Two new blogs at the same time?!!? What is going on? Hah..i just got a little bored an decided to write…so here goes, this blog is the past month since being home from Bots. The WC ended a few days after we got back..I was definitely sad to see it go. It brought such a great liveliness to SA and all the people here. The day Uruguay played in PE for the 3/4th place, I saw the whole team at the gym…of course at the gym they play the sports channel and it was surreal to look at the tv and see all the players, then look over and see them in person in the gym. Hah I thought it was pretty cool tho.
One of our landlords had us over at his parent’s house for a braii, the night before Bimmy and David left, and Nicolas (our landlord) was leaving soon too, headed off to Mississippi for Grad school. Like most home cooked food in SA, everything was amazing, and I got a recipe for the most amazing thing, I call it pumpkin goodness. I made it a few days ago, so good! Im gonna make it at Christmas when I get home…so be ready Mama! I just have to find pumpkin… that’s something about SA that is so cool, pumpkin is everywhere, all yr round in the store, its like butternut squash kinda.
So Bimmy left : ( I was really sad about it, I still am. It is really the best for her particular situation tho and I know she is happy to be home. It was just hard for me and all the other girls to have someone leave us. We all came here together and were supposed to be here for a year together and leave together…Bimmy and I became extremely close and were basically always together so when she left, I literally had the feeling that I broke up with a boyfriend hah. Its so funny how things work out like they do because we both thought we weren’t going to be able to be friends with each other. Just goes to show that you can’t judge people and you really have to get to know them. She is worth is too, she is so genuine and truly an amazing bright girl, she got me through lots of dark days with her constant positive outlook and even 10,000 miles away she has taken my crying phone calls. I am really lucky to have had her here with me, and to have her when I go back home. We still talk all the time and we will be reunited at Sonoma. I love you C U Next Tuesday : )
This paragraph is for you Sebastian! An update on all the new internationals : ) This semester there is a really different group of international students. Last semester the bantry was CRAZY. Seriously it was never quite, people were always partying and it was just crazy. This semester, so far anyway, its a lot more calm and not as united as last semester. there are people from France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the 9 cali ppl left, and hmmm I think that’s it. Everyone is really nice and friendly. Everything just seems a lot more calm this semester, it could also be me personally, with the whole going out thing, kinda been there done that with all the places here. There have been a lot more house parties this semester and there were none last semester, just the bars.
The weekend before school started we (me, LJ, Aisha, Kelleigh, and Caleb) went to J-Bay for the Billabong Surf Pro. I was pretty stoked and I’m really glad we went. Of course the whole time I wished Brett was there, because I know he would have loved it and he could have explained how certain things worked. It was so cool though, I’ve never been to a surf competition and having the Billabong Surf Pro as my first is pretty legit. J-bay is such a well-known surf spot of the world. The whole weekend we pretty much sat on the beach and watched people surf, of course I was off taking pictures pretty much the whole time. It was really relaxing though and a nice end to our holiday. Loretta has a friend who lives in J-Bay so she hooked us up with a little guest house of one of her friends for the night, it was only 50R so it was legit. LJ’s friend took us out and we ate at really cool restaurant, thai food AC : ) and we went to a bar, played some pool and had 10R draughts of Castle, which is equal to 1.35$ hahah sometimes I just love South Africa..the weekend was really fun though and I have some interesting video tapes from when we got home from the bar…black mail Caleb?! : ) haha just kidding, maybe I’ll post them one day… Overall it was a great weekend and I’m so down to move to the beach one day, you know what I’m talking about Shylnn : )
Aisha and I moved to a different flat, down the hall from our other flat. We are in flat 9 now, its bigger and has a better balcony. I had a slight disagreement with the maids about it……but it’s all settled now!
Second semester started, I can’t believe I’ve already been here for this long and I’m starting second semester! This term, which goes til the end of Aug., is pretty slow for me. I only have class on Monday and Tuesday..crazy right? Dad, before you freak out I am taking 58 credits and the max is 60…so there is nothing else I can do! Anyways I am taking Xhosa again.. same teacher so that’s good bc I like him, it just keeps getting harder tho… Kunzima! (that means ‘It is tough’) I am taking Organisational Behaviour, the first business class I’ve taken in a year.. odd to be in a business class cuz sometimes I seriously forget I am a business major… I like the class though, its not too bad so far and the topic is bearable. It just sucks to be in a class that spells organisational behaviour the way it does, I don’t know how many times I have to go back and consciously rewrite my ‘organizational behavior’ by the time I go home, I won’t know which one is correct… (they are both correct but you know what I mean!) the teacher is fine, of course I stand out bc I am the only person from the states and in the class there is constant reference to the US. Last week he was talking about American people arrogant and having that ora when they walk in a room, he was like there is someone in here from the US right?! I raised my hand, and he asked me if this was correct, and I started to say well I don’t think you can generalize…then he just cut me off and kept talking…ohhh how I love Afrikaners sometimes..
Then the other class I’m taking, I’m taking for fun bc I had extra credits to fill, but not enough credits open to take a class to go toward my major. I think I had 9 credits open and all my soci/business classes are 15 credits so I couldn’t.. sooo I decided to take a freshman psychology class, it is applied child development. I enjoy it so far, its interesting to me. The only downside is the fact that it is a freshman class, so people are talking ALL the time…I forgot what that’s like… the teacher has to sush people up the whole time. I really like the teacher though, she is this funny Xhosa lady who is really personable and cracks lots of jokes. We don’t have an exam or final for the class just a paper we have to do. We have to go to a pre-school and observe a child for 90 minutes, 45 minutes in the classroom setting and 45 minutes during break time. I go to a pre-school next week to observe the child chosen for me. Hopefully it goes well, Ill tell you guys about it after I do it. Next term I am taking Xhosa, and Organisational Behaviour (it’s a semester class), and I’m also taking two Sociology classes, Women in Africa, and Crime and Society, I am SOOO excited for the crime and society class, it is ridiculous.
So what am I doing with my ridiculous amount of free time? I’m spending my time volunteering at Sinethemba two days a week again and Vukupille. I get a ride to Sinethemba from the school, but I’m not getting any credit for it like I did last semester, which I honestly prefer because we had to write journals and papers, which I seriously thought took away from helping the kids because I would sometimes focus and think about what I would write rather than focus on the kids. Words really can’t express how much I LOVE going to Sinethemba, I am seriously going to be heartbroken when I leave for good. My favorite girl Anthea is back tho!!!! She just went home for the holiday, but she came back. I didn’t think she was coming back..but when I saw her I freaked out! I literally ran to go hug her and pick her up. I adore her; she is so smart and has so much going for her. I just hope she can succeed in life, and she gets the opportunities she deserves. I really wish that for all the kids, they are all sweethearts and I have seen them grow since I first started going there in February. *this is for bimmy. The other day, the radio was on and Waka Waka came on and they all started singing it and doing the dance. I couldn’t help but smile, they are all adorable, and seriously have no possessions and they are so happy. I know I always talk about Sinethemba a ridiculous amount in every blog, but I just love going there so much.
