Peace Corps and experiences in Botswana

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writer | Tuesday April 19, 2011 00:00

As I was walking around, a woman came up to me, said 'Dumela' to me, and we became very good friends.  It was as if we had known each other for years,' 84-year old Jim Gronseth, born in the American Midwest, says.  This incident, to him, illustrates perfectly the friendliness and kindness showered upon him by Batswana in the two weeks he has been staying in Kanye.  Gronseth is one of the 38 Americans who have given up their jobs and lives to spend up to two years as Peace Corps volunteers in Botswana.  Currently, they are in Kanye for a two-month training course before they are dispersed to various stations as volunteers.

Jim Gronseth is part of a new Peace Corps group in Botswana that is still trying to find their feet in a country and village very different from where they come from.  But what makes anybody pack up and leave their families, friends and everything they know?  The answers range from the altruistic and idealistic to the practical and adventurous.   Blake Ruble, 22-year-old university graduate from South Carolina, said he joined the Peace Corps to get a chance to help fight the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

'I am blown away by the magnitude of the HIV pandemic, and the extreme lack of response,' he said.  On the other hand, 23-year-old Octavius Jones from Los Angeles, who has travelled in Africa before said apart from the promise he made himself to come back to help next time he was in Africa, the programme was also a way out of the effects of economic recession in his country. 

'I had nothing to do when I graduated college, so I applied to a lot of things.  This came up, and I am here,' he said, adding that he also wanted, as somebody coming from a low socio-economic background, to show members of his community that 'we can do more.'

Amy Smart, a graduate with a degree in Public Health says she was always interested, during her studies, in international health.

'I was looking for a position internationally, and I think the Peace Corps is a good programme, I agree with its values.'While in Kanye, the trainees are given basic background on the HIV scourge in the country, as well as how to deal with stigma and discrimination, cultural norms as well as how to stay safe in the country.  More importantly they are taught how to interact with people in the community and the proper way to address elderly people.  They are also expected to learn Setswana.

Salewa Oyelaran from North Carolina has been in Botswana for a year.  'I am able to introduce myself, I can sit in a meeting at the kgotla and follow what is being said because nobody is going to stop and translate for you. Part of knowing Setswana is that it sets you apart from a tourist.  I belong to this country now.  I am not a Motswana, but I belong to the Botswana community,' she says.

Batswana living in America, tell a lot of stories about mis-informed Americans having na•ve expectations of African countries.  What were these trainees' expectations?

'Well, I expected it to be hot,' Maggie Kraft, 49 year-old social worker from Eureka, North California says, 'and that expectation was met.'

Says Oyelaran, 'Some people expected no water, no electricity, no access to the internet and cell phone.  Basically they expected a place more rural than Gabs.  And when they were driving in from the airport to Mogoditshane, they were shocked to see all those big houses.'

'I lived in Kenya for a year, and from the stories I heard, I expected  [Botswana] to be on the same level. But it is better and it is relatively safe,' Jones said.

'Something that I was not expecting, I was not expecting you guys to have KFC,' Oyelaran said. As the subject of food crops up, the trainees are forthcoming about the traditional food that they have eaten for the first time here in Botswana.

'I have tried worms,' Gronseth says. 'I have had morogo, phaletshe, madombi, mophani,' Kraft says.'Somebody ate goat intestines.' The PCV are placed within Kanye families to better integrate them into the societies in which they live.  Ruble says that it has been challenging adjusting to living in people's homesteads.

'As Americans, we have a deeply ingrained sense of individualism, but here there is a deeper sense of community,' he says. Oyelaran interjects, 'There is no way in America you would be a guest in my house for two months, but here people just open their homes.' Some of the trainees say even the singing here hints at a sense of community.

'I have heard people singing here, that if they were singing in America I would ask them to go for singing lessons, but here because of the harmonies and people singing together, it's so beautiful,' Oyelaran says.Despite not being paid for their work in different organisations, the trainees say they hope to gain something from the country.

'We can't change anything in two years.  But I hope that when I leave people will remember me, and say she helped us,' Kraft says.'I think for most people, there is an element of self-discovery.' Ruble says. 'People want to find out what they are made of.'

The Peace Corps programme has a long history in Botswana, as well as the world.  Information coming from the Peace Corps office says that President J.F. Kennedy first established the programme in 1961. Since then, more than 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries worldwide.   In Botswana, the first group of volunteers served in 1966, mainly in the education sector. After Botswana developed into a middle-income country, recruitment of PCV (Peace Corps Volunteers) into the country stopped in 1997, as according to Ronald Molosiwa, the PCV Training Manager, the programme sought to focus more on countries that urgently needed its help. 

However, with Botswana under the HIV/AIDS onslaught, recruitment of PCV's to the country resumed in 2003.  PCV do not get paid, they work for a minimal living allowance from which they are expected to get their basic amenities.