March 15, 2009
An hour late, our last teen member of our club casually saunters into our meeting place, where the rest of our teen club is waiting in a van to depart with all its members for our memorable overnight at Mokolodi Nature Reserve. It was the first such trip for our recently established teen club. By ten o’clock our group of about 30 arrived at a private game reserve where we were to be treated to a weekend away from our village so we could appreciate nature as well as getting to know each other better as well as ourselves.
Despite rain on and off during our visit there, we did manage a game drive. We were all excited to see some elephants, a big, old giraffe, warthogs, cheetahs, impalas, as well as many birds. While looking through binoculars and taking photos, some for the first time, our teens ages 14-19, enjoyed themselves entirely listening attentively to all the explanations. We also learned teambuilding and map reading by being dropped off in the middle of the park with a map and had to figure out how to return to our center on foot. This meant using our brains and our feet, but we all did it. Some arrived earlier and others arrived later exhausted back at the education center.
In the evening we sat around a traditional fire telling stories, playing games, singing and laughing for hours. Afterwards our students spent a long time unburdening themselves by sharing with each other their feelings about how and when they learned they were HIV positive. The next day after a nature walk in a drizzling rain and some games, students wrote poetry drew pictures and wrote short pieces about their experiences as members of this special teen club and how they felt about sharing their HIV status. All in all our teen club was just like any others, with lots of laughter, running around and making new friends, except they were all HIV positive and experiencing what it was like to share with each other and also learning new life skills.
During our short time in Mokolodi we also announced the new male and female leaders for our club. The new leaders were able to learn from the older experienced leaders throughout the two days. These skills and experiences are extremely important in an environment where there are few opportunities for students to take lead and take control of their lives. For more information, see the link Botswanateenclub.wordpress.com to understand the role of the larger parent teen club. It is truly a wonderful organization sprouting roots in different parts of Africa developing leadership in a well thought out process and preparing for many more HIV positive students in the future.
All in all, students and volunteers were extremely grateful to be treated to the unique opportunity to gather in such a conducive and natural environment. In short, we all had an unforgettable experience.
It would be great to hear from others who have experience working with teens and suggestions for activities and events. Do feel free to post any other comments as well.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Tribute to My Small Friend
The Life of Tebogo Benjamin P
March 2009
While working at the guidance and counseling center at my senior secondary school, I meet students on a daily basis that were temporarily not feeling well. They are allowed to rest on a bed in the center or take a pain killer if they have a specific ache or pain. Several students are repeaters, so I am able to get to know them and their problems. One of these was Tebogo, a 19 year old boy, who looked more like he was thirteen. He came in frequently for headaches. Sometimes he came briefly for a pain pill, other times it was for several hours. On one of these occasions, his mother was called and through an interpreter it was decided that the three of us would go to the hospital together the following day.
We spent most of one day at the hospital. We waited to see a nurse for several hours and then the three of us saw went into the small office to review his past record and current complaints of head aches. The nurse recommended he see a doctor. We then waited to see a doctor. In the doctor’s office, the doctor asked Tebogo to review his medical history. With this knowledge, he ordered blood tests, x-rays and an eye exam. After an eye exam, the doctor insisted Tebogo needed glasses that had been previously ordered but never purchased due to lack the high cost of glasses. However, Tebogo and his mother were told to go to a hospital where they could order glasses for less than full price.
After all tests were conducted, the only result they found pointed to the need for glasses. The mother and son went to two hospitals in different locations and eventually were told they could get glasses but would have to pay for them. Several months went by without the acquisition of the glasses. Finally an aunt offered to pay for them but had some problems and could not pay for them in the short run. Eventually the mother and the aunt were able to come up with the funds, but it was too late.
On February 22 Tebogo died on a Sunday night after experiencing sweats and a headache leading to a kind of seizure. The way I found out was having a teacher ask me if some grieving students could come to the guidance and counseling center to cry until they felt like returning to class. I was shocked that I knew the student. I had seen Tebogo the week before when he had come into the center complaining of headaches but saying that things were better in general.
A few days later, the entire school, all 2,000 plus gathered at an assembly to remember him with hymns and testimonials. My guidance teacher and I then drove out to the home where traditional evening prayers were being said. Since there are no addresses, we drove around in the vicinity before finding the right house. Unfortunately there had been recent rains and the roads were muddy and difficult to navigate. We ended up getting stuck. So we abandoned the car and walked.
