In-Country Blog
Posted by melissa1 on October 22nd, 2007
A Day in the Life of a Holy Cross Hospice Volunteer
I have been in Gaborone for three and a half weeks. I now know how to navigate my way on foot around the city, how to use a kombi and where to get everything I need. I have also spent a whole week in a workshop completely in Setswana and am helping to plan a six day staff “retreat,†to take place in the middle of the Kalahari desert. And this is on top of my assistant social work position at Holy Cross.
The weather has been great (although a little chilly), our house is lovely and fully equipped, I have met lots of interesting people, and one thing I have to say to any students coming to Botswana – things are much more organized here than they appear to be at home! It has been eventful, and a wonderful experience so far.
A Workday:Â
6:00am Alarm rings.
6:15am Quickly eat some yogurt, fruit, bread, cheese – and a coffee.
6:40am Leave for work with my roommate, Robyn, who is also working at Holy Cross. We have taken to walking the 50 minutes to work, in an effort to burn off some of the excess of meat (a staple) that we consume here; also because it is an enjoyable way to start the day.
Our walk is dusty and takes us through quiet residential streets, along busy motorways and past numerous flowering bougainvilleas and jacarandas. We say good morning to school children in uniform, elderly ladies out for a morning stroll and gentlemen en route to work. All the while we have to be careful to keep our toes off the road, and we continuously dodge traffic and excessively speedy kombis.
7:30am Arrive to work refreshed.
Now we hang around for a bit, trying to figure out what to do with the day, which stretches long in front of us. People are already chatting about our first tea break at 10:15. I cornered my supervisor in an attempt to get him to sign my placement-objectives sheet so I can submit it to WUSC, but he isn’t ready to do that as of yet. We have a short meeting to set a time for an official meeting to be held later on in the day.
For the rest of the time until tea I work on administrative work, review some client files and begin to make a list of all the schools that the various orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) attend.
10:00am My WUSC support person calls me to set a time to call me later in the day to discuss my placement experience so far.
10:15 Tea Break: including warm, homemade bread today!!
10:30 Ask my supervisor if he will sign my objectives sheet which is now complete – again, he isn’t ready.
Then, off to visit a client at home – home visits happen quite regularly, and are a very interesting way to both see the community within which we work, and also to meet clients in his/her own territory. We set up a time for the family we are working with to come into the hospice when their children are home from school. This is an abuse case, involving children whose single mother passed away last year.
12:25pm Upon returning to the hospice we have a meeting regarding the shortage of computers and other resources in the center.
1:00-2:00pm Lunch
Including: thick sorghum porridge with beans (very tasty), beef stew, beets, cabbage and creamed spinach.
We eat with the HIV/AIDS patients with whose children I primarily work with in the social work department. This is a great way to build relationships across cultures and through the prevalent language barrier.
2:00-3:00pm I meet with my supervisor and we finally go over my placement objectives sheet, he agrees to sign it and I fax it immediately to WUSC Gaborone.
3:00pm My scheduled call from my WUSC support person doesn’t happen so I continue to go through every OVC file we have, write down names of schools and what child goes to what school, and then locate all of their registration numbers. I am going to make a database by school when I next get access to a computer at work.
4:10 Brainstorm to find another project to fill my week before the intense home-visits begin. We have to register 120 new OVCs before the end of November!
4:30 Knock-off work and head home.
We take a kombi home because it’s hot and the day was long. I stop en route to pick up a few groceries, an updated movie listings sheet from the cinema and pop into the internet café to briefly check my email.
6:10pm Arrive home. One roommate is at the gym next door and the other is not home from her French class yet, so I have a shower and start cooking some supper.
7:30pm For the rest of the evening I chat to my roommates and then go upstairs to read a few chapters in my book, “A Place of Reeds,†and at 11ish I get ready for bed.
11:20 Just as I am about to turn off my light I spot a huge spider, on my wall, just above my pillow. This is the first spider I’ve seen in Gaborone. He is a normal spider, not a poisonous or super-hairy one – but still, he is just a little too big and a little to close to my pillow for me to anticipate a good night of sleep. I go to the kitchen, come back upstairs with the broom and think about what to do. I don’t want to kill him. He’s big enough to have a name, hrmm.
11:40 I hear my roommate’s friend leaving… I corner him and show him my dilemma. He cannot kill spiders either. So we convince him to trap the spider in a bucket (he’s too big for a cup) and take him out the front door.
12:50 Finish discussing the evenings events with my roommate and head to bed.
6:00am Alarm Rings.
6:40am A little tired, I leave the house, walk to work, and prepare for another day.
As time goes on I will try to post more about my work. I have only really spent about six days in the office so far, so in another couple of weeks I will have much more to add. Thanks!
