I'm an artist.... who knew?

Saturday 3/8/08
Today was very very very therapeutic, particularly after all that occurred yesterday with the sink blockage, residence permits, and people falling down drainage ditches. As a group of thirteen, I joined my fellow ACM friends in traveling to a very quaint rural town called Oodi, where there are two craft operations that are supported through microfinancing and allow the people that run them to buy the capital to run their businesses. The Oodi weavers are a group of local women who make and sell woven fabrics and tapestries as either a supplementary income, or in some cases the sole source of income for the entire family. We did not meet the Oodi weavers, however. Instead we met a young, white Zimbabwean woman named Sara, and her boyfriend/fiance/whatever, Kosi (pronounced Kozi), who make and sell batiques (died wall hangings with a wax finish to them). In addition, they host workshops where, for P100, people can come in and make their own batiques. As a self-proclaimed non-artist, I approached this prospect with more than a little trepidation, but soon found the process so absorbing and meditative, that I soon forgot my fears (although I couldn't master my inherent perfectionism, which caused me to spend almost two hours just penciling in the design that I wanted to batique). The process goes something like this:
- choose a design
- draw in pencil, the design on a piece of fabric of the desired size
- melt wax and cover the portions of the design that you want to be white with wax
- take the lightest color besides white in your design, and die this area first using the provided fabric dies
- cover this section in wax to prevent the other colors from bleeding into that area
- continue adding progressively stronger colors and covering the desired areas in wax, with black being the last color added
- cover the entire piece in wax, allow to cool, and then run most of the wax off into a bucket (which is then recycled as a future wax source)
- iron batique between two pieces of special wax paper and then newspaper to remove most of the remaining wax.
- the batique is finished and in my case came out surprisingly well!
There is a lot of room for improvisation in the process, including an option to crack the wax after it has hardened and paint into the cracks with a dark color to create a "cracked" effect. This is particularly powerful with landscape and rural depictions as it gives it a look of antiquity and originality. I will attempt to bring this tradition back to the states this summer, as it was time-consuming (we got there at 10:30am and finished at around 6pm), but highly therapeutic and produced a beautiful result.
The couple (Sara and Kosi) we very hospitable and helped us through the entire process. I am planning to return with Alyssa and Whitney over Easter break to make another batique, although I'm a bit nervous that my former artistry was a fluke and the next one will not turn out as well. We'll see! TTFN!

Sunday 3/9/08
Today was full of homework and updating my blog on the safari, so I didn't do much to entertain. Yep, there's really nothing exciting that I did today. Lol, TTFN!

Monday 3/10/08
It was business as usual again today, with class all day, studying for my globalization test on Friday, and taking my third of six anti-malarial pills. I must say that I will be glad to be done with those pills as sound sleep is difficult to come by in the face of my very vivid dreams. Oh well, it was worth the trip to the Deltas for sure, and I have herbal detox drops given to me by my herbalist mother that will hopefully eliminate any lasting effects of the drug. Once again, not much to get excited about, other than the fact that I learned from Vip's roommate that Vip is out of the hospital after his fall, and that despite a few cracked ribs and a minor laceration in his liver, he is up and about and will be just fine! Guess I got lucky!

Tuesday 3/11/08
I got to see Vip today, and he looked good... tired, but good. He said that his liver clotted on its own and the fractures, though painful are minor and will heal quickly. He was very gracious and expressed his gratitude to all of those who were involved in getting him out of the ditch and to the hospital. Yay for happy endings! My afternoon was quite involved, beginning with Setswana from 12-2pm, when the ACM bigwigs who are visiting for the next couple of days came in to observe the class that everyone has been up in arms about. The class was actually fairly well-structured for once, and we had to make sure that at the meeting after class the ACM people knew that they had not seen a fair representation of what our Setswana class has looked like for the last seven weeks. The meeting was an opportunity for us to sit down with the ACM people, including the program director for next year (whom I fear we've made very nervous with our many complaints), and give them feedback on what has and hasn't worked. Despite our expectations as to how the meeting would go, it was very well played by both sides. We were very open with our criticisms of things like the pre-departure orientation in Chicago and the content of the student handbook on Botswana, and equally, they were open and honest about their lack of experience in dealing with Botswana-specific issues. We are the guinea pigs of this program after all, and therefore the many bumps we encountered on the way are to be expected. Although there is little they can do to address the problems for us, I'm confident that they will take into careful consideration our feedback so that the next year's group will have a much simpler and more enjoyable time on campus. Not that I'm not enjoying myself, but there is a lot to frustrate one on campus.
I had to leave the meeting early to take Whitney over to the UB clinic because she was feeling flu-ish and was worried about malaria. The doctor at the clinic said it probably wasn't malaria, but advised her to see a doctor if she was still ill tomorrow. I then rushed over to Riverwalk to meet with Betsey Brada, the University of Chicago graduate student who helped me find my independent research topic, for coffee and a chat. We had a lovely time and discussed everything from the progress of my research to the problems with infrastructure in Botswana. By the time I returned home I had just enough time to finish answering some questions from my study guide, check email, talk to the boyfriend, and go to bed. TTFN!

Tuesday 3/11/08
Today, providence smiled upon me! I have been sweating the whole summer job thing for the last couple of weeks now because I could go back to waitressing, but my travels here have inspired me to want to do a TON of backpacking/camping/hiking, and most restaurant jobs require that you work most weekends. So... I did not want to return to that, plus it is the right time for me to ditch the low-pay, dead-end summer jobs and start getting jobs that will give me relevant experience in my field of interest. As luck would have it, I received an email today about a summer internship with the National Conference of State Legislatures in the public health policy sector that is 35 hours/week, $10/hr. and involves the intern directly in researching and publishing information on public health policies that can be used by legislators to make informed decisions about these policies based on media information, constituent preferences, and factual compilations. So basically, with international health and health policy
looming in my future, this is the perfect internship for me, and it pays well! I couldn't ask for more, and I am hard at work editing my resume and cover letter to maximize my chances of landing this internship. Hooray!

Wednesday 3/12/08
Today at the clinic was so much fun! One of the doctors was in need of practice in ultrasound imaging because when she was trained in India, the ultra sound machine had not yet arrived in her university. As she put it, "it was coming in as I was going out". One way in which they measure the growth of the baby, and through this extrapolate the approximate due date, is to measure the head circumference and femur length. I can see why this process takes a lot of practice, because although some things were easy to discern, like the ribs and the heart, the cranial fissure off of which the head circumference is measured, and the femur are very difficult to isolate on ultrasound imaging. I had a great time trying to pick out the different body parts though, and the doctor let me feel each mother's abdomen to distinguish the head, arms, legs, and even where the actual uterus ends just below the diaphragm. It was super fun, and super informative! Kind of makes me lean towards maternal health!
When I got back from the clinic I managed to squeeze in a little bit of studying along with writing my cover letter and taking a quick nap. Then at around 5:30, the group walked over to African Mall, which is the original Botswana mall (and one I have yet to visit) for dinner with the ACM people at an Indian restaurant called Ashoka. It was quite delicious, although I am far too full right now, and I am so glad we were able to walk back to work off some of the meal! I suppose I should try to get to bed now seeing as how I will be up at 5:40am as usual. It is getting harder to wake up as the sun is rising later and later each day (winter is coming rather than going here), and it won't be long before I'll have to find an alternative time to run. :( TTFN!