The (sometimes) exciting life of Jeremy

Farewell and Adu: Wrapping up the semester, via photos

2009-05-11T16:47:00.012+02:00

A few hours ago I walked out of my African Traditional Religions classroom and became a free man. I am officially done with all academics here in Botswana, and thus I have finished my junior year of college!
It is a great feeling.
I am also less than 3 days from leaving Botswana and making the long journey back to the US. After 3 flights and two train rides, I will be arriving in Fairfield sometime Friday afternoon, around 30 hours after I leave Botswana. It will be a long day. Lets hope for good plane food.
So, this will be my last blog from Botswana. To wrap up the blog and reward you for spending time each week (or less often, I'm not sure how devoted you are), this blog will be a photo journey through my time here.
I hope you enjoy it.
And I have no idea how this blog has over 2600 views. Thanks everyone.
See you back in the US (unless you're from Botswana, in which case, goodbye!)

The first picture I took in Botswana right when I got off the plane:

This is a bunch of us in the airport that first day (a few pictures here are from Batsi, our program director, like this one. I will cite him whenever necessary)

The University of Botswana!!

Max and I looking thrilled to be there. While the first week or two were slightly rough, the next few months were great. (Batsi)

Here is the entire group of us, plus three UB students who were there to help us out. I think this is one of the few picture of all 12 of us. (Batsi)

View from Kgali hill.

All of us, minus Carlos, on top. (Batsi)

Cute kids.

Cliff paintings.

Our first elephants!!!

Chatting with the kgosi (chief) of Tlokweng. The statue in the background is of the Kgosi of Gaborone, who gave the government all the land for the capital. (Batsi)

Strikers marching.

Me leading children in song and dance.

Broken glass from rioters. This was Rebecca and Maggie's apartment.

Hehehehe.

Monkeys in the Okavango Delta.

Zebras looking awesome (Batsi)

Wildebeest

Leopard showing some fierce teeth (Batsi)

Giraffe.

Fish Eagle (Batsi)

Best sunset of all time

Elephant crossing on the way to Kasane.

Max hugging the giant baobab tree in Kasane.

Elephant

Elephants swimming.

Oh Botswana.

My house in Mochudi!!

And my host mom and grandma!!

Max and I became amazing chiefs this semester, making a wide range of cuisine. This particular piece is a fried chicken (we fried it ourselves), cheese, bacon, and mayo sandwich, toasted. Amazing.

Mozambique man.

Tofo, Mozambique.

One of my favorite pictures.

Palm trees in Mozambique.

Johannesburg, the safest city in the world (just kidding, it's the least safe)

Victoria Falls!

More falls!

The Zambezi River.

The University of Botswana

More UB.

Sunset over Gaborone, with the mosque across from the university

Thanks for reading over the past 4 months everyone. I have had an amazing experience here in Botswana and I hope you enjoyed reading about my life.
I am quite excited to return to the US, so I'll see you soon.
Farewell!

The end approaches

2009-05-05T07:50:00.003+02:00

In 9 days time, I will be boarding a plane and flying back to the olde USA.

But that's the future, we're on the past now.

Last week classes ended, which we celebrated with 3 exams in Setswana. Thursday was quite long because of that, with 1 written and 2 oral exams. However, I am now completely done with Setswana, as well as my history course, for which we had a take home essay for an exam.

Saturday morning we had presentations for the research projects we had been doing all semester for our CIEE study abroad class. It was very long, but Rebecca and I's project was definitely the best, as no one can beat researching the animal myths and folktales of Botswana.

On that note, here's a myth (myths involve some sort of divinity while folktales do not) that I found interesting.

The Moon, it is said, sent once an Insect to Men, saying: “Go thou to Men, and tell them, ‘As I die, and dying live, so ye shall also die, and dying live.’” The Insect started with the message, but whilst on his way was overtaken by the Hare, who asked: “On what errand art thou bound?” The Insect answered: “I am sent by the Moon to Men, to tell them that as she dies, and dying lives, they also shall die, and dying live.” The Hare said, “As thou art an awkward runner, let me go.” With these words he ran off, and when he reached Men, he said, “I am send by the Moon to tell you: As I die and dying perish, in the same manner ye shall also die and come wholly to an end.’” Then the Hare returned to the Moon, and told her what he had said to Men. The moon reproached him angrily, saying, “Darest thou tell the people a thing which I have not said?” With these words she took up a piece of wood, and struck him on the nose. Since that day the hare’s nose is slit.

In many African religions, the presence of natural phenemona, like water, fire, and death, are explained through such myths. Because of the folly of the hare, humans, instead of rising again like the moon, now die.

After our presentations, a group of us traveled to Molepolole to watch Gaborone United play. The Botswana Premier League is not a very strong football (soccer) league, but the game was very fun. We bought some Gabs United gear, and after pulling it on, we caused all the Gabs fans to cheer very loudly for us. Gabs United won 5-0 and we got on TV. (I will put up some pictures soon, but I don't have them in my possession right now)

Well, I have a final in a few hours, so I'm going to procrastinate and perhaps study a bit.

There will be one last post before I depart this continent and it will be most splendid, so come back at least one more time, or more if you want to relive my semester through bloggery.

Adu.

Victoria Falls!!

2009-04-27T21:45:00.009+02:00

Hello once again. Thanks for stumbling upon my blog. Hopefully it will be worth your time, but if not, I am sorry.

Last Friday I awoke at 5am, got ready, then rolled out of campus to the bus rank.
There the tree of us, Carlos, Alex, and myself, hopped on a bus to Francistown and began our super long day of travel.
The ride to Francistown (previously mentioned in the blog of me) is around 5 hours, but luckily I slept through most of it.
Arriving in Francistown we were to catch the bus to Kasane (also mentioned previously), and we immediately found it. What was not so immediate was its departure time, as we sat on this small van for 2 and a half hours, watching the bustle of the bus station, with people selling food, drink, music, and illegal movies.
Eventually, finally, at last we left on our second leg of the trip. This portion was around 7 hours of driving, which is quite long on a cramped bus.
We did have on rest stop, where I saw the "No Worries" Shipping truck drive by:

The ride to Kasane was mostly pleasant, though the hour of driving over the worst roads in existance was not fun. For most of that part we weren't even driving on the road. The dirt ditches were in better shape than the road.
I did spy around 12 elephants hanging out on the side of the road though, including this one:
Eventually we made it into Kasane, where we quickly learned that the hotel we planned on staying in was quite full. So was the one next to it. In fact, virtually all hotels were full.
Luckily, for the three of us at least, 4 other people in our program happened to drive up to see Vic Falls the same weekend, though they were staying at a friend of a friends house. This person never really showed up, thus they were in the same quandry of having no accomodation. Eventually we did find a place with rooms, and we fit 7 of us in a 4 person room. The floor was quite comfortable.
In the morning we began our quest to figure out how to get to the falls, inquiring at the lodges around town to see how much a day trip would cost. They turned out to be quite expensive, so we ended up getting a cab to the Zimbabwe-Botswana border and finding a cab on the other side.
We ended up getting a ride from a great guy named (I can't remember, but I'll find out).
It cost $30 US dollars to get into Zimbabwe, which is by far the most we have had to pay for a visa.
The other group that drove up had to bribe some officials to get their car into Zim.
So after an hour drive, we arrived in the city of Victoria Falls and our driver took us to the national park were we would view the falls.
**************
For those not up on their world politics, Zimbabwe has been politically unstable for many years now. The president, Robert Mugabe, has been president since 1980, the year of independence. Since then, Zimbabwe has experienced great growth and recession. Blessed with many natural resources, Zimbabwe has the potential to become a leading economy in Southern Africa. However, Mugabe has hindered that growth. With controversial land reform plans, which removed white farmers from their land and giving these farms to black Zimbabweans, food production has been greatly reduced.
With the economy in shambles, hyper inflation kicked in. I have a banknote from Zimbabwe which for $100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars. People couldn't buy a loaf of bread with the money they earned.
Politically, Mugabe has been quite brutal. Elections in 1998 and 2005 were seen as neither free nor fair, with the opposition party, the MDC, claiming election fraud. In the 2008 elections, in which the MDC mounted a very strong campaign lead by Morgan Tsvangirai, state sponsored violence erupted. The MDC claims that over 200 supporers were killed, 2,000 arrested, and over 10,000 forced from their homes. Tsvangirai withdrew from the elections to protect his supporters.
This violence drew great international outcry, forcing Mugabe to agree to a unity government with the MDC. This government came into power in February, and since then there has been some advances in creating some stability and improving the economy.
************************************
So getting out of our cab, we were immediately besiged by men selling crafts. Now, this is not too abnormal in Africa, as we encountered the same thing in Mozambique. However, the difference in Zimbabwe is that these people will take ANYTHING for their crafts. This includes any currency, extra clothing you might have, pens, pencils, the dirty socks on your feet. The desperation in Zimbabwe is very real.
After making it past the craft people, we walked over to the national park and paid the $20 US dollar entry fee (once again, quite pricey, though I suppose the government needs the money)
We didn't quite know what to expect from the falls, as I only had a handful of pictures to go off of.
Needless to say, it was astonding.
Here's the nice wooded path to the falls.
A friendly baboon greeted us as we walked along.
Our first glimpse of the falls!!!
So much mist!
A view from behind the falls.
Woah!
So right now, it is the dry season. This means that the falls should be quite tame. However, there has been great flooding in Angola, which is upstream of the Zambezi River. Thus, the river is very much swollen with flood waters. This had two effects: One, the power generated by these falls blew us away; it was incredible. Two, the power of the falls generated a great deal of mist, seen below. Sadly this obscured much of the falls to us.
In awe.
This is just the beginning of the falls. They span a width of almost 1 mile. 1 mile of waterfalls!!!
More falls!
The main falls.
Looking a little soggy.
Here's the mist I was talking about. It shoots straight up out of the gorge like a cloud. A cloud that soaked us.
yep, it was very wet
This is the boiling pot, where the water from the falls first gathers before heading down river.
The bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia. It was very beautiful. This is also the bungee jumping bridge.
Downed telephone lines. Once again, Zimbabwe has a long way to go.
It was here that I realized that instead of stoplights, they are referred to Robots in Africa. And there wasn't actually a robot/stoplight on this bridge.
The Zambezi heading away from the falls.
More boiling pot and rainbow.
So, on the bridge, there is bungee jumping. It is the 3rd highest in the world at 111meters. It also cost over $100 US, so not only did I have great fear, but no money.
However, my roomates Max and Alex did our apartment well and decided to jump.
Here is one guy. He could taste Skittles on the way down.
After Max and Alex jumped, we went and bought lunch (pizza) then bought some crafts.
After crafting, we decided it was time to return to Botswana, so we piled into the cab and headed out. The entire distance between the falls and Botswana is a national park, though on the way in we saw no animals. Not the case on the way out.
Just after we were being told that there were many water buffalo, a herd decided to cross the road right in front of us.
Soon after we caught giraffe at dusk. It was beautiful.
Eventually we did return to Kasane.
At 5:30am the next day we were on the road again, in a VERY cramped van back to Francistown. Out Sunday of travel was sandwiched by stange music. Getting into the van before the sun rose, we were greated by 98 Degrees, the wonderful (no) 90s boy band. We listened to the same CD 3 times. Terrible. When we finally arrived in Gaborone after 13 hours of travel, our cab driver back to the university was blasting Dolly Parton.
Oh Botswana, how I shall miss you.
I leave in 16 days, so there will only be perhaps 2 more blog entries. Catch them while they last! (In actuallity, this blog will probably be online for a long time, years perhaps)
Welp, I must run to class.
Farewell! Come back soon!!