I am also doing Vukupille on Wednesdays which I talked about a bit a few blogs ago. Basically LJ, me, Kelleigh, and Aisha are in charge of this program for the kids. We come up with the activities for the day, get volunteers together, set up transportation, and go and try a make a difference with these kids in the township. It is a really great thing for these kids, and you can tell they look forward to it all week. It is pretty difficult to come up with activities, because there are no supplies or anything, we are in the middle of a street, literally, sometimes we have to move for cars. Last week we did creativity/getting to know each other. We made nametags and did a bunch of icebreaker questions. I really like it, reminds me of working at the YMCA of leading songs at camp and being able to come up with lesson plans. I miss that job.. honestly though.. if any one has any ideas of themes or projects we could do…throw them my way!!
This month for the first time I experienced for the first time someone buying me a shot and sending it over to me..haha I felt like it was a movie, having a waitress tap me on the shoulder and point at the shot then at the guys table..hah it made my night : )
I’m surprised I never talked about this before but since being here, I’ve read a lot..well a lot more than I did at SSU at least.. I am absolutely in love with Jodi Picoult, The Pact and 19 minutes are AMAZING, and right now I am reading a book called Columbine. It is about the Columbine school shooting, it is really interesting so far. I read 19 minutes when I first got here by Jodi Picolut about a school shooting, and it sparked my interest in stopping bullying and getting educated on the topic of bullying and school shooting, and I wrote a 20page paper on Bullying in America for my Social Issues class, which I found actually really enjoyable to write. Probably one of the best things I’ve ever done/assignment I’ve put the most work into. Anyways I saw Columbine in a book store when I was in Bots and got on my Kindle (thanks Grandma!) and I find it really interesting, to figure out what really happened…anyways, that’s something new I’m going to add to my blog, talk about the book I’m reading : ) soooo I don’t recommend Say You’re One of Them, the book that was from Oprah’s book club…just wasn’t a fan. And of course I recommend The Great Gatsby…it’s one of my favorite books, I love the wording and description he uses. : ) I’ve read some other books…but just wanted to mention the best and the worst.. ok that’s enough of Jennifer’s reading corner… : )
Okay my lovely blog readers…once again thank you for your time, I miss you all and love you all so much. See you all in 4ish/4 and a half months…I don’t know when I’m coming home yet…Sorry Ashie I know you want a date!!! I’ll be home sometime in Dec…that’s a good enough window of 31 days for me to get home : ) haha
Love LOVE loveeeee!!!!
Loyally,
JD
Saturday, August 7, 2010
BOTSWANA!
BOTSWANA!
Hello everyone…getting two blogs relatively close to each other?!…what’s going on right? Jen actually on top of her shit? Hahha just giving myself a hard time with my horrible lack of blogging… just kidding, I started writing this right when I got back from my trip..and not its been a month since ive been back…hah. Oh well. but I just have to write about Botswana!. We (Loretta, Bimmy, Kelleigh, Aisha) and I went on a trip to Botswana over our winter break. We were there for almost two weeks. Lots of driving was included, lots of music was played, lots of laughing with the girls, lots of pictures, and lots of good memories came form this trip.
The drive was super long we left around 3am and got across to the Botswana boarder around 4pm, and still had a couple of hours to drive to Gabrone where our first stop was. We were supposed to get this tiny tiny car..a yaris.. they have them in the states too, and everything is seriously 3X smaller here then the states…but Loretta and Kelleigh sweet talked the girl at the rental car place and we lucked out and she gave us a Toyota corolla. Thank god! I seriously don’t kno what we would have done with all our stuff in that small car. The corolla was super nice and like all the other cars we have rented we named her..her name was R.D. but the contents of what that actually means isn’t PG and acceptable for this blog..haha so I’ll just let all of your minds wonder..hah. She didn’t break down at all! Much better than our last car, Steamy! Well we actually got a flat tire in the middle of nowehere in Botswana..but Ill get to that later. We got really lucky on this trip and stayed with families/locals of Botswana. The first place we stayed was with Mike and his wife. We met Mike thru our friend KG at school. Loretta, Aisha, and I stayed with him and his wife and their baby at their flat. And Bim and Kelliegh stayed with Mike’s cousin, Patrick’s at his house, because of space. I find the African culture very interesting when it comes to women and male domination. When we met Mike’s wife he introduced he as his wife- and that was it. No name nothing, and she was very much pushed aside. That’s how it pretty much is everywhere, like if you have a boyfriend or a husband there is apart of you that loses your own identity and becomes apart of that person’s identity. I don’t its hard to explain.. and with everything I can’t generalize because it isn’t correct to label all women with that or generalize the continent of Africa as pushing aside their women. But to me it just seems like a lot of African women are standoffish and don’t have as much of their own individual voice. Maybe American women are generally more liberal with voicing them selves…and I am just not used to this..but once again I can’t generalize all American women. Also something that I thought was interesting… when we got to their house and settled in, she asked us if we had any children…we all obviously said no. She 25, and she was amazed that we didn’t have any children, and asked us why we didn’t… “Ohh I don’t know because we are 21 ..?” haha but obviously we weren’t rude or anything about it, every culture, every person is different. She just said that it’s easy having kids and as you get older it gets harder… so I guess maybe I should get on the bandwagon of having kids? Hhahahahaha that’s hysterical, I know my parents want grandbabies but that would be Brett’s job sooner than mine : ) just kidding B!!!
The next day after arriving we exchanged money, the money in Bots is called Pula.. its almost equivalent to rand but stronger but still less than the US dollar. And things were more expensive in Bots than they were in SA. It was funny for us to go to the grocery store and look at things in pula and say “oh my god this is so expensive!!!” we all agreed that we are screwed when we go back home and have to pay for things in American dollars, because we are used to things being so cheap in SA.
