Third Week

I can’t believe it is almost the end of January! Time has gone by so fast. Anyway, there is a not a lot that has happened in the last week. I have met some amazing people. There are a group of people that we usually hang out with every night. Classes have been fine although as I have said before everything here seems to go really slow so it doesn’t actually feel like we have started anything. Usually, at Lake Forest there is a set schedule of readings and assignments, etc. but here, there is nothing that is really asked of you other than showing up for class. It is really left up to the student to put in the effort they think is necessary to pass the class. The grading system here makes me a little nervous because they post the grades from tests and final grades and nowhere have a seen a single A for anyone. We’ll see how that turns out I guess.

My Setswana class is really fun and it is nice to be friends with locals who will speak Setswana to you and teach different things that you wouldn’t learn in a formal class setting. I am doing my independent study project on cultural preservation which I am really excited about but with the mentality around here it is really hard to be motivated or have people willing to help you with your research. Hopefully, I will get more done this week. My other class taught by a UB lecturer is really a struggle because it is at 3pm MWF and there is absolutely no fans, AC, or breeze that comes through that classroom and he lectures in a very slow manner which makes it difficult to pay attention or stay awake.

I am really excited to do a little more traveling around. Maybe then I will have more to say. But we are going to Soweto and Johannesburg this weekend which should be an experience. Although every one of my friends that I tell I am going, tell me that I need to be extremely careful because it is a really dangerous.

There are a few things that I can say about what I have noticed. First of all, people really know how to party in this country. There are people up at all hours of the night still enjoying themselves and a couple of weekends we have seen people at 8am that haven’t even gone to bed. For the most part, people are very willing to show you around and cook for you and teach about their culture, etc. It is crazy how many invitations we have had to go eat dinner at people’s houses or to be taken out to dinner and what not. For example, last weekend we went to the house this guy we met at the Yacht Club by Gaborone Dam. We had a BBQ or a Braai as it is referred to here. He let us cook and hang out and swim in his pool and then took us home. By US standards, this would seem very creepy but I can assure everyone reading this that if you are cautious and feel comfortable then it is perfectly normal.

There are few sayings here that are common among the students here or maybe the younger crowd in general When they are refuting what you say or joking around with you they say, “Ah naw”, all the time. They also, strangely enough, greet their peers by saying, “Hola” which is definitely not Setswana. Blah, Blah, Blah often turns into “what, what” or they will say it if they can’t think of the right word to say. When you are telling people something and they are saying something comparable to “are you serious?”, they say “Is it?” This one is used almost unbearably.

Let’s see, there is often no toilet paper, paper towels, or hand soap in the public restrooms around campus or even in the restrooms in the dorms so it has become a habit to carry around toilet paper and hand sanitizer wherever I go. I am sure that I have mentioned this before but it has been a really interesting experience being a minority. I guess that this is all I have to say for now but I will write more very soon.