Filler

2009-04-21T07:17:00.003+02:00

This post is solely being made because I feel obliged to post every week. In fact, since my last post, nothing really has happened.
I had my 21st birthday, which was neat.
I've been here for exactly 15 weeks.
The mornings and nights are starting to get, cold?, yeah, that's the word.
We visited a pottery place where I bought a new mug. My favorite mug here cracked earlier that morning. (Seriously, I'm writing about a mug cracking....)
Classes end next Thursday, so we're finishing up with all our learning for the semester.
I think I'm going to Victoria Falls this weekend.
On that note, I shall end here, as next week's post should be infinitely more interesting, full of waterfall pictures. It should be glorious.
To make your visit not entirely useless, here's a picture of the sun setting over Gaborone.

Easter Journey to Mozambique

2009-04-14T20:15:00.010+02:00

I'd like to start out this blog post by stating that I really should be writing a paper for my history class that is due tomorrow and I haven't started, but instead I am writing this. For you. So enjoy it. I on the other hand will be up late writing about the IMF and World Bank in West Africa.

So on that note, Adventure!

On Wednesday, four of us, Rebecca, Lisa, Jami, and myself met at 5:45am and caught a combi from the university to the bus rank in Gaborone. After some wandering, we came upon the combis which went to Johannesburg, the first stop on our trip. After a while waiting, we all piled in, with 8 other passengers, and headed out on the road.
Here's our combi. Quite swanky:

The ride was around 6 hours, with a border crossing and another stamp in my passport. I found the borders in Southern Africa are quite lax and confusing. You get out, walk to a building to fill out a form or just get a stamp, then wander around until you see people who know where they are going. Signs, arrows, or anything would be nice. But we made due.
We arrived into Johannesburg around 2 in the afternoon on Wednesday and it was wonderful to be off the combi. There was one woman riding with us from Botswana who immediately passed out Tupperware catalogues and was quite loud. She turned to the four of us at one point and told us that we were the most beautiful people in the vehicle because we were white and everyone else was ugly. It was quite awkward. What do you say to that?
Anyways, we finally made it to Joburg and let me tell you, I have not been in a real city in many months, so Joburg was quite a shock. I mean, it has a population 4 times the population of the entire nation of Botswana. There are SKYSCRAPERS! And MCDONALDS!! Quite cool.
Getting off the combi we were swarmed by people asking us if we needed taxis or guides and we were quite overwhelmed, but finally we escaped the hordes and figured out where we were. After getting to the bus station, we realized we were hungry, so out came the handy Lonely Planet guide for Southern Africa, which gave us a nice restaurant to eat at not far away. We ended up eating at a nice place with a balcony overlooking the city streets so we could observe. Here's the view:

The food was great. The restaurant was founded in 1885 and I can definitely see why it's still around.
Joburg was pretty nice, with big buildings like this one, which was the city council or something.

After food, we headed back to the bus station, a very nice building indeed. Our bus was leaving around 8pm, so we had a few hours to waste. Lots of people were wasting time too:
So driving into South Africa, you can easily see the wealth disparity. One second there are beautiful houses, then a big slum of shacks. Even though apartheid is over, the country is still segregated.
While sitting on the bench waiting for the bus, Lisa realized that there were some words on the bench. We turned and were shocked by what we saw:Just add a "Whi" before the "tes" and an "l" between "N" and "Y" and you get "Whites Only".
We were shocked that something as simple as painting over these words was not even attempted. Racism is still very real in South Africa. Maybe the whites running the station don't want people to forget, both the whites and blacks.
Eventually our bus came and we departed Joburg in the cover of night.
I woke up to find we were at the Mozambique border around 5am. Sleepily we made our way through customs then looked out and saw the sun rising over the Mozambique country side.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world and it can be seen from the border, which poorly constructed shacks as far as the eye can see.
A few hours after the border we pulled into Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony and this influence showed. If you imagine an African city, Maputo would probably be the one which would come to mind. It is crowded, with many run down houses which are quite pretty, trash everywhere, and people selling crafts and fruit and vegetables all along the streets.
After dropping our stuff off a the backpackers stop, Fatima's Place, we headed out into the city. We stopped at a big fancy hotel to eat ice cream, but just ended up having lots of tea. The view was beautiful, especially since I haven't seen that much water since January.

Artsy photo:
It took a very long time to get our bill. So long in fact that we began to think the waitress either forgot about us or thought we were staying at the hotel and the tea was covered by our stay. After an hour and a half, we just got up and started walking away. That was when she finally realized we were still there, running after us about the bill. We paid. It was sad.
After some nice sleep, we got breakfast at this cafe, where the menus were all in Portuguese so it was hard to guess what was what. I got a donut though, quite nice.

I liked this guy. Not sure why.

This dog hung out at Fatima's Place. He was cute.
We headed out from Fatima's Place around 9 on Friday on the shuttle to Tofo.
I ended up in a combi, or chappa as they are called in Mozambique, with an interesting crew.
We consisted of 4 Peace Corp volunteers (3 from Botswana and 1 from Mozambique), two backpackers from Germany, and 4 students studying abroad in Cape Town.
It was fascinating talking to the Peace Corp volunteers. They all had very different perspectives on life in Africa and the effectiveness of their work in general. The girl, Anna, who was in Mozambique sat next to me and told me all about her village and everything she does (teaches English to teachers) as well as the whole Peace Corp process.
Driving to Tofo, one could see the poverty which exists in Mozambique, especially in the more urban areas.
After a 7 hour or so ride, we finally made it into Tofo.
The shuttle took us straight to Fatima's Nest, where we were staying for 2 nights. We got out, found the desk, checked in, then we were brought to our bungalow:

However, on the way to our place of residence, I heard something that I haven't heard in a while, "Jeremy Shea!!!!"
I looked over in shock to see Mary McGrath and Marissa Taylor running at me.
For those of you not from Fairfield, Mary and Marissa are both Fairfield students with me and they are studying abroad in Cape Town this semester.
I am literally still in shock that I saw them.
Lets go over this. First of all, we had to have the same break. On this break, we both decided to travel outside of our respective countries, and both decided Mozambique for our destination. For them, it was their final stop on around 12 days of travel. For us, only day 3. Then where in Mozambique. We both picked the tiny town of Tofo, which is not only small, but a pain to get to. Then to top it off, we picked the same backpackers place for the same day.
It amazing.
Here's Mary.
I have been making that face for days now.
Anyways, still in shock, the four of us who had just arrived were hungry. Mary told us to go down the beach to a place called Dinos for food.
Oh, this is the view from Fatima's nest.
It's kinda beautiful.

Just kidding. It's really beautiful.
We sat down and at some great food on the beach while watching the moon rise over the Indian Ocean.
After dinner, we wandered down the beach back to Fatima's Nest, where we ran into the Peace Corp volunteers from Botswana. We talked to them for a long time.
As opposed Anna, who was very welcome in her village for what she was doing, these volunteers felt less useful. They were all working on AIDS reduction programs, and their villages did not really want them there. They were also in the middle of nowhere in Botswana. In one village, water had to be shipped in once a week. Their reviews were not great. It made me think twice about the Peace Corp, though the experienced of Anna also made me want to do it. Conflicting emotions!!!
After chatting with them and drinking some fine Mozambican beer, 2M, Mary got back from dinner. We sat and talked on the dunes for a few hours until we realized it was close to 1am and she had to take the shuttle back to Maputo at 3:30am.
It was so nice to see a friend from school. I still don't believe it happened.

The next morning the four of us got up at 5am to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean:
I love this photo. I child was walking down the beach with his mother, and while running to catch up with her, he stopped for a moment to take in the rising sun.
After sunrise and breakfast, Jami, Rebecca, and I set out for our sea safari. This is the road we took to the place where the safari left from:
The sea safari was pretty much a snorkeling trip. We were in a small boat with snorkels and flippers, and whenever the spotter would see something in the water, we would jump into the sea and check it out. Very soon in we jumped out and saw this:
That's a whale shark. It is the largest fish in the world. I did not take that picture. I didn't have an underwater camera. It was an amazing thing to be about 10 feet away from the largest fish in the world, swimming in the Indian Ocean the day before Easter.
We also saw a manta ray and flying fish. 3 out of 15 people on the boat got sick because the sea was so rough.
After our trip out food followed. FISH! I miss fish. This was good.
Boat on the beach:

This is the group of us sitting on the beach on Saturday night. We got up at 3am on Sunday to head back to Moputo with heavy hearts. Tofo is beautiful and we wish we could have stayed for a few more days.
We couldn't.
Instead we saw a goat ontop of a bus:
Back in Moputo we wandered around for hours. All of the streets are named after famous Marxist and communist leaders, like Vladimir Lenin Av and the below Mao Tse Tung and Salvador Allende Av.s
Here's one of the old houses in Moputo:
We left Moputo and headed back to Joburg. Our bus broke down for 4 hours somewhere in South Africa, which I slept though, but we did make it over the border. Night crossing:
From Joburg we took the bus back to Gaborone. This is South Africa, very farmy:
After close to two days of travel, we finally arrived back in Gaborone.
Along with trinkets, I also picked up some physical souviners.
In Tofo I was struck by bed bugs. I blame that rhyme for them. They left little red bumps all over my arms and even my forehead. Not cool bed bugs. Not cool.

