Missing Mochudi

Living in Botswana, I have continually been surprised by how quickly people can adapt to situations and habits previously unfamiliar. I was convinced the bugs in the shower and the locks at UB would inconvenience me forever, until I stopped noticing them. Likewise, I would not have predicted how quickly I would have adapted to living in Mochudi with a Batswana family, until it’s over and I find myself wishing I had a six a.m. bus to catch from the village to UB tomorrow.

To pick up where I left off, the rest of the school week went well with only one bus mishap in which I saw my morning ride pulling away while I was still several meters from the stop. Luckily, Batswana bus drivers as a whole are pretty willing to pause if it means picking up another passenger, so after several seconds of me madly running down the street, arms flailing, I was allowed on and we continued on our merry way. Generally speaking I’d get home just in time for dinner, which we ate outside under the very bright (no light pollution) stars before either playing cards or simply enjoying the balmy night air. Despite a great deal of surprise at my vegetarianism, my mother continued to do an outstanding job of accommodating my eating habits. Setswana food translates rather well to vegetarianism, particularly for a cattle country.

Some delicious dishes! (white stuff is pap, sticky mealie stuff that's sort of like mashed potatoes)

Sour pap! Then the orange stuff is just called "soup" and the green is "morogo"-a spinach thing

My oldest brother, Mmpho, who I thought would be rather inconsistent in his presence, turned out to be around all the time so I got to talk to him as well. One of the things that makes Mochudi one of the more traditional villages in Botswana is that it recently brought back bogwere and bojale—traditional rites of passage from childhood to adulthood (it was banned by colonialists). For these initiations, boys and girls go off to “the bush” in separate groups for two months. In the past, there was a certain age at which you leave to do bogwere or bojale, but as it had been banned, it’s now open to anyone so that many older men and women who missed their chance earlier in life have gone back to do it. Mmpho was part of a group last year and he brought out some of the traditional items you get for completing bogwere.

An impala skin and a staff with feathers.

This weekend I also had a chance to take better pictures of where I was living (during the week I got home around sunset so most of the pictures were too dark). So hopefully these give a feeling for what the Sebolawe house is like!

Some of our noisy chickens!

Our bathhouse and toilet (left and right respectively). To my delight, I only added Ginny (another cockroach) to my Weasley family, and Percy did not make reappearance!

A final shot of the front of my house! While I was there, Mmpho paved the front in a single day.

On Saturday morning, I rose at 5:30 again to go to another funeral. From what I could tell there are a fair number of funerals in Mochudi (this one was for a 97 (!) year old woman). I think that it’s because so many people attend each funeral that they aren’t really quiet, private affairs. The service was organized the same way the last one was, despite the families being from different churches, and after the morning food the ends the funeral my mom and I went to visit one of her friends. While her friend was grabbing us tea my mother – who proved to be more devilish than I originally thought – urged me to climb her friend’s tree. So I did, skirt and all!

I’m wearing the traditional wrap on the head and around the shoulders because we just came from the funeral.

My mom walking back from the funeral. These yellow flowers are everywhere in Botswana! I have the sneaking suspicion that they’re the equivalent of dandelions, but they’re so pretty I don’t care.

After spending some time with my mom’s friend, we went to visit Tsholofelo (correct spelling) and her family, who had opted out of the funeral in favor of some quality sleeping in. Hopefully she can give you a more detailed description about her family and home stay, but here are a few pictures to introduce you!

Her family is a bit larger than mine with three sisters and her mom as well as a fair number of visitors. The youngest sister is a real character – as these photos demonstrate!

We have about five group shots, all with little Taboka doing something crazy!

I stayed with Ani for the afternoon where we relaxed outside (a well-honed Mochudi pastime where, in the absence of AC, it’s much cooler to sit under a tree than under a roof) before we headed back to my house for dinner. In a community that’s so interconnected, there seems to be a sort of rotating daycare policy, where if someone else’s children arrive at your house you keep track of them until they go to someone else’s place. Thus Ani and I were seamlessly fitted into the rotation. Once back at my house, we engaged in some ridiculous picture taking with my siblings – Banyana and Moloki.

