Shorobe homestay

Wow, I feel like I have a lot to say. It may be random, so bear with me...

The past 2 weeks I've been in a homestay (my last one for the semester) in Shorobe. Actually, I'm in a village outside shorobe that 3 of us are in, but our main base is shorobe. It's actually really nice being outside the village because ti's so quiet. It's too bad I haven't gotten to do some things other people have, like go to soccer games in Shorobe, but it's so nice out where I live. My family is just my mom Oarabile (40) and sister Mauni (8). My mom also has 2 sons-one in boarding school and the other is about my age, I think. There are also about 5 other kids that are usually at our house at night. I think they come because my mom feeds them. It's really interesting how people take care of each other here. Nobody really has money, but I think my mom might be slightly better off than many families because she works full time as a cook at the school in shorobe. Our house is one room that's maybe the size of 2 dorm rooms, and we have a kitchen, even though she always cooks outside on a fire. They use the kitchen for storage, and I think they might cook there during the winter. We dont' have any electricity or running water, and the toilet is the bush. It's really an incredible experience. It really puts into perspective everything that we "need" at home in the US. Seriously, you don't need much to live. Even food. I don't know what they normally eat, but I know my family didn't have much food when I got there. My mom had to wait until I got there to go to the store because they get money for hosting us, and she didn't have money to get food for me before I came. They do a lot of subsistence farming and eat the melons and squash they grow in their own garden, and their diet has a lot of cheap carbs like rice, noodles, maize meal (a corn-based thick porridge-type dish).

The language barrier has been interesting. My mom speaks a little english, and I speak a little setswana so we can communicate enough to get through the day but I really wish I was more conversational in setswana. It's hard living with someone for 2 weeks, and never really saying much more than the basics.

We have classes in Maun, which is also a village nearby, but it's more modern. Our classes are in a nice hotel. That hasn't helped the transition to living in Shorobe. It's really difficult to live in really poor conditions and then come each day to a nice hotel with white tablecloths, powerpoint presentations, mints, our choice to whatever food we want to buy for lunch with our comparatively disposable money supply, etc.

Another difficult thing-probably the hardest-has been being a guest here. They're always serving me and giving me the best of everything. I'm served considerably more food than they are. Thankfully, I don't have to feel ungrateful about not eating everything because they're happy to finish what's left on my plate and I'm happy to leave food so they can eat more and because I really cna't eat that much food. I also sleep alone in the only bed in the house, while my mom and sister share floor space even though the bed is definietly big enough for at least 2 of us. That part has been really difficult. And when I offer to help do things-cook, clean, etc. I usually am told that no, it's okay. so I just sit there and continue to be served.

Some other things I've done...we went to the Okavango delta last friday, which is one of the largest inland deltas in the world-right here in botswana:) we went in on the sweet boats you see in cool places like venice...and the delta. Then we proceeded to go on a game walk in the hottest part of the day where there was pretty much no shade and we saw absolutely nothing. Oh, except "shit of an elephant" and "shit of a giraffe", as our guide like to refer to it. Then we went back on our boats. The boats were cool. game walk, not as much.

Shoot, I'm out of internet time. We did some other cool stuff. next week I'll be in the bush.

I just had a really nice week of relaxation/seeing sweet stuff in Botswana. Last saturday we took an overnight train to Francistown and continued in the morning of about a 6-hour drive up to Kasane, where we set up camp for the week at a campground. It's not really as rustic as being in the bush, but that's still to come...we're going to be staying where we can't even use our own tents because we could be mauled by lions and such things if we stayed in such a small tent. Don't worry, though, they're taking care of us. The first night we had a really strong downpour, which was a great test of my tent's water-resisting ability, and it passed. The ground is so dry it took a while for the water to soak in so my tent was sitting in a good 1-2 in. of water but remained dry. REI pulled through for me.

On monday we went on a boat cruise on the Chobe River into Chobe Naqtional Park, which was really neat. we saw elephants (which, by the way are way over-populated and causing big problems here because they eat so much; estimates are a population of about 150,000 in an area with a carrying capacity of more like 50-80,000), crocodiles, many birds, water monitors, impala, kudu...and hippos, 2 of which tried to attack our boat. it was slightly frightening.

Tuesday was incredible. we crossed the border to Zambia and went to victoria falls. It was so beautiful. If you ever get the chance, go. seriously. It's just immense amounts of water flowing down, and the force fo the water landing causes so much vapor to rise up, which forms really low clouds, resulting in perpetualy downpour ontop of you. I've never known waterfalls could be quite that amazing to experience.

Wednesday we took a game drive into Chobe Nat'l park, and saw much of the same things which was again really cool. It's neat to be on the academic side, really learning about the wildlife and not just seeing it. tourists are missing out.

Thursday was a little bit of real classes. honestly, though, am I really getting credit for this semester? I don't see how it's possible, but it's true. even though I'm having an amazing time and getting to do everything I would love to do even if I didn't get credit for it. Not a bad deal.

Yesterday we drove down to maun, where we're camping in thru tomorrow afternoon, at which point we will head to our next homestay in the village of sherobe. Im excited for this one. It's much less modern, and they probalby won't speak english, which will definitely challeng my setswana skills but it will be good for me. they also have their own language, so setswana isn't even their first language. Hopefully we'll be able to communicate well enough. It's going to be aweek of eye-opening experiences though with a much simpler way of life. I'm really excited. I also just finished reading the Irresistible Revolution for those of you who know it, so i think this will be a good follow-up experience to really help me examine myself. I'll let you know how it goes..

Gabs

I've been in my Gaborone homestay now for about a week and a half. We're here through Saturday. My family is really nice. My mom Nonnie is 31, and I live with her older sister Christine, Nonnie's daugherPanila (14) and Christine's kids Jessica (10) and Tshepo (21) plus their mom Margaret. There's also a full time maid, something that is very common. Our maid doesn't stay at the home, although many do and many families also have more than one maid, hwich is pretty incredible to me, considering the money struggles some families have, although they seem fairly well off. It's just that the cost of living is very high. Many of the maids come from Zimbabwe, though, and I'm guessing are pretty cheap labor. There are so many immigrants here from Zim. I've been having fun getting to know my family. It's amazing how female-heavy a lot of households are. I was just reading a magazine article this weekend about how fewer and fewer women are choosing to marry. They are so independent here and marriage really isn't appealing. Men don't always have many responsibilities except cattle and working, while many women work, take care of the kids, cook, clean, and care for the crops. It's definitely different in the city though compared to the village. My homestay brother has cooked at least on meal and often washes dishes-something that you would never see in a village.

I've climbed/hiked 2 mountains/hills (not really sure what they're classified as) since I got here. We climbed Mt. Otse in Otse, and last sunday we had a "bring your siblings" hike up a hill in gabs, which was really fun. My 2 sisters came with.

These 2 weeks while wer're here, we're having classes with guest lecturers at the University of Botswana. Morning lectures are on environmental topics, mostly also relating to social issues like the livestock /wildlife conflict, water issues, policy, etc. They have been really interesting. This week we have also started an afternoon lecutre series dealing specifically with social issues in botswana. Today we learned about HIV/AIDS and ethnicity in Botswana. We ahve a mid-term coming up on friday, mostly covering our lectures and other readings about Botswana Environmental issues and culture.

At the end of this homestay we head up to Kasane, where most of the wildlife is and that's when we really start the ecology focus of our classes.