So this was a long post. I hope you enjoyed it.
It is now 1am. I need to work on this paper.
Thanks for reading everyone!!!
There will only be a few more posts from Botswana, as I leave in exactly a month from today!
Stay tuned for more and stay well.

April! Pictures of the home stay family and other assorted findings

2009-04-05T14:33:00.011+02:00

It's April!!! Woah!

In 3 days I'm leaving for Mozambique!! We're heading to Maputo first, which is the capital of Mozambique.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo
Maputo is supposed to be awesome, with great sea food and cool museums and stores. We're staying there for a night before heading up north to Tofo. Tofo is a town located right next to the city of Inhambane, one of the oldest cities on the coast of Mozambique. It was visited by Vasco da Gama in the 15th century and he named it The Land of Gentle People. Tofo is located right on the ocean and we will be staying at a lodge right on the beach:
http://www.mozambiquebackpackers.com/ (click on the Tofo link)
For three days we should be spending our time snorkeling, sunning, and eating delicious food.
But that's in the future, so lets focus on NOW! (well, then. right now I'm just writing this, not too exciting, other than the fact our water is currently shut off, so I'm kind of thirsty.)

This week I was invited by the head of the Model UN here to help out with a event. I didn't quite know what the event was or what I would be doing, but I decided to say yes.
It turns out that I am helping to write the topics and study guides for an international youth conference being help here at the university in June.
The conference's goal is to have students debate in three different committees: Economic, Education, and Employment; Health and Environment; and Social and Cultural. The goal of the conference is to come up with solutions of how the youth can better get involved in the economy, how the youth feels about the government's health policy towards them, and how youth can be more involved in Botswana's unique culture. We're working with a bunch of government agencies, as well as UNICEF, which wants to review the effectiveness of it's programs.
It should be a lot of work, but it has already been quite fascinating.

On Wednesday last week, a group of us went to a film festival being held by one of the human rights groups in Botswana, Ditshwanelo. That night, the documentary, War Child, was shown. It is an amazing story of a man, Emmanuel Jal, who was a child soldier in Sudan, escaped, and became a rapper who tells his story through music.
Here's the trailer for the documentary:

Other than that, not much else is new.
So, as promised, here's the pictures from the homestay week that I couldn't upload before:
I suppose getting up at 5am wasn't all that bad. Nice sunrises at least.
This is the bus we took. By the time it is filled, there are people jammed in, standing in the isles.
This policeman was wearing some sort of leather uniform. It was 80 degrees out. I just don't know.
Ghost Chicken!!!!
Cattle Post, and the cattle.
This is the Head Boy (not from Harry Potter) who lives at the cattle post. He's tying up the calf, which is about a week old, so it doesn't follow it's mother. They use the calves as ransom so the adults come back at night.
Mmathebe and Nnkuku!!!
Silly goat, trying to walk like humans.

Interesting Setswana words

2009-03-29T18:06:00.002+02:00

Hello!!!!
This week was not very eventful. It was nice to be back on campus, mostly for the 5 minute foot commute to classes in the morning.

A bunch of study abroad advisers came from universities all over the US on Monday to check out the university and the CIEE program here. I was picked to bring 8 of them to my religion class.
They showed up at the school around 8:05 for my 8am class, so I walked quickly with them, hoping not to make too much of a disturbance arriving into class late. This didn't happen.
The thing with Botswana is that for me, being the only white man in a class of 80 black students, getting to class late is something very noticeable. So when you walk in 10 minutes late, using the door in the front of the classroom because the back entrance is locked, people tend to notice.
The entire class started laughing when I walked in with 8 middle age white people, while the professor sang a song which is sung in church when the priest comes in.
They liked the class though, as we were discussing intermediaries in religions, specifically how a mountain goat is used in one culture. (Hint: they don't kill it! They actually capture it on the mountain they believe god lives on, and since it lives near god and has the coolness of god, they rub it with ashes (warmth) and pray on it. Then the mountain goat is released, bringing the heat of earth and the prayers of the people back up to god. Soon the rains come to cool the land and prayers are answered.)
Anyways, we met with the advisers after my class and told them about our experiences in Botswana. It was fun remembering all the things we have done the past 3 months here. I also ran into two advisers, from two different schools, from Cape Cod! It was crazy!

On Saturday, our group went to visit a traditional healer. He was interesting and told us how people come to him with problems. He claims to know immediately what is wrong with a person without them telling him. He communicates with the ancestors of the person, then makes an herb potion for them to drink. People come to him with problems ranging from sickness, broken hearts, bad omens, desire for good luck or a promotion, or the need to have a women fall in love with them. He stated how he is different from a witch doctor, as he only does good and helps people.
He is certified by the Botswana government as an official traditional healer, and there has been research by western science into the herbs and potions used to help people. He also stated that he cannot fix everything and sometimes has to send people to a hospital to get help. However, clinics also send people to traditional healers to remedy some other problems.

Because this week was uneventful and my camera is still dead and I can't upload wonderful pictures, I will hopefully entertain you with the literal meanings of some Setswana words.

Seetebosigo: June or "Don't go about at night" (because it's cold)
Ngwanatsele: November or "The child will pick up" (it's harvesting season, so pick up crops)
Sedimonthole: December or "Please take this off my head" (as women carry baskets of crops on their heads)
Dumela: hello or "I trust you"
Ferabobedi: 8 or "Bend/break two fingers" (if two of your fingers are broken, you only have 8!)
Ferabongwe: 9 or "Bend/break one finger" (Same thing)
lekgoa: white man or "vomited out by the sea" (self explanatory)

A note about numbers. They are terrible in Setswana. No one uses them. They just use English numbers (one, two, three, you know them)

Anyways, I'll let you know about some more entertaining words later.
It's almost Easter! That means I have to get to planning travel. Right now it looks like Mozambique, but I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for reading!
Enjoy!!!

Mochudi and witchcraft

2009-03-25T17:53:00.006+02:00

Sorry for the delay on the blog. My internet has been on the fritz, so I haven’t been able to do anything on the world wide web. But here I am and here is last week.
Sorry for the lack of photos, as in no photos. My camera is dead and I need new batteries to get them onto my computer. They will be up once I can get them.

So after my quite eventful morning on Monday, with the whole waking up grandma and confusion reigning supreme, my week continued mostly uneventfully. I had to wake up at 5am everyday to make it to classes on time, taking the very crowded bus into Gaborone. Once I managed to get a seat, which was wonderful and made me appreciate chairs.

Taking the bus home was always more eventful, as people were more lively in the afternoon. One day, my friend Michael and I sat next to this middle aged woman who was quite friendly, evident after she offered the two of us snuff. We kindly declined, but continued talking to her, in Setswana, trying to figure out what she was asking us. The entire back two rows were invested in this conversation, giving us hints as to how we should answer.

By the time I got home every day, it was already around 6pm. I would walk from the bus stop to my house then help prepare dinner. One night I was chopping up onions, which is always never good for your eyes, but these were especially potent. I was chopping with tears streaming down my face, eyes barely open from the painful burning. My host brother looked at me and started laughing, asking me if I thought onions should be outlawed in Botswana because they make people cry.

Other than the embarrassing onion chopping, the meals were quite good. We ate a lot of chicken and beef, as well as rice with a tomato, onion, and pepper mix. One night we had a chicken stew, which was mighty tasty. I believe that was St. Patrick’s Day, so it was as close to corn beef and cabbage that I could get.

On Wednesday, as I was walking to the bus stop, I noticed a commotion up ahead. There was a man carrying a bike surrounded by a group of people yelling. At first I thought he had been hit by a car, as his face was quite bloodied. However, then I noticed that the bloodied man’s hands were tied to the bike, just as the man walking next to him hit him on the back of the head and pushed him. I realized that I was witnessing the street justice that I had heard about. This man had been caught stealing a bike, jumped by the crowd there, and beat up before being taken by the police.

Every night, after dinner was prepared, we would take our food outside and eat on chairs in the yard. I spent every night just sitting, eating, and looking up. The stars above were like nothing I have ever seen. My constant staring at the sky always made my host family laugh. I suppose they always have amazing night skies.

On Saturday, I once again woke up at 5am, not for school, but for the cattle post. I was picked up by my friend Alex’s host dad, and then we headed out to the lands. It was around a 40 minute drive, but finally we reached the much talked about cattle post. It consisted of two huts and a corral, where the calves are kept. The head boy lives in the hut. He is hired to look after the cattle all year round, as the owners normally have other jobs that keep them away from the post. The cattle boy was around 18 and spoke no English.

While out there, I learned a great deal about cattle. Here are some interesting facts:
-The calves are kept in the corral all day so the mothers have to come back at night. A type of ransom I suppose.
-To get a brand, you have to go to the department of agriculture and they type in your name and print out your brand. This was quite disappointing, as I hoped you could design your own brand.
-Apart from your unique brand to distinguish cattle, a micro chip is also put into the stomach of the cattle. When the cattle are sold, the stomach is scanned and the microchip provides information about the cattle. This helps prevent the stealing of cattle.
-Cattle sell for more when they have no horns.
-A high end cattle sells for 5,000pula, or around $650. Your basic model goes for 1,100 pula, or around $130.
-The punishment for stealing cattle is 5 years in prison.

I returned from the cattle post to find no one at my home. So I took my note book out and began working on my story. I started a young adult book a few weeks ago and I’m around 20 pages in. I’ll let you know if it progresses any further.

