Exploring Bots

 Charlotte, Me and Mo at the Lions Park Resort/Amusement park

 Anthony and me at the swings-like the only ride we didn't get sick from 

 Charlotte and me at Oodi Weavers with a license plate souvenir we found

Some of the tapestries sold at Oodi

Dumelang. O kae? Ke teng… Hello, are you here, I’m here. Basically a slang greeting that most people use and I am getting used to using. Getting back to Gabs and into the swing of things has been difficult but has been helped by some fun and interesting events!

Unfortunately while I was away one of my host mother’s uncles passed away and her stepfather was admitted to the Princess Marina hospital right near UB. This meant that my grandmother was back to living with us to care for her husband and there was a whole bunch of new people coming in and out of the house to prepare for the uncle’s funeral. It’s made it a bit difficult to readjust to my homestay with so many new people plus I had my first test since starting here at UB so I was busy preparing for that.

Wednesday, the day I got back, is when I had my test which was unfortunate because it didn’t give me much time to prepare since I got home late Tuesday night. Luckily I really did not have to study that much when getting back since I had started studying before the midsemester break and I had woken up early multiple days on the trip to study. Plus after taking the test I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time on that Tuesday studying as it was extremely easy. There were no application questions and instead I had to regurgitate the notes.  Went to volleyball where I learned that our championship games had been moved to the end of October which means in a couple of weeks I get to travel with the team to Serowe which is north of Gaborone for the weekend!

Thursday came and went without much excitement except that after going to Mascom on Wednesday my internet was finally working at home! Well it worked Wed-Friday then quit out on Friday so we will see if I am out of time or its broken again, Ish (popular phrase here!).

Friday was a jam packed day as I woke up  early to go for a run. But boy did I not wake up early enough. Since returning from midsemester break the temperature has seemed to skyrocket here in Gabs and it has been around 34 Celsius which is around 94 and is only supposed to get hotter. Plus not a lot of buildings have air con (as they call it) so I’ve been pretty hot especially at my homestay at night. Anyways, the run was terrible because I was hot and dehydrated but at least I got some sweat going.  Headed to school for a group project and to meet up with some friends. Then later that afternoon, CIEE had prepared an interactive dance lesson which was really cool. The first part entailed a musician from Ramotswa (a neighboring village to Gaborone) to come and talk a little about traditional dance. There was  a lot of talking actually and a lot of talking that made really no sense but  that is the Batswana way: to talk a lot but not actually say much. But there were some traditional dancers that did great dances for us. It’s really interesting because they were talking about the gumboot dance which is actually the dance I performed and learned when I took Western African dance at UMD. Botswana didn’t develop the dance but as part of their traditional costumes they were padding on their calves, covered with goat skin that they continuously hit to make sounds as they dance.  Once the traditional dancers had performed, all of us learned South African jive/swing. It was short because we were on a time change but a lot of fun and very similar to that of American jive with bouncing feet, jazz hands and more!

We scooted out of class really quickly and made our way to Embassy once again, the most amazing Indian restaurant. It was really great as many CIEE kids came that we never really see anymore. After chowign down on some more great food (I got Chicken Biryani) basically all the international students headed down to Bull and Bush, a local bar that many ex patriots tend to hang out in. The weather was great so we got to sit outside and chill and relax. What a great night!!

Saturday was also jam packed in a different but great way. I got up early to head to UB where I was supposed to work with the UB disabilities services to teach deaf students a fitness class. But this is Africa so although I got there at 10, the students didn’t show up until 11:10. No worries, I ended up getting to teach them cardioboxing for about a half hour/forty minutes which was so much different than teaching hearing patrons but so great!! I had to rely more on my fingers for counting and exaggerate a lot more than normal but I think the students had a lot of fun as I know I did.