After exchanging money we ran some errands with Mike, he is in the military and he had to do some business so we went to the base there. We went to a few malls. He took us to a museum of the history and important things of Botswana. Nothing too exciting, just a chill day. Gabrone is one of the capital cities of Botswana and when we got there I wondered why, because it wasn’t anything too extravagant and it was not too big, but after going to all the other places I understood. Botswana isn’t a very populated country, most of the time we were driving in the middle of no where and rarely drove thru cities, and we drove thru the whole country all the way from SA up to Zimbabwe. After leaving Gabs we went to Francis Town, where we stayed with our friend K.G. at his house with his family. They live in a township and have no electricity…I thought it was going to be an interesting couple of days…but it was actually the best part of the trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was my favorite part of my whole African experience. I loved the township life, with no electricity, extremely friendly people, sitting around a fire, and just a carefree way of life. The first day we arrived we got to know the family and hung out. Right when we got there we got introduced to everyone and one of the neighbor ladies was over, she didn’t speak any English. She greeted us all and said something to Mama and Mama told us she was delighted to meet us and she was going to choose one of us to be her daughter in law. We all laughed and went on about our greetings. Like 15 minutes later she said something to me and obviously I was confused so I asked Mama what she said, and Mama told me she chose me as her daughter in law and that’s what she was calling me. Haha I was the chosen one! All weekend she called me her daughter in law and she would point things out about how I would be a good wife, for example the way I sat (haha i guess there is a way women should sit?), my height, me helping cook. It was funny, and don’t worry I met my husband, it was slightly awkward, the whole weekend ppl were saying your husband, in front of him too. He kept trying to talk to me, but I just made a big joke out of it. But at least I was approved to marry a Bots. man, in their culture you have to be approved by the family before you can get married…it is quite a long process and involves the whole family not just the parents, and labella needs to be paid, so look forward to that Mom, hopefully I’m worth lots of cows!! and by the end of these few days, I was married off a few times. Our dinner was traditional to Kalanga life (their tribe), traditionally you go around and wash everyone’s hands, starting with the elderly down to the youngest. I got to do that on most nights. Like pretty much everything that they do, the elderly always goes first, gets food first and you say hello to them first. Also with the cooking it wasn’t usually Mama it was usually her daughters..so you go from the age of your Mama cooking for you and learning, then you start helping when your young then eventually you take over and cook for your Mama and the family. So while we were there K.G.s sisters, Pinky, and Betty cooked. The food that night..like the rest of the weekend was amazing!
We all got Kalanga names from the family, mine was ‘Cheza’ which means ‘light’ or ‘sunlight’, funny how they give me that name when some people call me sunshine. Funny right? I became seriously obsessed with K.G.s mom who upon our arrival informed us to call her Mama, and she seriously did become our Mama, she is our Mother of Africa. She had such great stories and she was so insightful, I really admire her. That night we all just told stories and talked, I talked to them about sociology and our culture.
The second day we went to town to get meat for a braii, the town had a huge shopping center and like usual African fashion everyone was starring. It doesn’t even phase me anymore.
We were lucky enough to get to go to a wedding. I was so excited to go to a wedding because that was one of the things I wanted to experience while in Africa. We were really late and we only stayed like 25 minutes. We had to literally drive in the bush for an hour, like dirt roads, and in the middle of nowhere, we got lost numerous times. I had no idea what was going on the whole entire drive because the ladies were talking in their language, I was squished in the back with my mother in law and one of Mamas sisters or aunts.. I couldn’t keep track of all the ppl we met. When we finally got there, there was around 100 ppl there and we stuck out to say the least, we were the only white ppl there, and an asian and an African American..people were taking pictures of us. A girl came up to me and asked if she could have my face..and took a picture of my face. Hah. I wish I could have experienced the whole day of festivities, because we got there at the end, the traditionally everything starts early in the morning and goes all day. We saw a skit and they had traditionally made African beer. We got to go up to greet the bride and the groom. A lot of people came up to us to greet us. It was a really cool experience.
We had a braii that night with extremely yummy food. Since being in SA I have learned to love meat..I eat it so much more than I did at home. I pretty much eat anything now. At the braii there was a guy from the states there, he was from Utah and he was on his Mormon missions trip. It was nice to talk to someone from the States, and we asked him lots of questions about his Mission. Once again it was a really good night of conversation and sitting by the fire. This trip was amazing with the help we received from people. We didn’t have place to stay while we were in Kasane, and I was telling a lady this who I had just met and right then and there she pulls out her phone to call her friend to see if we could stay there, this happened numerous times through out the trip for people to help find somewhere to stay.
The next day we went to their cattlepost which is like a farm/ranch. They had cows, chickens, guinea pheasants, goats, and ducks. It was a really cool experience to see them farm and how they did everything, once again with out electricity and running water there. They branded the goats, Loretta even got in there and helped them. They also branded the cows, which I didn’t really like watching, but they would have to catch the cow and tie its legs together and get it on the ground and pierce it’s ear and brand it with burning brand. The cows were obviously extremely strong and it took like 15 minutes for each cow, and a lot of times they cows would get away and they would have to start over.
For lunch we had chicken…but chicken from the cattle post. So we saw the whole process of killing a chicken then plucking it then braiing it, then eating it. Aisha and the aunt caught the chickens, and Mama cut their heads off, and immediately put them in boiling water, then plucked off all the feathers, cleaned it, then started cooking it. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to eat it because we literally watched them die, but it was really good and didn’t freak me out. Kelleigh, Loretta, and I went on a walk with Mama to find some roots. It was so funny to watch this hard core lady in her dress and converse carrying a hoe and beating up the ground to find these roots. She would explain to us what each root meant and what it did. Mostly medical things, for example, cure the measles and fight heart burn was some of them we got. She let us have one of them, I don’t remember what it was for, but you are supposed to eat it just how it is from the ground, so you shouldn’t wipe the dirt off or anything. She was explaining how owning land works in Bots and I am still puzzled by it, but its pretty cool. People there can just go anywhere and find a piece of land and basically just claim it. You go to the government with the measurements of the land and its yours. You don’t pay anything for it. I was seriously baffled. Could you imagine Dad?! Not having to pay for land?! When land is so expensive in the states. I feel like in America people would get greedy and take so much land and it would create a conflict, but here it just shows that people only take what they need.
That night we hung out with Mama, Pinky, and Betty and talked. I love how the conversations here always have so much meaning and depth to them. Loretta did yoga with them, it was so cool to see this Mama just get up and not even know what yoga is and do yoga with all of us. One of my favorite things of the whole trip was this night. They started singing for us and we were all dancing in a circle. The girls and I did this song/dance that we do at Vukupille, called Sally Walker. They loved it! they would sing and teach us some of their native dances. It was under the stars by a fire in the middle of a township…it was seriously one of the best moments Ive ever had. Something like that would never happen in America, staying at a families house and we all break out in song and dance.. I don’t think so. People in America are too uptight and stressed out about everything. Mama was so so happy just as we were and even the next morning she couldn’t stop smiling and singing. In the morning I said good bye to my new mother in law, and she was genuinely sad to see me go..haha. it was really hard/ sad to say good bye to them, they truly became our family.