Anyways, while I was sitting outside, my host mom and siblings showed up. The kids were carrying boxes. My host mom told me that they had gotten them at the church down the road. I looked at them and was blown away. I realized that these boxes were wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. What they had just gotten were exactly what churches in the US, including mine, do every year. Every year people bring presents to the church for the poor children in Africa. I was sitting there watching my host family unwrap presents that I might well have sent, in 80 degree weather, in the middle of March. It was a very surreal experience, especially since they gave me some candy that was in the box.

Saturday night there was a party for all of us who stayed in Mochudi that week. Alex and I ended up the ones working the braai (grill). We cooked up some mean steaks, sausages, and pork.

We were to be picked up around 2pm on Sunday, so I wasn’t able to make it to church. However, I did have a fascinating conversation.

I was sitting outside my house, working on my story, when one of my older brother’s friends dropped by to visit. He sat down next to me and started a conversation about witchcraft.
Here are the notes I took after the talk:
-Sangoman=witch
-flies on roofs while chasing devils
-can call for someone and they must go to where they are called
-the person who is called feels lost; they don’t know where they are but know where they are going
-the person called is killed for body parts used in potions. These potions are used to bring a person wealth, good luck, and power.
-in 1996 a 14 year old girl was killed by a witch doctor for body parts. The man who was arrested for the killing was not convicted, even though he was found with the body parts in his house.
-this man threw a party for himself after he was released, and at the party, people showed up and burned his house down and proceeded to riot for weeks.
-the government was persuaded to carry out an investigation, with the help of Scotland Yard, but the report was never released. It is believed that some high government officials were implicated in the killing.
-in 1996, students at the university went on strike because of the government withholding information. 200 were arrested.
-there are “too many” of these witch doctors around

It was a fascinating discussion and I have been doing more research into witchdoctors in Africa. I think it would make for a sweet movie.

So I hope I can post this up soon. My internet has been out for over a day now and it is getting quite annoying. I’ll probably have to use someone else’s connection.
Farewell!!

Moving into Mochudi and and all that ensued

2009-03-16T09:07:00.011+02:00

Now, I was going to write about my week last week, but I can't remember a single thing that happened. Now, I'm fairly certain that a lot happened, but this weekend has overshadowed anything interesting that I could have talked about.
And so I will begin the tale of my weekend adventures:

On Saturday I woke up around 7am to pack. I showered, drying off with a t-shirt as I had to bring my towel to the village.
I suppose I should begin by explaining what exactly I was packing for.
This week is homestay week. Everyone in my program, all 12 of us, are living in the village of Mochudi for the week. We each are staying in different homes across this very large village, each home with different economic wealth and family makeup. Last week I was informed that there was a single mother, a grandmother, a 29 year old son, a 12 year old son, and an 8 year old daughter in my house.
With that limited information about the people who I would be calling family for the next week, the group of us headed out at 8am on Saturday. (actually it was more like 9am as our bus was late).
Arriving in the village, we began to drop off each person, one by one. We began to see the range of families and homes we all would be staying in, with some filled with small children, while others looked like they had primarily older members. It was somewhat sad to see everyone leaving, but I got more excited as the time went by, looking out the widow at all the goats, donkeys, and people.
Finally there was only about 5 of us left on the bus. Batsi, out program coordinator, looked back at me and told me I was next. Now, I had been told I was about a 5 minute walk from a few people, but after driving around for over an hour, I had absolutely no idea where anyone else was. We drove down a dirt road, came to a house at the end, and finally I was home!!
I hopped out and first met my older brother, Mpo, younger brother, Molopi, younger sister, Banyana, and grandma, grandma. After the bus left, I was informed my mother, Mmathebe, was at a wedding and wouldn't be back until the next day. My brother called her and I talked to her for a moment: "Hello!" "Hello my son!" "How are you?" "I am fine. I will be home tomorrow." "Alright." "Bye." "Bye." It was a good beginning, I could tell.
I was shown my room (I actually have my own room. A few people are sharing beds with their brothers or sisters. I lucked out)
Since my mother wasn't there, who I am supposed to give the gifts to, I couldn't use those to break the ice. Instead I brought out the postcards of Sandwich that I had brought (thanks mom) and pictures of my family and snow. This kept them asking questions about Sandwich and the animals on the cards. And when I say them, it was pretty much my older brother. The younger sister just stares at me and the younger brother just kinda tries to ignore me. Grandma was somewhere else.
After showing them the pictures and postcards we sat and watched tv. I tried to talk to everyone, but they just looked at me. And I know full well they can speak English. The kids at the orphanage can speak English at 6 or so, and Mpo told me they could. So, after some awkward sitting and me trying to make conversation I gave in and watched tv. They only have one station and luckily it was soccer. You would have liked it dad.
I then remembered I had brought my hemp! I proceeded to get my hemp out and show Banyana how to make a necklace. Molopi was too cool do want to learn. Later he did though. I cut her some so she could work on one, and I started on my own necklace. Since I hadn't really become friendly with grandma, I figured making her a necklace would break the ice. I finished, making a cool red hemp necklace with a shell from Fairfield beach.
I walked outside and gave it to grandma. She took it, laughed, talked to me in Setswana, then pointed at me and and started talking to Mpo. I took this as a good sign so I proceeded back inside to help Banyana with her necklace. She eventually got the hang of it.
After sitting around for an hour or so, I asked Mpo where the bus stop was. Since we have to attend classes still this week, I have to take an hour bus ride from Mochudi into Gaborone to the university. He said sure and we set out. Walking down to the bus stop took maybe 30 minutes, during which I was able to make some solid conversation with Mpo. I asked him about the village and what he does (bartender at a restaurant), and various other things about his life. It was cool.
Then he told me that grandma was scared of me because I spoke English and she did not. Scared of me?! Jeremy?! After I heard this news I was determined to use what little English I knew with grandma.
We eventually made it to the bus stop, passing by the home of Rebecca, one of my friends also doing a homestay. I was relieved there was someone within 5 miles of me. The village is intersected by a number of paved roads, and off of these houses stand, with fenced in houses and yards, full of chickens and children.
Here's the chickens in my yard:
I would eat one later this weekend.
After our tour of town tour, we got back to the house, settling down to watch more tv. I felt like I should be doing something, but I suppose there isn't as much to do in a village as I imagined. Mpo did tell me that he would take me to his cattle post on a donkey cart. These carts are pretty much the roofless and sideless frame of a car pulled by two donkeys. The cattle post is suppose to be the man's area, where time is spent looking at cattle, drinking milk from them, and drinking beer.
After watching soccer for eons Mpo decided that it was time for lunch/dinner at 3pm. We made some papa and potatoes and chicken and a tomato-onion-garlic sauce. I tried to help, but the only thing I was allowed to do was peel the potatoes. Food was good and quite filling.
After dinner Mpo asked me if I wanted to bathe, to which I replied that I was ok for now. We proceeded to watch, in order: Setswana news, Friends, professional dart throwing, a soap opera in both Setswana and English, and My African Dream. My African Dream is a talent show where people sing, dance, rap, and recite poetry. I wish I could have understood it, though Mpo told me what some of the people were saying, like the man who recited a poem on AIDS, which I could never have guessed because everyone was laughing through it.
I was so sick of watching tv while trying to make conversation and failing when Mpo talk me to bathe. There seemed no arguing, so I agreed. Apparently bathing is very important in this society, as Mpo told me they sometimes bathe 3 or 4 times a day. He took me around back to where the outhouse and shed/bath. There is no plumbing at the house so there is no flushing toilet, only an outhouse.
Mpo opened the door to the shed and low and behold, a bath tub!!!
With many cockroaches!!!!

Surrounded by, well, stuff!!!
This is a text I received while in bath:
"Hows life at home?"
My response: "I'm ok. Grandma is scared of me, my young brother and sister don't talk to me, my older brother is cool, and my mom hasn't come home yet. But I am taking a warm bath right now, so that's pretty awesome."

So the bath was cool, and when I went back in I was offered dinner, which was leftovers from lunch. It was around 8 though, so I wasn't feeling like eating before bed.
As I was heading off to bed, Mpo showed me his room and various books he thought I'd be interested in. Included were Bricklaying and Roofing, Geography of Botswana, and a bull catalogue. On the cover of the bull catalogue was a large bull, which Mpo commented was quite nice. I took his word for it, and he proceeded to show me every bull in the catalogue. Now, it turns out this was for ordering bulls or their "urine" as Mpo put it to impregnate your own cattle. It was weird. I went to bed at 9pm. It was awesome.

I woke up around 7 the next morning to go to church. Because my host mom wasn't home the family wasn't going to their church, so I called a friend, Carlos, and found out I could go to his church. Mpo walked me there, which was about 40 minutes from my house. At the church, which was called the Spiritual Healing Church, I met everyone that was of some importance. When Carlos and my friend Max got there with their families, we met with the pastor in his office. He asked us to write down our names and why we were in Botswana. He then tried to pronounce our names.
Pastor-Jerry
Me-No, Jeremy
P-Jay-me
M-Jer-ra-me
P-Jay-re-my
M-Close enough
P-She-ah
J-Sure

After our meeting, during which I was surprised the minister didn't react to Max saying he was Jewish, we went into the church. The church was segregated by age and gender, so we sat with the older men, while male children, female children, young women, and older women all sat i different sections.
The mass was entirely in Setswana, except for the reading, which they did in Setswana and English because we were there.
There was a great deal of singing, which made me sad that I didn't have a hymnal. However, they clapped through all the songs, which was entertaining. I picked up the chorus for the majority of songs though.
The reading this week was Jesus washing the disciples feet, so they had a special rite where the pastor washed the congregation's feet. Now, the men went first, so I was one of the first ones done. Then the young men went. After all the males had gone, we had taken around 25 minutes, making me wonder if only men got their feet washed. No. Not true. Every single person there got their feet washed.
The congregation sung the same song, about the cleansing water the entire time. I memorized it. I sung it and clapped for An hour and a half. THE SAME SONG!!!!! It was crazy. So the feet washing made the normally shortish service run over 3 hours and a half. Eventually Max and Carlos' host moms called us outside and had us walk to their homes.
I found that my home is much less well off than them, as their homes are large and they have satellite tv. I was eventually walked back to my house.
We watched more soccer for a while until I asked Mpo to walk me to the bus stop again, so I would remember in the morning. He proceeded to walk me in a totally different direction to another stop, which happened to be near where my friend Alex was staying.
When we returned my host mom was home. She is a very nice lady, though equally as quiet as the rest of the family, or so I thought. After sitting outside with the family, she dismissed me inside to watch tv more. I showered again, then ate freshly slaughtered chicken and sorghum porridge (it tastes exactly like traditional beer, eg not good). Bed at 8pm. Very nice.

