Sunday Series: Appliances I Miss, Part Three

Part Three: Bedside Lamp

Yes, I have electricity and thus could have a bedside lamp, but I’m trying to live with less:  less electricity usage, less outlets, less worrying about fires randomly starting while I’m sleeping, etc. 

One thing I’m trying to live with more of, however, is reading.  Before bedtime reading isn’t quite the same with my practically fluorescent ceiling light blazing into my eyes, so I resort to using my headlamp.  It actually works great.

However, it is in no way, shape, or form fashionable.  Neither pouty lips nor a peace sign can make this headlamp attractive.

The gems are from meeting with my favorite girls at school.
We also used the gems to pretend our noses were pierced.  Pretty cool.

It will be nice when I get home to enjoy the iridescent glow of a low-wattage bedside lamp.  Until then, I'll just have to deal with headlamp-hair.

Sunday Series: Appliances I Miss, Part Two

Part Two: Kitchen Sink (and Dishwasher)

I could’ve guessed before I left for Botswana that I would miss a dishwasher.  Doing dishes by hand is one of my least favorite tasks in the world (wait… did I say that about laundry too?)  But seriously, there’s a reason I never took a job as a waitress.  Dirty dishes gross me out.

However, upon arriving at my house, I was a bit surprised: “Okay, electricity? Check.  Indoor bathroom?  Check.  Kitchen?  Che---wait!  Where’s the sink?”  For all the other amenities I am lucky to have, a kitchen sink is not one of them.

So if I thought washing dishes before wasn’t fun, they certainly haven’t gotten any more pleasant.  First, I heat up boiling water in my electric kettle, and pour it into a plastic tub.  I used to set this tub on my kitchen counter, but it meant washing all my dishes, setting them aside, then re-filling the tub with fresh water and rinsing all of them.  This made for a soapy mess on my counter and a longer-than-necessary project.

So now, though it took a few trial-and-error sessions, I have found the most efficient method for me.  The only running water is in my bathroom, but the bathroom sink is far too small to use.  Thus I put the dishes tub in my bathtub, use the tub faucet to rinse, and then bring my dishes into the kitchen to dry.  It’s a lot of walking back and forth but luckily my house is small.  The only nuisance with this method is that not only do I have to wash my dishes, but then I have to wash my bathtub.  But, I guess at least it stays clean. 

I realize now that I’ve typed this out how weird and unsanitary this must seem to anyone back home in the States.  But a girl’s gotta do what girl’s gotta do.  And hey, I am in the Peace Corps, right?  

Sunday Series: Appliances I Miss, Part One

Part One: Washing Machine

A year into my service, I’m accustomed to washing my clothes by hand and generally it’s not a chore I mind.  However, you better believe that once I get home I’ll build a shrine around my washing machine.

Here’s how washing clothes goes in Botswana:

1. My landlord likes me to wash my clothes outside rather than in the bathtub.  That’s fine by me, since it gives me an excuse to be out in the sun, working on my tan.  I get my water from one of the taps behind my house.

2. I have a big tub that I fill up with nice, soapy, bubbly water.

3. I put my clothes in and let them soak for 30 minutes.  This makes it much easier to get the dirt out so I don’t have to scrub with my hands so much.  

During training, the only day I could do my laundry was Sunday – we had training sessions 6 days per week.  At this point in time, my hands were still very soft and certainly not used to such abuse.  My knuckles bled for quite a few weeks until I built up calluses.

4. After scrubbing, I rinse my clothes in fresh, clean water in a smaller bucket.

5. Then I hang them up on the line!  

Generally I have so many clothes I have to use my landlord’s clothesline as well.

6. I wash as many clothes as I can before noon.  Now that it's winter and a bit colder, I make sure to hang my clothes for a few hours in the sun to dry.  In the summertime, even my jeans will dry in 1-2 hours in the heat of the day.  

If you know me (or, God forbid, were my roommate at any point in time), you also know that I tend to put off doing laundry for say, oh, months at a time.  I thought this would change because I would have fewer clothes with me in Botswana.  Nope.  I still wait until I have absolutely no clean clothes before I actually get down to doing the laundry.  Some things will never change.

Sunday Series: Superstitions, Part Four

In the calm of the early morning, something moving on the floor catches my eye.  I freeze, assuming the worst (cockroach), but see that it’s a harmless lizard.  Being a superstitious person though, I realize that a lizard is actually much worse than a cockroach.

In Botswana, lizards mean you are pregnant with a baby boy and frogs mean a baby girl.  My good friend Lily said that while she was pregnant lizards would follow her into her bedroom.  There’s also a practice (though I’m not sure how many people actually partake in it) of putting a pregnant woman in a room with lizards and frogs, seeing which species runs away, and thus finding out which sex the baby is.  

Owls are bad omens in Botswana.  People don’t see them very often, so they make people somewhat panicky.  The man who redid my roof in October discovered an owl, and was so completely shaken he could not work the rest of the day and had to be calmed by my landlord.  ...Though in truth, he probably wouldn’t have worked the rest of the day anyway.

