Given their country’s proximity to the “elephant” South Africa and the never-ending threat of the struggle for liberation spilling over the border, I was amazed at how the people of Botswana – what? not even 2 million people – coped and maintained their own culture and way of life as a free and independent nation. Times were tough with the bombings and raids from next door.
As well as being local development workers, CUSO people in Botswana were on a journey of “Solidarity,” for they experienced the lives of their Batswana comrades, and got to know the refugees and members of liberation movements.
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Having arrived from Kampala, Uganda, a large city in turmoil (Idi Amin had just expelled the Asians), the relative peace and quiet of Moeng was a welcome contrast. My volunteer experience, in early post-colonial Botswana, taught me that we were able to make a difference in the development of the country. I’ve made life-long friends among the multi-national teaching staff and stayed in touch with a number of former students. At that time, Botswana was an island of harmony surrounded by racially-charged countries such as Rhodesia and South Africa. I always experienced palpable relief when I returned to Botswana from brief vacations in these countries.
Susan Bellan, Buyer for Botswanacraft; Economist Botswana Development Corporation, Gaborone, 1974–764/27/2019 My CUSOBOT years taught me that African countries were all very different. After spending a summer in Zambia (Crossroads 1971), I had tremendous admiration for the Batswana – for their modesty, strong sense of community, gentle understated sense of humor and tremendous resilience in a harsh natural environment. Going into rural areas, staying at the homes of CUSO DODs, travelling with drivers delivering bore-hole fuel to remote villages, sharing food during hunting season with villagers hitching rides from village to village, staying in rondavels or sleeping under the truck and bathing in one cup of water taught me that I too could be really strong and resilient without all my North American creature comforts.
Botswana’s general honesty and lack of corruption at local and high levels showed me a model for other developing countries. I really enjoyed my fellow CUSO volunteers, as well as Peace Corp, UN volunteers, VSOs, especially how we made our own fun with constant dancing parties, dinner and bridge parties and our big CUSO get-togethers. Projects like the Brigades and Sanitas Farm were an inspiration. The fact that we CUSOBOTS all got 100 Rand per month plus our housing, contributing excess salary to CUSOBOT projects, enabled all of us to do jobs we loved without considering how much money we would be earning. How liberating that was! For many years I thought of my life as in three periods: before, during and after Botswana. My experiences in Botswana shaped my thinking about myself, la condition humaine, and what is really important in life. But I have to admit, I had so much fun there too! Lasting friendships started there – with volunteers from CUSO, the Peace Corps, VSO, MCC and IVS. With lengthy school holidays, I hitch-hiked to Malawi, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania, sometimes with my late sister Joany and her daughter Robin, sometimes with other volunteers, sometimes alone. Of course there were CUSOers everywhere – always willing to put us up and party together into the night. One CUSO Christmas was in Blantyre. Another was celebrated in Lamu, Kenya. During the school term, people would travel for miles for weekend gatherings – in Kanye, Molepolole, Lobatse, Mochudi and Gaborone.
Every so often I would visit friends and relatives in South Africa (my father was born and brought up in Kimberley). It was heart wrenching to observe Apartheid from within and left a lasting impression. I remember getting picked up by a Boer farmer driving a pickup truck and sitting in the passenger seat with his dog while his African worker sat outside bouncing in the back – not to mention the “whites only” park benches, drinking fountains, washrooms, etc. I observed the mass exodus of African workers from Johannesburg at 5 pm as they jam-packed the trains for Soweto, leaving the curfewed white city behind. I admit to having been conflicted about my own heritage! Having grown up in Winnipeg’s inner city, raised by a single parent (mother), in a family without a car, never having even visited a farm in Canada, and having just turned 22 (and married only 8 months earlier), I found myself about to take on a key leadership position in rural planning in Botswana. And what the heck was “planning” – be it rural, urban or regional – had never heard of it! Nevertheless, I thought to myself – “I can do that.” Oh, the joys of being a know-it-all in your early twenties!
There’s no question that the three years in Botswana changed our lives in so many ways. Besides introducing me to my profession, planning, which I dedicated much of my career to, it was in Botswana where I also had the good fortune to became a parent for the first time – talk about life-changing! Looking back some 44 years later I’m struck by all that I went through and survived during my early twenties while in Botswana; including:
My first encounter with Botswana was as an 11-year old boy, riding the train from Ndola via Bulawayo to Johannesburg in 1960, on my second trip to Canada. I remember being intrigued by the curio-sellers at Sashi Siding, and determining in my mind that one day I hoped work in Botswana. CUSO was the first to give me that opportunity. CUSOBOT also provided a social network and community that was both challenging and supportive.