Our next stop was Kasane where we were staying so we could visit Victoria Falls. We didn’t have a place to stay there til like 12 hours before we got there, we weren’t too worried about it because things always work out, and we ended up finding a place. When we were in Gabs Kelleigh and Bim stayed with Mike’s cousin and his cousin Patrick had a friend in Kasane..so that’s where we stayed. It’s so funny cuz we stayed with a friend of a friend of a friend basically, but it wasn’t weird at all. All people in Africa make you feel really welcome in their home. On our drive to Kasane we saw sunflower field after sunflower field. Something I’ve always wanted to do is stop to take pictures in a field of sunflowers…all those drives up to Chico, I never stopped and I always wanted to. So I insisted we stop and get out so we can take pictures, it was so cool to be on the side of the road in Botswana taking pictures of my favorite flowers : ) another cool thing that happened while we were driving to Kasane was saw giraffes crossing the road, which was one of my goals of the trip to see them. We saw completely wild giraffes right there in front of our car! We finally arrived in Kasane and the man we were staying with was name K.B., he was a super nice guy. He worked for the Bots government and we all had some really intelligent conversations. He was beyond generous and basically gave us his whole house, and stayed at a friend’s house while we were there. One of the nights there he brought home a girl from South Carolina who just arrived in Bots for the peace corps. We all asked lots of questions because we were interested in the peace corps but didn’t know much about it. We went to dinner with K.B. and one of his friends from work. The whole time they were saying it was hard to understand us because we were American..We just talk fast! After we around to lodges to figure out how we were gonna get to Vic Falls, we couldn’t take our rental car into Zim, and with what lodge we were gonna do a game drive at Chobe National Park.
The next day we did our game drive at Chobe, our guide was really cool. I’ve gone on a few game drives since I’ve been here, but this was the first guided one I’ve been on. It was the whole 9 yards with the big open Safari car. We saw lots of giraffes (my new favorite), hippos, crocodiles, elephants, birds, buffalos, impala, kudu, warthogs, and maybe some other stuff I forgot. A fun fact I learned during the game drive was, elephants are pregnant for 22 months! Yikes! So at this point we still had no idea how we were going to get to Vic Falls. Kasane was only like 10K from the boarder but we weren’t allowed to take our car into Zim, and Vic Falls is like 45 mintues away from the boarder. When we were in Francis Town our new family told us we could hike..we were like oh you can hike?! How far of a walk is it!? haha but we are in africa and hike means hitchhike…haha I guess hitchhiking it REALLY common in Bots/Zim and it is fairly safe. We weren’t really down to hike, and I knew my mother would kill me if I was hitchhiking in Zimbabwe with 4 other girls…your welcome mom! So anyways after we went to Chobe we went to an internet café b/c our grades had been posted! I got good grades! Woot! Woot! I don’t know if I told you yet dad…but I got good grades! 4 distinctions which is higher than an A in the states and I got good grades in my two other classes, not quite distinctions but good for the hard classes. So kelleigh was at an café getting coffee and she stated talking to the owners and after awhile of talking the owners suggested we get a taxi from the boarder and hooked us up with a taxi driver they knew and settled it for us. Its so funny how things just work out.. so we finally had transport to Vic Falls! So the next day we set of to see one of the Wonders of the World. we left our car at the boarder and walked across to Zimbabwe. It was SO weird to see US dollars, (they use US dollars there). Vic Falls was AMAZING! The mist made it rather hard to see, but it was seriously breathtaking. I got absolutely soaked because everyone else has ponchos that a stranger handed them/rain jackets. I didn’t believe everyone when they said you get wet, but god damn…you get wet, it looked like I jumped in a pool. Zim seemed really cool, I was a little sketched out because so many ppl have told us horror stories and told us to be careful going there, but we didn’t stay for long, I wish we had. We walked over to Zambia and the girls went zip lining from Zambia to Zim. The view was really pretty over there from the bridge.
We made it back to the boarder and that night we cooked K.B. dinner. We left in the morning but not before K.B giving us all really nice individual letters; mine said:
“Jen- There is a serene calmness around you.. Kinda ‘peace halo’ surrounding you. I enjoyed watching the peaceful you glide around my kitchen, in ‘control’ of your life and everything else. You brought peace to my home.”
He was a really nice guy. We all got in the car and read ours out loud. He gave us a really nice speech about Ubuntu. Which is about community and sharing with everyone, he said it was really important to him to open his home to us and for us to feel welcomed. And we did. I’m really glad we stayed there, once again a local making our trip above and beyond what I thought it could be.
After leaving Kasane we headed to Maun. After getting a little lost we finally found our backpackers…we didn’t even have a map of Botswana, we kinda just drove and hoped we ended up where we were supposed to, which was fine, because Botswana is very bare to say the least, so there aren’t many roads. This was the first backpackers we stayed at on our whole trip, and we were over half way done with our trip! We saved SO much money staying at people’s houses because backpackers were really expensive in Bots. We were given tents and bedding in the tents so it was a little cheaper than staying in the dorms but it was 190P for two nights, which is equivalent to 235R, which is equal to like 32 US dollars. Which doesn’t seem expensive at all, but in SA camping is usually around 50 or 60R a night not 120R! that’s expensive for a dorm in SA! Anyways.. we didn’t do much in Maun, hung out mostly, I ended up talking to this cool guy from AU that night who had been traveling for 3 years and he hadn’t been home at all, if I remember correctly he had been to every continent but two! And he was my age! Most other countries do this thing called gap year, where after they graduate HS they take a year off and work or travel mostly, ive talked to a lot of people since being here that are doing that, most people from other countries find it weird Americans don’t do they. They always ask “how are you supposed to know what you want to do at age 18 when you haven’t traveled and had real world experiences?” hah welp..I don’t know… study abroad I guess?
Anyways… I have a story now… that night after everyone went to bed, we were all sleeping and I was probably sleeping for about 30 minutes.. and then I woke up to someone unzipping my tent and coming in our tent (Loretta and I were sleeping together). I was SO confused about what was going on…some guy was getting in the tent and started to lay down..all he kept saying was “shhhhh its okay, shhhhh its ok, Im just going to sleep.” Of course he was wasted. And of course Loretta was still sleeping and didn’t wake up, and I was just sitting there saying excuse me, you cant be in here, this isn’t your tent! He just kept saying shhh shhhh over and over… thankfully some other people we were talking to earlier in the night saw him get in and wake up the other girls to help get him out. The whole time I was just so confused and flustered and kept telling him he had to get out. Then I screamed for Kelleigh, who came and yelled at him and literally hit him to get out of our tent. Hahah Kelleigh to save the day again (she saved us in CT when some guys were being creepy and she pretty much bitched them out). We told the security guy and he said there was nothing he could do, and he wouldn’t pay special attention to our area….typical Africa. Lets just say I didn’t sleep well that night. Hahahha it was funny what happened and i didn’t feel threaten but I know my mom is reading this right now freaking out, because I haven’t told her this story, and she is saying “you trust ppl too easiler, stand up for yourself!!” haha I knoooooow mom! I probably should have handled the situation a little different than saying politely “excuse me sir you cant sleep in here” hahah but oh well you live and you learn right? : ) so that’s my ridiculous story about the guy who tried to sleep in my tent.
