Think Tank Thuto Digital Arts Program

Africa 101

A little more detail. Yesterday’s blog entry was rushed. We went to an Internet café in town. We paid 5 pula ($1) for 15 minutes of time. I was trying to log onto the blog, and needed to type in my email address to gain access. When I tried to type the @ sign, it kept coming up as a quotation mark. The guy at the front had no idea how to help me. After trying every combination, I finally got to 9 and instead of a parenthesis, I got the @ sign! Whew. Except that I had wasted 12 minutes looking for it, and there was a line for the computer. I am now sitting in my room typing this on the MacBook Pro and hope to go to the front desk and use the ONE computer that has limited Internet access to upload this entry.

Back to the beginning of our Botswana journey. We were met at the Gabarone (Gabs) airport by the very genial and highly efficient Father Ben. He works with the Bishop of Botswana (Trevor)…more on him in a bit. All but one piece of luggage (mine) made it to Gabs from San Francisco. The plane we were on only held so much luggage, so they kept several pieces in Joburg and put them on the next plane to Gabs. So, Father Ben helped us get through customs (no problem) and stored our luggage. Then The Bishop showed up. What a man! He has an amazing sense of humor, a ready and warm laugh, and an elegance of manner that is a wonder to behold. I rode with him and Andy rode with Father Ben to the Palm Hotel (everyone, I mean everyone knows and loves the Bishop). We passed by the new DeBeers diamond building (MASSIVE) on our way in. The government of Botswana manages the mining, and it couldn’t be more different than the horror of Sierra Leone (see Blood Diamond). Miners are treated very well and the country has an amazing GDP. They call Botswana “Africa 101” because it is a lovely introduction to the continent. The streets are clean, the building are sound, and it is often hard to tell the cities from American cities. Granted, there are problems, and you do see goats in some streets, some shanties, etc., but 99% of the time you could really be anywhere in the States.The Palm Hotel was gorgeous and we had a light snack and discussed Botswana and our digital arts program with the Bishop and Father Ben for an hour and a half before we had to go to the airport for our final flight of the 48 hour journey…to Francistown. We learned from the Bishop that they just finished filming The Number One Ladies Detective Agency here. The Bishop is friends with the author and is even in the book! CNN interviewed the Bishop and he was on last week (you can Google him and see the footage online).

Our program here came about as follows. Andy and I were at a pre-wedding evening of cocktails and dancing with Lisa and Paul the night before the wedding. It seemed like about 200 of their friends were in the club. We met Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King and many other movies and TV shows) and had a blast hanging out with her. Andy and I were sitting with her and had just started telling her about our trip to South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. I went to get a drink and was gone no longer than about 90 seconds. When I got back, I found out that we were going to Botswana! Bamb! Kelly is like us. Just get things done, no dilly dallying. She had been working with the Bishop and Annelize Bester to set up and International School in Francistown. When Botwana gained independence in 1966, the government had a big task in creating an entirely new education system. They’ve done fine, but the Bishop wants to create take a more holistic approach and design a system that includes arts, sports, technology, etc. He really is the best cheerleader for Botswana. He and Annelize (and many others, including USC) have been working on the business plan for a few years and Annelize has basically given her life to these projects! She’s just wonderful. (I’m going to ask Annelize to post a blog so that she can explain more and tell you more about herself.) They are still in the fundraising stage, so that is where we come in! Andy, Kelly Hu and her most excellent musician boyfriend Mitch, Annelize, Charles (our great new friend and the videographer for this project), Victoria (managing the kids), and I are here to work with kids from local schools to make public service announcements to be used to raise funds for the school(s). If this is successful, the Botswana team will have the chance to really change education. We have 25 kids. They started yesterday. We taught them photography and videography techniques yesterday then they spent the day using The Flip cameras and some still digital cameras as they practiced what they’d learned. We had hoped to get started on the computers and their Premiere training, but our converters basically blew up so we had to go to town last night to get the right stuff. It will all be find today! (Thanks to Annelize who figured the “current” issue out.) Today, the Bishop and Father Ben arrive to talk to the kids about the project (Think Tank Thuto…Thuto is the word for education…you can look it up online). The kids will be making movies about their dream jobs for the future. They’ll decide what narrative approach to take (poetry, verse, prose, interview, etc.) and start writing tomorrow. They’ll lay down an action plan in their PSAs and talk about how Think Tank Thuto’s holistic approach will really help them realize their dreams. Then, the kids will film Kelly, Mitch, Annelize, Father Ben, Andy, and me for short “calls-to-action” asking the viewers to go to the website to find out more. The kids are all extremely bright and well-mannered. The Sun People are the original inhabitants of Botswana (kind of like our Cherokee) and most live in the bush. The people in the cities have come from somewhere else (South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc.). Our students are a lovely mix of kids from South Africa, India, Zambia, and a few other countries. They wear uniforms and drink tea and sandwiches with us at 3:30! They arrive at 1:30 after school and leave at 4:30. We have them until next Friday.

We are holding the program (and staying) at the Marang (you can look it up online as well). It is wonderful here! We figure we’re having a nice entry, but we still look forward to the mud huts and donkeys in Gambella! The lodge has a beautiful thatched roof, just like our huts. The hut is on stilts off the ground. I can see the riverbed (it’s totally dry right now…rainy season is supposed to start any second!), so I figure the proximity of the river explains the stilts. I have a lovely sitting room, desk, big bed, and big bathroom. You can have ostrich or chicken…great food here. There are monkeys everywhere. I believe I told you about the poop on Annelize’s doorstep yesterday. The weather is warm, warm, warm during the day, but I have to bundle up at night. Francistown is a bustling place and you really can get whatever you need.

We’ve been taking plenty of photos and shooting some video. I fear we might be able to get those up on Shutterfly until we get to South Africa. The Internet connections are just too slow and unreliable. I’ll put a Shutterfly link up on the blog page when I can make this happen.

We’re having a GREAT time and wish everyone we knew could come to Botswana! The work we’re doing with Think Tank Thuto is really going to change education here. If you met the Bishop, Annelize, and Kelly you’d totally understand why I feel comfortable in stating that.

Andy, Charles and I are off to set up the room so that everything is spit-spot for the students’ arrival (no exploding equipment).

Andy will do the next blog, then you’ll hear from the rest of the team. I can’t get email here, so if you need something, leave a comment on the blog!

E and A

P.S. A guy walked up to me at the hotel and said, "Hey Erik!" I knew I hadn't met him. Turns out I had left my blog up on the hotel computer and he read all the way through then went to the Pearson Foundation website. His name is Herman (Hey Herman!). He is going to introduce us to some high profile people in Joburg. He runs workforce readiness programs for underserved people in Africa. Serendipity rules the day!