I will start out by saying that most days lately, I've been pretty happy. Overall, I've been feeling pretty settled in my village and have been finding projects to work on and people to work with. I'm enjoying my interactions at the schools with the guidance counselors and students.I joke around with the nurses at the clinic. Most people in my village are friendly toward me, and I feel safe here. I'm learning that there is a difference between people being friendly versus actually being friends with people and feeling settled somewhere versus feeling included somewhere though. I'm a pretty laid back person and usually make friends pretty easily because there aren't very many people whom I don't get along with. I had NO idea just how hard it would be to feel like I actually fit in and have true friends in my village. I thought after living in my village for a few months, I would feel a stronger sense of belonging than I actually do feel at this time. I am definitely not there yet, and sometimes I feel badly about that.
It is often difficult to tell who is being genuinely nice and who just wants something from me . There isn't a day that goes by without at least one person asking me for money, clothes that I'm wearing, my water bottle that I'm carrying, my phone number, for me to marry them, or to marry me off to someone in their family. It feels really discouraging to have a conversation with someone and think "Maybe I could be friends with this person?" to then have them ask for something from me at the end of the conversation or the next time they see me. I know it sounds horrible, but this is making it harder for me to feel like I can trust people. When someone talks to me, I am polite, and I talk to them, and I have had some great conversations with people, but in the back of my mind I am usually wondering if they are going to ask me for something next. I'm not trying to say anything bad about Batswana because most Batswana are very nice, and there are a few people who I could see myself becoming friends with in the future, but like I said, I'm just not there yet. I want to feel like they actually want to be friends with me and not just because they think I'm a rich American or because of whatever they think they will get from me.
I hadn't realized how much this was impacting me until this weekend. I had gone for a walk and someone asked me for two pula, which is not an uncommon occurance at all. Then some guy walking down the street tried to hit on me by saying something lame like "Dumela, baby" followed by a marriage proposal, which is not uncommon here either. Normally, I have been able to just say "Sorry, ga ke na madi" ( I have no money) or make jokes like "oh ok, I'm worth 1,000 cows. Do you have 1,000 cows to give to my family?". I ended up feeling really upset and bothered this time and wanting to just hang out in my house alone. Then, I started to feel lonely. It had been a while since I had felt truly homesick here, but YIKES it hit me hard this weekend. I sat sobbing in my house for a long while and missing being at home and and being able to make spur of the moment plans with friends. I missed being around people who have known me forever, understand where I'm coming from, my beliefs, and accept me for me. I missed feeling like I could be 100% myself. I missed being around people I could trust. I have some good PCV friends here, but the closet PCV lives a couple of hours away from me, and I live 5 hours or more away from many of my PCV friends. Usually, I don't feel that far away from my friends here or even from home because I have been lucky to be able to stay in touch pretty frequently, but this weekend I felt further away than I have felt since I first arrived in Botswana. It is crazy how much something that doesn't seem like a huge deal and that I didn't even realize was making me so upset was impacting me. It definitely snuck right up on me.
All of this being said, I'm working on it. I'm trying very hard to be patient, keep an open mind, and to not shut out people completely because I'm scared of trusting them. I'm also going to try and make sure I take the time to process things more often, since this weekend was a pretty clear sign that I was not doing a very good job of that. This experience is supposed to change me though, right?
Anyway, I think I'm all cried out for a good couple of weeks at least! ; )
Go Siame!
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