The next day was our trip on the Ocavango Delta in the little boats. It was a really cool experience and a really long day. We left at 8am and got back around 5. I was in a boat with Bimmy, and it was a little scary at first because of the way in rocked, but we got used to it. it was insanely pretty and so serene. I LOVED the lillie pads and flowers. We were seriously in the middle of no where, and all we could see was the delta and water, and plants. The only downside was the amount of bugs! Im not really a girly girl when it comes to bugs, I was always the girl that killed the spiders at Anson…right pi palace girls?! : ) but seriously I have never seen this many bugs in my whole life. they were little nats and would land on you and not live and it was impossible to wipe them off because you would squish them and they would die on you, and all the guts would stay on you. Bim was miserable haha, I pretty much laughed at her the whole time :) looooove you bimmy! It was really relaxing besides the bugs. We saw some elephants and went on a ridiculously long walk on an island, looking at animal poop and identifying the animal. Haha it was a little dragged on. Overall it was really good though, on the way back bimmy and I had a really good talk about lots of stuff, I adore her : )
After leaving Maun we went back to Francis Town and stayed with Mama again, we just didn’t get enough of them the first time : ) before getting there we got a flat tire though, in the middle of nowhere in Botswana with 5 girls who have never changed a tire before… it ended up working out though and someone helped us. When we finally got to mama’s house I went to the shop with her. Its really interesting to be in the setting of where they live, because they aren’t used to seeing white people there. It’s almost like you’re a celebrity. People ask mama to be introduced to me, and everyone comes up to talk to me. I got proposed to literally 5 times. And of course Mama didn’t make it any better, she was literally like my real mom, showing me off, introducing me with my Kalanga name and inviting the guys over for a braii later to talk to me. hah. So many people asked for my phone number and my email hah. Its kinda overwhelming all the attention you get, blending in isn’t possible. When you say hello to people and give them attention they uncontrollably smile and are so happy. Its so interesting the dynamic of it. it just shows the culture of Africa and the severe separation. Going to Francis Town made me think so much, and wonder if life will ever change. Will there ever be equality and tolerance? It’s like these people aren’t tolerating tho, they just hold me and other white people to a different standard when we are equal, and just the same. But on the other hand… maybe that is just apart of me, being naïve, many of these people will never leave Francis Town or where they live, but they know no better, and ignorance is bliss, and there really is nothing wrong with their way of life, part of my likes it better. Just the whole fact of me being me and being from America, they are just so amazed, but they are truly amazing people too, more amazing than a lot of people I have encountered in the states. I just wish they would see and recognize that they are truly unique and beautiful people and not hold us on a pedestal, because I don’t know if we deserve it. We just have different lives.
That night we ate again, amazing food. Kelleigh and I helped cook and after dinner we made bread on the fire. When I get home to the states, I want to cook things that I’ve had here, and one of those things is fat cake! I love fat cake, it’s this kind of bread and its amazing! We left in the morning not before many more sad good byes, we all really took a liking to their family. Grandpa said some really nice words to us, which is kind of a big deal to have an elder say something to us, K.G. translated what he said, but he just said that he was happy to have good people to be with K.G. at school and other things like that. We finally got back into SA and were headed for Kimberly. Being gone from SA and coming back to it, made me realize how much I love it, I missed it while I was gone and we were only gone less than two weeks. Makes me realize how much ill miss it when I’m gone and how hard it will be to leave. I’ll miss the simplicity of life, the non popular status, and the beautiful people. Its interesting to think about how I have two completely different lives, and I absolutely love both of them, I just hope I can bring apart of my African life with me back to the States. Sometimes its hard to not want to fast forward and be home to see how everything goes, and see how Ill pick up that life, and I think of home constantly but I have 4 months left here and I know I need to focus on my life here, because when I got home, ill be thinking about my life when I was here, just like now I think of my life at home. You always want what you cant have right? : )
In Kimberly which is a historic town in SA, we went to ‘The Big Hole’ which is the largest human made hole in the world… it is a diamond mine, it was interesting to see, I wish they would have had a more clever name than big hole…but nonetheless ive seen the largest man made hole in the world! whoo! After the hole we started on our long drive home. We finally made it, and it was nice to be back at home. The trip was really good, I love Botswana, the people really made the trip for me. The girls I went with made the trip too. I really love those girls, they are all individually amazing and all mean a lot to me. We all get along really well and we all bring a different dynamic to the group. I can honestly say without them, my African experience would be a lot different, it wouldn’t mean as much to me, they make this experience and I am so thankful for them.
Alright! There is my Botswana blog, hope you enjoyed it, I’m sorry it’s so long, I like to write pretty much every detail… hah. Atleast you know, almost, everything right?! Thanks for reading, it means a lot when people read this cuz I spend a lot of time on it. Much love and I will write soon(ish) (maybe?) hahah. Blogging isn’t my forte! I’m sorry!
LOVE you all xoxoxo
Loyally,
Cheza
Hello everyone…getting two blogs relatively close to each other?!…what’s going on right? Jen actually on top of her shit? Hahha just giving myself a hard time with my horrible lack of blogging… just kidding, I started writing this right when I got back from my trip..and not its been a month since ive been back…hah. Oh well. but I just have to write about Botswana!. We (Loretta, Bimmy, Kelleigh, Aisha) and I went on a trip to Botswana over our winter break. We were there for almost two weeks. Lots of driving was included, lots of music was played, lots of laughing with the girls, lots of pictures, and lots of good memories came form this trip.
The drive was super long we left around 3am and got across to the Botswana boarder around 4pm, and still had a couple of hours to drive to Gabrone where our first stop was. We were supposed to get this tiny tiny car..a yaris.. they have them in the states too, and everything is seriously 3X smaller here then the states…but Loretta and Kelleigh sweet talked the girl at the rental car place and we lucked out and she gave us a Toyota corolla. Thank god! I seriously don’t kno what we would have done with all our stuff in that small car. The corolla was super nice and like all the other cars we have rented we named her..her name was R.D. but the contents of what that actually means isn’t PG and acceptable for this blog..haha so I’ll just let all of your minds wonder..hah. She didn’t break down at all! Much better than our last car, Steamy! Well we actually got a flat tire in the middle of nowehere in Botswana..but Ill get to that later. We got really lucky on this trip and stayed with families/locals of Botswana. The first place we stayed was with Mike and his wife. We met Mike thru our friend KG at school. Loretta, Aisha, and I stayed with him and his wife and their baby at their flat. And Bim and Kelliegh stayed with Mike’s cousin, Patrick’s at his house, because of space. I find the African culture very interesting when it comes to women and male domination. When we met Mike’s wife he introduced he as his wife- and that was it. No name nothing, and she was very much pushed aside. That’s how it pretty much is everywhere, like if you have a boyfriend or a husband there is apart of you that loses your own identity and becomes apart of that person’s identity. I don’t its hard to explain.. and with everything I can’t generalize because it isn’t correct to label all women with that or generalize the continent of Africa as pushing aside their women. But to me it just seems like a lot of African women are standoffish and don’t have as much of their own individual voice. Maybe American women are generally more liberal with voicing them selves…and I am just not used to this..but once again I can’t generalize all American women. Also something that I thought was interesting… when we got to their house and settled in, she asked us if we had any children…we all obviously said no. She 25, and she was amazed that we didn’t have any children, and asked us why we didn’t… “Ohh I don’t know because we are 21 ..?” haha but obviously we weren’t rude or anything about it, every culture, every person is different. She just said that it’s easy having kids and as you get older it gets harder… so I guess maybe I should get on the bandwagon of having kids? Hhahahahaha that’s hysterical, I know my parents want grandbabies but that would be Brett’s job sooner than mine : ) just kidding B!!!
