Farewell Bana Ba Metsi

It upsets me just to even write the title of this post, how has it been almost a year already? I remember it like yesterday when Me and Tim were sitting out on the back of the three ton truck on our way to Bana Ba Metsi for the first time, and tomorrow I will be leaving for the the very last. 

I simply do not want to go, I do not want to say goodbye to anyone, especially the students. I remember being in hospital after the accident when the general consensus was that my year was over. With my injuries so severe many thought that I would not be able to recover quickly enough to return.

But I knew it was wrong, because every night when I went to sleep I dreamed about coming home to Bana Ba Metsi; where I would be working everyday with Children who's lives I was truly having an impact on. The place where you are only 200 meters away from staring out over the Okavango to watch an amazing sunset, day after day without fail. The place where you can stare out in wonder every single night at the Milky Way, beautiful Botswana, the driving force behind my recovery. 

But I guess all good things must come to an end at some point, right? Although it is sad to say goodbye to all the amazing people I have met at this school, whether they be staff or students, I can be happy in the fact that I am a better person for having met them. Saying goodbye is always hard, but we were lucky enough to spend our last few days participating in a zonal sports meet, our last few days with the boys were spent playing sports, what a blessing.

The football team played well but unfortunately got knocked out in the semis, and the volleyball team went unbeaten through the whole competition. Although as most things go in Botswana the organisation of the meet was horrendous, but we had fun with the boys all the same, a nice ending to our time with the boys. On our goodbyes to the boys I was also able to make a few very happy, and converted four into Man U fans, if everything we did here was for nothing, it was worth it just for that.

From now I only have about 6 weeks left in Africa, our plan now is to go and see the Vic falls in Zimbabwe. All before heading south towards Swaziland to meet other Project Volunteers, feel like I deserve a nice 5 weeks just to enjoy life after the chaos of the the first four months of this year. But I'm also hoping that we can help out at other Projects on our way.

End of term

My time is quickly coming to a close at Bana Ba Metsi, with just less than a week left of school before we say our goodbyes to the boys. The boys are currently sitting end of term exams which means that my teaching duties are over.

Although I have not been back at the school long, I have been working almost everyday with select boys who are struggling the most with reading, writing and mathematics. It has been enjoyable for me to watch how the boys have developed even in this short time frame, and I can't help but think how big an impact our literacy and mathematics program will have on these boys lifes in the future.

Through the Program we have seen first hand how boys who were constantly misbehaving in class and showed no interest in learning can turn it all around. One boy in particular told us how when he was youger he was beaten by his teachers for being "stupid". So he ran away from school and never went back, but not before he had thrown a few rocks at them as they left the premises. 

The Program has allowed us to work with this child pretty much on a 1 to 1 basis, and just by dedicating the time to him, and showing him that people do care about him and his education has improved exponentially. Another indicator of why you should never write somebody off, ever.

The saying goes that if you only judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree then the fish will always be stupid. I have never found anywhere where this saying is more applicable than Bana Ba Metsi, while many of these boys will never be great academics, they show everyday how they are intelligent in other aspects of life. My hope is that these boys will have learned enough here at BBM and do well enough in their exams to allow them to attend a practical college where they can learn a trade, only time will tell.

Impacting school policy

Taking a trip back through time to one of my previous blog posts titled 'exam week', you will see me talk about the difficulties we as volunteers found when it came to teaching the boys. At that time we had truly overestimated the boys' abilities, we were trying to teach them a syllabus involving topics such as photosynthesis when many struggled to read and write even the most basic English. It became clear very rapidly that if we were going to have a real impact on the boys' education then we would have to go right back to basics.

Before we broke up for holidays in November of last year we, the volunteers, wrote up a reading and writing program that we wanted to teach to the new standard 5 class that would be coming through. We aimed the program at the real problem areas (basic reading, writing and mathematics). We planned to split the class down into four groups and rank each group in levels 1-4 to more accurately cater for each boy's individual ability. Each volunteer would take a group which meant there would be a ratio between staff and students of 1-5. 

We proposed this to the staff and they agreed that it was worth trying, even if it was a complete failure nothing would have been lost when considering the boys' current abilities. In the weeks before we broke up for our christmas holidays we frantically wrote up a new school timetable in order to accomidate our program, we made it so we would have at least one hour everyday with the boys tackling either literacy or mathematics. 