All Batswana tribes have a Totem, which is an animal.  The Totem is supposed to guide and look after its people, and in return the people are supposed to respect the Totem.  The Totem is painted on the walls of the kgotla, which is where the chief of the tribe meets with his people to discuss problems in the community.  In my region, the overwhelming majority of people are from the Bakwena Tribe, and their Totem is the crocodile (kwena is the Setswana word for crocodile, hence Bakwena, people of the crocodile).  Other Totems throughout the country include elephants, cows, lions, etc.  Levels of reverence for Totems varies by tribe – for example, having a cow Totem wouldn’t stop someone from eating beef, but those with an elephant Totem would never eat elephant.  Regardless, people’s Totems are an important part of their identity in Botswana.

There are some other fun animal stories, but they aren’t quite superstitions, so I’ll save those for another time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first Sunday Series.  Next up: Lentsweletau.  It’s about time I share my village, school, and home.  Get ready for lots of pictures!

One last note: Happy 10 months of being in Botswana to my training group!

Oh, and clarification: I share my office with other people, so the lizard I saw was not meant for me!!

Sunday Series: Superstitions, Part Three

Although I know witchcraft exists in some form, it was hard to find out exactly what people believe.  If someone talks too much about witchcraft, people start wondering, why do they know so much?

Some beliefs about witches in Botswana:

• They wear black.
• They gather on hilltops and sing in the middle of the night.
• Also in the middle of the night, a witch will go to the houses of her enemies to get revenge.  One way in which she does this is by poisoning any glasses of water which have been left out at a bedside or on a counter.  This could kill someone or make them seriously ill.
• Normal people can go to witches if they wish to harm someone.
• They can create a thokolosi.

Part of the reason people refrain from speaking about witches is the prevalence of Christianity.  Witches are the antithesis of Jesus here, and a large majority of the population is very devout.  To speak of a witch is beneath a “good Christian.”  You can imagine the reaction I got when I explained Wicca as a religion.

The interesting twist to witchcraft here is that traditional doctors are the only ones who can undo the spell.  An “English doctor” (as they call doctors who practice Western medicine) can treat the symptoms, but can never fully cure someone who has been harmed by a witch.

Traditional medicine will be covered in a different Sunday Series, because it’s a crucial part of life here – and, interestingly enough, a contributing factor to the HIV epidemic.  Some people consider traditional doctors better than witches, while the truly devout consider both witches and traditional doctors sacrilegious.

Despite not wanting to talk about it, I never once got a reaction that witchcraft doesn’t exist or isn’t real.  The belief is there – I’ll just have to keep digging to get some real answers.  

Sunday Series: Superstitions, Part Two

Part Two: Ancestry

The concept of ancestry didn’t enter my frame of reference until December, eight months into my service.  I was helping out at the Ministry of Education’s Youth Forum in a village called Tsetsebjwe (Tsee-tsee-jway) and strange stories were floating around from the minute I arrived.

Apparently, December is the time when the ancestors call to their living relatives.  I’m still unclear on what they want or need from the person.  At the Youth Forum, a young girl had tried to get out of her bed in the middle of the night and leave the school.  The dorm supervisor wouldn’t let her leave, which was extremely distressing to the girl.

“My ancestors are calling,” she said.  “I need to go to them.”

Another boy at the Forum hadn’t had a bowel movement in a week.  He was waiting to get the “okay” from his ancestors.

The many questions that entered my mind then are still present as I write this, trying to explain the concept.  Why would any family let their child leave in the middle of the night?  Why, once the child is gone for days or weeks at a time, do they not worry and call the police?  Where do the called people go?  How do they survive?  What if the ancestors are instructing them to do clearly unhealthy things?

I have yet to get an answer to any of these questions.  As it is, if you are called by an ancestor (and it is not only children, but people of all ages) you must follow where they ask you to go and obey any task they require you to complete.  If that means you leave your village and go out into the bush for a week or so, then that is what you must do.

A colleague of mine told me that they asked one child, after he returned, what he ate while he was gone.  He replied that he ate phaleche (puh-lay-chay), a traditional Setswana dish that looks like mashed potatoes but is stiff and made from maize.  When they asked him where the bowl came from, where the food was cooked, or how it got to him, he had no answer.  His ancestor would just lead him to a tree and it would be there.

In the Bobirwa district of Botswana (in the eastern region, also referred to as the “nose” of the country) the ancestors are very active.  In certain villages, a stranger must get approved by the ancestors before he or she can enter.  The job of getting the permission is left to elders who specialize in speaking to ancestors at any time of the year, not just in December.  Interestingly, I asked my colleague if I could visit that village, but it’s unclear whether ancestors can appear or belong to white people.  I guess my ancestors are hanging around Germany somewhere.

