I am glad I was not raised in a world defined by black and white. I am glad the people of Botswana (Batswana) were not raised in that manner as well. During my stay I have witnessed many racist comments (not necessarily directed at me but to other white people and to Africans) from African Americans but very few from Batswana as I have lived here. Race was never an issue in my childhood and I can never remember looking at someone differently because of the color of their skin, because people were never my people and your people, everyone was simply a person. The discomfort I have felt because of these comments and actions is unlike anything I have experienced before. Even heavily bigoted statements made in jest make me feel like I am watching a cruel show. It is not that I don’t find crude jokes funny, but it is the context of the situation in which these jokes are made. The reasoning because “I am black and they are black” just doesn’t seem sufficient in my mindset as to why individuals can act in certain ways. Color has nothing to do with culture. I am white and I have no real understanding of African American culture, especially from other regions in the United States, as I never experienced them until I arrived in Africa, so it is my ignorance as well as the ignorance of others which plays into a miscommunication of prejudice. In so many ways despite the differences of the Batswana and myself I feel like I understand them better than many of the other Americans. It’s a confusing and jumbled comparison that I don’t think anyone can understand unless they stand in my shoes. However being here, spending time with people who exemplify different aspects of my own society, trying to understand why they do what they do, say what they say, and think what they think, is a wonderful opportunity to learn about American culture, and to better understand why the American people are the way they are. With that said I will tell you about my Spring Break.
We left at 5:30AM to catch our first bus to go from Gabs to Joberg. This was the first of many early mornings but by no means the earliest. We had a goal. We wanted to make it to Praia do Tofo in 2 days, traveling only by bus across 3 countries in southern Africa. The ride to Johannesburg was the easiest. After 7 hours of napping, reading, and eating snacks we arrived at the bus station in the early afternoon with our backpacks and no idea how to get anywhere in what is known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The station itself is notorious for being sketchy, well not the station necessarily but the area surrounding it. We were told before leaving by many people both Motswana and South African, white and black, do not stay at the bus station catch a taxi and go somewhere safe like a museum or a mall. We chose a mall, as we needed to fill seven hours with something and didn’t want to get ripped off by a taxi anymore than we had to be. The mall could have been taken straight out of America in the 2001. Lots of white men with tight jeans and hair carefully styled so to look like they just got out of bed. With many I wouldn’t be surprised if they use more product in their hair each day than I have in the last 5 years. So as you could imagine people watching was most enjoyable and as of now ruddy South Africans are my favorite people to observe. We decided despite our sleep deprivation to go and see a movie. “Mama Mia” it was and the musical turned out to be quite the trip. None of us could really follow the film but the songs were catchy and we found plenty of clichés to laugh about. Evening rolled around and suddenly we on our overnight bus to Maputo, crammed in tight with numerous sweaty and smelly Africans, in seats that refused to recline as the traditionally built women behind us used their traditionally built legs to keep it erect at a degree angle for the first 7 hours of what we thought was a 9 hour bus ride. However being in Africa we should has known that buses like everything run on African time, so 9 hours turned out to be 14. Don’t be confused and think all 14 hours were miserable in fact very few of them were. Bus rides no matter where you are in the world are always an experience, and whenever anything gets to be too much you just eat some chocolate, smile, laugh and everything is alright. Come early morning the bus stopped jostling and fell into the long long line of cars, over loaded khombis, and other buses waiting patiently to cross the border. The Mozambique/South African Border was like nothing I had ever seen before. Razor wire, vehicles, people, and queues all jumbled together trying to get from one side of the numerous fences to the other. It took us 4 hours to cross the border the first time, but only an hour on the way back because our bus driver collect all of our passports and sped up the process. Throughout this experience I wondered what the passport people look at, because I have had some scrutinize every detail in it and compare me to my photo repeatedly while others just flip to a blank page stamp it and hand it back to me in less than 10 seconds. But between visas and stamps this trip cost me 3 pages of my passport but at least I went somewhere interesting. Once we were in Mozambique the bus driver really let loose passing cars and trucks going uphill around blind curves and driving down the middle of the road or on the shoulder to avoid pot holes and debris. I wasn’t surprised to I see several trucks upside down in ditches and fields because if everyone drove like our bus driver it was obvious how accidents happen. We arrived in Maputo late, missing our bus to Tofo, so like anyone who just got off a 14 hour bus ride we went to find a hostel.