For reasons known to all already I never made it back to Bana Ba Metsi for the start or the next term, I would be lying if I said I wasn't gutted not to see our idea come to fruition. But I was also quietly confident that the three brighter and better volunteers left behind would do an amazing job all the same. My confidence was well placed as on my return to the school I was given the good news, our program has been successful and the boys abilities have improved exponentially. So much so that the board of the school has said they wished for our program to become a school policy, so that all new children that will pass through Bana Ba Metsi in years to come will undertake the same program.

In the weeks before I returned to Bana Ba Metsi I had wondered a lot where I would fit into the schedule, it seemed silly to take over my science class again when their was already a very capable teacher in place. It is now clear, however, that since I was gone the boys were only split into three groups and as a result of this there are still students who are slacking behind the rest of the pack. My job now will be to try and help these boys improve in the last month or so before my time here is up.

Home coming

4 months to the day since my accident and I've come full circle, all the hours of physio have led to this moment. Its time for me to return to my Project and finish what I set out to do. To say that I've missed everything about my Project and Botswana would be an understatement, my constant day-dreams of life before the accident has been my key motivation in my recovery and without it I would be a long way behind from where I stand today.

I think I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous for my return, both physically and emotionally. Physically I was worried how my body would cope, firstly with getting to Botswana but also with the rigorous day to day life that Bana Ba Metsi demands. On the emotional front I was nervous about a lot of things, how would I fit back into the scheme of things at the school? How would I cope with travelling down the same road the accident occured, would it bring up any demons that I had not yet delt with? 

My worries were short lived however, it seems I am stronger than I think. Physically my back has given me little grief even though I had to endure a 6 hour bus ride sandwiched between two fairly large women. Even through this discomfort I still managed to sleep most of the way (no demons encountered). The bus ride was necessary in order to get from Maun to Shakawe where I was to be picked up by Peter Dow, the school director. 

After another hour of driving I could see it, the sign for home "Welcome to Bana Ba Metsi". I have envisioned this moment everyday since the accident, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little choked up, but I managed to hold it together. I couldn't have the boys first impression of me being a weak one.

I'm sitting here trying to think of the right words I should use to convey how happy and content I am to be back, but it seems an impossible task. As soon as I was with Tim, Paul and Justus it felt as if I'd never left. They were kind enough to put on a braii for my return and we eat like kings, something that won't last as the BBM diet resumes tomorrow.. ohh how I've missed pap.

 

And we thought it was over..

Term concluded on the 27th with a long drive down from Bana Ba Metsi to Maun, from there it is the responsibility of the boys' social workers and parents to collect the boys and take them to where they will stay for the six weeks of their summer holidays.

All went fine except for two boys whose social workers hadn't been able to make it in time. Not that this is a problem, things like this seem to happen in Botswana all the time and you just get on with things. It meant that the two boys would stay with us overnight before being collected the next morning by the social worker. This seemed like only a small problem especially as both of the boys were ones that we got on with and trusted, or so we thought.

There was only limited accomodation so the boys slept in the same room as us over night, while me and Tim were asleep one of the boys went into my wallet and stole 700 pula. When I realised this I was gutted to say the least. I do not think the theft was personal, just opportunistic. Maybe I should have expected it but it doesn't make it any less annoying. 

We managed to recover 600 pula after the boy confessed, but his confession lead us to find out that the other boy had also taken money and is suspected to be part of a much bigger incident which I cannot disclose. The incident lead for the police to be called and the only reason they were spared from spending the night in a jail cell was due to the fact that they are minors. Punishment will wait until school resumes next year.

Now that the troubles are over, me and Tim have 6 weeks of travel to look forward to. We refuse to let this incident bring us down, on Sunday we will leave for Botswana's capital Gabarone, before heading on to South Africa. We will spend a week in Joburg before travelling down to the coast via Swaziland. Once at Durban we will travel down the coast of S/A in time to spend christmas and new years in Cape Town. On the 3rd of Janurary we will take a bus from Cape Town to Windhoek, Namibia before crossing the border back to Botswana in time for the start of term. Shark diving, Bungee jumping, surfing, and snorkling are all on the cards. 

Whether I will blog or not is yet to be decided as I will be leaving my tablet in Botswana. I will post videos and photos on Insta and Facebook, follow if you wish @alexdobson_ ✌️

Orphans day party

Every year at Bana Ba Metsi, during the third term, a christmas party is held for a group of orphans on our side of the river. It is a day where they are invited in to the school to simply have fun and not worry about anything else.

The day started with morning prayers and marimba music, it was obvious that the orphans were still unsure as to what to expect, but they soon relaxed as cake and juice was handed out. The orphans were then divided into small groups before being sent to different activities around the school.

