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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June 2019
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