Modeling Ani and my sunglasses (not many people wear these in Mochudi)

Ani and Banyana being ridiculous

Moloki showing off his wink (he’ll be trouble in a couple years! :D)

After watching the Mochudi Chiefs crush another team in football at UB’s stadium on TV, Ani went home and my sister braided my hair. She had ambitions to do my whole head (I explained this might take too long) and didn’t really get that my hair wasn’t going to hold the braids once I went to sleep, but we got a fair few in before bedtime. The next morning we were scheduled for another funeral, but the general consensus was that we’d gotten up at 5:30 enough, so we slept in instead. The next morning, Ani and I, along with our sisters, braved the Mochudi combis to go shopping because Ani was designated the task of making lunch for her family. Then Banyana and I went with one of her neighbor friends to visit the friend’s school. (I don’t know her name because her family just called her “the fat one” to me – in Botswana, this is not an insult, but a compliment!) Unbeknownst to me, her school was about a half hour to forty-five minute walk away! We passed termite hills and goats, as well as grocery stores and other neighbors before finally arriving there.

Termite Hill

Goats in a football field.

The friend’s final class assignment was to successfully grow a patch of onions and spinach (both feature heavily in Setswana food). Michelle Obama would have been delighted to see all the plots of gardens!

School projects: much cooler (figuratively speaking) in Botswana

Gathering water

Alas, because I hadn’t anticipated such a lengthy walk, I didn’t apply sunscreen. I now am thoroughly burned with rather amusing red marks everywhere. I’m planning on simply wearing the same outfit for the rest of the semester to avoid displaying my ridiculous burn lines!

All in all, the week in Mochudi was wonderful! Not only was it an opportunity to experience how life outside of Gaborone can be, but it also gave me the chance to practice my Setswana (still pretty weak) and really connect with people in different age groups and places in life. Hopefully I will get to return to my life as Neo, if only for a weekend or so. However, the next couple of weeks promise to be crazy ones, so don’t expect an update for a little while. This is the last week before our first break and Ani and I have hopes of visiting Victoria Falls before CIEE whisks us off to the Okavango Delta. For those who don’t know, Vic Falls looks like this:

aka INCREDIBLE

And Okavango Delta is Botswana’s biggest claim to fame (along with diamonds). It’s the hotbed of Botswana wildlife, so expect more photos of crazy southern Africa animals! It’s time for the big safari!

Neo Sebolawe and the Weasleys

Mochudi, although labeled our “village stay,” is actually a rather large town of 40,000 people and an hour’s bus ride from Gaborone. Despite its size, it’s known for being one of the more traditional towns in Botswana, with the recent kgosi (chief) enforcing strict liquor laws (no alcohol can be drunk, even in your own home, before noon) and floggings are still part of the justice system. However, in my own home things seem to run happily and smoothly. As I mentioned, I live with my mom (who I call “mme” – Setswana for mother):

My grandmother who doesn’t seem to speak any English but often laughs at (with? J) me for unknown reasons:

My somewhat silent brother who is eleven and helps me with my Setswana homework, although he has resisted my attempts to engage him in conversation

And my 9 year old sister, who has become my friend and companion over the past few days

I also have a 26 year old brother who showed up at the end of the weekend, but he is out most of the time. After an absolutely sweltering combi ride into Mochudi on Saturday morning, we dropped each CIEE student off with their respective families. Our families span all socio-economic classes and family compositions, some people have a lot of siblings, some only a few, and the ages vary. My family seems to be on the poorer end of the total spectrum, although they manage just fine. It simply means that we make do without some of the amenities that other families have!

My lovely house!

A lot Botswana homes consist of several little buildings on a compound. We have two buildings, but life mostly happens in the home featured in the first picture (the blur is my sister)

As thank you gifts for my family I brought some cloth dish towels and then, for my younger siblings, something called Crazy Clay – play-doh that hardens into forms when left to dry. So my little sister and I spent the afternoon with Crazy Clay and then playing hide-and-go-seek. She tried to teach me jacks (played with stones) but as I can barely catch a rock when I just toss it up in the air, let alone trying to grab other things, we had to give it up as a lost cause. I also brought a stack of Colorado playing cards and most evenings my siblings and I play a couple rounds of Crazy Eights (everything here is crazy! J). Interestingly, they knew that game before I came, so either there is a Botswana equivalent or one of my predecessors was a good card teacher.