The next day after arriving we exchanged money, the money in Bots is called Pula.. its almost equivalent to rand but stronger but still less than the US dollar. And things were more expensive in Bots than they were in SA. It was funny for us to go to the grocery store and look at things in pula and say “oh my god this is so expensive!!!” we all agreed that we are screwed when we go back home and have to pay for things in American dollars, because we are used to things being so cheap in SA.
After exchanging money we ran some errands with Mike, he is in the military and he had to do some business so we went to the base there. We went to a few malls. He took us to a museum of the history and important things of Botswana. Nothing too exciting, just a chill day. Gabrone is one of the capital cities of Botswana and when we got there I wondered why, because it wasn’t anything too extravagant and it was not too big, but after going to all the other places I understood. Botswana isn’t a very populated country, most of the time we were driving in the middle of no where and rarely drove thru cities, and we drove thru the whole country all the way from SA up to Zimbabwe. After leaving Gabs we went to Francis Town, where we stayed with our friend K.G. at his house with his family. They live in a township and have no electricity…I thought it was going to be an interesting couple of days…but it was actually the best part of the trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was my favorite part of my whole African experience. I loved the township life, with no electricity, extremely friendly people, sitting around a fire, and just a carefree way of life. The first day we arrived we got to know the family and hung out. Right when we got there we got introduced to everyone and one of the neighbor ladies was over, she didn’t speak any English. She greeted us all and said something to Mama and Mama told us she was delighted to meet us and she was going to choose one of us to be her daughter in law. We all laughed and went on about our greetings. Like 15 minutes later she said something to me and obviously I was confused so I asked Mama what she said, and Mama told me she chose me as her daughter in law and that’s what she was calling me. Haha I was the chosen one! All weekend she called me her daughter in law and she would point things out about how I would be a good wife, for example the way I sat (haha i guess there is a way women should sit?), my height, me helping cook. It was funny, and don’t worry I met my husband, it was slightly awkward, the whole weekend ppl were saying your husband, in front of him too. He kept trying to talk to me, but I just made a big joke out of it. But at least I was approved to marry a Bots. man, in their culture you have to be approved by the family before you can get married…it is quite a long process and involves the whole family not just the parents, and labella needs to be paid, so look forward to that Mom, hopefully I’m worth lots of cows!! and by the end of these few days, I was married off a few times. Our dinner was traditional to Kalanga life (their tribe), traditionally you go around and wash everyone’s hands, starting with the elderly down to the youngest. I got to do that on most nights. Like pretty much everything that they do, the elderly always goes first, gets food first and you say hello to them first. Also with the cooking it wasn’t usually Mama it was usually her daughters..so you go from the age of your Mama cooking for you and learning, then you start helping when your young then eventually you take over and cook for your Mama and the family. So while we were there K.G.s sisters, Pinky, and Betty cooked. The food that night..like the rest of the weekend was amazing!
We all got Kalanga names from the family, mine was ‘Cheza’ which means ‘light’ or ‘sunlight’, funny how they give me that name when some people call me sunshine. Funny right? I became seriously obsessed with K.G.s mom who upon our arrival informed us to call her Mama, and she seriously did become our Mama, she is our Mother of Africa. She had such great stories and she was so insightful, I really admire her. That night we all just told stories and talked, I talked to them about sociology and our culture.
The second day we went to town to get meat for a braii, the town had a huge shopping center and like usual African fashion everyone was starring. It doesn’t even phase me anymore.
We were lucky enough to get to go to a wedding. I was so excited to go to a wedding because that was one of the things I wanted to experience while in Africa. We were really late and we only stayed like 25 minutes. We had to literally drive in the bush for an hour, like dirt roads, and in the middle of nowhere, we got lost numerous times. I had no idea what was going on the whole entire drive because the ladies were talking in their language, I was squished in the back with my mother in law and one of Mamas sisters or aunts.. I couldn’t keep track of all the ppl we met. When we finally got there, there was around 100 ppl there and we stuck out to say the least, we were the only white ppl there, and an asian and an African American..people were taking pictures of us. A girl came up to me and asked if she could have my face..and took a picture of my face. Hah. I wish I could have experienced the whole day of festivities, because we got there at the end, the traditionally everything starts early in the morning and goes all day. We saw a skit and they had traditionally made African beer. We got to go up to greet the bride and the groom. A lot of people came up to us to greet us. It was a really cool experience.
We had a braii that night with extremely yummy food. Since being in SA I have learned to love meat..I eat it so much more than I did at home. I pretty much eat anything now. At the braii there was a guy from the states there, he was from Utah and he was on his Mormon missions trip. It was nice to talk to someone from the States, and we asked him lots of questions about his Mission. Once again it was a really good night of conversation and sitting by the fire. This trip was amazing with the help we received from people. We didn’t have place to stay while we were in Kasane, and I was telling a lady this who I had just met and right then and there she pulls out her phone to call her friend to see if we could stay there, this happened numerous times through out the trip for people to help find somewhere to stay.
The next day we went to their cattlepost which is like a farm/ranch. They had cows, chickens, guinea pheasants, goats, and ducks. It was a really cool experience to see them farm and how they did everything, once again with out electricity and running water there. They branded the goats, Loretta even got in there and helped them. They also branded the cows, which I didn’t really like watching, but they would have to catch the cow and tie its legs together and get it on the ground and pierce it’s ear and brand it with burning brand. The cows were obviously extremely strong and it took like 15 minutes for each cow, and a lot of times they cows would get away and they would have to start over.
