Catch Up!

I know, I know.  You don’t hear from me for a week, and then I go and post two things on one day.  I’m a bit of an odd ball!   This post will be a bit random but stick with me. 

I haven’t been posting as often because I have been “playing” a lot more these last couple of weeks.  I will blame it on peer pressure.  Last week, I had several movie nights with friends.   I think I’ve watched more movies here this semester than I have in the last two years.  I’d say it’s acceptable.  :) 

 

We discovered Fego.  FEGO!!!  Yum.  I salivate just thinking about it.  Fego is a small café we heard about that had delicious food, coffees, milkshakes, and cake!! We first went there last Thursday night.  I split a wrap and got a peppermint coffee milkshake.  It tasted like Christmas!  The owner spoiled us with a piece of carrot cake.   It tasted like Thanksgiving!  On one night, I covered two main holidays.  We decided we would spend thanksgiving there!   It was so good that we went again last night (Monday.)  I only bought a mango ice drink and it was very refreshing.   We will really have to limit ourselves there.  

Last Wednesday was Halloween!  I went to Mokolodi as usual.  My fellow volunteer Bryanna dressed up as cat woman and passed out cookies. It was great and a fun way to get in the spirit of Halloween.   We left early on Wednesday and got back in enough time to go swimming.  UB has an Olympic size swimming pool.  It’s really nice!  I’ve been trying to go swim laps regularly.  Swimming is a lot harder than I remember it.  Yay workout!  

This week is the last full week of classes!  WAA HOOO!  The last day is next Wednesday.  I have a French test on Friday and a Setswana test on Monday and then I am done until finals!   

Yesterday, I went to the vet clinic.  It was great as usual. I could go on about this place forever.  The people there are great.  I’ll have a lot of free time around exams so I plan on spending my time there!  After the vet clinic, I went swimming and then walked to Riverwalk.  I have been craving veggies so I went to Woolworths.  Woolworths is a pretty high end store.  I bought fresh veggies and cottage cheese!  YUM.   I will be having a delicious salad today! 

And for now… Random Facts

• Traditionally, it is a good thing to be “fat”.  It shows that you have enough money to feed yourself.  Telling someone they are fat is(was) actually a compliment.  Now that western influences have come in, it is of course good to be skinny.  You can really see this on campus.  Girls are tiny!   Yet, once you go to more rural areas women are again “traditionally built”

•  “An African body” refers to you having an African booty.   Most girls here do in fact have an “baby birthing hips”.  

• Girls here are a lot more comfortable with being naked.  It’s not unusual to walk into the bathroom with a girl standing naked there or to have a girl walking around the common room without a shirt on.    I think most of the world is okay with nakedness, it’s America/Canada/other odd people who find issues with it. 

• I’ve realized that I now stare at my feet when I walk.  I’m really trying to fix this and make myself look ahead.  I think I started walking that way so that I don’t have to see people staring at me.  Now granted, on campus people don’t stare that much anymore.  I think they are use to the international kids.  But, off campus people still tend to stare.  It’s easy to avoid if you just don’t look.  Now, I’m just trying to look straight ahead but look past people.   People don’t stare with bad intentions.  It’s just I stick out like a sore thumb.   Sometimes you get guys who are just guys and like to call out, but it’s whatevs.  I have realized that there’s a big difference in the number of call outs depending on whether I have my hair up or down.  On the way to the clinic yesterday, one man told me I have “nice hair, British hair.”  Uhhhh, Thank you?    Call outs include just yelling, or maybe saying “white girl” or “lekoga” which means white person.  It definitely keeps things interesting.  It’s going to be odd to blend in again!

• Another thing with being white is that people assume you have money.  They try and charge as much as possible for all things.  You just have to be smart enough to haggle down for the correct price.   It doesn’t happen often but sometimes people will ask you for money or for you to pay for something.  For example, I was sitting on the combi next to this girl and she asked if I had money for her combi ride.  Times like these I find myself in a delima.  I did in fact have enough change to cover her combi but then what example am I setting?  I’m just reinforcing the notion that white people have money and you can get it from them.  Eish.  I had to deny her the money but I didn’t feel good about it.  Yet, if I feel the need to contribute/help out it’s better to donate to specific causes/places/schools etc so that they money does good. 

• It’s kind of scary hearing what people think white people believe.  This weekend we talked to several different people.  One guy told us that we think less of him because of the color of his skin. He kept going on but what he was essentially saying was there weren’t any dark colored skin people where I lived and all people at my home hated blacks and thought they were ignorant and if he came there he would be shunned, etc etc etc.  We tried talking to him and telling him that wasn’t true.  I told him that he wouldn’t stand out where I’m from ontil he spoke because of his accent.  He did not believe me when I told him that my school has blacks, whites, Hispanics, etc etc etc.  Even after trying to convince him, he was still going on about his rants that in fact weren’t true.  Sigh.  We had another lady tell us that she heard Americans just refer to Batswana as dogs when Batswana visit the states.  WHAT!?   NOOOOOOO.  GAH.  Again, it’s really sad what people believe that I believe.  No I’m not racist.  No, I don’t think you’re an idiot.  I came here to Africa to meet the people, experience the culture, and enjoy the nature.  Do you really think I would have come here if I were a racist bigot????   Okay, Rant ending.   I should state that I find this more in the rural areas, this is defiantly not the majority of people here. 

• Most women carry umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun.  At first I thought it looked a bit funny, but now I understand.  The sun can be brutal.  With skin cancer being the number one cancer in Botswana, I think it’s a good thing people are trying to protect themselves. 

• Littering is a big problem here.  Okay.  Maybe “problem” isn’t the right word because the general consensus don’t consider it a problem.  I should say it’s really popular.  There is a severe lack of trash cans.  Maybe if they could put trashcans around at regular intervals, then people would litter less.  I’ve had to carry my trash quite a ways to find a place to throw it away.  Yet, I just can’t bring myself to throw stuff on the ground.  

Okay, well that's it for now.  
I'm going to eat dinner!