The same colleague told me about his trip to that village.  At one point he was led into the bush and left alone to see his ancestors.  Ancestors appear as animals – and scary ones at that.  He saw lions, leopards and snakes approach him, but they never attacked.  Then, he told me, they would just disappear.  He said he was absolutely terrified, and was 100% positive that they were not actually animals, but his ancestors showing themselves to him. 

This is only the most basic of explanations of ancestry, and I sincerely hope to learn more about this tradition.  My rational, cynical, American mind wants to write this off as folklore and mind tricks.  …But there’s also a part of me that wants to head east and see my ancestors for myself.  

Sunday Series: Superstitions, Part One

Part One: Thokolosi

By day, an innocent log lying by the side of the road.  By night, a thokolosi.

A thokolosi, pronounced toh-koh-loh-see, is a type of spirit that witch doctors in Botswana can create.  A person will generally want to create a thokolosi in order to obtain riches, although dithokolosi (plural form) can also be set upon someone that is disliked.

I’m unaware of the actual process of creating a thokolosi, and I assume that most practices of witch doctors aren’t known to the public anyway.  Once it is created however, it becomes a “spouse” to the person who asked for it – women receive a male thokolosi, and men receive a female.

As I said, during the day a thokolosi is a piece of wood.  But at night, it turns into a kind of human – the closest thing to a description I’ve received is “a hairy, sort-of human.”  It could be tall or short and usually is not seen by anyone other than its spouse unless it has direct interaction with another human during the twilight hour.  An interesting note is that they abhor salt.  At night, the thokolosi will go around the village and acquire wealth for its spouse.  It will also tend to the crops, the animals, and keep the house tidy and clean – whatever the spouse demands.  It does such an excellent job that neighbors will start to notice how well everything is improving and will often comment upon the sudden change.  The person who owns the thokolosi will become much more affluent.

There is, as with all spirit-related things, a dark downside.  As a spouse, a thokolosi has all spousal privileges, and at night the thokolosi wants to be … satisfied, if you catch my drift.  I suppose some people feel grateful to the thokolosi and agree to fulfill its more carnal desires, but there are those who are creeped out by making love to a hairy sort-of human, especially if said person is married to an actual human.  When asking for a thokolosi, the person can request that the being will sleep with someone else at night.  This “someone else” has no choice in the matter, and is not notified that there will soon be a hairy thing forcing itself upon him or her.  It’s obviously a twisted, creepy spirit.

In a fictional (but based on reality and her own personal experiences as a lawyer) book by Unity Dow (The Heavens May Fall), a woman’s husband wants to divorce her because the woman has consistently been raped by a thokolosi at night.  The woman believes that her mother-in-law sent it in order to break up the marriage, while the husband fervently denies this.  However, he can no longer sleep with or be married to his wife due to what happened.

Once a person is finished with a thokolosi, he or she doesn’t exactly want the creature hanging around, so it releases the thokolosi from its service.  However, it cannot just disappear, nor can witch doctors or religious leaders destroy it, so the thokolosi roams the village, doing whatever (and whomever) it wishes.  When a village realizes a thokolosi is on the loose, it immediately looks to those families that have recently acquired wealth or good fortune.

My best friend and fellow volunteer Paco is located in a small, remote village 30km away from me, named Medie (Meh-dee-eh).  One night he repeatedly heard footsteps outside his window.  He assumed it was dogs, chickens, or some other animal.  In the morning he went outside and amid his smoothly swept dirt was only one set of footprints – human.  He mentioned to his teachers that someone had been in his yard, and they assuredly informed him that it was no trespasser, but a wayward wraith roaming the village.

Do I believe?  I’m not sure, but I’m in no hurry to find out for myself, face-to-face with my own thokolosi. 

Three articles (Note: not well-written) about thokolosi occurrences in Botswana:

Is a Horny Thokolosi Terrorizing Botswana?

I Have a Thokolosi for Sale

Confessions of a Witch

An animated short about a thokolosi (Note: my internet is not fast enough to watch it, so I’m not sure about the accuracy or even the entertainment value, so if you watch it, let me know how it is).

Let me know any questions you have, and I’ll find out an answer for you.

Sunday Series

I’d like to introduce a new feature to my blog: Sunday Series.  Every Sunday, I’ll have a topic-specific post about the culture of Botswana.  The longer I live here, the more I uncover about the traditions and beliefs of the Batswana, and the more I appreciate and love my new home.  Through these posts, I hope to translate what I’m experiencing as best I can to you.

My first four-part Sunday Series will be about the superstitions of Botswana.  I became interested in this cultural aspect when a fellow volunteer introduced the thokolosi to me, and I’ve been trying to engage my colleagues and students in dialogues about mystical traditions ever since.

Part One: Thokolosi

Part Two: Ancestry

Part Three: Witchcraft

Part Four: Lizards and Other Animal Signs

What exactly is a thokolosi and how the heck do you pronounce that?  Check back this Sunday to find out!