Quicky

This week has been dragging by. I honestly cannot remember a time I have been more bored in any place.  Simply because it has been so hot and there is absolutely nothing to do.  I had a final on Sunday morning at 8am which was the most absurd time for a final I have ever experienced.  I was in the room for less than 15 minutes before I finished and took off, if only all of my finals were multiple choice.  The other exam I took this week was just two open ended long essays where I wrote everything I knew about the subject and can only hope that is enough.  Tomorrow I have my last exam in the morning and then I take off for the Okavango.  It has yet to sink in that today is really my last full day at UB.  There are a number of things I will not miss, especially the flies which are currently buzzing around my head and landing on my face, but at the same time I am not ready to say good bye to the many amazing individuals I have met.  The heat is draining making studying is incredibly boring, but thus far it has paid off as none of my finals have been that hard, since I know what I am talking about.  Well everyone Happy Thanksgiving and go siame until I return to Gabs on the 2nd.

 

P.S. be a glutton for me and eat lots, I am craving cranberry sauce and stuffing.  

The End of a Long Road (Almost)

In two weeks I will be in transit, most likely flying somewhere over the pole preparing to see the United States for the first time in four and a half months.  It is hard to believe I have been gone so long, yet at times it feels like I have been in Botswana forever.  Some people have already packed their bags in preparation to go but I am not ready for that yet, I still have too many finals to study for and I don’t want to be stuck in an empty room for a week.  This last week has been nice in many ways, namely it has rained almost every day and we often have impressive thunder storms in the evening.  While at times the loud crashes and bright lights make me feel as if I have developed a sleep disorder because I have discovered I cannot sleep with such noise, the rain is comforting and reminds me of what I have to look forward to at home.  J

The University of Botswana has no system when it comes to scheduling final examinations.  After a preliminary examination schedule came out every single one of my finals changed its time, data, and/or location due to timetable clashes of other students.  My take on how they make their schedule is that each class is attached to a dart and then professors through the dart at a large calendar broken up by days and time slots.  Whatever time slot is hit is when the original exam is scheduled for, and then if problems exist they are to be taken care of at a later date.  After two weeks of trying to reschedule exams and figure out when/where they are taking place I feel like I could tell the university a much more efficient way of scheduling exams.  They make it seem like it is so challenging when in the end it is not what so ever if you know anything about organization and macro management.  However in seven days I will be done with my last exam and on a plane to Maun and will never have to deal with the idiosyncrasies /idiotic nature of this “academic” institution.

Speaking of academics it has come to my attention that while at the UB I have learned practically nothing academic, as in classroom material.  Everything I have learned is in relation to culture and humanity.  Learning Setswana has only helped me understand my peers and the environment in which I live.  Also from observing, living in, and experiencing a culture so vastly different than my own I have been able to gain appreciation and understanding for my own culture and that of Batswana.  I had few preconceptions when I stepped of the plan at Sir Seretse Khama Airport, but after my time here I have distinct opinions and feelings in regards to the Setswana culture and Batswana people.  Also I have seen the beauty, downfalls, struggles, development, and unity of Southern Africa and its people.  Everyone I have met black and white, young and old has had a unique story to tell.  What I have learned is nothing you can apply a grade.  It has had no curriculum as it is been person development working only on my timeline.  I still have three finals left; the first two were easy as I knew the answers to everything that was presented to me.  I am glad I studied and focused as much as I did on Setswana as the final examination was a breeze in comparison to the first quiz I took way back in August.  As for Geology it was another test over material I learned about first in middle school.  After the low grade he gave me on the test I have gone out of my way to give him no reason to not give me an A, going at great lengths to memorize his plagiarized notes so that he cannot even say that my answers were not what he was trying to convey, as he prefers rote memorization to original thought.  On my second test and now this final I know if I was in the states I would receive 100% on each, I am just curious to see my final grade as I will never know how I did on either assignment. 

I will try and do one more blog post before I leave for Maun on the 28^th.  Nothing too exciting should be happening other than more studying and more finals.  For those of you have been reading this over the last few months, thank you, I hope you enjoyed my stories, and if you ever ask me I have many more to tell.  Go siame le boroko gape ditsala tsone sala sentle.  Ke bona lona le e pula.  Lorato,

Celene               

The Title is too Long for the Box

(Bed Bugs Eat My Soul) or (Have You Ever Seen A 50 Billion Dollar Bill? I Have) or (What Do You Do When An Elephant Trumpets At You? Drive Away Quickly) or (The Limitations of a Sub-Saharan African College Education) or (I Will Give You a Big Elephant for Your Hair Band) or (“Gasp” and Jaw Drops)… you decide

