I finally rode the bike to work. It was disastrous, not physically but emotionally. The snickers and pointing and laughing and yelling I got either from sheer amazement or just amusement…it was all just too much. Generally speaking it’s the children that laugh and yell so loudly, whereas the women standing at the bus stop just blatantly stare with a jaw dropped daze and no audible commentary. I swear, sometimes I feel like a one-man show, performing daily as comic relief for the entire village. The bike is also a fixed gear bike so it’s absolute hell on any kind of uphill. It just so happens that my trek to the office is mostly a constant, but not increeeedibly subtle incline with a few curves and turns. I ended up walking the bike for half of the trip.
Even the next day, one of my colleagues from work was laughing when she told me that her taxi driver mentioned seeing the lacua (white person) on the bicycle yesterday. She claimed it was just the kind of bike that I was riding that was so humorous because it’s typical for an old man to ride the “Royal Rally” bikes. I guess, comparably speaking, it would be like a teenager driving a Lincoln town car. Anyway, the attention is exhausting. It’s not like I didn’t know this kind of attention would happen, but it will have been 3 months here in Botswana on Monday and I just wonder if there will be any reprieve from this kind of interaction and attention. Will I always be a novelty? Will I ever walk around the village with any kind of anonymity? I imagine that being in a village as big as Moshupa, the answer to that question is frankly, no. It’s just that a white girl walking down the street and buying a bag or oranges is not all that different from an African doing so. It would feel less overwhelming I think if the attention I received was in warm regards or from someone I was familiar with and engaged with me on a regular basis...instead it’s just strangers’ laughs from afar. It’s not that it feels malicious or mocking, it’s just that I’m a site to be seen and it’s a dynamic that feels like I’m “the other.” Putting on a smile and taking it all in stride is harder some days than others. This transition is slow and I’m realizing that more and more each day.
My group of Bots 10 volunteers started with about 40 people and for various reasons we are down to 33. One of my closest friends in the group went home last week and I must say it’s hit a little closer to home than I anticipated. You start this experience and become emotionally invested in the people you spend so much time with, and then for one reason or another you lose a few along the way. While we are all at our respective sites and generally separated for a large portion of our service, there is still a small void at just the thought of them being gone. If nothing else, what an opportunity to recognize and really appreciate the importance of friendship in my time here.
Let’s highlight some good things to remind me of my reasons for being here:
I’ve been going into the DAC office more often lately. We have been going to outlying remote villages each day to talk with the clinics there and see their plans in regards to HIV/AIDS mitigation in the coming months. Also, we check to see if there is anything we can assist them with in the upcoming events and then my favorite part…we share teatime together before we return to the office in Moshupa. I enjoy the people in my office and I’m grateful for opportunities like these to get a more organized and structured exposure to the rural and spots of Botswana, which I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. Also, I genuinely enjoy the opportunity to ride in a car for a few minutes without the chaos of the large buses I use to get around the country on any other day.
Because the geyser takes so long to heat up and uses a lot of electricity, I’ve just been heating up a bucket of water on the stove to use for bathwater. Well the bucket I was using apparently is not intended to be put on a stove…There is some unspoken criteria for buckets being specifically for bathing or cooking etc. France saw that I was heating water on the stove in this particular pail and the next day he brings me a huge pot to use instead. He said that his wife would disapprove of me putting that bucket on the stove and that it’s intended to keep water in the kitchen for drinking purposes and also in case that the water goes out (which apparently happens quite often…I’ve been collecting 2 litre soda bottles for such purposes). Well this is all well and good except that the pot he gave me to use in place of the bucket still had chicken feathers stuck to it. I can’t imagine that the “bathing pots” are also the same ones allocated to de-feathering chickens. You learn new things everyday.
In addition to France’s generosity with his bike and sharing his Setswana chicken with me, he gave me some sweet potatoes (which he apparently also typically cooks specifically in the large pot that I now use for bathing). I didn’t even know he had them planted in our compound but he dug some up this afternoon and gave me about 5. I cooked a couple for dinner tonight and they were delicious. He mentioned that he’ll begin planting at the end of July when the cold is over. I’m taking his cues and will be following suite with my garden. I’ve already started my compost pile and this weekend I’m plotting out the garden beds to have them ready! He did say that come summer I won’t have to buy tomatoes or onions because we will have so many. What a thought?! I don’t know if he is willing to just give them to me or if I will have to purchase from him. Either way, I’m sure they will be better and more convenient than getting from the grocery store in the village. I will be planting spinach and lettuce and probably cucumbers. I’m thinking of maybe doing some fruit too, but I haven’t decided on which yet. You’d think I was in a child’s playground with my enthusiasm for this garden!
My neighbor, Camera, invited me to go to a funeral with him on Saturday. While I don’t want to sound insensitive, I am looking forward to the experience. The nature of funerals here is that they are an open invitation event. Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend and the family of the deceased rents a large tent and spends the prior days cooking with close friends for the plethora of people they anticipate coming. It starts with a lot of congregating and praying for the majority of the morning and then they all load up in truck beds and cars and go to the grave site to witness the burial to then return to the tent for food and more congregating. I imagine I will be standing in a sea of Batswana with sounds of Setswana going on all around me, having no clue what’s really going on. I am grateful for Camera’s offer to foster the experience seeing as though this is my first exposure to a funeral in Botswana.
I’ve been meaning to mention the infatuation with “plastique” Tupperware containers. Some of the cleaning staff at my office even sell Tupperware on the side. They have catalogues with a whole inventory of plastic containers varying in size and color. Just last weekend on the bus to Gabs, a woman got on the bus with what looked like a new age picnic basket. It was like a Kaboodle for food storage with all different kinds of interior pieces that fit perfectly together. I knew this because I saw it in the catalogue just last week and it was one of the most expensive packages in the whole thing! I can’t fathom investing money in such things, but I did get made fun of for bringing some sugar in a Ziploc bag to the office for teatime. She said it looked like drugs. I guess these are appropriate occasions for Tupperware plastiques! Also, at events like weddings and funerals people have no shame in bringing such containers to stock up on food for eating later. You can imagine the quantities of food that they have to cook, particularly when people are expecting leftovers to take home. I fear the day that any Batswana comes to my home, expecting food. Not only do I not eat what they eat, but the sheer amount of food they consume at meal time. They do not snack here. When it’s meal time, it’s serrrious meal time.
cheers
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