Botswana

So we made it! After about 18 hours of travel we landed in Gabarone.. ( they pronounce is hab-a-roni .. like pepperoni).. The flight wasn't too bad.. I got up and walked around a lot, and watched a few movies.. all our flights gave us a lot of food, even the under an hour flight from Johannesburg to Gabarone. That flight was delayed because of a crazy storm that blew in, we could see it coming in the distance because its so flat. There was a ton of lightening and all of a sudden just downpour.

It's currently Sunday, about noon here.. we can't yet access the internet on campus because we aren't technically registered yet. The internation office here isn't the fastest moving organization... as a result we get our class schedules tomorrow afternoon, after classes have begun. So to use the internet we've been walking a little over a mile to an internet cafe where the internet is actually pretty fast. There are malls here, they are fairly small but we've been coming here to eat, and pick up a few items for our rooms (such as fans!!) and yesterday Jon and I saw a movie. It was so nice to be in air conditioning!!!

When we arrived the luggage of almost everyone on our flight was missing.. apparently it hadn't fit on the plane so they just left it behind haha.. so the first 2 days we were all hot and stinky without our stuff.. but luckily it came intact a few days later. Our rooms are in undergraduate dorms called "Las Vegas" by the students because they are so nice. And while they definately aren't Wheaton, I'm getting used to it. We are issued sheets and blankets and a pillow (i bought a new pillow yesterday), but since its in the high 90's at all times, I layered the blankets under my sheet to make the bed a little more comfortable. The rooms are pretty nice, they are doubles, but there is a wall partition in the middle so they are somewhat seperated. The only drawback is that we have to lock our rooms and our closets with padlocks, so everytime you leave the room you have to padlock everything. It's because of the high level of theft, especially of laptops and cameras. The campus is open and a lot of people will target the international students, assuming we have a lot of nice things to steal, so we have to be extra careful. They even warned us against people attempting to befriend us simply to get into our rooms and see where we keep our stuff. They really stressed the caution and safety, but it's better to be over safe than have your stuff stolen.

This campus is pretty huge, especially compared to tiny Wheaton. Our dorms are on the far end as well so its about a 15-20 minute walk to the other side.. it doesn't seem like much but you can drink all your water walking across campus when its 100 degrees! It's crazy cause everyone here wears pants and I've seen people wearing sweaters, and I asked one of the students if he was hot, and he was like ... no. haha Theres an olympic sized outdoor pool which once I'm registered and have an Id I will be spending a lot of time in on the weekends.

Our orientation was very brief, but included a bus tour of the city, so we got to see some of the less affluent areas and learn some more history of the city. Some of the Batswana were so suprised to hear that America had once been a British colony, they couldn't believe it. So we have that in common, even if Botswana was technically a protectorate. We also went to a local womans house, which was built in the style of a traditional hut, but was updated a lot, and so beautiful. We spent the night around a fire in her courtyard which was also beautiful, and it was night so the weather was a little cooler. The dishes were traditional, including goat, goat intestines, and worms. The worms are short and fat, and are apparently just like salty chips.. I took their word for it. I also skipped over the intestine but I did try everything else. We ended the night with traditional singing, dancing, and games. It was really interesting to see some of that and we had a lot of fun. The people here are so friendly and laid-back, they are always laughing. Mostly they speak Tswana, everything written here is in English, and they all speak it, but Tswana is more natural to them, so we have been trying hard to learn some words. Monday I start a Tswana course thats 5 hours a week.. so hopefully I'll do ok.

My roommate is from a village about two hours from Gabarone.. she seems very nice, but very quiet. I had the opportunity to meet her parents who were excited about her having an international roommate. People here seem to like having us around and are generally very enthusiastic to help us, but it is weird being one of 30 white people in a school of 16,000.. It's very different being the minority for a change. One of our Batswana friends before we got our cell phones was like "oh don't worry, you won't be hard to spot" which is very true haha. I have a cell phone here which works from the U.S. with an international calling card, its 011-267-71781310. It's super easy to do phones here.

I hope everything is going well back home, and people are enjoying the cold and the snow... you never think you'd miss it until it's 100 degrees!