I woke up at 5am to get to the bus. I had talked to Alex the night before and decided to meet him so we could take the bus in together. Then the madness began.
I walked out back to wash my face before I left. Unbeknownst to me the chickens sleep next to the outhouse, thus the rooster sleeps there. I must have woken it up because it started crowing the instant I walked by, scaring me half to death. I got over it, washed, and went back to my room. While packing up I could hear grandma talking quickly and someone talking to her. I walked out and was greeted by Mpo. The following conversation occurred:
M-What are you doing?
J-I'm going to the bus.
M-It is early, you're taking the half six (6:30) bus.
J-No, I want to get in early and take it in with my friend Alex.
M-At 6:30
J-No, 6. I'm meeting him.
M-Here?
J-No, at his house. We saw it yesterday, I pointed it out to you.
M-I don't know. Go inside and sit.

I proceed to walk inside the living room, where I found grandma on the floor under a blanket mumbling. Not wanting to wake her I quietly took a seat. She started talking loudly, sat up, turned, saw me, and yelled. She then turned and started shaking the "blanket" a few feet away from her, which turned out to be Moloki, all the while yelling and pointing at me.
Traumatized, I just sat.
Finally, my host mom came in and quizzed me about this plan I had for taking the bus. I appreciate the concern but she was certain that I would be lost and killed if I tried to do as I told her. She eventually said she would walk me to Alex's house. We never made it. She had me call Alex, who couldn't give directions to his house, so we went to a different stop. I asked her if we had to wait down and across the street with the other people, but she said no. Then a bus passed on the other side and stopped a ways down.
I literally sprinted to make the bus.
Then came the hour long bus ride, during which I stood the whole way. We blew out a back tire but did we stop, never. That's why there's two tires on the back wheel.

Anyways, that was my weekend.
I hope you made it through the entire story. I didn't realize it would be so long. Sorry.
I'll have the rest of my story next post.
I hope it is as amusing to you as it has been for me.

Halfway done

2009-03-08T15:45:00.008+02:00

Happy Daylight Savings!!! Botswana doesn't celebrate Daylight Savings, so I am now an hour closer to the US, only 6 hours ahead of the East Coast now!!!

Tuesday marks 9 weeks of being in Botswana, and since we leave a day after 18 weeks, I find myself halfway through my time here. Madness.

This week certainly had it's ups and downs.
Academically, this week was quite eventful. I had a religion paper due Tuesday, a paper for my study abroad due on Friday, and I'm currently working on a paper for my politics of southern Africa class and another for politics of poverty.

During my politics of poverty class on Friday, the professor finally got the best of me. This man is a terrible professor and all he does is read facts out of books at us. Not to us, at us. He doesn't even understand much of what he reads, as every so often he asks the class if they could explain what he just said. He has also made quite inaccurate comments, such as, "the Jews were lucky in WWII because they had an army and it helped them to defeat the Palestinians."
***I don't want to give you a bad impression of all UB professors. Most are quite competent and I have learned a great deal from the rest of them. It is only this one who is miserable******
He also tends to make very sexist comments throughout class, such as laughing at sexual assault because men have needs, as well as telling the class that often the man earns money and before he knows it, the women has spent it all. He is a huge misogynist. On Friday, we were talking about informal economies, which I find very interesting, when we got on to the topic of the trafficking of women. He seemed to think that women who are trafficked do so by their own free will and it is their fault. He then decided that it would be better to have the class debate over the reasons men leave their wives to sleep with prostitutes than to address why the trafficking of women occurs in the first case, getting a kick out of thinking of reason women drive men to do so. I finally was so fed up that I raised my hand and explained to him that discussing why men leave their wives has absolutely nothing to do with the informal economy and that women who are trafficked do so against their will. It is not normally their choice. He just laughed and said that I was trying to get us off topic. I responded that this discussion was off topic and we should be discussing the issue at hand. He laughed again and continued on his merry way. I was so mad I was shaking. It's no wonder that my doodling skill have vastly improved during this class.

The head of CIEE, Adam , the organization which runs our program, came to visit. We went out to dinner, it was free, so good. He has an awesome job, as he gets to visit all the programs that he runs throughout the year. He said he just got a new passport, but the old one had over 45 countries in it.

This week was also cultural diversity week at UB. This is much more interesting than that at Fairfield, as on Thursday and Friday, booths were set up where you could go around and eat food from about 20 different African nations, as well as check out some of their crafts. On Friday, I had a class canceled, so I was able to check out the parade of nations, where the traditional attire, songs, and dance was put on display of many nations. Here's a few pictures:
This first one is of women in traditional dress singing. I can't remember where they're from, sorry....
Here is all of the nations. The guys that are all covered and looking like characters from Mortal Combat are from Lesotho. I have a class with one of them. He is cool. Even out of costume.
These ladies are from Swaziland.
And these women are from Somalia (Somalis that aren't pirates!!!)
The UB choir sang a number of songs:
I'm going to try to load one song, but it might take a while (DAYS!!!!)
**On second thought, I'll try to load a video later. The pictures alone are taking an eternity. So check back soon to hear the awesome UB choir.
Instead, here's a picture of cool percussion players (the video will also come shortly)
I was also asked by a girl from Botswana if I was going to display my culture. She proceeded to ask me where my baggy pants and large t-shirts were, as, "aren't they part of your culture?" I proceeded to tell her, no, they aren't, but some people wear them. She then asked me if I was going to rap for everyone. I laughed. Then said no. I don't rap.

We met this week to discuss our home stay, which starts next Saturday, the 14th. I am quite worried about this home stay, even though I know I shouldn't be. The prospect of living with a family for a week sounds great, but I'm not sure how my host family will like me, how the living arrangement will be (some homes are nice, others, well, not very wealthy), how I'm getting to school (we have to commute an hour every day, so I have to get up super early), or how well I will be able to complete my school work. I mean, it is cool that we get to help the family out with household activities like cooking, chopping wood, and the sort, but right now the uncertainty of the whole deal is just causing me unneeded stress. Urgh.

I also woke up Saturday morning and began the most unpleasant day I have had in years. I haven't really been sick in a while, but I caught some sort of 24 hour flu. I couldn't eat or drink anything for most of the day without throwing up. It was terrible. Finally around 5 I was able to keep some liquids down, which was great, because I was incredibly dehydrated. I spent the whole day in bed, making it the most useless day EVER. However, I woke up this morning still pretty weak, but as the day has progressed, I've been feeling much better.
However, the combination of sickness and stress about the home stay has resulted in a bit of homesickness. This is annoying, though hopefully during the week with all the work I have to do, it will soon pass.

And if anyone saw the New York Times Travel section this week, I hope you read the article on Cape Cod. Sandwich was one of two towns the reporter visited, writing great things about the Green Briar Nature Center. Whoooo Sandwich!!! Here's the article so I can claim the shameless promotion of my town: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/travel/escapes/06Capecod.html?em

Email me to: let me know how you like my blog/suggest new things for it/demand info you'd like to know about Botswana/just say hi.
And Barbara, I haven't forgotten about the info on military coups. That will also come soon.

March!

2009-03-02T23:03:00.005+02:00

March is here! Spring is on it's way! Wait, summer is here now, so fall is on it's way? Strange.
I realized today that daylight savings is on March 8th in the US, yet Botswana does not take part. So in a week, I will be 6 hours ahead of the east coast instead of 7.
Anyways, this week was mildly entertaining. Finally the academic part of study abroad kicked in, leaving me scrambling to fit in all my work. There is a great deal of group assignments at the university, which I hate. At one point, there were 8 different people trying to meet with me on the same day at around the same time. Quite hectic. Another interesting part of group projects is the method of grading. For my presentation on Military Coups in West Africa, the professor asked the class at the end what grade they thought we should get. Luckily for us, he took the highest grade someone shouted, a 95. However, being graded by those sitting before you was quite surreal.
This weekend a few of us took a taxi outside the city to the village of Oodi. Here is the location of the Oodi weavers, a cooperative of women who make amazing woven tapestries.
Here is one of the women working on a piece:
And this is the workroom, where around 20 women work at a time:
Here's the shop where all their blankets and tapestries and mats are sold:
The Oodi weavers have been in existence since 1977 and has helped many women in the area develop valuable skills and provide work and income. Here's a link with more information:
http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5125-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
Sadly, in this last picture, you can see my red bottle. It was left in Oodi by accident, and attempts to retrieve it have been in vain. It was a nice bottle and helped keep me hydrated on many a hot day.

Here's some interesting notes on Botswana. At least I find them interesting:
1. Water goes clockwise down the sink in the Southern Hemisphere. It has something to do with the Coriolis effect.
2. There are no plain chips here. Everything has some sort of weird flavor.
3. The same party has been in power for the past 40 years.
4. To become a chief, one must inheritate the title from one's father. Only men had been chiefs until recently, when a woman claimed the right to lead after her father died with no male children. However, since a woman can't pass her family name onto her children in Botswana, this line of chiefs will come to an end. So sadly, women have a very limited role in leadership in Botswana.
5. I have lost my favorite backpack (stolen), my favorite sweatshirt (blown off a safari truck), and my favorite water bottle (you know).
6. Dumela, which is the greeting used in Setswana, actually means "I believe". So essentially when you say hello in Setswana, you are stating that you "believe" that this person is a friend and that you can trust them.
7. I have so many cockroaches in my apartment. SO many. We've given up fighting them, though soon I may wake up being carried away.
8. Bride wealth is still paid in Botswana. The family of the man pay somewhere between 8-16 heads of cattle for a wife. Even those living in the city normally do, purchasing cattle to give to the bride's family if they no longer own any.
9. An large Oodi tapestry takes around a month to create.
10. Watching a thunderstorm roll across an African landscape from miles away is something everyone should see.

I hope this was entertaining and that you are well. Thanks for reading.