Quite a lot has happened since my last entry so I will do my best to explain my latest adventures.  Last week Thursday after I took and failed a test on African Independent Churches because my mind blanked on how to spell Setswana names of various church founders, evangelists, and prophets, Jenn, Hannah, Brianna, Anna, Walter, and myself loaded into a car and drove north for 12 hours with our eyes set on Zimbabwe.  The drive was nice for the most part as it was completely on paved roads (wonderful for African standards).  The only bad part of it was about 100km of straight potholes.  These were not just ordinary potholes, these were trenches which swallowed your car and required you to swerve from one side of the road to the other, drive on the shoulder, and for the life of you not shift out of second if you hoped for you and the car to survive.  On the way there we hit the pot holes after dark making it even more challenging as dodging pot holes on narrow roads when faced with on coming semis using their high beams.  I drove for the second half of the pothole section and while it really wasn’t that bad, it was just tedious and I kept reaching to down shift with my right hand instead of my left.  The drive up also again put in to perspective the incredible number of cattle that live in Botswana and the scarcity of people.  We passed many thatch roofed homes but exponentially more donkeys (ditanki), goats (dipudi), and cattle (dikgomo).  While driving at night I had the luck of seeing a rather large snake crossing the road in front of me.  I wanted to stop and look at it but didn’t think my sleeping passengers would have appreciated me looking at a potentially poisonous snake during the dead of night.  We spent the night on the Botswana side of the border in a campground in the city of Kasane.  The night air was filled with a buzzing of mosquitoes but I slept soundly in my child sized tent.  We awoke to greenery, trees, grass, bushes, and flowers enveloping the landscape surrounding the dark blue and flowing Zambezi River.  I had not seen a more beautiful sight in Botswana.  Sitting alongside the river reminded me how much of a water person I am and that I need rivers, green trees, and vegetation to be forever happy in my surroundings. 

We crossed the border in late morning.  It was easy and we only had to pay the $30 visa fee to enter into Zim.  While leaving the border post three different people tried to sell us “car insurance” but none of us were sure if it was legitimate so we refused as our car rental insurance offered full coverage in Botswana so as long as we didn’t hit an elephant or total the car in some other way we could always get the car back to Bots.  Soon after passing a decrepit “Welcome to Zimbabwe” sign we were stopped by the police.  The told we were supposed to buy the insurance when entering the country but I think all they really wanted was a bribe.  We were going to offer one but cars started to line up behind up so he waved us on.  The drive from the Kazangoola border post to Victoria Falls was breathtaking.  Endless hills covered in lush trees.  We had elephants cross the road directly in front of us and as we slowed down to look at them a large one with tusks trumpeted at us so we drove away quickly.  There were also numerous baboons everywhere.  They looked smaller and had different coloring than the ones I see every week at Kgale hill, but were entertaining to watch as they climbed trees and carried their babies on their backs.

We arrived at our hostel and were the only guests staying there with the exception of a French couple celebrating their 40^th wedding anniversary.  It was a nice establishment owned by several white Zimbabweans with a pool, café, bar, pool table, and trampoline.  The only annoying part was they kept pushing all of these different activities on us but due to their present economic situation I can understand their need to make money.  In the 24 hours we stayed there I had several long conversations about the current political and economic situation.  It turned out all of the people had had farms in their family which were taken from them and turned over to the black Zimbabweans.  I was amazed and baffled as they told me a story about a white farmer who had stood up against the “police” who had come to evict him from his farm.  They said he killed two truckloads of “police” before they finally killed defending his property.  As they spoke of the man, I could tell they admired him and viewed him as a martyr.  They stories they told me about food (like a carton of eggs cost about 25USD in the shops), money (presently you can only withdraw 700,000 Zim dollars a day; equivalent to 3USD), and losing almost everything.  Talking to these people impacted me greatly and my view of humanity.  I know oppression has fallen on both sides of the color barrier in Zimbabwe but it saddens me greatly to see how people continue to treat each other.  Seeing the present situation only solidified my belief that Zimbabwe faces decades of recovery (after Mugabe dies/steps down, and only if someone with the best interest of their people in mind has a role of leadership in a balanced government), but there is so much time before recovery will even begin.  Another downside of the hostel which I did not discover until we left were the bed bug infested beds.  My skin hates bed bugs and even though everyone got bitten I had by far the worst reaction and I know the itch bites will hang around for at least another two weeks. 

Our first night at Victoria Falls, we went to the Victoria Falls Hotel for drinks.  I had never before been in a nicer hotel.  Walking into the entry way was like stepping into colonial Rhodesia with beautiful art work, furniture, and architecture.  Everything was expensive, including drinks but we each had one because from the balcony we see the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe and the mist from the falls.  The bridge, built in the early 1900’s only adds to the beauty of the falls as its arch distinguishes many classic photographs.  Sadly it was dusk and too dark for me to take a photo but the view was absolutely gorgeous.  Victoria Falls gave me a new appreciation of the natural beauty of Africa.

