2010.10.17: RPCV Elissa Mays Donovan writes: My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Botswana: Peace Corps Botswana : Peace Corps Botswana: Newest Stories: 2010.10.17: RPCV Elissa Mays Donovan writes: My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay

By Admin1 (admin) (98.188.147.225) on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - 12:09 pm: Edit Post

RPCV Elissa Mays Donovan writes: My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay

RPCV Elissa Mays Donovan writes: My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay

We would haul it back to school and use stones and bricks to grind it into a fine powder and sift it through the screens taken from my cinderblock house. We would then mix it and build our projects. Since we didn't have an electric kiln, we would fire the clay in an aluminum trash can with holes drilled in it and pack the clay in sawdust. We would set the whole thing on fire, watch it through the night and by the next day the pieces were finished! It's a far cry from the processed clay we currently get from a box and throw into our electric preset kiln.

RPCV Elissa Mays Donovan writes: My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay

ELISSA MAYS DONOVAN: Botswana, 1994
PEACE CORPS ALUMS TELL THEIR STORIES

October 17, 2010

I was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching art to middle-school kids in Botswana from 1994-1996.

I continue to teach art to middle-school kids at Seven Hills School. I always find ways to share my experiences with my students, especially when we are working with clay. My students love to hear about how my Botswana students and I would drive two hours out into the Kalahari bush in a flatbed lorry to a dried-out river bed and use pick axes to dig out the rock-hard clay. We would haul it back to school and use stones and bricks to grind it into a fine powder and sift it through the screens taken from my cinderblock house. We would then mix it and build our projects. Since we didn't have an electric kiln, we would fire the clay in an aluminum trash can with holes drilled in it and pack the clay in sawdust. We would set the whole thing on fire, watch it through the night and by the next day the pieces were finished! It's a far cry from the processed clay we currently get from a box and throw into our electric preset kiln.

I loved my time in the Peace Corps - it could be very harsh and a wonderfully fulfilling adventure at the same time.

Elissa Mays Donovan

Kennedy Heights




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Headlines: October, 2010; Peace Corps Botswana; Directory of Botswana RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Botswana RPCVs; Art; Secondary Education





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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Botswana; Art; Secondary Education

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