Coming Home to Goodhope

COMING HOME TO GOODHOPE

            On Friday, November 16^th, a driver and a representative from Stephanie’s school drove to Kanye and picked us up along with all our accumulated belongings.  We traveled south from Kanye and its hills.  The land began to flatten out and the lands became more obviously devoted to grazing cattle and, occasionally, growing maize or sorghum.  After driving south for 70 km we turned east on a connector road for another 10km and into Goodhope.

            There wasn’t much to see from the connector road.  We turned left into what we thought led into the center of the village.  While it was wide and rimmed with street lights, there wasn’t much along the roadside.  We passed a police station compound (including bungalows for the police staff), we passed a very new and attractive clinic and then we approached Goodhope Senior Secondary School, Stephanie’s home base for the next two years.  It is a massive campus serving 2400 students in only two grades: fourth and fifth forms (11^th and 12^th grades) and only open to students who pass their leaving exam after third form.  There are fewer than fifty such schools in the country, and Goodhope is one of the newest, opened in 2008.  Like many senior schools in Botswana, it is a boarding school, with about 90% of the students living in hostels (dormitories) on campus.  The faculty live on campus in bungalows or townhomes.  The school offers many facilities for the students.

            After a short visit with the school head, we popped in at my home base for the next two years, Lotlamoreng Junior Secondary School.  This is a non-boarding school of about 550 students serving forms 1, 2 and 3 (8^th through 10^th grades) in the Goodhope area.  It features a series of smaller one story classroom blocks spread around a campus compound of well-tended red dirt and assorted trees.  The agriculture program’s goats wander about the edge of campus.  There are bungalows to house the school’s faculty.

            After this whirlwind tour, we proceeded on to our own home.  Peace Corps and the host community decided to place us in a house in the village, and not on one or the other school’s compound.  Partly this was to integrate us better into the community: living on a school compound can be isolating. 

            Our home is a one story stucco bungalow of apparently recent construction.  It fronts on a dirt path but backs up onto the paved driveway leading to the police station compound.  It has a newly painted tan exterior with a green tiled roof.  The windows are metal framed casements.  We are on a fenced and gated lot of maybe 100 by 100 meters.  The yard features red dirt landscaping.  We overlook a flat expanse of dirt and grass upon which goats, donkeys and chickens graze during the day.  There are other small homes in the distance, and the closest of them belongs to a family that spends most of the time in Jwaneng, where the husband works in the diamond mine.  Our lot, in other words, is relatively private.

            When we got inside our new home, we found a mix of furniture left by the landlord along with some furniture delivered to us by the Ministry of Education (which is supposed to fully furnish our accommodations).  The gas stove was among the items delivered, but no refrigerator.  The house did come with electricity (not all the volunteers get that), running hot and cold water (another optional feature for volunteers) and a bathroom with a bathtub and toilet (ditto).  We have two bedrooms as well.  There is a third bedroom, but the landlord has stored and locked  furniture there.  The Ministry failed to supply us with bureaus or wardrobes, an issue for us since we have no closets here.  The walls are painted and the floors have large glossy tiles.

            Despite some rumors, Goodhope has general dealers (smaller food and supply stores) but no supermarkets.  Thus we needed to shop immediately for food to eat.  Later that day our driver drove us 15 km to Pitsane, the location of the nearest supermarket.  It turned out to be a nice, clean, well-stocked Choppie’s, which should be able to serve most of our needs over the next two years.  We will be able to get there and back by khombi (mini-bus) from Goodhope (remember, we are strictly not allowed to own vehicles).

            After returning from shopping, our first task was to unpack and pile onto the floor the contents of our suitcases and bags of home purchases.  Stephanie set herself to cleaning the kitchen (which needed a lot of work).  Still, after our home stay, it felt like a luxury to live with a kitchen that contained a sink (double!) and a long kitchen counter for preparing meals. 

            Over the next several days, we have made other small improvements to make our stay here more accommodating.  More details on that to come.