Crazy Clay success! (also in this picture is one of my sister’s friends)

Saturday evening, my mom bundled me off to go to “Mamareli’s” – one of the difficulties of the homestay is that my family’s English isn’t strong and my Setswana is downright horrible right now, so there’s a huge potential for things to get lost in translation. Before leaving, my mom wrapped my head with a traditional cloth and tied another one around my shoulders and then told my sister to take me. Bewildered, I walked for about ten minutes until we came to another Matswana woman’s house where she told me to go in and greet Tlhulofelo (the spelling on all these names is undoubtedly horrible). Turns out Tlhulofelo was Ani! Our host families are related and her mother (whose last name is Mareli) was taking Ani and myself to a Setswana funeral (hence my apparel). That evening we sat with over a hundred other people outside in the courtyard of the family of the deceased (an elderly man) and listened to speeches in Setswana. The funeral was a real social event, and apparently they are open to everyone, no invitations. After that we were served pap (a sort of gruel-like grain substance that is popular) and goat intestines (lucky Ani got mine J) and then we headed home. However, there was a follow-up the next morning where we arrived at the same home again at 6:00AM for the actual service. This time the coffin was there and the speeches were given for two hours, punctuated by songs started by the choir, but carried by the hundred plus people who were sitting in the courtyard. The songs (and speeches) were all in Setswana, so I couldn’t understand them, but they were really moving and seemed to capture the feeling of the ceremony. We then all got into cars and drove to the cemetery for more speeches and singing before the casket was lowered and every man present took his turn filling the grave until it was full. Then they covered it was rocks and lowered a sort of roofed cage over the whole thing before we headed back to the family’s house for more food.

After the funeral, my mother decided that we should visit some friends of hers so she took Ani and myself down the road to for some tea. Yes, even in this hot weather, tea is drunk! (I can’t say I object). When we got there we found that the girlfriend of my mom’s friend’s son (I’ll pause to give you a moment to read that J) was visiting her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. She was a third-year student at UB like us, so we clicked pretty quickly, which was good because as the youngest women in the house it turned out to be our job to make lunch! We went shopping and then came back to cook for thirteen people, making our own mashed potatoes as well as some other traditional dishes (I’m becoming quite the chef!). The afternoon came to a wonderful close when it finally rained, cooling everything down – pula!

Now that it’s the week, we’re all bussing in to UB for the day and then coming home in the evenings, but I can’t say I mind the commute. It’s nice to have a quite start to the morning (and it is morning – I rise with the chickens around 4:30!).

My mom walks me to the bus stop!

As I said, my family isn’t terribly well-off. The toilet is an outhouse, and home to many bugs! On Saturday night I went to the bathroom and as I lifted the thing that is the toilet lid, and what should crawl out of the hole but a cockroach. For a moment, I panicked before reminding myself that bugs are my friends. To convince myself of this, I christened him Fred. Then Sunday night TWO cockroaches crawled out and I was like "Ah...Fred and George!" So fortuitously named. To my growing Weasley family I’ve now added a spider named Percy and a toad named Ron. That being said, I don't like cockroaches OR spiders and I'm terrified one will crawl up while I'm actually sitting on the toilet. J As I mentioned before, we have a collection of chickens that roam around the compound and alert me to the rising sun.

Chicken

My sister and I have been sharing a room/bed where she has demonstrated the remarkable ability to be heat resistant. While I lie awake sweating out every last drop of water in my body, my sister sleeps under a fleece blanket. A feat I consider nothing short of miraculous. To add to her list of skills, the other night a small bird flew into our room, which my sister then proceeded to catch with her bare hands!

Heat-resistant, bird-catcher extraordinaire!

It’s been a wonderful experience and I can’t believe that I only have four more days with my family. It’s reminded me how much I like living in a home, as well as how much I miss my own family. Incidentally, I'm no longer Kaija Bergen, but Neo Sebolawe, who quails not in the face of spiders! Hopefully Ani will write something about her experience - those with her contact information should pressure her!

