishing eagles, a water monitor and many other small creatures.  This was a great day spent outside and I love being near the water.  Unfortunately I did not know I would be spending the whole day outside so I got a little sunburnt but I am okay now.

As for this weekend there is a children‘s play festival on Saturday, a little Halloween party Saturday night and Biodanza and laundry on Sunday. Needless to say it should be a very busy weekend by Shakawe standards.

T is for Terrible

Hello again from the land where sweating buckets and dirty feet are contrasted with the beauty of the Okavango river. We have almost completed our second week at work and we are excited for the long weekend ahead but I will get to that later.

As for work, this week we relocated to the craft shop and got straight down to work. Monday, I worked on their new price list. There has been some price changes since a similar project was ran a few years back. So I typed that out into excel and changed the prices. Tuesday I started working on a letter we are going to send out re-introducing our project. Yesterday Heather and I made a One-pager, new labels for the baskets and we are just putting the finishing touches on a mini brochure we are making. It is looking pretty good.

Heather and I learned to weave baskets this week, and let’s just say it is a very difficult task and the women who make them for our shop must have a lot of patience. Next week the lady who is teaching us said that we could start our very own baskets, so that is exciting, although I will probably have a very small messy basket by the end of 8 months but it is always fun to learn new things J

The grading system for the baskets based on the ’10 commandments of basket making’. In the Ten Commandments we look at things like symmetry, neatness, colour etc. The grading scale goes T, P, P+, IM and SP.

SP- super premium IM- intermediateP+ - premium plus P- premium T- Terrible – this is not a joke, but they are thinking about changing it to stand for Trying. As a basket weaver of this caliber I would appreciate the change.

This weekend is Independence Day in Botswana which is very exciting because it is a very big deal here. We get Monday and Tuesday off of work, which also is very exciting. Supposedly there is a talent show going on at the Junior Secondary School next to our house, dancing and traditional food at the kgotla (community meeting place) and I am sure there is a lot going on around Shakawe, a lot more than normal anyways.

I am about to melt so I have to stop typing now, I think it is sitting around 40C right now. One would think that it is just because we are coming from Canadian climate that we are not used to the heat and that is why we are feeling the heat this much, but unfortunately that is not the case. Even the people who live here, the Batswana, are all complaining about how hot it is as well, so that gives us no hope of getting acclimatized to the weather, guess we better just get used to be sweaty all the time.

Settling into Shakawe - Sept 18th

This was last week's blog, sorry for the delay. Another blog coming tomorrow!

September 18th

Since the last time I wrote, Heather and I have gotten somewhat settled into out houses where we will live for the next 7 and a half months. We actually have two little houses, mine has my bedroom which is spacious ( but I am still waiting on a shelf or something to put my clothes on). I also have a washroom, with a toilet and a shower, so no need to worry I am not using a hole in the ground. Then there is a room that is supposed to be a kitchen, but it just has a sink in it. Needless to say, we do all the cooking at Heathers. Heather's house is only a few steps away and is one round room with a bedroom kitchen combo and then an attached washroom. 

My co-ordinator told me to make sure I leave the outside light on at night when I am walking between my house and Heathers house. He then proceeded to tell me it was important ecause they have been known to get pythons there and you wouldn't want to walk into one of those...

Our houses are located on the same property and both of the cordinators for our two organizations. It is about a 40 minute walk to work, which wasnt too bad this morning because we left at 7 but I think the walk home will be toasty because it will be around 5 and by then it is hot!

The offices are located right on the banks of the Okavango River. There is a fence to keep the hippos and crocs and other wild animals out but when you walk towards the fence you can see local people fishing, collecting the reeds and many other activities. It is sign of how important the river and the Delta are to the people around here. 

As for my mandate (what I will be doing while I am here) we started to talk about that yesterday. I am helping to revive a local craft and basketry project that TOCaDI owns and operates. The craft shop buys baskets from women in rural surrounding communities and then sells them in the shop. They buy the baskets directly from the women and the aim is to help these women escape poverty and improve their livelihoods.

I will be helping to create a marketing plan to allow the craft shop to sell more baskets and then be able to support more women. The idea situation is that the craft shop can continue to buy baskets and supporting the local people while being financially stable and not reliant on outside funding and funding from TOCaDI.

I am excited to get into the shop next week, but until then I will be doing lots of research and reading about baskets and past projects. 

 

 

 

 

 

Headed North

Me of my first (but definitely not my last) Safari

No Grand Bend sunset, but it will have to do :)

September 14th

Hello again :)

We just finished our orientation yesterday and we had a very busy week but we learned a lot of important information that will come in handy over the next 8 months and probably long after that. We learned how to take the combis( which are mini buses that are used to get around Botswana), we learned a little Setswana, we learned more about the situation in the country surrounding HIV/AIDS and many more interesting topics.