The activities consisted of 6 stations; football, arts and crafts, swimming (which was led by me), a three legged race, face painting and television. In england watching TV for 20 minutes would be considered a standard practise, however for the orphans it turned out to be a real privilege.

After the activities were over, the orphans were then taken to the school recreation hall for an address by the school head master, and the local Kogsi (village chief). Although, in reality the address was just a distraction so that we would have time to dress Justus, the german volunteer, as Santa so that he could hand out presents. We had managed to borrow a cattle slay from the local village so that we could tow him in on the back of the Hilux. It was a good laugh, and the kids were certainly pleased.

The day was concluded with food for all the orphans, students and staff at Bana Ba Metsi. The food included Beef, Chicken, Pig, Goat, Rice, Salad and drinks. A much welcomed change to the usual diet. All in all it was a good day and the kids certainly left happy and full.

Exam week

I find it crazy when I think about it and realise I've been in Botswana for 3 months already, time is flying. I suppose that's the nature of it when your wrapped up in the Bana Ba Metsi schedule, everything is always full on, and the end of term was no different.

Two weeks before the end of term it was exam week, every student sat an exam in each subject, and each exam was divised by the teachers. Which included me and Tim, it can be quite challenging to create an exam which targets all pupils and caters for their individual ability as it varies so greatly. It seemed that the most happy medium was if 90% of the exam was made up of multiple choice questions and would cater for the lower ability students. Then the remaining 10% of the exam would be aimed at the smarter students and therefore be slightly more challenging. Once the exams were finished it was time for marking, which is fairly easy when 90% of the exam is multiple choice and 90% of the class can't answer the harder questions anyway. The class average turned out to be a D, only four boys managed to push to a C and above.

If i'm honest I find it suprising that the class average was a D, having taught the standard 5's for the last three months it became increasingly obvious that the majority boys had little to no capability of reading English. This factor makes it almost impossible to teach topics in Science such as photosynthesis, it seems in order to make real progress we must go right back to basics to have an impact on the boys education.

We the volunteers have mulled this thought over for the last month and decided to make a proposition to the staff, we asked if, at the start of the upcoming term, if it would be possible to alter the timetable so that we could split the new standard 5's into four small groups, each lead by a volunteer, and for only 1:30-2:00 hours a day focus souly on basic English reading, writing and mathematics. It will be a lot of work but we hope to see a marked improvement, I shall keep you posted on how it pans out.

Rugby tour!

There are three main sports at Bana Ba Metsi; football, volleyball and table tennis. Each of us volunteers has the responsibility of coaching one sport, I am the coach of football, Paul and Justus (German vols) are the coaches of volleyball and table tennis. As all three sports have been taken care of, there was an opening in the framework left for Tim. 7 weeks ago he started teaching the boys how to play Rugby, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. The sessions started with only four boys playing touch together, but since has doubled in numbers and they have gone from knowing nothing of the game to being able to play a well structured game of touch (Slight exaggeration).

Tim managed to contact a juniour rugby coach in Maun and organised a game, which is actually why I'm here now. We, the volunteers and 8 boys loaded into the three tonne truck, drove to Maun, our first school trip! One of the lovely things about this project is the freedom to go as and when the ocassions arise. Not like England where you have to fill out hundreds of forms, just straight up common sense is all that is required. 

We were also lucky enough to play in Maun stadium! The boys won their first game but lost the second, it has been a great learning curve for them and they have thorougly enjoyed the experience.

(BBM left, Maun Pups right)

The whole trip has been a success except for one incident, one of the boys ran away in Maun. He was in our company, we were responsible for him. Tim had made him the captain, and we had trusted him to be a leader to the boys. Its been a bit of a learning curve for us, it seems we cant give these boys an inch because they take a mile. It was a huge shame as the rest of the boys have been good as gold, as usual its the minority that lets everyone down. I hope this doesnt hinder future trips. But anyway, rant over.

We have also all been given our residence permits, which means we may stay for the year! Thank god.

Until the next time ✌️

My project in pictures

03/11/2014

This blog post will be somewhat of a guided tour around my project at Bana Ba Metsi, I hope it will give you an idea as to where I live and work everyday but also a slight comprehension as to how rural this Project is. 

For starters, I'd like to show you the drive we must take from the ferry in order to arrive at BBM, all I can say is that it is a very straight dirt track, right down into the middle of no where. 