A full week of classes!!!

2009-02-23T23:00:00.002+02:00

Amazing! We had all our classes last week. It was most glorious.
Since the last two posts had a combined 6,532 pictures, this post will have combined 0 pictures.
And I'm not sure who keeps reloading this page, but we're up to 1116 hits. Nice job. It makes me feel worthwhile.
Anywho, classes began last Monday like nothing happened, other than the many smashed windows across campus. On Thursday, a representative from the ministry of education came to the university to address the students. A few of us went to watch. It was amazing. This man stood up there and scolded the students for striking, even though he refused to meet with them the entire time up to the strike. Communication seems to be a big problem here, as simple disagreements would be easily solved if the parties involved started talking. So, the students were understandably annoyed by this incompetent individual, so in the question answer portion, they just mocked him and told him exactly what they thought.
On Saturday we volunteered at the SOS Children's Village again. These children are amazing and hopefully I'll be working there a few days a week. I also dropped off a volunteer application at the Ditshwanelo Human Rights group. (http://www.ditshwanelo.org.bw/) One of my friends is already volunteering there, so hopefully I shall join.
The strike could possibly begin again this week. However, the university seems to be taking a more harsh stance. Last night students were apparently peacefully marching around and a bunch got arrested. Today some were disrupting classes and more got arrested. This seems to go against many rights of the individual. The students are now mostly angry that their student government, the SRC, has been suspended by the university. The simply want them reinstated. I really hope they don't go on strike again though, as do many students.
Anyways, now that classes have started, so has the work. I just finished a paper on the Phenomenological approach to religion, I am beginning a paper on the role of women in Botswana, and have a presentation on military coups in West Africa. An interesting note: since 1952, there have been 85 successful military coups in 33 different countries in Africa. That is an astonishing number. In Latin America, every country but Mexico has had a coup since WWI. It is a quite interesting topic. I won't bore you with details, but let me know if you want more info.
I am tired so I shall sleep soon, but check out this band called Bishop Allen. I was introduced to their music this week and they are quite good. Here's one of their songs, Abe Lincoln on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVHekOLBUfQ
***Make sure you make it to the end of the song. It's the best part.****
Enjoy the week.

PART 2: Aventures continue

2009-02-14T09:52:00.015+02:00

If you just started reading, this is part 2 of the adventures. You can start here, or at part 1. It doesn't really matter.

After a peanut butter and granola break I'm back.
So I took way too many pictures. I am narrowing down 1100 pictures to only 60 that I am putting up. It is too many. I am sorry. I hope you enjoy anyways.
And never expect to see this many photos again.

We next went to ride in mokoro. These are dugout canoes. It was cool. Not great. Only one picture was worthy.
After our mokoro ride, we went on a real boat cruise of the delta.
The pictures will amaze.
This is a fish eagle. It is also the best action animal picture I have ever taken. Seriously. It's pretty awesome.
Spectacular sunset Baboons!

You may have realized that no elephants have been pictured or mentioned in either of these blogs. That is because we didn't see any in the beginning of our trip into the delta. Finally as we were driving out we spotted one.
After we returned to Maun, six of us split off to explore more of the north. We stayed a night in a hotel, then rented a combi to drive us to Kasane, which is in the very northern corner of Botswana. It was a LONG drive. 600km. 9 hours.
The ride was entertaining though. We had to stop at the foot and mouth checkpoint to get our luggage checked and shoes sterilized.
The roads were also, at times, impassable. We had to drive on dirt on the side of the road to make it past.
I blame the elephants for the road quality...

We saw around 25 elephants while driving to Kasane. And we weren't even looking for them. You could just look out the window and say, "hey, another elephant," and some people would look. I still think they're cool.

Eventually we made into Kasane that night. In the morning we went exploring in the town and managed to find the police station, outside of which is an old boabob tree. This tree was used as a jail years ago.

While looking at the dead tree, a policeman called me over to ask what the group of us was doing in Kasane, and specifically at the police station. I told him we wanted to see the jail tree, and he told me to see the one behind the police station. Skeptical, I wandered around back with Max and saw the most amazing tree I have ever come across.

It was huge. That is Max to give you a scale.

It was hollow inside. What's in there Rebecca?

GIANT LIZARD!!!!

This tree entertained us for a while.

Until our boat cruise into Chobe National Park.

Background:
Chobe is the third largest national park in Botswana, but boasts the largest elephants concentration in the world. That's right, the world. In the dry season, it is estimated that there are around 60,000 elephants in the park. While it is the wet season, there are still a fair number of elephants roaming around.
Anyways, right off the bat we are met with some amazing wildlife.
Crocodile:

Elephants:

Elephant with looming thunderheads. I tried for a while to get a photo of the elephants with lightning in the background, but I have decided that it is impossible. I love this picture though.

Then we witnessed the elephants crossing the river. It was quite cool, as the elephants would bob up and down in the water, breathing through their trunks.

Then there was just a ridiculous amount of animals in one place. Here is 3 elephants, 2 impala, and 2 baboons.

We departed to this sunset (I told you there would be many sunset photos)

We left Kasane on a 6am bus. We got up around 4:50 to shower, pack, and catch the combi which was supposed to pick us up at 5:30. It didn't. Luckily two cabs drove by and we made it in time.
We took the bus into Francistown, where we stayed for a day and a half. There really wasn't much to do other than be amused by signs like this one.
It was also interesting to see the difference between Francistown and all the other cities in Botswana. We literally saw 15 white people in the two days we were there. This is much different from Gaborone, where there are many rich business people, and Maun and Kasane, where there are many tourists.
We eventually took a sleeper train out of Francistown into Gaborone. Here it is.

Now I am back at the University. Classes start again on Monday. This next week will not be as entertaining as the last. But this should suffice for a while. I hope you hung in there and enjoyed it all, or at least the pictures. That's all I'd look at too.

Adventures in the North, aka SO MANY PICTURES

2009-02-14T08:09:00.012+02:00

This should be the most visually pleasing blog yet. That said, it will probably take me all day to upload all the picture which you are going to see. I also took over 1100 pictures this past week, so you will see the best, most interesting ones of the bunch.
It is also VERY long. Sorry, but it should be worth it.

For the past week I have been traveling around northern Botswana, seeing the sights, eating the eats, and NOT drinking the water. There's cholera and the only sort I like is Love in the Time of.
We flew out last Saturday from Gaborone on this plane:

It was a hour and a half flight and we arrived in mid afternoon in Maun. This is a very happening city, full of tour guides and rich people wanting to see wildlife. Maun is situated on the edge of the Okavango delta. At the airport we met our two safari leaders, Joe and Chippy. While we were told we would be riding trucks into the delta, I didn't quite expect these vehicles:

Surprisingly comfortable, off we went toward the delta. Along with the two trucks our group rode in, there was a support vehicle which carried the cook, our food, tables, tents, ect.
Right off the bat we hit a rainstorm, forcing us to close to flaps, ruining our views of the country:

But not for long:
That is a man riding a donkey. They were moving very fast.
One of the many villages we passed on the way to the delta. They all were made up of mud houses with thatch roofs. They also had many goats, donkeys, and cattle. These animals made us have to stop a number of times as they have the habit of crossing the road. No one knows why...
The sky looked beautiful, so I snapped a few shots of it.

I took many pictures of the sunrise and sunset this trip. I don't know why, but the sunrises and sunsets are more vivid and vibrant down here.
After two hours of driving, we reached the very fringe of the delta reserve. Here we set up camp and went on a night drive, hoping to catch sight of some mysterious nocturnal animal.
We didn't.
However, we did eat dinner around midnight, discovering the cook was quite proficient, then went to bed. We were provided with tents and as a pre-bed treat, we were reminded that we were camping in the wild. We were told not to get out of our tents until we were told it was ok to, just in case there was a lion roving around. Our guide, Chip, told us that he has many times awoke to lions prowling around the campsites.
This was going to be an awesome experience.
We awoke at 6am to eat breakfast (yogurt, tea, cereal, toast) and head into the delta. On the way we saw:
Giraffes! (This picture isn't great. Just wait for more further on down)

Footprints! These are quite cool. In this picture there is prints: 1. Lion 2. Elephant 3. Giraffe
I doubt they were walking together.

Impala! (We got our fair share of impala. We quit taking pictures of them early on. They must have been sad)

A beautiful landscape!

This is a zebra. It has a large wound on it's side. Our guide told us that it had probably been attacked by a lion but escaped.

These monkeys were adorable. The were all over the trees.

Hippos turned out to be surprisingly shy. We could only get good shots from afar. This one was particularly happy to be photographed.

I didn't quite know what wildebeest would look like. I had always heard about the great wildebeest migration, so these animals will later be part of it.

This is one of my favorite pictures I took. This monkey was just sitting on this post staring into the distance. There were many monkeys behind this one that I could have taken picture of, but this was too good to pass up. It just has such human-like features, it is amazing.

Hey! This was the other vehicle. They had Joe as their tour guide. Chip was better.

Once again, I couldn't pass up the sunset photos. Those are hippos in the water.
Some more impala. Action photo this time.
Entertaining sign at one of the bathrooms we stopped at.
Ahh!!! We found a great sign.

These next few images were some of the best.
I'm going to tell you right now we didn't see any lions. Now, this is disappointing, but it turns out the next animal is more elusive. Since it is the wet season, the grass is high, so the lions who like to sneak up on their prey are easily hidden, from both the prey and us.
We were driving to take our mokoro ride (dug out canoe) when someone shouted that there was something in the tree. Instead of stopping, our guide Chip floored it and sped off in pursuit of the vehicle infront of us. After catching them, we sped off back to the tree equally as fast, in reverse.

Up in this tree was the most beautiful animal I have ever seen.

The leopard is quite rare to find. Not only is it endangered, but they live alone. Lions live in prides, so it is common to see 10 together. It is not so with the leopard.
I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Right after we saw the leopard, we drove into a clearing with 15 giraffes. I repeat, 15. It was amazing.
Very quickly the day was made quite amazing.

I am going to stop here and upload this entry. I don't want to lose it all. And there's still 41 pictures to go. (hello rest of the day)

And we're off!