I came to Botswana as one of the first 2 District Officers/Land (the other was Neil Dunford) working under the Central District Commissioner. After 3 years, I was recruited to the Department of Town and Regional Planning, and later became the Senior Planner (North) based in Francistown and covering the northern half of the country, with administrative and management responsibilities. DTRP was the first Government Department to “localise” its staff, I was one of the last expats to leave. But the Department immediately started using aid-financed consultants to support it, and seemed to appreciate hiring those that had worked previously as staff. (“Better the devil you know...” and all that!) So I returned some years later in a team on which at least 3 of us were former staff members. The responsibilities imposed on DODs and DOLs as well as on staff within DTRP were often well beyond what similarly aged staff would have in Canada or Europe. At both local and national levels I had to address innumerable issues in fields I was academically totally unqualified for. So working in Botswana was professionally an incredibly stretching process. It led to such a wide variety of experience that I was acceptable for work in (re-)establishment of a Land Use Planning Institute (Lesotho); land restitution (RSA) and reformation (Tajikistan), writing urban and regional planning guidelines based on real life pilots (Egypt), doing participatory land and natural resource management (Lesotho), soil erosion studies (high Andes of Ecuador), drafting a regional tourism strategy (Zimbabwe), plus taking on assignments in all aspects of project design, management, and evaluation. One thing stands out though, and that is the difference that a stable, peaceful, and participatory democracy makes to a successful development. At times it seems to me that I reached my peak in my 20's and haven't progressed much further since then. After reading some of the things I wrote and perceptions I had during that time, I sometimes feel I was smarter then than I am now.
In 1973 I graduated from Sheridan College as a production potter who specialized in wood fired kilns. I had planned on setting up my own studio in Canada but a notice from CUSO looking for a potter who fired with wood to work in Botswana caught my interest and imagination. The requirements fitted me so perfectly, they only left out my name. The placement also offered me a convenient way out of a marriage which had led our interests in different directions. While life in Botswana was certainly different than anything I had experienced before, it wasn't a huge shock for me. I find that people are people wherever one goes. They laugh when they're happy and cry when sad. There are good ones and devious ones, no matter what setting or skin colour. Having been born in the former Yugoslavia, been a refugee in Germany with my family for a couple of years and then learning my third language in Canada at the age of 10 had already introduced me to quite a lot of changes. What I did with Thamaga Pottery - the conclusions I reached, changes and implementations I made - makes me wonder if I could have done the same as well today. I don't feel as smart nor as confident. Perhaps it's because I have more experience - and life has battered me about some - that I don't have the same cocky attitude to undertake something that should not have been within the realm of my competence. Whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know. I just know that I'm grateful for the whole experience. It helped shape who I am today. And that's okay. Dennis Lewycky, Director, Agricultural Information Service, Government of Botswana, 1974–783/15/2019 If people ask about the effect of Botswana on my life, I say very honestly that I was really born in Africa. I went to Botswana a self-righteous and aggressive university graduate and came back a more humble and introspective social activist. The people put me in my place and it was the best education and experience I could ever have had. I have tried to live a life of social principles and practice since, not always succeeding, but continually trying.
The women of Botswana taught me a lot. I learned so much from them about what hard work really is, how singing can brighten any day, anywhere. How waiting in line all day under a tree to have your turn for your baby to be immunized can be like a holiday, because you are there with friends and not plowing the fields behind oxen. And how easy it is to deceive people with large colourful posters if you are a corporate giant like Nestle.
The CUSOBOT experience opened the door a crack to my heretofore hidden inner life. It delivered me gradually and safely to a place where I could now discover and reveal my mysterious secrets. My time as a volunteer in Botswana made me a better, God-loving person, heading me towards more effective morality. It consolidated my beliefs in my obligations to humanity – and to all of life; that I should not take life so deadly seriously; that it is not up to me alone to save the world; and that the place for us to start is with simple immorality, dishonesty and self-dislike especially, rife in the world today. We must root it out: starting with ourselves.