For lunch we had chicken…but chicken from the cattle post. So we saw the whole process of killing a chicken then plucking it then braiing it, then eating it. Aisha and the aunt caught the chickens, and Mama cut their heads off, and immediately put them in boiling water, then plucked off all the feathers, cleaned it, then started cooking it. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to eat it because we literally watched them die, but it was really good and didn’t freak me out. Kelleigh, Loretta, and I went on a walk with Mama to find some roots. It was so funny to watch this hard core lady in her dress and converse carrying a hoe and beating up the ground to find these roots. She would explain to us what each root meant and what it did. Mostly medical things, for example, cure the measles and fight heart burn was some of them we got. She let us have one of them, I don’t remember what it was for, but you are supposed to eat it just how it is from the ground, so you shouldn’t wipe the dirt off or anything. She was explaining how owning land works in Bots and I am still puzzled by it, but its pretty cool. People there can just go anywhere and find a piece of land and basically just claim it. You go to the government with the measurements of the land and its yours. You don’t pay anything for it. I was seriously baffled. Could you imagine Dad?! Not having to pay for land?! When land is so expensive in the states. I feel like in America people would get greedy and take so much land and it would create a conflict, but here it just shows that people only take what they need.
That night we hung out with Mama, Pinky, and Betty and talked. I love how the conversations here always have so much meaning and depth to them. Loretta did yoga with them, it was so cool to see this Mama just get up and not even know what yoga is and do yoga with all of us. One of my favorite things of the whole trip was this night. They started singing for us and we were all dancing in a circle. The girls and I did this song/dance that we do at Vukupille, called Sally Walker. They loved it! they would sing and teach us some of their native dances. It was under the stars by a fire in the middle of a township…it was seriously one of the best moments Ive ever had. Something like that would never happen in America, staying at a families house and we all break out in song and dance.. I don’t think so. People in America are too uptight and stressed out about everything. Mama was so so happy just as we were and even the next morning she couldn’t stop smiling and singing. In the morning I said good bye to my new mother in law, and she was genuinely sad to see me go..haha. it was really hard/ sad to say good bye to them, they truly became our family.
Our next stop was Kasane where we were staying so we could visit Victoria Falls. We didn’t have a place to stay there til like 12 hours before we got there, we weren’t too worried about it because things always work out, and we ended up finding a place. When we were in Gabs Kelleigh and Bim stayed with Mike’s cousin and his cousin Patrick had a friend in Kasane..so that’s where we stayed. It’s so funny cuz we stayed with a friend of a friend of a friend basically, but it wasn’t weird at all. All people in Africa make you feel really welcome in their home. On our drive to Kasane we saw sunflower field after sunflower field. Something I’ve always wanted to do is stop to take pictures in a field of sunflowers…all those drives up to Chico, I never stopped and I always wanted to. So I insisted we stop and get out so we can take pictures, it was so cool to be on the side of the road in Botswana taking pictures of my favorite flowers : ) another cool thing that happened while we were driving to Kasane was saw giraffes crossing the road, which was one of my goals of the trip to see them. We saw completely wild giraffes right there in front of our car! We finally arrived in Kasane and the man we were staying with was name K.B., he was a super nice guy. He worked for the Bots government and we all had some really intelligent conversations. He was beyond generous and basically gave us his whole house, and stayed at a friend’s house while we were there. One of the nights there he brought home a girl from South Carolina who just arrived in Bots for the peace corps. We all asked lots of questions because we were interested in the peace corps but didn’t know much about it. We went to dinner with K.B. and one of his friends from work. The whole time they were saying it was hard to understand us because we were American..We just talk fast! After we around to lodges to figure out how we were gonna get to Vic Falls, we couldn’t take our rental car into Zim, and with what lodge we were gonna do a game drive at Chobe National Park.
The next day we did our game drive at Chobe, our guide was really cool. I’ve gone on a few game drives since I’ve been here, but this was the first guided one I’ve been on. It was the whole 9 yards with the big open Safari car. We saw lots of giraffes (my new favorite), hippos, crocodiles, elephants, birds, buffalos, impala, kudu, warthogs, and maybe some other stuff I forgot. A fun fact I learned during the game drive was, elephants are pregnant for 22 months! Yikes! So at this point we still had no idea how we were going to get to Vic Falls. Kasane was only like 10K from the boarder but we weren’t allowed to take our car into Zim, and Vic Falls is like 45 mintues away from the boarder. When we were in Francis Town our new family told us we could hike..we were like oh you can hike?! How far of a walk is it!? haha but we are in africa and hike means hitchhike…haha I guess hitchhiking it REALLY common in Bots/Zim and it is fairly safe. We weren’t really down to hike, and I knew my mother would kill me if I was hitchhiking in Zimbabwe with 4 other girls…your welcome mom! So anyways after we went to Chobe we went to an internet café b/c our grades had been posted! I got good grades! Woot! Woot! I don’t know if I told you yet dad…but I got good grades! 4 distinctions which is higher than an A in the states and I got good grades in my two other classes, not quite distinctions but good for the hard classes. So kelleigh was at an café getting coffee and she stated talking to the owners and after awhile of talking the owners suggested we get a taxi from the boarder and hooked us up with a taxi driver they knew and settled it for us. Its so funny how things just work out.. so we finally had transport to Vic Falls! So the next day we set of to see one of the Wonders of the World. we left our car at the boarder and walked across to Zimbabwe. It was SO weird to see US dollars, (they use US dollars there). Vic Falls was AMAZING! The mist made it rather hard to see, but it was seriously breathtaking. I got absolutely soaked because everyone else has ponchos that a stranger handed them/rain jackets. I didn’t believe everyone when they said you get wet, but god damn…you get wet, it looked like I jumped in a pool. Zim seemed really cool, I was a little sketched out because so many ppl have told us horror stories and told us to be careful going there, but we didn’t stay for long, I wish we had. We walked over to Zambia and the girls went zip lining from Zambia to Zim. The view was really pretty over there from the bridge.
We made it back to the boarder and that night we cooked K.B. dinner. We left in the morning but not before K.B giving us all really nice individual letters; mine said:
“Jen- There is a serene calmness around you.. Kinda ‘peace halo’ surrounding you. I enjoyed watching the peaceful you glide around my kitchen, in ‘control’ of your life and everything else. You brought peace to my home.”
He was a really nice guy. We all got in the car and read ours out loud. He gave us a really nice speech about Ubuntu. Which is about community and sharing with everyone, he said it was really important to him to open his home to us and for us to feel welcomed. And we did. I’m really glad we stayed there, once again a local making our trip above and beyond what I thought it could be.
After leaving Kasane we headed to Maun. After getting a little lost we finally found our backpackers…we didn’t even have a map of Botswana, we kinda just drove and hoped we ended up where we were supposed to, which was fine, because Botswana is very bare to say the least, so there aren’t many roads. This was the first backpackers we stayed at on our whole trip, and we were over half way done with our trip! We saved SO much money staying at people’s houses because backpackers were really expensive in Bots. We were given tents and bedding in the tents so it was a little cheaper than staying in the dorms but it was 190P for two nights, which is equivalent to 235R, which is equal to like 32 US dollars. Which doesn’t seem expensive at all, but in SA camping is usually around 50 or 60R a night not 120R! that’s expensive for a dorm in SA! Anyways.. we didn’t do much in Maun, hung out mostly, I ended up talking to this cool guy from AU that night who had been traveling for 3 years and he hadn’t been home at all, if I remember correctly he had been to every continent but two! And he was my age! Most other countries do this thing called gap year, where after they graduate HS they take a year off and work or travel mostly, ive talked to a lot of people since being here that are doing that, most people from other countries find it weird Americans don’t do they. They always ask “how are you supposed to know what you want to do at age 18 when you haven’t traveled and had real world experiences?” hah welp..I don’t know… study abroad I guess?