2009-02-06T11:03:00.004+02:00

Around 9:30 this morning, all the people in our program got a text from our director Batsi, telling us that we are leaving at 12:30 for the Okavango Delta, the world's largest inland delta which also boasts a huge population of elephants, rino, hippo, lion, crocodile, and other awesome animals. We are staying in the middle of the park for 3 nights, then a group of 7 of us are splitting off and exploring the northern part of Botswana, hopefully seeing some more awesome sights.
I must pack and get ready now, but in a week I should put up some amazing photos and videos which will delight and awe.
Farewell!~

for info on the Okavango Delta, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okavango_Delta

Back again!

2009-02-05T16:16:00.004+02:00

So we moved back onto campus today!!! Great news!!
About ten minutes after my last post, we found out why it was a very good idea to stay off campus. We heard the students chanting again, so my suite mate Alex and I went to the windows and watched them march by. Along with the sounds of singing was mixed in the unmistakable sound of breaking glass. After the main crowd moved on, we saw a few students at the end walking, when suddenly they yelled "police" and ran. After staying inside for a while, we found that the windows of one of our friends apartments were smashed with bricks. Everyone was unscathed and safe, but we quickly left campus again.
About 20 minutes after we left campus, the university was shut down.
All the students were forced out of campus with all their stuff, and everything was shut down and locked up.
Today we found out that the university will be closed until the 16th, so we have the next week off. However, our semester break was canceled to make up lost time, as well as extending the semester another week.
So for the next week we'll hopefully be traveling around southern Africa, but our plans have not been finalized yet.
But for now, all is well.

On another note, today we visited a traditional court. We met with the village chief, who also is the chairman of the House of Chiefs, which is the second house of Parliament. He described the roles of the traditional court, which deals with crimes, petitions, land disputes, ceremonies, and allowing for the people's voices to be heard. Part of the punishment for some crimes involved lashings, a terrible fate for any. Vulgarity is something also harshly punished, up to 3 months in jail and 6 lashings. It is very cool to see how the traditional forms of government work still, including the fact the village chief inherits his title.
Anyways, we have another meeting now about the situation, so I must go.
I hope you are well.

Quick updates

2009-02-04T11:24:00.002+02:00

So on Sunday, all the international students were put in a van and bussed to the conference center where CIEE had orientation the first few days. The International Student office decided that it would be safer for the students to stay off campus until the protests end, just in case we would not be able to leave if they got bad.
The past few days we're been trying to keep amused. On Monday we went to BotswanaCraft, which is a really cool craft store with tons of sweet handmade items. We also visited an artist commune-place where there were wood carvers, painters, and sculptors working in this one area. Yesterday we volunteered at a soup kitchen which provides orphans with lunch everyday. We had to keep them amused before they ate, so I taught them a few camp songs. They were adorable and so poor. The area we were in, called Old Naledi, is about 1 square km, and has 50,000 residents. Most are unemployed and there is high alcohol and drug abuse. We drove around with the soup kitchen director and saw the extent of poverty in the area. It was quite powerful.
Hopefully we will be able to move back onto campus soon and start classes again.
Stay tuned for more updates and photos.
I hope this blog has been mildly amusing. Sorry if it's not.

Take note

2009-01-31T11:29:00.004+02:00

I would like to clarify that even though there are demonstrations and a strike going on here, I am safe.
I know that the exciting things written can give the idea that things are not safe, but they are. I wouldn't be here if things weren't safe.
That is all. Here's a nice sunset seen from my window.

Student strike

2009-01-30T16:48:00.003+02:00

So today we had the second student strike since I have been here. I was getting ready to go to my 10am History of Southern Africa class, when my friend Rebecca, who is in class with me, gave me a call. She told me that the student protesters had just come to her last class and made everyone leave.
**********
Now, before I continue with the story, I'll give you some background on why there are students striking in the first place.
In Botswana, education is free from the time the students start grade school until they complete college. Now, for a University student, each month they get an allowance. This is in the range of 1500 pula ($200ish) a month, and even more for students living off campus.
Botswana is quite rich in natural resources, particularly diamonds. They have been able to finance a number of public development projects with the wealth generated from the sale of diamonds, including funding for the education system.
Due to our current economic downturn, no one is spending money on diamonds, so Botswana has not exported any diamonds in a month or two. Now this hasn't hurt the economy here that much, from what I can see, as there is not a huge problem of job loss, but it has affected the amount of money the government can give to students.
Today was supposed to be the day when the monthly allowances were to be distributed, but since the government is short on money, a number of students didn't get their money. This includes those students who failed a class, and have to take classes for a fifth year. These students are seen as less productive and not worth the governments money anymore.
Obviously upset, there was a student meeting last night, and apparently they decided to go on strike and march on the Ministry of Education to present the government with a petition.

I think that's the background, so back to the story.
*******************

SO, since there was no classes today, I was inclined to check out what the protesters were up to. My roommate Max was doing some work in the library for the work he does at the AIDS lab, and the students showed up and made everyone leave, as apparently doing work is against the ideals of the strike.
After hearing this I decided to check out the protesters, who I could hear chanting from afar. I stayed fairly far away from them not wanting to be caught in the middle of something. While wandering, I found a number of students who were standing around watching the scene unfold. Talking to them, I found that most don't agree with what the protest is trying to accomplish. They see the students as spoiled, as they get free money every month to spend on whatever they wish. They understand that the government is short on money and know that there is no reason to get upset over it. However, as in all public demonstrations, even if you don't agree with the principles, you are still curious enough to go and take in the scene. Eventually, while talking to these students, the protesters, who now made up a mob, marched past us.
Here is the scene.
(this video took FOREVER to upload, like 2 hours, and it came out SIDEWAY! Sorry, I hope it doesn't hurt your neck. Its worth watching though.)

I had to keep my camera in my pocket the whole time just in case someone wasn't too keen on my filming.
I think it is safe to say that this group of people could be considered a mob.
A little while later, there was a meeting called for all international students to debrief us on the situation. We were told that the strike would probably continue on Monday, and perhaps the rest of the week. We should not join the protesters, as it could be dangerous. We just have to sit tight, go on with our lives, and wait until everything blows over.
From all the students here that I have talked to, it seems like it is only a small portion of the population who believe in what they are striking for, so it is not like the entire campus is up in arms.
However, it is interesting that I am constantly asked if things like this happen in the United States, to which I always respond "no". This is usually met with some surprise, though I tell them that we pay a whole lot of money to go to school, so it is not usually cost effective to strike.
So for now I'm just hanging around, writing an 8 page paper on non-verbal cues used in Botswana, as well as trying to plan our spring break trip through South Africa.
I suppose this could actually count as something exciting which is happening in the life of Jeremy.

Margaritas at an Asian resturant in Africa

2009-01-25T20:39:00.008+02:00

Classes began in earnest this week, which turned out to be hell. Monday, once again, no professor showed up for politics of poverty, as well as intro to the african novel. I went to Batsi's, the program director, office and he made some calls and found out that in fact those classes had been canceled. Thus the task of switching classes began, which involved wandering around campus, which is quite large, trying to find buildings, which are all numbered in no particular order. For every class added and dropped, a signature from the department head is needed. Eventually I got all the necessary signatures and added Radio and current affairs, and politcs of southern africa.
Also on monday, I went to the main mall with a few friends, via the combis. Now for those not familiar with transportation in Botswana (in other words you who are reading this, most likely) Botswana uses a system of combis. Combis are small vans which carry up to 16 people, and normally have all 16 seats filled up. There is a very complex and confusing system of combis, with different route names and numbers, so you have to hope and pray you're in the right one or you may end up somewhere strange. On the upside, they only cost 2.70 pula per ride, or about 35 cents. Main mall is slightly shady, but there are a number of cool craft shops set up with people who actually made what they are selling.
Monday night is rib night at Bull and Bush, the wonderful resturant across town, thus a number of us decided to check it out. The ribs are on special for 49.99 pula, or $6.50, with beers costing around $1.25, in other words a wonderful meal.
For our CIEE class, which is the course run by the study abroad program, we have to choose an aspect of Botswana which we intend on researching through interviews. Working in parters, we must travel around Botswana, gathering information from various types of Batswana, from professors to poor farmers. My friend Rebecca and I were discussing the project, and we both thought that researching myths in Botswana culture would be interesting. So we shall be conducting interviews to see how myths and folklore are present in the modern society, the reasoning behind beliefs, how they contradict and interact with the new religions (Christianity and Islam), and how they differ in seperate villages. I'm pretty excited, as hopefully we should be able to get some very interesting interviews.
In continuing with the hellish classes, I went to my Radio and Current Affairs class on Thursday, to which I was the only one to show up. It turns out it got moved to 10am on Wednesday, a time which I already have a class. I had to thus trek around to get signatures to add and drop once again, though since add drop ended on Friday, I was under a good deal more pressure. I eventually got radio dropped, and picked up a history course. The professor of this class is crazy. He spent most of the class bashing the Batswana students and praising the American students, calling the Batswana students lazy and useless, telling the class he had already decided he wanted to be a professor at UB his sophomore year of college there. He was quite interesting and I talked to him for a while after class about various political issues in the country.
On Saturday morning we went to volunteer at a SOS Childrens Village, which is a village entirely for orphans. SOS is the largest orphan charity, operating in 123 countries. The kids here are adorable. We got there and they just all ran over and wanted us to play with them and carry them around and show us different things. I played with them for about 2 hours, then helped the women who work there cut up potatoes. I then sat down at a table and for about an hour just sat around with about 6 kids and drummed on the table and sang songs. It was so much fun. These children are mostly orphans because of AIDS, and many of them also have the AIDS virus. However, while they have already gone through so much at such a young age, they all just keep smiling. They are exactly like any child in the US. One of the most ironic things I saw happened while they got lunch. Each child had a bowl of oatmeal with sugar and milk, which looked quite good. Most of the kids at the table ate all of it up, except for two. I couldn't help thinking of how many times I was told to finish my food because, "there's starving children in Africa who don't even have food." Sometimes you just don't want it I guess.
Last night we went out to dinner before going off to a international student party. We chose an Asian resturant for some reason, which worked out well, as the owner gave us free margaritas becuase we were the only customers. It was very strange to be eating Asian cuisine with margaritas in an African country.
Anyways, I hope this was mildly amusing. And now..........PICTURES!!!