I left Toronto in 1969 to go to Africa as a school psychologist. I was a city girl with little interest in nature. I found myself teaching science at rural schools in Zambia and Botswana and left Africa in 1975 with a newfound curiosity about plants, largely due to learning about organic gardening and applying what I learned from a collection of Organic Gardening magazines left by a Peace Corps teacher at Shashe. Our resulting garden produced an incredible abundance of tomatoes, corn, peas, eggplants, papayas, and 6 ft marigolds. That led me to studying botany and biogeography upon my return to Canada and a career researching and teaching plant ecology. I seriously doubt that my change in career would have occurred had I never left Canada. Also, from living in and traveling around Africa, I developed an appreciation of how fortunate we are in Canada to be able to pursue our interests through our largely accessible education system. As a result, for the past 30+ years, I have been a Plan Canada sponsor, donated to bursaries, established scholarships, and supported our public libraries and also political candidates and parties who share my belief in the importance of access to education.
If I’d had a clue about how much Botswana would shape my life, I might not have been so hesitant to go. Sometime in 1973, with a background in commercial art, clothing design and production management, and hand weaving, I sought out the CUSO office in Montreal hoping to find a way of following my yoga teacher to India. Instead, I was offered Botswana and the task of doing a feasibility study to identify ways of employing girls who left the brigades with sewing skills. It was a hard sell, but months later the enthusiasm of the recently returned Nangle family gave me the final push. Carol (now Caroline Shepard) and Hugh took up yoga with my teacher, and I went to Botswana. Three-and-a-half years later, I left this gentle, welcoming country with work and living experiences I could never have imagined, so much new awareness and knowledge, a British husband – Alan Etherington – and an 8-month-old daughter, Amy Pulana.
I have never been close to and inspired by so much creativity and magic as in Botswana: beautiful Thamaga, my home away from home, and the creation of the Botswelelo Pottery and Sewing Centres with the amazing energy and skills of Anita Hamilton (then Hutchings), Linda Snyder, Bodil Pearson and visionary/hero, Father Julian; the miracle of Oodi that many of us are still reminded of daily with the tapestries that grace our walls, with two more heroes, Ulla and Peder Govenius, and dear Krempien, their red-bearded side-kick/tenant; the work of still practising (in Totnes, Devon) textile artist and close friend, Caroline Hall, and the textiles of Serowe and later, Francistown; the development of Botswanacraft with Susan Bellan’s involvement in the crafts of the Kalahari….. Looking back, I’d say my decision to volunteer in Botswana in 1971 was largely motivated by the first part of what was then CUSO's motto: "To serve and learn." By the end of my two years, while I couldn’t say how well I had served, I was keenly and gratefully aware of all I had learned. I went there to teach, but Botswana taught me: to slow down, to be patient, to live simply, to value people over time and money, cooperation over individualism. Living in the shadow of Apartheid taught me to take a stand against discrimination in all its ugly forms. The CUSO Botswana experience changed my world view, led me to various kinds of social and political activism, and, I believe, made me a better Canadian.
My contribution will be different, more on the academic side with anecdotes here and there, because I was recruited from inside Africa rather than out of the continent. Arriving in Botswana, I had to go through Setswana language training course, including experiencing the live-ins in a little village of Swakopondi, en route to Molepolole. Learnt to live with the locals, ate their food and got used to late night laughs, singing and dancing, it was fun. When all was done, back to Gaborone, at least one can now, ‘Bua Setswana’.
I may not know some of you if you did not go through BOC (during my time) and experienced the ‘live-ins’ programs in various villages around Botswana. However, I am sure, we might have met at various meetings or gatherings, or at the market, or at our house on Podumo Road. Also, I made my entry from Zambia into the CUSO Botswana Group through love, marriage happened then and relocated with my two little ‘kids’ Joyce Chidima Nzakamulio and John James Nzakamulilo. Curios! This is my profound history, conversation at the reunion!! Don O’Neill, Teacher, Science and Development Studies, Molefi Secondary School, Mochudi, 1970–722/18/2019 Many of us, I expect, have been challenged to answer the often-asked question, "Why did you go?" My answer was often a vague combination of a recognition and appreciation of my life in the "North", a sense of responsibility to share my "wealth", and a recognition of belonging to a community much larger than the farm, town, or province(s) that I had experienced up to that time. Throughout my school years, I delved into various clubs with enthusiasm – the "altar boys" club, high school student council, Newman Club on campus, the University Credit Union board, etc. Perhaps that sense of involvement combined with a legacy of my grandfather’s and, in turn, my father's active participation in forming and sustaining prairie co-operatives, school boards, snow plow clubs, and other community organizations laid a foundation for "Why not CUSO?" and, yes, half-way around the globe.
