19 2 / 2012
Job Description
So I realize that even though I have this blog, most of my friends and family have no idea what I actually do here. So here’s a post describing my daily activities!
My primary assignment in Peace Corps Botswana is at Mookane clinic, in the village of Mookane, but as far as I can tell it’s up to me to figure out what that means. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, you’re really free to choose and fill out your own job description, and this freedom can be really wonderful, but also really overwhelming sometimes. So really I’m supposed to be a community volunteer, working with community members to mobilize people around issues of HIV/AIDS. This is what I’ve carved out for myself so far.
In the mornings I help out in the ARV clinic. ARVs (anti-retrovirals) are the life saving treatment for patients living with AIDS, but our clinic is really overwhelmed in their distribution, so I help with that. In the afternoons I’m in the community. I am doing three afterschool clubs. One is an abstinence/peer education/leadership club called PACT (peer approach to counseling by teens) that I’m doing with a guidance and counseling teacher at the Jr. High. Another is a club for HIV positive teens, who have had the virus since birth and are now reaching puberty, which leads to a host of problems concerning self-esteem, dating, and empowerment for health. Another is at the local library for kids, and we just end up playing lots of games, but I’m hoping we can work in some tutoring time for reading and math.
Other projects include a HIV positive womens’ support group that I’m starting with some health educating officers at my clinic, and I really want to start a soccer club using a curriculum called grassroots soccer, which uses soccer coaching drills to teach lessons about HIV. There are also two NGOs in my village, and mostly they want me to find them grants, and I edit their grant applications. As English is not their first language, but all of the applications are in English, I find myself doing a lot of grammar and editing.
So that’s what I do! A lot of it is just running around having people stare at me because I’m white and then ask me for money, and then I say no and try to give them condoms instead. That’s my life in a nutshell!