Along this track there are some larger villages such as Ngarage, but mainly dotted along the 100 or so kilometer stretch are mudhuts and plots of land, the owners of these houses live mainly through substance farming of goats and cattle. 

After this long trek down the very straight road you finally find yourself at the turning to Bana Ba Metsi,

Some may ask what the need is for this project to be so rural, why cant it be situated near a major town? The answer is that Bana Ba Metsi aims to take delinquant and disadvantaged kids away from the distractions in their lives that had them in that situation in the first place, whether it be drugs, homelessness or a broken home. It would be very difficult to rehabilitate these young boys if they were still surrounded by these factors. BBM is a safe haven for these kids, while term is in progress they do not have to worry about their safety, where they will sleep and when they will get their next meal.

Moving along on our whistle stop tour we have finally arrived at BBM, outside the school there is a rather nice murial which was built and painted by the staff and students over the previous years.

As you will see in the coming photos, there is alot of art work on the buildings at Bana Ba Metsi, it gives the school alot of character. All of the building's were decorated by students.

Just to give you some sort of orientation of the following photos here is a map of the school which was drawn by one of the previous volunteers;

Starting at the entrance to BBM you drive straight out onto the recreational football pitch which the boys use in their free time

To the right of these you will also find a volleyball pitch and recreational room which contains weights, table tennis and marimbas

Rec room;

Moving on through the school you find yourself at the new kitchen, storeroom and the boys dorms;

Storeroom;

Elephant dorm, there are also two other dorms which are lion and crocodile but elephant is the most well decorated. (Plus this poor internet connection can only handle so many pictures)

To the rear of the dorms you will find the school libary, computer room and classrooms;

Computer room; The computers were donated by an American charity, and in all honesty and superior to the ones my secondary school had back in England. Truly an amazing gift to BBM the only sad part being that we have no access to the internet!

The classrooms and staff room;

On the left is standard 5 classroom, to the right is standard 7 and behind the building there is another class room connected to the building for standard 6. In the middle is the staffroom, here are pictures of a classroom (they are all the same) and the staff room.

Heading through into the middle of the school grounds you will find the garden, swimming pool and TV tent.

The Garden is not only a source of food for the school but a tool for education, the boys learn about agriculture and work in the garden during manual. They are rewarded with the vegetables that grow here such as maize, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers.

(The pool isnt normally this dirty, we ran out of chlorine which is not something we can buy from our non-existent local super market, no more swimming until a trip to Maun is organised!)

TV tent, no other school on our side of the river has access to a TV, not one with a freeview box anway (WIN)

Moving towards the rear of the school you will find the slaughter house, accomodation for the German volunteers and the work shop.

The slaughter house is used at the beggining of each term for the chickens we buy. They arrive at the school as chicks, the boys raise them and feed them, then when they are big enough we kill them for food. Some animal lovers my find this thought upsetting. But believe me, when your only eating samp, pap, soft porridge and bread all week you become detached pretty quickly.

I decided to include the German volunteers accomodation because of the view from their balcony, just to give you an idea of how remote we are. I apologise for the weather conditions, its normally 100x more bright and beautiful however the rains are coming and my oppourtunitys for photo shoots during the week are limited.

The view faces to the west, which means we have a glorious view of the sunset everynight at 6:30. As you can see however there is nothing but bush and the okavango river for miles all around.

The workshop and brickyard, (all of the bricks used for the buildings at BBM are made by staff and students)

Moving on toward the end of the tour and to the rear of the workshop you will find the chicken coups (layer hens and those for slaughter), a building project and our home.

The vast majority of the buildings at BBM are built by staff with the help of students, external help is only used for two specialist jobs, thatching and electrics.

And finally, and most important of all... The project trust volunteers home (Built by previous volunteers);

Also our shower facilitys, they are located outside and only supply cold water. Of all the home comforts I miss, a nice hot shower is without a doubt top of the list.

Bana Ba Metsi was originally set up in 2001 by an ex-peace corp volunteer, Steve Harpt. The school started as just a peace of land and only offered building skills to 12 students. But in recent years has flourished into what you can see in the pictures above, housing 56 boys andI feel incredibly lucky to be part of this project.

This brings me to the end of the tour, as you can see in some of the pictures it is wet from rain. Much less frequent than England of course but theres no such thing as a light drizzle here, when it rains it poors.

Future posts will include the orphans day party and the end of term which is on november the 27th, after that I will be off travelling for six weeks and I'm still not sure how much of that I will post on here. 