One of the 5 giraffes we saw

 

On Thursday we went to Mokolodi Game Reserve, it is only a short distance from Gaberone and it was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of orientation. We saw many different animals including giraffes, warthogs, kudu, hippos and many more. It was neat and it made me even more excited to check out Chobe and other national parks and game reserves throughout the country.



Can be dangerous?

 

 

This morning we left Gaborone at 6am Botswana time ( midnight at home) and we started the drive to Ghanzi, where Kyla will be doing her placement. It was about a 6 hour drive and we saw a lot of desert with small vegetation and a lot of wildlife. Mostly we saw cattle and donkeys grazing at the side of the road but we also saw a lot of ostriches which was pretty neat. Drivers have to be extra careful when driving on roads like these because the animals are often on the roads.

After we made it to Ghanzi, Heather and I and our country coordinator Chillie checked into the hotel in Ghanzi for the night. There is a shower with hot running water so that was a treat.

The Hotel we stayed at in Ghanzi - very nice pool but very cold!

Tomorrow morning we get to sleep-in till 830 which we are so excited for and around 10am we will be leaving for Shakawe, where Heather and I will be staying. We are both very excited to finally get to Shakawe but I am also very nervous as well but I am sure that will go away once we figure out where we will be living and meet our co-workers.

That is all for not but I am going to make the most of my sleep in an go to bed at a more reasonable hour.

Cheers,
-K

The Big Day!

September 13th

Hello to Everyone from Botswana for the first time.

I have now been in Bots for 3 full days and what a three days it has been. The flight was an adventure in itself. We left Toronto at 7pm on Saturday and then got to London at 7am in the morning GMT.

We checked our carry on luggage in a locker service and went to explore London a little bit. We rode the London Eye, we walked around the gardens and the halls of Westminster Abbey and in front of Buckingham palace.

It was pretty busy because it was the last day of the Paralympics. We got to see some of the marathon runners for the Paralympics, the wheelchair one and one or two others and a number of athletes from each. This was probably my favourite part of my time in London. Just to see every one's excitement was awesome. We then finihsed off our day with Fish and Chips in a little pub, so cliche but so good!

Part of the Marathon 

Fish and Chips!

 

Then we left London for the 10 hour flight down to Jo'burg. We has more time to wait in the airport but we got to meet up with the girls from Malawi so that was nice to see them. Then we left for the short 40 minute flight to Gaborone and luckily we made it with all our baggage and everything.



We spent 48 hours travelling from the time we left Toronto to the time that we arrived in Gaborone ( which i found out is actually pronounced hab-a ron-e(with an accent). So that was exhausting but we tried to beat the jet lag and it worked pretty well.

Botswana has been very good and interesting since we arrived. We are staying with a family while we are in Gaborone, the mom is a Canadian who used to volunteer here and now works and married a man from down here and has the two cutest kids ever. She actually works at the WUSC office and is helping to ease the transition.

Anyways I will update more on day to life so, I just thought I would give people the low-down on my time so far. We have one more full day of Orientation and then on Friday we start our journey up to Shakawe, which should be an adventure in itself.

When ever we mention where we are going to be staying, people are always like, "way out there?!?!?" " why would you go so far away? Good luck" or they just laugh, so that encouraging :P . I can only predict what the future holds, so I will for sure keep everyone posted.



Thanks for reading :)

- Kelsey

My wonderful friends who came to say bye at the ariport :) <3





Maybe they taste like chicken?

A few weeks back, as some of you may know, my classmates and I took part in a pre-departure cultural training that was put on by CIDA and the Centre for Intercultural Learning. This three day training was filled with role playing scenarios and lots of information that I felt would really help prepare us for working in another culture.

Sorghum Porridge

One of the things that we got from the training was a Country Booklet that had information about our individual placement countries. This book included a section on history, culture, politics and geography and then there was one section that had recipes. The first recipe was for a Sorghum porridge which is a staple food in Botswana and comparable to a porridge you may eat in Canada. It was not till I looked at the second recipe that I was a little taken aback. Here is what I saw.

