UB and Gabs and Climbing on Real Rocks

Dumela!

Botswana has been different from home yet wonderful. The first two weeks have been challenging and I was feeling both the culture shock and home sickness I was somehow naive enough to think would not affect me. There is so much I have not yet explained so I will do my best to talk about my living situation, classes, and the extracurricular activities I have been participating in.

Where I live:
I live on campus at UB in the graduate student housing because as we were told by both the UB security office and our advisor, we as Americans are "targets" for theft, mugging, etc. so it is safer for us to live with the grad students. Taking this into account the graduate student housing is about as nice as the worst housing at Oregon State. Power goes out about every other day for 2-12 hours. With power goes the internet, which sometimes is gone for multiple days at a time only to reappear. The water went out for one day and we heard that while losing power and internet is common, water only goes out several times a term, and never for more than three days. The grad students live in Block 417, this makes me feel rather like I am in a prison where everything is divided into blocks and it doesn't help that the UB campus is completely fenced and the gates are manned by security guards limiting who can go in and out at night. I would say we as students our well protected as there are anywhere from 6 to 12 security guards manning block 417 at all hours of the day. I think they are armed but it is hard to tell and Botswana has a strict gun policy so I am not sure. Within Block 417 are eight building A thru H. I live in building C. Each building has 3 floors and each floor with the exception of the third, has 2 suites. Each suite contains six individual bedrooms with a communal kitchen, bathroom, and shower as well as a common area that houses a table and couch. My room is small, very small, about a third of the size of a double at OSU. I have a closet with shelves and a clothing rack, a desk and chair, two shelves built into the wall, and a pseudo twin bed. Other than that there is just about enough room to open the door, I do however have a nice large window which offers a view out to some of the clotheslines so that I do not have to sit outside to watch my clothes dry. I like the size however because it is all that I need and I enjoy some space in this country to myself.

My roommates:
I live with two German girls who are from a university in southwestern Germany. They are nice people; both studying English and teaching. Last night we tried to make apple pancakes however they do not have wheat flour in Botswana only Maize meal so we used that and all I can say is that it makes very very gritty apple pancakes. My other three roommates are African, one is from Zim and I am not sure where the others are from.

Classes:
As of now all of my classes seem interesting, especially those my professors have started to lecture in. I am not sure which class will be most informative, all I know is that so far every class with the exception of my Geology classes have mentioned HIV/AIDS and that in order to not die you must condomize.

Outside of School:
Other than school I spend lots of time walking to Riverwalk mall buying all of those little things I always seemed to have at home, i.e. food, dishes, school supplies, etc. I also spent three days sick in my room The natives call every little cold here flu so I suppose I had a flu, which was not fun and day in bed feeling awI spent one entire ful, I am still congested and have itchy dry eyes which leads me to believe I am allergic to something here and have used up all of the small amount of allergy medicine I brought with me. So mommy to your delight I can let you say I told you so when you told me to bring allergy medicine and I refused so now I have to go about finding allergy meds in Africa. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to explore Gaborone. On Saturday several of the girls in my program and myself took khombi's (14 passenger vans that will stop anywhere if you ask them and cost about 50 cents a ride whether you are going 500 feet or 15 miles) to Botswanacraft, a store that sells natively created crafts. I wanted to buy a basket but they are expensive and I did not have enough money to buy one and decorations for my room. I bought a painted wall hanging with beautiful elephant to cover part of my four stark white walls. I also got a small carved statue of a woman for my desk, a carved boar tusk wine/bottle opener since I forgot to bring one and when buying groceries earlier in the week bought a bottle of South African wine because it had a teal giraffe on the label that looked pretty (it was also the third cheapest bottle in the store, just over $3 rather than the cheapest which was almost $2). The last item I purchased was a picture of a Motswana woman carrying a bundle on her head, however the picture is made of butterfly wings. I think I may go back and buy another for a gift for someone because it is beautiful. Sunday was much more relaxing. I cleaned my room in the morning and read a novel. In the afternoon I went rock climbing at Kgale Hill. It was wonderful; the most fun I have had in Botswana so far. They have about ten bolted routes and rest is trad. On my very first African climb I ripped of a hold and the flake of rock fell down almost hitting my belayer. It was a nice introduction to climbing abroad. (For James and anyone who else cares about climbing read the section at the bottom to find out more about climbing, everyone else continue on) All of the climbers were nice and welcoming and I got to climb several challenging routes and watch a baboon in a white robe it had stolen (from a local church that practices at another portion of Kgale hill) climb the rocks like a professional. It was also the first primate I have seen thus far in Africa. Today which is monday, I went running for the first time since arriving in the country, it was hard but felt nice. I ran around campus and then went to the UB stadium. I ran about a mile on the track and was about to leave and run home when an Motswana woman called out to me saying, "I want to be friends with an exchange student." It turns out Khumo is kind, very intelligent, and currently more up to date on American politics than myself. I think I have made on of my first Motswana friends. I get to run with her tomorrow at 5. As of this moment all I can think is that I am happy to be in Botswana.

Sending my thoughts and love to everyone,
Celene

Climbing continued....
The routes we climbed were about the length of the tallest gym routes at OSU. The generally start out someone slabby with decent edges ranging anywhere from the best jugs I have ever felt outside to crappy, slopey, slimey rails. No one uses chalk and since we climb in the afternoon the rock is warm and slick. Some of the ledges are greased over with baboon urine and not even stealth rubber sticks to it. The easiest climb I did was maybe a 5.10a/B because of a tricky roof you have to pull though at the end on awful slopey side pulls. However with saying that I tried what I think is the coolest route I have ever done. You start by carefully working up a near vertical face on little edges, with little hands, and little feet, until you get the largest and best jug/ledge/rail you could ever imagine. The only problem is the next good hold is quite a reach over a bulge and as many of you can attest my reach is somewhat limited so after working this section for a while the only beta I could think might work someday is matching a heel next to my hands, turning one hand in mantle while the other pulls as hard as it can on the most miserable greasy, slopey, sidepull I have ever felt however it has a teeny tiny thumb catch (maybe half a pad) and then roll up on my heel and pull until i can stand up and fling for the next hold which I am hoping is no worse than a 5.9/10a rail. However this single move is so cool I have made it my goal before I leave Africa, to figure out how to do it, do it, and then lead it because it would be the most challenging route I have ever climbed on lead. There is also another problem I want to lead, i think it is maybe 10d/11aish, maybe harder because I didn't send it on TR and you have to pull over one tricky bulge and a roof that somehow lacks any holds with the exception of an under cling that really is not that helpful. My last and final climb however was undoubtedly my favorite. You start by following a large slopey crack until you reach the first roof, where you get to play on a jug and several side pulls, reaching up until you can barely touch a good hold only to realize you have no feet. I was a beautiful, mid 1o climb and I felt solid on it the entire way. I only wish I had lead it just to lead something hard, beautiful and most importantly, incredibly well bolted. Okay climbing friends, i know many of you are out and about because it is summer but if you ever are bored in the in the middle of day and are at a computer and have skype, PLEASE, feel free to call me, my user name is CeleneLouise because I am somewhat bored at night since we are not supposed to go outside due to common mugging and rape. Thank you and Happy Climbing.

P.S. I have a week off at the end of September (first week of school for OSU) and am going climbing in South Africa so if anyone has a few extra thousand dollars or a ton of frequent flyer miles I am extending the invitation to join me, either bouldering or sport climbing, I even know of several excellent (i.e. world class) locations.