Family Time

Sorry for not updating lately. The past month has been crazily busy, from meeting Michelle Obama to the Kumakwane Desert Races to my parents visiting. And that is exactly why I haven't updated - my parents are visiting and I am trying to enjoy as much time with them as I can.

Soon, however, there will be a lot of updates to come.

Sala sentle. Stay well.

In Defense of Having a Messy Room

I have an obsession with Smith’s Minted Rose Lip Balm.  In addition to my once reading that Mary-Kate Olsen uses it, it’s a perfect lip balm in every way.  (Oh, Rachael Ray uses it too!)  It instantly makes your lips smooth, moisturized, shiny with a slight natural red tint, and subtly scented, and a touch of peppermint leaves lips tingling, begging to be kissed.

See what I mean?!  Unhealthy obsession.  Imagine my despair when the one I brought with me ran out. 

Moving on.  I’m really bad about the packages I get.  There’s no recycling in my village (or really anywhere in Botswana for that matter) and I can’t bring myself to just throw away cardboard boxes.  So after a year of care packages, I had a pretty tall mountain in the corner and strewn across the floor.  I am a messy person, okay??  I have come to terms with it.

Anyway, I’m having some friends over to spend the night so I had to do something with all the boxes.  As I was cleaning everything up, I saw some red tissue paper on the ground and – lo! something was in it!  I unwrapped it and it was…

SMITH’S MINTED ROSE LIP BALM!

It must have fallen out of a package that I was unpacking and I didn’t notice.  For weeks, possibly months, I didn't notice.  I just spent five minutes dancing around my room in celebration.  But this leaves me with a mystery –

Who sent the lip balm??

If it was you, please step forward and accept your prize of eternal love from me!

This incident just goes to show that it is worth having a messy room sometimes.  I didn’t expect to have any good things come out of cleaning, but now I found something that practically changes my life!  I swear, finding that lip balm released more dopamine in my brain than crack cocaine would have.

Signing off with tingly lips,

Tess

P.S. This is the first day I’ve been able to access my internet in about a week.  There’s been a lull of internet service throughout the country.  I have a bunch of things to post, but waiting until it gets better so I can upload pictures too!

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.

Basetsana Ba Me

Sorry for the hiatus.  Things suddenly got extremely busy, and then I went on holiday to South Africa.  I’ll be sure to post pictures from my trip in the near future.

Being in my village, alone, all weekend can be pretty lonely.  Especially when I know my fellow volunteers that live in large villages or cities have whole networks of people to hang out with, make dinner with, go get drinks with, etc.  My closest friends in my village are either teachers and thus leave every weekend to visit their families, or live kilometers outside of the village at their lands.  After one too many Friday nights alone crying, drinking hot tea, and watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” on my laptop forcing myself to laugh, I realized that I did have people to hang out with – the boarders at my school.

Okay, okay, I know that a bunch of 14-year-olds who aren’t allowed to leave campus aren’t going to be my new BFFs.  But visiting the students on the weekends has considerably brightened my life.

When I go, after walking around and saying hello to the various kids playing football (soccer), watching cheesy kung-fu movies sans subtitles, and ironing their uniform in preparation for Monday, I like to hang out with four of my favorite girl students.

From left: Irish, Ofinah, me, Atlanang, Tshireletso

Of course you’re not supposed to play favorites, but I can’t help it.  These girls are extremely bright, friendly, fluent in English, and just dying for any kind of attention.  After years of begging my parents to have another kid, adopt, be foster parents, host a study abroad student, I now finally have “little sisters” that I can laugh with and mentor. 

The first weekend we met, we made friendship bracelets and painted our nails.  I swear, you would’ve thought I brought them to Six Flags with how huge the smiles on their faces were.  Immediately they started chatting (as teenage girls are wont to do) and I just sat back and listened.  In a culture that too often doesn’t allow for a childhood, it was nice to see the girls relaxing, forgetting their worries, and just being kids.

As I tied the bracelet on, I had them make a wish and told them
when the bracelet fell off, the wish would come true. They loved it.