Anyways… I have a story now… that night after everyone went to bed, we were all sleeping and I was probably sleeping for about 30 minutes.. and then I woke up to someone unzipping my tent and coming in our tent (Loretta and I were sleeping together). I was SO confused about what was going on…some guy was getting in the tent and started to lay down..all he kept saying was “shhhhh its okay, shhhhh its ok, Im just going to sleep.” Of course he was wasted. And of course Loretta was still sleeping and didn’t wake up, and I was just sitting there saying excuse me, you cant be in here, this isn’t your tent! He just kept saying shhh shhhh over and over… thankfully some other people we were talking to earlier in the night saw him get in and wake up the other girls to help get him out. The whole time I was just so confused and flustered and kept telling him he had to get out. Then I screamed for Kelleigh, who came and yelled at him and literally hit him to get out of our tent. Hahah Kelleigh to save the day again (she saved us in CT when some guys were being creepy and she pretty much bitched them out). We told the security guy and he said there was nothing he could do, and he wouldn’t pay special attention to our area….typical Africa. Lets just say I didn’t sleep well that night. Hahahha it was funny what happened and i didn’t feel threaten but I know my mom is reading this right now freaking out, because I haven’t told her this story, and she is saying “you trust ppl too easiler, stand up for yourself!!” haha I knoooooow mom! I probably should have handled the situation a little different than saying politely “excuse me sir you cant sleep in here” hahah but oh well you live and you learn right? : ) so that’s my ridiculous story about the guy who tried to sleep in my tent.
The next day was our trip on the Ocavango Delta in the little boats. It was a really cool experience and a really long day. We left at 8am and got back around 5. I was in a boat with Bimmy, and it was a little scary at first because of the way in rocked, but we got used to it. it was insanely pretty and so serene. I LOVED the lillie pads and flowers. We were seriously in the middle of no where, and all we could see was the delta and water, and plants. The only downside was the amount of bugs! Im not really a girly girl when it comes to bugs, I was always the girl that killed the spiders at Anson…right pi palace girls?! : ) but seriously I have never seen this many bugs in my whole life. they were little nats and would land on you and not live and it was impossible to wipe them off because you would squish them and they would die on you, and all the guts would stay on you. Bim was miserable haha, I pretty much laughed at her the whole time :) looooove you bimmy! It was really relaxing besides the bugs. We saw some elephants and went on a ridiculously long walk on an island, looking at animal poop and identifying the animal. Haha it was a little dragged on. Overall it was really good though, on the way back bimmy and I had a really good talk about lots of stuff, I adore her : )
After leaving Maun we went back to Francis Town and stayed with Mama again, we just didn’t get enough of them the first time : ) before getting there we got a flat tire though, in the middle of nowhere in Botswana with 5 girls who have never changed a tire before… it ended up working out though and someone helped us. When we finally got to mama’s house I went to the shop with her. Its really interesting to be in the setting of where they live, because they aren’t used to seeing white people there. It’s almost like you’re a celebrity. People ask mama to be introduced to me, and everyone comes up to talk to me. I got proposed to literally 5 times. And of course Mama didn’t make it any better, she was literally like my real mom, showing me off, introducing me with my Kalanga name and inviting the guys over for a braii later to talk to me. hah. So many people asked for my phone number and my email hah. Its kinda overwhelming all the attention you get, blending in isn’t possible. When you say hello to people and give them attention they uncontrollably smile and are so happy. Its so interesting the dynamic of it. it just shows the culture of Africa and the severe separation. Going to Francis Town made me think so much, and wonder if life will ever change. Will there ever be equality and tolerance? It’s like these people aren’t tolerating tho, they just hold me and other white people to a different standard when we are equal, and just the same. But on the other hand… maybe that is just apart of me, being naïve, many of these people will never leave Francis Town or where they live, but they know no better, and ignorance is bliss, and there really is nothing wrong with their way of life, part of my likes it better. Just the whole fact of me being me and being from America, they are just so amazed, but they are truly amazing people too, more amazing than a lot of people I have encountered in the states. I just wish they would see and recognize that they are truly unique and beautiful people and not hold us on a pedestal, because I don’t know if we deserve it. We just have different lives.
That night we ate again, amazing food. Kelleigh and I helped cook and after dinner we made bread on the fire. When I get home to the states, I want to cook things that I’ve had here, and one of those things is fat cake! I love fat cake, it’s this kind of bread and its amazing! We left in the morning not before many more sad good byes, we all really took a liking to their family. Grandpa said some really nice words to us, which is kind of a big deal to have an elder say something to us, K.G. translated what he said, but he just said that he was happy to have good people to be with K.G. at school and other things like that. We finally got back into SA and were headed for Kimberly. Being gone from SA and coming back to it, made me realize how much I love it, I missed it while I was gone and we were only gone less than two weeks. Makes me realize how much ill miss it when I’m gone and how hard it will be to leave. I’ll miss the simplicity of life, the non popular status, and the beautiful people. Its interesting to think about how I have two completely different lives, and I absolutely love both of them, I just hope I can bring apart of my African life with me back to the States. Sometimes its hard to not want to fast forward and be home to see how everything goes, and see how Ill pick up that life, and I think of home constantly but I have 4 months left here and I know I need to focus on my life here, because when I got home, ill be thinking about my life when I was here, just like now I think of my life at home. You always want what you cant have right? : )
In Kimberly which is a historic town in SA, we went to ‘The Big Hole’ which is the largest human made hole in the world… it is a diamond mine, it was interesting to see, I wish they would have had a more clever name than big hole…but nonetheless ive seen the largest man made hole in the world! whoo! After the hole we started on our long drive home. We finally made it, and it was nice to be back at home. The trip was really good, I love Botswana, the people really made the trip for me. The girls I went with made the trip too. I really love those girls, they are all individually amazing and all mean a lot to me. We all get along really well and we all bring a different dynamic to the group. I can honestly say without them, my African experience would be a lot different, it wouldn’t mean as much to me, they make this experience and I am so thankful for them.
Alright! There is my Botswana blog, hope you enjoyed it, I’m sorry it’s so long, I like to write pretty much every detail… hah. Atleast you know, almost, everything right?! Thanks for reading, it means a lot when people read this cuz I spend a lot of time on it. Much love and I will write soon(ish) (maybe?) hahah. Blogging isn’t my forte! I’m sorry!
LOVE you all xoxoxo
Loyally,
Cheza
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