Goats crossing the road
I live here!!!! This is outside the graduate dorm I live in.

From Top, clockwise: Strange green vegetables, goat intestines, maize, chicken, pop (bland white stuff), goat meat, tree worms. mmmmmm
Right outside one of my classes. The university is quite open to the air, as all my classes are open to the outside
The University of Botswana!!!
Kgali Hill. We climbed it. It was glorious.
Trekking up.
The view was beautiful.
One of our many water breaks.
You could see for miles and miles.

Inauguration

2009-01-21T07:10:00.004+02:00

I know I was planning on having weekly updates, but I figured I have to write about inauguration, especially since my experience was quite cool.
Last week we went to the US embassy in Gaborone and we talked to the staff a bit about how we were excited for Obama getting inaugurated. So, while we were there, we were invited to one of the houses of a embassy employee. We figured that this would be fun to take advantage of, so five of us decided to go yesterday. The house we went to is that of the deputy ambassador, so the second in command in Botswana, and since the actual ambassador is out of the country, she is technically the acting ambassador. Now, we drove to her house and as our combi (small bus used here as public and private transportation), we saw a number of men in uniforms with large machine guns. It turns out that we were going to the house directly across from the vice president of Botswana's private residence, which has military guards at all times. So at least we knew we were safe, though the men with machine guns were slightly daunting.
Anyways, we got into the house/compound, and were greeted by a number of the embassy staff, as well as a few members of the Marine corp who are stationed in Botswana right now. One of the men was quite interesting, as he just got into the country after being transferred from Budapest. He works in the embassy as the liaison to the Air Force. There was also amazing food at the house, as well as cool items the couple whose house it was, including a Bedouin matrimonial mask, which was quite heavy and has burning incense hanging from the bottom.
Obama's, or as we should say, President Obama's speech was most amazing. The entire room was captivated through it's entire span and I was getting chills just listening to parts. No one can deny that he is an amazing orator. His message of hope, unity, and courage was amazing.
I hope everyone else had the opportunity to watch the inauguration and that you who are reading this are doing well.
Stay tuned for more pictures too. Perhaps a video?????

Pictures, At last!

2009-01-18T18:03:00.012+02:00

Elephants are the greatest animal EVER!

Super cute kids at the museum.

Zebras. They're cool.

These are the footprints at Matsieng.
I guess they really do look like footprints.

Hello from Botswana!!!!

Elephants!

2009-01-18T17:12:00.003+02:00

So I finally got to see elephants today. About time. Two weeks in Africa and not a single elephant? Madness. Anyways, we went on a "cultural excursion" this weekend with all the other international students. We left Saturday morning and drove to the Phuthadikabo Museum, in Mochundi. It was in the building of a old school and had some cool documents and history of the tribes in the area. One interesting note: Cecil Rhodes, the man the Rhodes Scholarship was named after, tried to get the British to give him control of Botswana so could have a nice route between South Africa and Zimbabwe. As the founder of De Beers, he was not quite into the rights of the Batswana people, so all the tribes banded together and pleaded with the queen to stop him, which included a trip by three kings to England to petition the people. It eventually worked and Rhodes didn't get control. One of the letters which was written to the queen was in this museum. Also there was some interesting pictures of the initiation ceremonies for the young men and women of the tribes. These practices have since been made illegal by the government, due to the practices of female circumcision which were included. However, the pictures and first hand accounts by missionaries were interesting. There were also the cutest kids from the village that walked up and just wanted to take pictures with our cameras and have their pictures taken. A few great ones came from them.
After that we went to the Matsieng foot prints, which are impressions in the ground, shaped like feet of course, which the tribal people of Botswana believe were created by the first humans that climbed out of the pools of water next to the foot prints. These were cool, though not amazing. Next we went to the Manyana rock paintings, which are around 2000 years old. These were paintings located at the bottom of cliffs. Apparently, the men who made them were first put under some sort of trance by crazy drugs that gave them visions. They painted the visions on the rocks and the tribal elders interpreted them. There were paintings of rino, antelope, giraffes, and a few humans. The male paintings have three legs. I won't say more about that one.
Down the road from the rock paintings is a Livingston tree. Here, David Livingston would sit during the day and take care of patients and hold religious services. The tree, a fig, is massive and provides an amazing amount of shade under it's canopy.
Last night we stayed at a cultural village called Bahurutshe. It was nice, with friendly women who taught us dances, showed us how to grind maize, and cooked some nice food. We were pretty exhaused by the end of the day, as the temperatures hovered around 90-95 all day, with beating sun. They did give us traditional beer, which was warm and had pieces of sorgom (wheat) in it. After a while it was good. We slept in nice tents and woke up to a breakfast of eggs, beans, fat cakes (kinda like donuts), and beef.
Then came the animals. This morning we got to the Mokolodi Game Reserve, which is a private game reserve not far from Gaborone. We drove around in a large vehicle and right off the bat we saw a bunch of impala. Only male impala have the large horns. Then we ran into two elephants. I was sitting on the outside of the vehicle and was literally about 5 feet away from these massive animals. They were just tearing away at some trees, satisfying their enormous appetites. I could have sat looking at them for hours. But we kept going and on the way saw: a giraffe, a few zebra, kudu, warthogs, and some gemsbok. After seeing all these animals I have finally started to belive I am actually in Africa right now.
Some other highlights of the week:
-Skype has been activated and I've used it to talk to Anne a couple of times, which is wonderful.
-I played soccer with the University team on Tuesday. One of the players is on the U-20 team for Botswana and they all are insanely good. It was much fun, though I think I'm just going to play in less competitive games here.
-I talked to a girl while doing laundry and had an interesting converstation about religion. She told me that many people here put people into a heirarchy in regards to how devote they are, in Christianity at least, which she said is turing many off to the religion. Apparently Islam is growing amazingly fast here.
-My classes are going. Two haven't actually met yet (Politics of Natural Resources and Intro to the African Novel), but Politics of Poverty, African Traditional Religions, and Intro Setswana are all interesting.
-We went to the US Embassy to get debriefed by staff. It was boring, but we did get invided to the assistant directors house to watch the inauguration, which was kind of her.
-There was a brief student strike at the university. Apparently every student gets money at the start of every month for whatever they want, but since the government is short on cash due to poor economy and lack of diamond sales, the students only got a portion of this money. So, some decided that striking would do some good, which it did not, as most students know that the government can't do anything. It was entertaining for a bit at least.

Beyond that, all is well. I've been here almost two weeks now, which is about 1/9 the entire stay here. So hopefully the rest of the 8/9 will be as mildly amusing.
Oh, and I can't seem to load any pictures on any website, anywhere or at anytime here. Its frustrating, but hopefully a breakthrough will be made. And soon.

My Address

2009-01-13T20:47:00.002+02:00

In case anyone feels like sending me anything, here's the address the note/package can reach me at. Apparently normal mail takes a long time, but DHL is quite fast, less than a week. Its probably expensive though.
Jeremy Shea
c/o Batsirai Chidzodzo
University of Botswana
Block 134-D
Office #039
Private Bag 0022
Gaborone, Botswana

Any little note would be amazingly appreciated.

Africa: Week 1

2009-01-13T20:40:00.003+02:00

I'm here! This is the first time I've been able to access the internet since I've been here, but now I can get it often. It's pretty fast, which is a plus.
SO. I got into Botswana on Tuesday the 5th, flying into Gaborone on a propeller plane which reminded me of the one Indiana Jones uses. Stepping off the plane all of us were hit by the heat. We were met in the airport by Batsi, who is the program director here. We got our bags, of which only a few didn’t arrive, and then we drove to the place we were staying the next few nights. On the way there, we could see the small houses of villages that surround Gaborone. We stayed at this conference center (which had no internet) for three nights. During the days, we had orientation for the program.
These first few days I experienced pretty bad culture shock and homesickness. During the orientation I was told this was normal, but it seemed most people experienced this later on in their stay, not getting off the plane. All I wanted to do was go home. It didn’t help that the orientation people kept stressing safety, telling us of all the things which could go wrong in our stay here. However, after getting to know the other international students, as well as traveling a bit around the city and surrounding areas, I’ve been doing a whole lot better.
One of our first excursions was on the third night, when we all went to a village to dine on some fine cuisine. We feasted on pineapple and ginger juice, goat meat, goat stomachs, chicken, some green stuff, and tree worms. After eating, we participated in some traditional African dance, which was a whole lot of fun. The next day all the students moved into our dorms. We have 12 people in our program, from schools like Amherst, Harvard, College of Charleston, Oregon, Nebraska, and Johns Hopkins. We all are living in the graduate housing, which is like the apartments at Fairfield. There are 6 single rooms, with one shower, one bathroom, and a common room with a kitchen. They are very nice, as these are the only dorms which have internet access in the rooms. I’m living with two other international students, Max from Harvard and Alex from Nebraska. They are both quite interesting and fun people to live with. Max is doing AIDS research while he’s here, so he’s only taking two classses and working in the lab the rest of the time.
I am taking 5 classes, Intro to Setswana (the language), Intro to the African Novel, Politics of Natural Resources, Politics of Poverty in Southern Africa, and African Traditional Religons. I had my first day of classes yesterday, jam packed with the first four of those classes, and not one class was held. The first week of classes are not usually well attended, by either student nor professor, so while I showed up to all of them, the professors didn’t. I had my religions class this morning though, and it was packed with around 70 students. The professor is quite a character, very animated and loud, cracking jokes and urging us to participate during the semester. In the universities in Africa, this is very uncommon, as most professors simply lecture, not wanting any participation or questions from the class. This religion class should be fun though.
Two days ago we went for a hike up Kgali Hill, which is the highest hill around these parts. It took a while, as we had to stop multiple times to let people catch up and rest, but the whole way up and from the top, the view was amazing.
Now I’m sitting in my room waiting for Setswana class. Perhaps we will have it today.
Pictures will be coming soon, as it seems the internet works the fastest at night and early in the morning.

My blog!

2008-12-30T04:42:00.001+02:00

Hooray! This works!
Not much to write yet, but check back soon for updates from Africa.
I leave next Monday, January 5.