When we arrived the prayers were in process. Many neighbors and relatives had gathered. The women sat on the ground facing the men in chairs. The women were responsible for the prayers that night. Several took turns talking and traditional hymns were sung. After this, a few relatives brought in a donation of large bags of rice, sorghum, flour, and corn were placed in front along with a large container of cooking oil. This food was intended to feed all the guests for the week’s evening prayers and the funeral early on Saturday to be followed by a meal. A collection was taken up for the funeral expenses both at this service and at the school memorial.
After the prayers, we were offered hot tea and fried bread. Then we went to talk to his mother. She was sitting on a foam mattress in a cement brick room with no furniture. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she was at peace knowing that her son was no longer suffering. She remembered me and indicated that Tebogo was aware of our presence and grateful for the time we spent at the hospital together.
When we left a large group of twenty accompanied us ready to assist with lifting and pushing our car out of the mud. Amazingly, many experienced hands succeeded in moving the car in no time. We were most grateful and went on our way thanks to thoughtful neighbors and relatives. And so I said farewell to my small friend who I miss seeing around the school and in the assemblies since due to his height he was usually in the front row.
March 2009
While working at the guidance and counseling center at my senior secondary school, I meet students on a daily basis that were temporarily not feeling well. They are allowed to rest on a bed in the center or take a pain killer if they have a specific ache or pain. Several students are repeaters, so I am able to get to know them and their problems. One of these was Tebogo, a 19 year old boy, who looked more like he was thirteen. He came in frequently for headaches. Sometimes he came briefly for a pain pill, other times it was for several hours. On one of these occasions, his mother was called and through an interpreter it was decided that the three of us would go to the hospital together the following day.
We spent most of one day at the hospital. We waited to see a nurse for several hours and then the three of us saw went into the small office to review his past record and current complaints of head aches. The nurse recommended he see a doctor. We then waited to see a doctor. In the doctor’s office, the doctor asked Tebogo to review his medical history. With this knowledge, he ordered blood tests, x-rays and an eye exam. After an eye exam, the doctor insisted Tebogo needed glasses that had been previously ordered but never purchased due to lack the high cost of glasses. However, Tebogo and his mother were told to go to a hospital where they could order glasses for less than full price.
After all tests were conducted, the only result they found pointed to the need for glasses. The mother and son went to two hospitals in different locations and eventually were told they could get glasses but would have to pay for them. Several months went by without the acquisition of the glasses. Finally an aunt offered to pay for them but had some problems and could not pay for them in the short run. Eventually the mother and the aunt were able to come up with the funds, but it was too late.
On February 22 Tebogo died on a Sunday night after experiencing sweats and a headache leading to a kind of seizure. The way I found out was having a teacher ask me if some grieving students could come to the guidance and counseling center to cry until they felt like returning to class. I was shocked that I knew the student. I had seen Tebogo the week before when he had come into the center complaining of headaches but saying that things were better in general.
A few days later, the entire school, all 2,000 plus gathered at an assembly to remember him with hymns and testimonials. My guidance teacher and I then drove out to the home where traditional evening prayers were being said. Since there are no addresses, we drove around in the vicinity before finding the right house. Unfortunately there had been recent rains and the roads were muddy and difficult to navigate. We ended up getting stuck. So we abandoned the car and walked.
When we arrived the prayers were in process. Many neighbors and relatives had gathered. The women sat on the ground facing the men in chairs. The women were responsible for the prayers that night. Several took turns talking and traditional hymns were sung. After this, a few relatives brought in a donation of large bags of rice, sorghum, flour, and corn were placed in front along with a large container of cooking oil. This food was intended to feed all the guests for the week’s evening prayers and the funeral early on Saturday to be followed by a meal. A collection was taken up for the funeral expenses both at this service and at the school memorial.
After the prayers, we were offered hot tea and fried bread. Then we went to talk to his mother. She was sitting on a foam mattress in a cement brick room with no furniture. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she was at peace knowing that her son was no longer suffering. She remembered me and indicated that Tebogo was aware of our presence and grateful for the time we spent at the hospital together.
When we left a large group of twenty accompanied us ready to assist with lifting and pushing our car out of the mud. Amazingly, many experienced hands succeeded in moving the car in no time. We were most grateful and went on our way thanks to thoughtful neighbors and relatives. And so I said farewell to my small friend who I miss seeing around the school and in the assemblies since due to his height he was usually in the front row.