Weekend Wanderings

From wool to worship, this weekend proved to be slightly more adventurous than the last, featuring less mall hopping and more village hopping. After another long hot week of classes, Ani and I went Friday to the village Odi about twenty minutes outside of Gaborone with two fellow CIEE-ers (Sam and Nancy). Odi is known for a group of women who weave beautiful wall-hangings, table clothes, etc. many of which depict pictures of Setswana stories or convey messages about their village and Botswana as a whole. Because it was so close to the capital, we took a cab on the way out. Unfortunately, while the cab driver knew where Odi was, neither he nor we knew exactly where we were going and after haphazardly following some signs:

Sign: Odi Weavers

We ended up on a dirt road with these fellows:

Botswana’s main inhabitants

And managed to bottom out our taxi driver’s car, which proceeded to make an ominous clanking noise as we got directions from the inhabitants of Odi. Despite these difficulties we found the location and were able to do a small tour of their place. The women hand-dye all the wool on the site and then turn it into yarn before weaving.

The workplace

Weaving

Our guide, demonstrating yarn-making

Odi itself is a small little town, which was covered with happy yellow flowers and goats.

Featured: Flowers and Goats

We managed to catch a combi back into Gabs (hopefully sparing our poor taxi driver’s car) and once more successfully negotiated public transport back to UB. That evening we attended the birthday party of Isabelle (CIEE student)’s friend Bruno. Bruno’s Motswana so we got to meet many of his friends and the party was a hit. Surprisingly cameras here are ridiculously expensive. Phones are cheap, but cameras can be over $100 – that’s US dollars. As such, Isabelle and I (or rather our cameras) ended up being quite a hit at the party. The whole thing turned into a well-photographed dance party. J

Learning a Setswana line dance

As usual, I was a dancing fiend-and by that I mean hopeless

The next day we went with Bruno to his village, Molepolole, which is about an hour’s bus ride (not combi, but actual bus) out of Gaborone. Once there we visited the kgotla (if you remember, that’s the main public governing place in most villages in Botswana. Everyone gathers while the chief presides and decisions about the village are made somewhat democratically – more on that in the post “Sites and Safari”).

Molepolole’s totem is the crocodile, which is why they are painted on the walls.

We then went to Bruno’s house, met his family and then were shanghaied by a group of guys renting on Bruno’s parents’ property and given a highly enthusiastic tour of the town. In between their proposals and efforts to get us to agree to house them in the US, the guys took us to a place known as Kobokwe’s Cave or Livingstone’s Cave. The cave used to be a place where witches were left, as overnight they would be swallowed by spirits and taken to some form of hell. However, Livingstone (remember him? J) decided to disprove this by staying the night in the cave. When he wasn’t taken by the spirits he gained a number of converts to Christianity.

Fun Fact: this cave is, in fact, rather high up the side of a hill. So, we ended up doing an impromptu hike, which ended up being okay, despite the lack of appropriate footwear.

Climbing up the hill

The cave itself

Then we visited the royal cemetery where former chiefs of Molepolole are buried, including one of the three chiefs who went to England to ensure Botswana was not overtaken by South Africa (“Great Beginnings in Gaborone” – I’m becoming quite self-referential, I’m afraid).

Cemetery

And finally we also saw the site where one of the chiefs stashed his weapons prior to his defeat of the Boers when they attempted to invade.

Not featured: weapons.

Alas, while the guns and cannons may have left, the area proved itself to still be perilous because both Ani and I managed to step on thorny sticks that not only penetrated my wimpy flats, but Ani’s tennis shoes. Puncture wounds were sustained, but we’re likely to survive.

Unrelated to these terribly injuries, our final stop was the Molepolole hospital, the largest in Botswana.

Sunday we stayed in Gaborone, but woke early to attend church at the Church for All Nations. Everyone was incredibly welcoming (we were literally greeted by every church member-something they do for every visitor) and the singing was great. The whole service had an energy to it, with people dancing while they sang and really participating in the hymns. Though I’ve not converted, I had a very good time.