Masonja

Ingredients:

2 kilograms dried phane (caterpillars)

1 teaspoon of salt
3 table spoons of cooking oil
1 onion
1 tomato peeled and diced
1 tablespoon of peri-peri sauce

Directions:

1.       Soak the dried phane in salt water until swollen. Drain. Boil the phane in fresh water and drain again.

2.       Heat oil, add phane, and fry. Add onion, tomato, and peri-peri sauce and simmer until tomoato is cooked.

Masonja

I am not a picky eater by any means although the idea of eating caterpillars freaks me out a little, I am open to trying everything at least once.   You know how the saying goes "when in Rome... " well I guess the same could be said " when in Botswana..." :-) 

Indigenous Rights in Botswana

In our geography class we had to make short presentations about an international development issues that we were interested in.  I decided to do my presentation on Botswana so that I could learn more about where I am going to be living for eight months.  One of the most pressing issues in Botswana's history has to do with the treatment of the San people in Botswana. The San people are indigenous to areas all across southern Africa, but the portion that I am going to focus on are those who called the Central Kalahari Game Reserve home.

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve has recently been discovered as one of the richest diamond areas in the world. That discovery had the Botswana Government very interested in this land. They wanted the land so they could capitalize on the wealth, but in order to do so they needed the San people off of that land.  Promises were made by the Government to the San people as incentives for them to leave their land but rarely were followed through on. The government continued to make life hard for the San people by impeding their day to day life. In 1997, the Government evicted the first round of people.  By 2002, the government had evicted more people and they were stopping rations and destroying the wells on the Reserve.  That year was the year that there was a court case launched against the Government on behalf of the San people.  The third round of evictions happened in 2005, when many were sent to resettlement camps. The camps were very negative places for the San people who were used to their traditional ways of life. Moving to these camps lead to an increase in depression, alcoholism and HIV/AIDS in the San communities. 

 In what termed out to be the longest and most expensive court case in the history of the country it was determined that what the Government did to the San people was unlawful and unconstitutional and that the San people had the right to live on the Reserve and hunt without permits. But for the San people that did return to the Reserve, it was decided by the judges that the Government did not have to provide services to them.  Many small organizations, like TOCaDI where I will be working come September, have stepped in to attempt to fill the gap that has been left by the government for the San people.

When I first read this I felt shocked about how a Government could do this to their own people. But then I got thinking about Aboriginal people in Canada and the similarities between the Aboriginal  and the San people and there were a lot. This just shows that whether in a 'developed' or 'developing country', violations against human rights are still happening till this day. Too often people in the ‘developed’ world get the ‘us and them’ framework for looking at things, but this example shows that in a way we are not a lot different than people half a world away.  I am interested to get to see first hand what the current situation between the Government and the San people is today.  I am also interested to learn about what it would have felt like to the San people to have their own Government turn their backs on them for material gain.

Well Thanks for Asking!

What is INDEVOURS? Well I am glad you asked! 

INDEVOURS is made up of myself and 31 of my wonderful colleagues in the International Development program at the University of Waterloo.  This group was created through a marketing and fundraising class that we took this year and last. We are using this as an opportunity to learn more about social media, advertising and what it takes to carry out successful fundraising initiatives. We are taking the skills and money that we raise and using it towards our overseas field placements in the fall.

Our class put this amazing video together to really show the world (and especially you, Ellen DeGeneres) who we are and what we are trying to do. We would love this video to go viral, so share it with all your friends and help us raise awareness. Thanks in advance.

We have raised money by running an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, which was a huge success. We also have raised money through selling calendars and bed sheets throughout the last few terms. 

We have a Global Gala in the works right now that has huge potential to help us meet our fundraising target. It is going to take place July 13^th at 5:30pm at the University Club on the University of Waterloo Campus. For more information about the Gala or to support us by buying a ticket, check out our webpage for more information http://indevours.wordpress.com/events/global-gala/

Through this we are learning a lot about what it takes to run higher profile events and the difficulties that come along with it; including getting people interested in coming and standing out from the pack when there is so much else going on. I know that some of my classmates, myself included, are a little nervous about this event but I know that if any one group of people can pull this off it is going to be INDEVOURS.

A ticket with MY name on it!

Flights have been booked!

When I woke up yesterday and checked my emails there was a very exciting (and kind of scary) surprise waiting for me.   

Getting the tickets made everything that much more real. I know I say that it gets more real every time something new happens regarding to my trip. When I found out my placement or started getting vaccination it was more real to me, but it doesn’t get much more real than having a plane ticket to Botswana with your name on it. 

The trip is not going to be a quick one but at least I will not have to do it alone. I will be going with Heather and Kyla who are also going to Botswana, so it will be nice to have some travel buddies.

Itinerary

 

We have 12 hours in London which will be nice because we will at least be able to get out of the airport and see a little bit on England. Maybe the excitement from the Olympics this summer will still be in the air? So from London to Johannesburg and then to Gaborone, which is the capital of Botswana where we will be spending the first week or so doing our in country orientation. 

Now don’t worry Mom, my return flights have been booked as well so you don’t have to worry about your little girl moving to Africa just quite yet…. : P  

 

 

For those visual people here’s little map for you.