Workshopping Our Work
March 12, 2009
Time has passed since my last blog entry. The hottest months have been December and January with an occasional break consisting of big noisy thunder storms leaving volumes of rain water and flooding in a short amount of time. The sky darkens and storms can be seen at a distance. Thunder and lightning are a common occurrence. The wind and cool air are a welcomed relief from the heat. The rain, called pula in Setswana, is also the name of the currency. Rain is generally scarce and welcomed for the deserts which can provide grasslands for both domestic and wild animals. The weather reports are really very simple. The weather is described as warm or hot in various regions. Thunderstorms or clouds are occasionally mentioned for certain parts of the country. With the hottest months behind, the mornings are becoming cooler. Winters weather is coming in May, June, and July with the very cold nights.
The vacation period has passed and school has begun in a big way. My blogs have been infrequent recently since school has been so hectic with workshops, workshop planning, field trips, the beginning of the term planning before the new Form 4’s arrived in our school. Form 4 is the equivalent to the juniors in our high schools. But rather than narrating the day to day activities, I have chosen to write about a recent workshop for our 12 Peace Corps Volunteers, several Batswana Guidance and Counseling counterparts, and a few people from the Ministry of Education.
To review our group characteristics, we are life skill volunteers working in guidance and counseling centers in a total of 12 schools, including one primary (elementary), several junior highs and one high school centers throughout one large district in Botswana. We come from Boston, Rhode Island, Vermont, Illinois, North Dakota, New Orleans, Montana and California. The oldest is 69 and the youngest is 23. There are three of us in our 60’s, 2 in their 50’s, one in her 40’s and 6 in their 20’s. We have one male and the rest are females. Our backgrounds are diverse. Three are trained social workers with counseling and teaching experience in the schools, myself as a retired political scientist, and the rest have experience in working with children in a variety of areas including sports, English as a second language, behavioral conditioning, tutoring or working with generally at risk- students. As a group we are tall and short, heavy and thin, young and old, hardworking and serious, talkative and quiet, active and involved, and generally supportive of each other. Without exception we all persevere in finding ways to build capacity with teachers and students in regards to teaching life skills so student learn to make decisions, set goals, becoming aware of their feelings, and reducing risky behavior in their lives, among other things. Each of these skills is supposed to be instructed in terms of a student centered approach involving active learning as opposed to teacher centered learning which entails primarily lecturing. The reason for a different teaching style is to encourage behavior change on the part of the recipients. Our purpose is to prevent HIV/AIDS by helping young people make critical choices in their lives rather than accepting traditional beliefs. Some of these concepts you might have read about before in my blogs, but I want to emphasize them here so you can see main focus of our assignment..
The workshop was intended to evaluate our first six months working in the schools. What surprised me most was variety of activities we participated in formally in the schools and also in the community. The school centered activities focused on team teaching, planning teacher workshops, counseling and tutoring students, curbing corporal punishment and its abuse, serving on school committees, helping with clubs and activities for sports, peer health educator, the environment, HIV, journalism, learning English, computer skills, farming and business skills.
The community based projects varied from helping local libraries, beginning pen pal programs, initiating art exchanges between schools, working to create a local WAR Chapter (Women Against Rape), helping orphans and vulnerable children at risk economically or health wise, setting up life skills program for a juvenile rehabilitation center, teaching life skills to a weekend teen club for teens with HIV, creating a mentor programs for orphans and vulnerable children, and creating a bead making factory.
I found the process enlightening since the school system is so different from the that in the US with respect to the number of courses (generally 9), the kinds courses taught(including moral education, Christian education, developing studies, etc.), the emphasis on science(everyone must take chemistry, physics, biology and math for two years at my school), the 6 day schedule, the transfer of teachers by the central Ministry of Education, the standardized testing and evaluation of the students, at year end of each term and finally the lack of a good remedial program to take into account students who lack skills in particular subjects. While discovering how the school system worked, I discovered we volunteers had dabbled in diverse activities based on our backgrounds. As one Ministry of Education person said, “Peace Corps Volunteers are eager and like to fiddle with things.” But in general we all experienced being an outsider who did not always understand or agree with the existing system.
Being part of a pilot program of life skills, there is definitely some ambiguity in what our focus should be in the schools. The Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education perspectives do not always match, so our mission in Botswana may need to be to be clarified. But in the meantime we seem to be carrying on a wide range of programs both during the regular school hours and after school, in addition to projects in the community. Are we making a difference? Hard to say…..
