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!
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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:
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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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