After teaching my fitness class, me, Anthony, Charlotte and Mo, my friend from the volleyball team, decided we wanted to go the amusement park, Lion Park Resort. So off to rail park we went where we then caught a bus out to Lion Park. But boy the bus was packed and we had to stand in the isle the entire time near the back and when we got close to our destination had to squeeze past people in the isle. Let’s just say it was a sweaty, hot mess. But totally worth it once we got the amusement park! We had a blast doing everything from a short rollercoaster to getting sick on the spinning seashells to cooling off in the wave pool and water slide. It wasn’t a huge amusement park but it was literally just in the middle of nowhere. From the top of the ferris wheel you basically just saw some hills and savannah. 

To get back to town we of course has to hitch hike, why would there be reliable transportation? Luckily there was four of us including two boys, one of whom was from Botswana and spoke the language. It was so funny we had our thumbs up and people are speeding past us until this pick up truck pulls up already filled with people and lets us hop in the back. So here we are in the back of a pick up truck with a bunch of old men (one of whom has a catfish hanging out of his bag) as we are speeding down this highway. Only in Africa!!! Best part of the whole experience was that this was free-just hopped out when we neared the mall and took a combi from the mall to another mall for dinner! To end this uber American day we of course had to have burgers, fries and icecream. Loved it! Came home to watch a terrible movie with Tshego before passing out from exhaustion!!

Sunday was another free day from volunteer work or traveling so my friends and I took it as an opportunity to explore Gabs some more. When we were traveling around Namibia the guidebook was a Bots-Namibia book and listed some craft fairs and exhibits around Gabs so today we wanted to go to Oodi to go to this shopt that was written about in the book called Oodi Weavers. Oodi is a small town outside of Gaborone where they have an organization of women who import wool from South Africa, dye it in Oodi and then made tapestries. So after waking up and doing some homework (and talking to my very loquacious and friendly neighbor Vicky) I headed to railpark to meet up with my two friends Charlotte and Kylee. We really had no idea how to get to Oodi but had heard from our families that we could either take a combi or a bus north out of the city and would be fine. After asking around we found the right combi and after about a 20 minute ride were dropped off right in front of the shop.  It was pretty cool because during the drive we got to see the wealthy part of Gabs, Phakalane and see the village of Oodi since Oodi Weavers is right in the neighborhood. We walked up to the Oodi Weaver houses but even though there was a huge sign out front that said open on weekends (as did the guidebook), a new handwritten cardboard sign was written on the door saying closed on weekends. Luckily a lady was walking by and said she would call someone to come open it up for us.

While waiting, a car pulls into the lot and two Americans walk out as they came to see Oodi Weavers as well which I think was the weirdest coincidence that they showed up the exact same time we did. Apparently one of them is a pediatrician at a clinic north of Gabs and the other is a medical student here for a year working in another clinic.

The lady showed up to let us in and allowed us to look at both the store and the workshop. Both of them were really cool even though we didn’t have enough pula to buy any of the tapestries. However as we were leaving the two girls we met offered to give us a ride back to Gabs. And on the way we chatted a lot about what they were doing here and where they’ve been. The medical student even talked to me a lot about her program, Princeton in Africa which is something I am going to for sure look into. After exchanging numbers, we said good bye and got out at railpark.

Went to foodlovers for a snack (a minidonut for only 10 cents then a strawberry shortcut parfait) and had just sat down in the café in the store before a lady came over and told us we had to eat somewhere else since we bought food from the front of the store and not the café itself. Ish! Then we go out and sit down in front of a closed store and a security guard comes up and tells us to move again! Goodness. There are really no rules enforced in Gabs and yet today we get asked to move twice because of them!

It was still pretty early in the day so we decided to try to go to Craft Market in Broadhurst as we had never been. Easily found the right combi which dropped us off right in front of the market only for us to discover that the entire thing was closed! Oh well. We then knew of another craft market, walked there and that was closed too! We forget that on Sundays basically everything closes by 2. So we popped a squat in the shade and just chilled for a bit before adventuring home.

Even though some things were closed I ended up having a really great day exploring new parts of the city and taking new combi routes. It was fun to just get out of the house and explore a bit plus made some great connections!

Off now to study for my Setswana test tomorrow and work on my blog entry for midsemester break! Get ready for it, hopefully be up by the end of this week. Sharpo (okay/great)!!