Time has passed since my last blog entry. The hottest months have been December and January with an occasional break consisting of big noisy thunder storms leaving volumes of rain water and flooding in a short amount of time. The sky darkens and storms can be seen at a distance. Thunder and lightning are a common occurrence. The wind and cool air are a welcomed relief from the heat. The rain, called pula in Setswana, is also the name of the currency. Rain is generally scarce and welcomed for the deserts which can provide grasslands for both domestic and wild animals. The weather reports are really very simple. The weather is described as warm or hot in various regions. Thunderstorms or clouds are occasionally mentioned for certain parts of the country. With the hottest months behind, the mornings are becoming cooler. Winters weather is coming in May, June, and July with the very cold nights.
The vacation period has passed and school has begun in a big way. My blogs have been infrequent recently since school has been so hectic with workshops, workshop planning, field trips, the beginning of the term planning before the new Form 4’s arrived in our school. Form 4 is the equivalent to the juniors in our high schools. But rather than narrating the day to day activities, I have chosen to write about a recent workshop for our 12 Peace Corps Volunteers, several Batswana Guidance and Counseling counterparts, and a few people from the Ministry of Education.
To review our group characteristics, we are life skill volunteers working in guidance and counseling centers in a total of 12 schools, including one primary (elementary), several junior highs and one high school centers throughout one large district in Botswana. We come from Boston, Rhode Island, Vermont, Illinois, North Dakota, New Orleans, Montana and California. The oldest is 69 and the youngest is 23. There are three of us in our 60’s, 2 in their 50’s, one in her 40’s and 6 in their 20’s. We have one male and the rest are females. Our backgrounds are diverse. Three are trained social workers with counseling and teaching experience in the schools, myself as a retired political scientist, and the rest have experience in working with children in a variety of areas including sports, English as a second language, behavioral conditioning, tutoring or working with generally at risk- students. As a group we are tall and short, heavy and thin, young and old, hardworking and serious, talkative and quiet, active and involved, and generally supportive of each other. Without exception we all persevere in finding ways to build capacity with teachers and students in regards to teaching life skills so student learn to make decisions, set goals, becoming aware of their feelings, and reducing risky behavior in their lives, among other things. Each of these skills is supposed to be instructed in terms of a student centered approach involving active learning as opposed to teacher centered learning which entails primarily lecturing. The reason for a different teaching style is to encourage behavior change on the part of the recipients. Our purpose is to prevent HIV/AIDS by helping young people make critical choices in their lives rather than accepting traditional beliefs. Some of these concepts you might have read about before in my blogs, but I want to emphasize them here so you can see main focus of our assignment..
The workshop was intended to evaluate our first six months working in the schools. What surprised me most was variety of activities we participated in formally in the schools and also in the community. The school centered activities focused on team teaching, planning teacher workshops, counseling and tutoring students, curbing corporal punishment and its abuse, serving on school committees, helping with clubs and activities for sports, peer health educator, the environment, HIV, journalism, learning English, computer skills, farming and business skills.
The community based projects varied from helping local libraries, beginning pen pal programs, initiating art exchanges between schools, working to create a local WAR Chapter (Women Against Rape), helping orphans and vulnerable children at risk economically or health wise, setting up life skills program for a juvenile rehabilitation center, teaching life skills to a weekend teen club for teens with HIV, creating a mentor programs for orphans and vulnerable children, and creating a bead making factory.
I found the process enlightening since the school system is so different from the that in the US with respect to the number of courses (generally 9), the kinds courses taught(including moral education, Christian education, developing studies, etc.), the emphasis on science(everyone must take chemistry, physics, biology and math for two years at my school), the 6 day schedule, the transfer of teachers by the central Ministry of Education, the standardized testing and evaluation of the students, at year end of each term and finally the lack of a good remedial program to take into account students who lack skills in particular subjects. While discovering how the school system worked, I discovered we volunteers had dabbled in diverse activities based on our backgrounds. As one Ministry of Education person said, “Peace Corps Volunteers are eager and like to fiddle with things.” But in general we all experienced being an outsider who did not always understand or agree with the existing system.
Being part of a pilot program of life skills, there is definitely some ambiguity in what our focus should be in the schools. The Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education perspectives do not always match, so our mission in Botswana may need to be to be clarified. But in the meantime we seem to be carrying on a wide range of programs both during the regular school hours and after school, in addition to projects in the community. Are we making a difference? Hard to say…..
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