Before the civil war Maputo was probably one of the most beautiful cities in Southern Africa. Today that is not the case. Concrete skeletons stand naked and empty, abandoned and stripped of anything of value. What used to be gorgeous buildings with spires and decoration are now dilapidated with collapsing rooms and what appeared to be bullet holes. Trash fills the city streets, covers parks and sidewalks, overflows from dumpsters and garbage bins adding ever present filth to what used to be fabulous. Dead rats lay on broken sidewalks and based off the map of Maputo we received from the hostel there are more places where they recommend you do not go than do. There are still some beautiful homes with well manicured lawns, mosaic work, and of course guards, razor wire, broken glass sticking out from the top of concrete walls, and an ominous feeling that wealth is only allocated among a few individuals. The people we met were friendly and helpful despite only speaking Portuguese but the best part of Maputo was as soon as we stepped off the bus our skin was no longer cracked and dry and my feet no longer looked like I had a strange disease as they appeared pink and healthy. It is amazing what moisture in the air can do for your body. During my week in Mozambique I never felt thirsty and everything always felt damp because of the inescapable humidity. The first thing we did after arriving in Maputo, checking into our hostel, and eating a cheap (both in quality and price) meal, was go to the ocean. It was breathtaking seeing a large body of water again. I miss the greens and blues Oregon provides. There were really no beaches in Maputo but I was perfectly content to watch from a hillside the flat surf and palm trees covering the earth as is it fell into the ocean.
We stayed in a backpacker hostel called Fatima’s which was a wonderful place full of color, culture, and life. If anyone ever needs a place to stay in Maputo I recommend it as they have a great kitchen, bathrooms, showers, and vibe. It was also convenient as they had a shuttle to Praia do Tofo allowing us to avoid catching a bus and khombi (chapa in Mozambique) in a country where were couldn’t speak nor understand the language. Every time I tried to speak any Portuguese it came out as a horrible conglomeration of Setswana and Spanish reminding me how lucky I am in Botswana because it is easier to try and understand an African speaking English with a thick accent than an African speaking a language that resembles one I learned in high school with the same thick accent and pronunciations I am not familiar with.
The ride to Tofo was lovely. We were crammed in the back of a small bus but the scenery was incredible. We drove by rivers, fields, villages, and numerous hills (all of the above with the exception of villages really do not exist in Bots). The women in Mozambique all wear beautiful sarongs as skirts. I loved the look and colors of the traditional fabrics but was never able to find any of them for sale. The villages were composed of numerous small grass and palm frond huts. Some had windows painted on them so to resemble a western house, but they had no apparent power nor running water. If there was a concrete building in any village it was either a church or a clinic (or both). These people live everyday of their lives without the amenities the poorest people in America take advantage of. Children pumped water from wells and women carried the full jugs back to their homes atop their heads. I can’t even imagine balancing something so heavy and awkward for such a long period of time. I noticed they all take small steps but even then like carrying water the people of Mozambique live a life I can’t imagine.
Tofo turned out to be a wonderful place. The guidebook said our hostel was supposed to be about a 15 minute walk from town and I think it would have been a 15 minutes for me but when traveling with our group it was doubled. Our hostel was called Bamboozi Backepackers, and for about $7 a night we stayed in a little hut made out of grass and palm fronds. Sand and coconut trees were everywhere and everything was beautiful and green. The first thing we did was drop our bags and run to the ocean. Even though the sky was slightly overcast the water was warm and the surf small. We all got our first group picture only to have a wave crash behind soaking out clothes and because of the humidity they never really dried. The hostel was located on one side of a sand dune with the ocean on the other side however the bar looked over the ocean and it was only a short walk away. The beach was beautiful, clean, open, and empty. We played in the water for hours each day and would sometimes swim out past the surf only to let the current push us back to shore. It was amazing how shallow the ocean was and how easy it was to swim. The only problem with swimming was we had to wait hours to wash the salt water off our bodies because there was only hot water during specific hours as it was heated by fire before being pumped to the tap. I woke up every morning for sunrise as I hadn’t seen the sun rise over an ocean before. Each morning was unique and beautiful. After sunrise I walked along the beach admiring tide pools, shells, and coral. The biota was so different than home and everything I found was fascinating in its color, shape, size. By 7am it was always warm enough to swim so I did. For food I lived on a jelly doughnut and bread for breakfast and lunch, but for dinner I would feast on prawns, calamari, and any other fresh seafood I could get my hands on. It was so nice to finally have seafood again; I missed it so much. Everything was relatively cheap and while it was more expensive than Maputo, Tofo by American standards was still incredibly inexpensive as the local currency; the meticas/metical/meticash was about 24 to 1 USD. In the village a market sold sarongs, carvings, and various other local crafts. I found myself proficient at bartering and I got what I wanted for the price I wanted to pay. It was so much fun, but also overwhelming at times and twice I just left the sellers telling them I would come back later because I found them too annoying and their prices were far too high. Amazingly prices would suddenly drop by half or more but I still made them wait and when I came back the next day I demanded those prices and that is what I paid.