Starting next week, we are all moving to do a week-long home stay in the village of Mochudi. Mochudi is one of the most traditional villages in Botswana, which means we’ll be getting a very different experience than the one we have here in modernity-focused Gaborone. Although Botswana has a lot of expanding and contracting families (meaning that the number of people living in a house at any given time can changed based on whether or not people are at school, at the cattle post, or living with other relatives), at this point my family looks like this:

Mom: Mmathebe Sebolawe-self-employed
Granny in her late 60s
26 year old son, unemployed but lives mostly somewhere else
11 year old boy
8 year old girl

I also have:

Electricity
Outhouse
Bathroom is also outside
In house piped drinking water

I’m very excited to see how it goes! However, that also means that I probably won’t post again until after the week is out, so look for me again sometime after the 21^st! In anticipation of this delay, Happy Valentine’s Day! (we like to end with a little poetry now and then J)

Malls and Museums

According to my Botswana guidebook (compliments of Jacki and Terri at the library-thanks again!), “There’s not a whole lot going on in Gabs.” From a guidebook, this seems like a pretty dire conclusion; however, what I’ve come to understand it means is more that, unlike say Paris, Gaborone is not known for its array of weekend and evening entertainment. Rather, people do spend a lot of time out drinking, or simply going to the many malls to spend time with friends and interacting with other people. So, in the fine tradition of Gaborone, Ani and I spent this past weekend visiting the malls and exploring the city a little bit.

Walking has also become an important part of my life. So much walking!

Our first stop was Main Mall, which as I’ve mentioned before is the oldest mall in Gabs and is largely comprised of street vendors that run up and down a long pedestrian road. Batsi, our program director for CIEE, has given us all a “scavenger hunt” list, which includes items we should buy, places we should take pictures of ourselves visiting, and ticket stubs from various events. It’s designed to help us get out and about and also serves as a convenient excuse to buy items. So, Ani and I invested in some earrings from Main Mall and picked up two CDs by local artists.

We then proceeded to Gaborone’s historical museum (free!) where we learned a bit more about the history of Botswana and were also treated to a number of dead animal displays.

A display of life hundreds of years ago in Botswana

Traditional House

A scientific theory was also included

The next day was spent at Riverwalk, where vendors also set up shop on the weekends. They sell a variety of beautiful things in these markets. Obviously the request earrings and bracelets, but also some gorgeous wall hangings, shirts, placemats, etc.

Checking out the stalls

One thing you can’t miss around Gabs is the variety of signboards. A lot of them are geared towards lowering drunk driving, which is a real problem in all of Botswana, the inevitable Coke ads prevail, and then there is the HIV/AIDs campaign.

Coke! And football! Woo!

The Goalie encourages you to know your facts

As does the government

In addition to vendors selling jewelry and wall-hangings, there are food vendors everywhere. The most prevalent are little stands that sell a variety of hard candies for about 25 thebe (less than 5 cents). Alas, chocolate would never survive the heat of the day, so most of my favorite candies are not for sale. Although upon reflection, this might be a good thing! In addition to candies, there are vendors that sell full out meals. The food at these stalls is similar to that served in the dining hall and pretty traditional. A whole line of them set up just in front of UB’s main gate and give students the opportunity to buy a homemade meal.

UB’s vendors

On Sunday, we went to Game City (Ani and I needed swimming caps, which are required to swim in UB’s pool). However, unlike previous trips where we have taken a cab this time we relied on combi’s, putting our trust in Allie (a fellow CIEEer who is doing a home stay and thus has great knowledge of the combi system). Along with our friends Isabelle and Sophie, we went to the bus rank, which has more vendors than any other place we’d been so far. In addition to all the things mentioned above, they were also selling the much loved worms (Allie and Sophie bought some) and other roadside snacks. I got a bag of what seems to be the Botswana equivalent of raisins, a small little dried fruit with a hard seed center.

Ani, Sophie, and Isabelle at the bus rank

Ani and myself with the faux-raisins

They also braid and shave hair at the bus rank

Tomorrow I’m going to check out the Botswana Human Rights Center to see about volunteering! More on that if anything comes of it. Ani is waiting to hear back from the clinic. Classes continue to go pretty well and I have now successfully made pasta on several occasions in my hot water heater, so accomplishments abound here in Gaborone!