As I said, these girls are boarders, which means at the age of 12 or 13 they moved away from their families and everything they knew to go live on their own and basically be their own parent.  They’ve talked to me about problems they have at school, at home, with family, and with friends.  It breaks my heart that I can’t do more than be an attentive ear and comforting hug to these girls. 

In the next few weekends before the second school term is over, I have a few fun things planned for the girls.  Among them are: writing letters to their “future selves” which I will keep and then mail to them when they graduate, using old magazines to make vision boards, and coloring and painting pictures to decorate their dorm rooms (which, btw, they share with 11 other girls).

It goes to show that I can’t judge my Peace Corps service (nor can anyone judge their livelihood) by the number of projects completed or number of individuals reached.  Oftentimes, for funding or promotions or accolades, we tend to measure success by numbers.  But it is truly in the connection between human beings that happiness and, ultimately, success is found.

This goes out to basetsana ba me, my girls.

Autumn

Throughout my life I’ve held on to this belief that spring is the best season of all – the temperature warms, there are spring showers, my birthday happens, school simultaneously rushes toward final exams and slows to a snail’s pace with vacation looming, and there’s this feeling of life’s renewal.

But as picturesque as it sounds, there is just something about fall that makes it truly the best season of all.  Now that autumn is upon the southern hemisphere, I’m reminded of the things I love best.

June is considered the windy month in Botswana, and the past few days have certainly held this true.  The wind rushing through trees’ leaves is so loud I thought it was the patter of raindrops.  Despite the warm sun bravely trying to dispel the chill, stepping outside of my house makes goosebumps prickle up and down my arms.  Dry crunchy leaves scatter and swirl around my feet as I hang my laundry.  The nights are frigid but the weight and comfort of three blankets allows me to sleep better than I have for months.

And my favorite part of autumn: the scent of the air.  I step outside my house and it just smells like fall.  I love it.

Cold seasons get a bad rep.  People are quick to tout summer as the best out there, but really, are short shorts and tube tops the best we got?  Please.  Give me a pashmina scarf and black blazer any day.

So I’ll admit it: I love autumn!  Bring it on, Mother Nature.

Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.  –George Eliot

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?  

Emaciation is Not Equivalent to Beauty

One important lesson that women can learn from living in Africa is that beauty truly comes in all sizes.

My friends and the women in my village all have different body types: from those that are stick thin to those that take up half of my seat on the bus when they sit next to me.  Since I grew up in a non-diverse town, it took me by surprise when I first arrived to see women with huge behinds or huge chests – sometimes both.  I’ve also seen women with such a perfect hourglass shape that even I can’t help but staring (where are their ribs?!).

In America, a person’s weight is constantly being judged.  While I feel this is especially true for women, it affects men too.  Those that are considered “overweight” or (heaven forbid) “obese” are often followed by the connotations of “lazy,” “slob,” or “unattractive.”  Is this horribly wrong?  Absolutely, but is it the truth?  Unfortunately yes.

In Botswana (and I would wager many other African countries), larger women are considered beautiful.  Men here love nothing more than “junk in the trunk.”  One of my good friends here got teased mercilessly as a child for being too skinny.  When I first arrived, my host mother would urge me 4, 5, 6 times per meal to eat more.  She threatened to call my real mother in America and tell her that I was losing weight.  (Little did she know, I had already called my real mother to celebrate the same fact.)

This doesn’t mean that everything in Botswana is great, of course.  High blood pressure and hypertension are practically epidemics in my village, and many Batswana never eat a nutritionally-balanced meal.  Exercise is slowly becoming more common, although it generally means simply taking a lovely stroll after work.

While I wish I could say that the past year has made me less self-deprecating concerning my appearance, I still obsess over what I eat and how often I workout.  It will take time to undo what American culture has done to its females, but it is absolutely worth noting that here in Botswana, emaciation is not equivalent to beauty.

In some ways – on issues such as homosexuality, gender equality, the education system, etc. – Botswana is behind the U.S. (note: they only achieved independence in 1961).  On issues such as self-worth, materialism, and inner beauty, however, Botswana is ages ahead.

Gold star to Johannesburg Fashion Week 2011’s designer David Tlale, who showcased plus-size models!  Click here to see. (Once on the site, click on "next" to see more.)