IFYE Program Newsletter

It is hard to believe that I've been in Botswana almost two months! I have passed through the Western Region and am now in the Northwest Region – the Okavango area. In the Western Region I stayed in the villages of Lokgwabe and Kang.

In Lokgwabe, I lived with a teacher. That gave me the opportunity to learn more about Botswana's educational system. Education is organized on a couple of different levels. First is the primary level, which covers Standard One through Standard Seven. It is similar to our elementary schools and the beginning of our middle schools. After primary schooling comes secondary, but it is split into two levels-- junior secondary (Form One, Two and Three) and senior secondary (Forms Four and Five).

As far as years go, both Botswana and the U.S. educate students for 12 years. However, most Botswanians don't complete the levels in succession. People here are surprised that I graduated from college when I was 21, turning 22. Schooling is mandatory only up through Form Three. If the student fails the Form Three comprehensive exams, he or she cannot continue. Most students are around 20 when they complete Form Five.

Education here is free, but almost all schools require uniforms. Since there is no bus system, many villages have primary schools, but only larger villages have junior secondary schools. There are even fewer senior secondary schools. Many of the junior secondary schools and almost all of the senior secondary schools are boarding schools.

Botswana has a couple of community colleges and teacher training sites, but the University of Botswana, located in Gabore, is the only university in the country.

With all of these schools, the teachers are provided with housing on the school grounds. I stayed in one of the schoolhouses in Lukgwabe. The cost of accommodation is very cheap. My host mother paid P 1.30 every month for water (P stands for Pula; P 1.30 is approximately 30¢). She didn't realize how good she had it until I told her of all my expenses. Being a teacher in Botswana provides a fairly nice living.

  The village of Lukgwabe is very small. It has two shops, one police officer, and a clinic staffed by only one nurse. Unfortunately, I had the privilege of meeting the nurse when I hurt my back. Health care in Botswana is free, but other than that there aren't many benefits. They suffer from a lack of supplies and a lack of technology. The clinic in Lukgwabe has no electricity. A major health concern in Botswana is AIDS. It is reported that more than 23 percent of the population aged 18-30 is currently infected in Botswana. The health care system here cannot properly handle this population, and some villages are having difficulty keeping up with all of the burials.

After Lukgwabe, I stayed in the village of Kang. Kang is a bigger village, so I enjoyed spending time walking around it. My family in Kang was comparatively wealthy. They owned a shop/restaurant and a small poultry place. The family had electricity! I was overjoyed when they flipped the light switch my first night there. They had just gotten electricity a month ago. They also had a phone. This is the first family I stayed with that had either.

In my last newsletter, I mentioned the possibility of going to the game reserves. However, we were unable to go because of a lack of vehicle transport. The roads to these places are very sandy and difficult even with four-wheel drive. The 4B office kept telling us that we would see many animals when we came to the Okavango region of the country.

And now I am in the Okavango region. When coming to my first village, Sekondoburro, I had to cross the Okavango River in a ferry. My house is quite rustic. It is actually not a house, but rather a grass hut. The village has no electricity and no phones. My hut does not have running water. We collect water at the village source. We do our cooking outside under a little grass shelter. It is definitely a completely different way of life!

This family mainly eats boiled fish from the river with sorghum. This family is building another hut, so while I am here I have been assisting with the construction. The hut has wooden supports that are branches of trees. We are placing cement-type bricks in between the supports. The roof will be made of reeds collected from the banks of the Okavango. It has been very interesting to build a hut like this.

Beth Kleckner