Anyways, until the next time ✌️

Duty week

10/10/2014

Once a term for each member of staff at Bana Ba Metsi there is a duty week, this week was my turn. Duty involves generally making sure everything runs smoothly through the school day, such as leading the morning and afternoon assemblys, supervising the distribution of food at meal times and supervising study on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Sounded simple enough to me before I started. The meetings are fine, the biggest struggle is meal times. The boys constantly try to get one over on you and take more food than they are allowed. Not that I really blame them, the food they recieve is pretty minimal. The only consequence of this is that there will no longer be enough food for everyone else. Which in turn means I have many people annoyed at me for not doing my job properly, sink or swim. 

Duty week in all honesty is pretty painless, just tiring. One of those things where you are glad when it is  over. However I wont be glad when this week is over, this week has also been the examination period for the standard 7's. If they pass (fingers crossed) then they will be able to move onto further education. Which is great when considering their situation when they arrived at BBM. The downer is that tomorrow they will be leaving. Although we have not been here long, we the volunteers have really  enjoyed getting to know them, they have been good to us and helped us control the younger boys when they have stepped out of line. They will be missed by all at Bana Ba Metsi.

To celebrate the end of exams we held a party for the standard 7's, this involved a prize giving in the morning for academic and sporting achievement. which was broken up with entertainment from the marimba band, who are amazing, and Tim on his tiny guitar (who was pretty good too). 

The rest of the day was filled with good food, drinks and music. A nice send off for the boys, we wish them good luck.

Independence day

30/09/2014

48 years to the day since we the British gave Botswana back to its people. At the time it was a sparsly populated country with a poor economic structure. However since independence it has flourished through its trade in diamonds and cattle. Also with the help of the currently elected political party it has become one of the most stable countries in Africa. A lot of the money made through trade industry has been re-invested into the countries infrastructure, which, when thought of in comparrison to other nearby African countries, it shows in an abundance. 

For the people of Botswana independence day means a public holiday. This meant for us that there were no lessons to teach, however, instead we held an independance day competition, members from each standard (5, 6, 7) were chosen to compete in each catagory and the winner from each catagory will be taken on a camping trip where they will enjoy good food and games. The catagories included English spelling, English reading, Setswana spelling, Setswana reading and Maths. We, the volunteers, were the judges and the boys had a lot of fun competing.

After the competition we enjoyed some great food which was prepared by the boys, followed by a boat trip on the okavango river with the younger boys in the afternoon;

The boys enjoyed the restful day and we enjoyed spending time with them, we are still slowly building a relationship of trust and respect with the boys and, as this happens, we are slowly starting to get to know the real them and where they have come from. Many of the boys here have not had the best start in life and a few have never even attented any kind of formal education before they came to BBM. I feel I have almost been ignorant towards this as on the face of it you would not really be able to distinguish between them and other boys I have met of the same age.

On a side note, I'm wondering if readers of my blog would be so kind as to give me some feedback. Let me know what you do and dont like and what you would like to hear more or less of.

More content to follow in due course, ✌️

One month in..

27/09/2014

As of today I have officially been in Botswana for one month, if I didnt have access to a calendar I dont think I'd believe it.The time has flown past in a haze of activity, most of which we have thoroughly enjoyed. As the time goes on we are slowly falling into the routine of BBM, teaching in the mornings, manual in the afternoon, with an mixture of sporting activitys inbetween. For those interested I have attached a photo of the classroom timetable and menu;

Its also slowly starting to heat up, which has its positives and negatives. The negatives being that its nearly 40 degrees and I'm ginger. The positives being how the plants are starting to come to life and that I'm treated to views like this every time I drive from the school;

(Unfortunetly now that I have wifi to post this I actually yet had time to take a picture of the view, if im driving its because of work and not play! Picture to come soon)

If you have been following my blog posts you'll already know most of what I have been doing, however I can now also tell you that I am friends with a model. While we we're at a bar in Maun on our rest days one of the German volunteers got talking to a girl currently trying to kickstart her fashion business by hosting a cat walk event this weekend. She thought it would be a great idea to 'add some colour' (direct quote) to her show as in Botswana, pale skin looks "exotic". With a little peer pressure from the staff at BBM (but not as much as you'd think) Our German friend agreed to participate, pictures to follow...

Jokes aside, and there have been a lot, it turns out that this was a great chance to do some publicity work for the school. Part of the deal was that Bana Ba Metsi's very own celebrity gets to give a quick speech to the spectators at the event about our Project, it seems everyone is a winner. 

Until the next time , ✌️