Of course, the time of my service was very formative – the first time for many new things. Growth and new horizons galore! Little did I think or know that I would gain as much as I "spent" in the "sacrifice" of volunteering! Ken’s love affair with Africa began in 1975 when he visited Kenya and Ethiopia through Canadian Crossroads International.
Our family of six went to Botswana to learn and expand our vision of life and the world, to travel, and hopefully, to contribute a little to the people of Botswana. We received a gift: to view our western way of life from the outside. We can never say, “Let’s just look after our own marginalized people, and let the rest of the world take care of its own.” Local became global and global became local. Ken and Carol shared one Field Staff Officer position. While Ken was Regional Representative for ECSA (East Central and Southern Africa) and travelling extensively throughout the region, Carol stayed somewhat closer to Botswana. The places we’ve seen and the people we’ve met and worked with have enriched us beyond measure. Carol noticed that Ken didn’t stop smiling all the time we were in Botswana. We were deeply affected by the neighbouring Republic of South Africa, where the apartheid system was in full force. At the same time, liberation forces in the countries adjoining South Africa were gathering strength, and CUSO had its own Liberation Program in support. As we attended CUSO planning meetings in the ECSA Region, we were moved and inspired to meet leaders of the various liberation organizations working to achieve majority rule in the white-led countries of South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). If we’d stayed in Canada, our teenage children would have entered fully into a peer-centred life. Life in Botswana offered family-centred opportunities: lurching on the sand track in the Toyota Land Cruiser through the Kgalagadi—encountering Basarwa, giving desert folk lifts, dazzled by springbok, wildebeest, flamingoes, and zebras. And most important of all: visiting CUSOBOTs. Our teenagers transcended the inevitable discomfort, moving beyond it to profound experience. So began an experience that changed the direction of our years that followed. Son Dave’s master’s thesis on Energy Technology in Third World Villages says in part: “This dissertation is dedicated to my parents…Without their commitment to development which took the family to Africa for two years in the 70s, this whole thing would never have occurred to me.” It’s humbling to learn that comfort, education and relative wealth does not put us ahead of people of wisdom, resilience, poverty, and kindness. Who learned more from whom is the question. A defining moment: A group of women, all new mothers seated on low stools in raggedy rows outside, were watching a nutrition demonstration being taught by an eager nursing student. One mother, her face looking older than her actual years, smoothed her worn yellow dress and listened intently while the student explained the need for protein in a young child’s weaning diet. She watched as a small spoonful of peanut butter was added to a bowl of boiled greens. When the student held up an egg and remarked that eggs were also a valuable addition to a child’s diet, the mother sighed and said for all to hear, “Don’t you think that if I had an egg, I would give it to my child?”
In that moment, sitting to one side of the demonstration, I suddenly understood something important. In fact, her question was a game changer for me. I had assumed that being poor meant needing “health education.” Despite my years at university, I had not fully grasped that poverty had root causes, that economic poverty had social and political determinants, and didn’t know how to do a structural, critical analysis of poverty in a given place. In a real practical way, this mother certainly understood all that. This brief moment changed how I acted in the world, gradually developing ability to “read context.” I have lived and worked internationally for more than 30 years, most of the time with people entrapped in poverty, many living in destitution, in fear, or in violent aggression - people whose dreams have dried up, who do not believe that tomorrow could be any different from today and yesterday. This has been long and frequently difficult journey for me, an unpredictable one, fraught with times of doubt and gnawing anxiety. Now, I am the founder and Director of Atzin, a small non-profit organization working in the mountains of Guerrero in south Mexico, with a sister association, Atzin Canada. Looking back, I realize that certain events became defining moments, events that were embedded in everyday life and that caused me to pause and think, or as with the woman and the egg, provoked a flash of insight. These experiences continue to pile up, often intensely, one by one, and sometimes, the smallest incident provides a wealth of knowledge. They etch themselves on my being and reshape it. |
Add a ReflectionWhat was the lasting impact of the CUSO Botswana experience on the rest of your life? How did it change you? How did it affect your values, beliefs, actions? Your thoughts on the meaning of the experience are important to all of us and to Cuso International (200 words max). Email your reflection to: Archives
June 2019
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