Despite the relaxing nature of Tofo there were two major downsides to it. The first and most inconvenient was a pleasant surprise I woke up with one morning. Due to the incredibly high humidity and heat sleeping inside a sleeping bag was like trying to sleep in a sauna made of cloth that touches your skin. First of all you couldn’t stop sweating and then as your body perspired more and more you couldn’t help but feel your skin slowly stick to and soak the nylon of the sleeping bag. Somehow in the middle of the night I managed to unzip my sleeping bag and ended up sprawled out on the sheet and mattress provided by the hostel. The next morning I awoke with over 300 bed bug bites, primarily allocated on the arm and leg of the side I slept on. The many red lines of small raised bumps itched worse than mosquito bites. Almost immediately I started drinking the liquid bottle of antihistamine from my first aid kit. I finished it over the next 24 hours and while it helped a little, there was nothing I could do other than try and ignore them until they went away. The second inconvenience occurred on the evening before we left our hostel in Tofo. I had gotten my money belt from the hostel safe because we were leaving at 4am the next morning and the reception did not open until 7am. Literally the first time someone was not in my room the security guard and/or the receptionist broke in, rifled through my bag, found my money belt and took about $150 (if you convert a few currencies). There was nothing I could do about it, but I complained to the manager and he immediately knew who it was who did it due to a past incident involving the two men (foot print comparisons from under the window in my hut offered evidence to support this). However due to Mozambique laws you cannot fire someone for a crime unless charges have been filed, and that as it turns out is a multiday process, involving corrupt police, translators, and transportation to the police station over 40km away from where we were. By the time I talked to the manager, it would have been 11pm before I would have even made it to the station and because we were waking up at 2:45am to hike out to the bus stop I had no desire to spend a sleepless night trying to press charges for money I would never see again. I still feel stupid because if I had brought the money belt with me to shower this never would have happened, but it did, and in the end, all I could do was look forward with my trip. The only gratification I got out of it was that the next day the manager was calling in the local witch doctor to interrogate the employees because I guess she normally scares them to confess. I only wish I had been there to witness her at work.
Our trip back was nice and easy. We caught out bus from Tofo to Maputo and spent another night at Fatima’s. During this final evening we went to a grocery store to buy food for the trip and spend the rest of our meticals. While leaving the grocery store a young man approached me. He was emaciated, with lesions on his face, and herpes zoster on his arms and legs. He told me he had AIDS something I had assumed, but rather than asking for money, he said he only wanted food. I gave him an apple and wished I had more to offer but even if I did it could never be enough. I wish I had more to offer many of the people I have met and seen in Africa. So many have so little and many of the people who do have money do not know what to do with it so they spend it on material possessions rather than improving the quality of their life. I have grown up with so much privilege and at times I feel ashamed of it. I was always able to take music and dance lessons, play sports, go to camp and participate in academic activities because my parents and grandparents offered means for me to do so. You can see why people resort to alcohol and sex simply because they have no other activities or opportunities and both of the above contribute to the AIDS epidemic. I never know what to say or do when I see someone who is dying. I only wish I knew. We went from Maputo to Joberg, spent the night in Joberg at a hostel called “Diamond Diggers” and then boarder our last bus from Joberg to Gaborone. The bus ride was ridiculous, was we watched a poor quality, made for TV Christian movie that shared a radically conservative message of god without digression or humility. But despite the ridiculous content of the film it helped fill the time and before we knew it we were back in Botswana, back in Gabs and for the first time in two months, Botswana, Gaborone, UB, felt like home.
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