Leaving Kanye

LEAVING KANYE

            On Friday November 16^th, the day after swearing in, we left Kanye, our home village for the past ten weeks.  It has been an interesting venue for us during training, and in turn we 34 (now 33) Peace Corps trainees have proven to be an interesting curiosity for the local citizenry. 

            Kanye is located in one of the few hilly areas of Botswana.  We are apparently up over 4000 feet in elevation.  The center of the “village” (so described even though it has about 50,000 people) is located in a bowl surrounded by hills.  On top of one of the hills is a plateau with the local hospital (operated by the Seventh Day Adventists), some government offices, the main kgotla (where Kanye’s paramount kgosi has meetings), and a neighborhood with terrific views of central Kanye and the surrounding hills.

            Down in the bowl is the main east west road, which connects clear across southern Botswana from South Africa into Namibia.  It is know as the Trans-Kalahari Highway, or the “Trans-Kal”.  Through Kanye, it also serves as the main street.  In the center is what is called a mall, an area in which there are service roads running just parallel to either side of the street, on which are located relatively newly built retail stores.  The stores include local chains selling clothes, sporting goods, furniture, drugs and groceries.  There are also several local merchants, either of Chinese or Pakistani origin, selling cheap clothing, appliances, housewares and clothing, mainly of Chinese manufacture.  They are known generically as “China shops”.  (People from far eastern countries are often generically, and occasionally disparagingly, called “China”.)  On the swale between the service roads and the main street are ramshackle stalls set up by informal vendors selling everything from fresh vegetables to shoe shines to candy to mobile phone airtime.  The street vendors bargain very little.  There is no culture of haggling here, unlike West Africa or East Africa.  I was told that it may be because of the cultural influence from South Africa, which is a more developed economy with little in the way of retail price negotiation.

            We have frequented many of the local stores in our time here.  There are about five supermarkets in town.  We patronized Choppie’s (pronounced Chaw-pees), which is a local Botswana chain.  While our host family supplies most of our food, supplemented by Peace Corps baskets of staples, we bought our own favorite snacks and food for dinners we made for our family.  We bought kitchen supplies for our new home at various China shops.  The prices are very low, but we fear that many items – like silverware and glassware – will not stand the test of time.

            We ate at home our breakfasts (usually borogo, a sorghum meal porridge) and dinners (a range of menus with beef, chicken or canned fish as the entrée, maize meal (phaleche or setampa) or rice as a starch, and cabbage or kale as a vegetable.  We packed a lunch each day consisting of leftovers from the night before.  We were on our own to eat only for Saturday lunch (after school got out) and Sunday lunch.  We trainees would gravitate to an indoor/outdoor restaurant for Saturday lunch (usually fried chicken and fries), under a thatched roof.  On Sundays, we created picnics featuring pastry pies (peri peri chicken, beef with peppers or curried vegetables) and ginger beer, all purchased at Choppies.

            Botswana is a church-filled society, and Kanye is no exception.  There are many congregations large and small around the village.  The largest denomination in Botswana (and in South Africa) is the Zion Christian Church, an indigenous evangelical sect.  My host family brother says that their services are often dusty, because they are held outdoors under tents with much dancing.  Our host family belongs to the Seventh Day Adventists, which has a large church up the hill near the hospital, along with another one on the other side of town.  There is a large Catholic church in the center of town.  The pastor is a Nigerian priest.  He can read the prayers in Setswana but he has to rely upon a congregant to translate his sermons from English.  The oldest church in town was founded about 125 years ago by the London Missionary Society.  It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ of Southern Africa.  I don’t know if it in turn is affiliated with the UCC in the United States.  Locally, it is known as the “London Church”.  The church building has seen better days, but it seems to be active on Sunday.

            Kanye has many schools.  There are a number of public primary schools for grades one through seven (about 300 students in each school).  There are about five junior secondary schools (grades 8 through 10) with about 600 students each.  Then there is one large senior secondary school, grades 11 and 12, for those who pass a leaving exam after grade 10.  There are small school fees, but the social service bureau makes sure that everyone can attend school.  There are private schools serving young people, as well as a community technical college and a private career school. 

            By far, the main employer Kanye is the government, which operates the public schools, police, public works, water services and social services.  There are a number of people who work for the retail stores in town.  There are two branch banks, some gas stations, a Sams’s Club-like warehouse store, some wholesalers and some private schools.  What seems to be lacking is any industry.  There is also a lot of male unemployment, and among those there can be alcohol abuse.  Many families (including ours) have a cattle post a within a day’s drive that provides them with cash income.  But often the local men do not need to devote much time to the cattle post, and except for limited areas around the country, there has not yet been developed enough new employment opportunities.  There is a huge diamond mine in Jwaneng (supposedly the world’s largest), about 80 km from Kanye, and some local people work there.  Some men leave the area entirely to work at diamond or platinum or other mines in South Africa, but that involves cutting off most contact with family.

            Peace Corps moves around its training sites every few years, so as not to wear out a community and also to sample the hospitality of other communities.  The requirements seem to be that a community not be too prosperous, not too close to the capital and be representative of Setswana language and culture.  Kanye has been the training locus for the past three incoming classes.  The rumor is that Peace Corps will relocate to a new village for the next class, incoming in August, 2013. 

            We will miss the convenience of Kanye: supermarkets within walking distance, China stores and even a comfortable restaurant for relaxing.  Only one person from our class will remain in Kanye. That is is keeping with the priorities of our country director, who wants most of his volunteers off in smaller and more remote communities.  So, off we go to Goodhope, and we hope everything will work out well for us.