Saturday was our day to play in Vic Falls.  Brianna and Anna went rafting on the Zambezi and I was strongly contemplating it however the flow was low so I opted against it and decided to partake in what they hostel called the Adrenaline package.  This included three different activities which allowed you to hang out, quite literally in the gorge.  The first thing we did was called a flying fox.  The flying fox involved wearing a full body harness and attaching a cable and carabineers to your back, which is attached to a cable spanning the width of the gorge.  You then run off a platform and “fly” over the gorge.  It was so beautiful to see the water over a hundred meters below you with rapids and eddies and the basalt cliff faces covered with vegetation.  After the flying fox there was a zip line which was simply just fun, and lastly there was the most fun and scariest activity, the gorge swing.  The gorge swing was almost like a bungee jump except instead of bouncing you get to fall for over 100 meters and then swing back and forth in the bottom of the gorge.  It was so scary to fall backwards off the platform and watch the cliff face fall away from you, but totally worth every second of it.  I screamed the entire way down but would without question recommend the experience to anyone.  Because our activity was only half the day while rafting was all day we had plenty of time to enjoy the falls.  We visited the park and luckily because we are all currently residents of Botswana we received a discount on our entrance fee.  Because we visited during the low flow season many of the falls were dry but even the dry falls were overly impressive.  The water fell in large sheets over the cliff faces soaking all of us with mist where as the dry cliff faces offered a grand perspective as to how vast the falls actually are.  Covering the ground on the trails along the falls were large red and yellow prehistoric looking flowers.  Wandering amongst the large trees, vines, flowers, and mist made me feel like I was in a tropical jungle and I was sad to leave the beauty of Zimbabwe.  So far if there is anywhere I will make myself return to in Africa, it will be Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls.  It is easily one of the most beautiful places in the world.

After the falls we visited the craft market as I wanted to trade my water bottle for a souvenir from Zim.  However the people wanted farm more than my water bottle.  For the water bottle I got some beautiful carved stone bookends in the shape of giraffes, but I also traded my hair tie for a carving and a small purse for jewelry.  The people would have literally taken the clothes off my back if I had been willing to part with them.  What they wanted most of all was food stuffs but I had none with me.  The economic situation of the country has made it literally impossible to for people to obtain many goods we simply take for granted, like hair ties, sandals, new clothes, food, and money.  Some man tried to tell me a 50 billion dollar Zim cheque but he and I both know it is absolutely worthless.  I wish I had Zim dollars but I wasn’t able to obtain any and did not trust of the ATMs however I guess they always run out of money a few hours after they open, and I would believe it especially because when we drove by the ATM in the morning there were hundreds of people standing in line. 

The drive back was easy.  We got a little lost trying to leave Zim, but made it safely to the border.  We camped again in Kasane to rest up before starting the 13 hour drive back to Gabs. On the way back we made a brief stop in the Sowa Pan.  Sowa is the San(bushman) word for salt and it is used to describe one of the large salt pans which span across the north central portion of Botswana.  Sadly we were unable to actually go out on to the salt pans because it was the raining season and we were on private property but even the to view the vast expanse of flat and barren land from a distance was impressive.  Along the edge of the pan we watch springbok and wildebeest graze and they made me think of how much I will miss certain aspects of BotswanaJ. 

The return to UB was bittersweet as it meant studying and nothing else.  On Monday I received back a test I took over a month ago and I did rather poorly on it (by my standards but 20 – 30 % better than the rest of the girls in the class).  Strangely the boys as a whole did better but I am in no place to call a professor sexist even if it is a true statement.  I cannot wait to be done with this education system.  I have learned practically nothing in all of my classes with the exception of my Theology course.  The professors do not know how to teach, they do not know how to write tests, and most importantly how to grade.  I am fed up with defending points I feel strongly about have simply given up trying to deal with professors in this country.  There is obviously something wrong with a system when a factual and correct answer is marked as incorrect because even though it answered the question on the exam the professor’s answer on the answer key only vaguely applied to the question.  Also when I am given notes in class that say literally, “a flood is times when water is too much” professors do not know how to explain their subject.  My geology class is the biggest culprit of this, and I even found the website my professor takes his poorly plagiarized notes from, simply by googling key phrases.  This entire term I have been suspicious that I understand the subject he is teach better than he does and now I fully believe it.  The only issue is that my grade does not reflect this due to his grading techniques (or lack of them).  Students in Botswana accept mediocrity but I do not and refuse to.  All I can do is ride out the term and deal with whatever ambiguous marks the professors give me when I get back to the states, internally with OSU. 

I only have a few additional UB complaints.  Finals start next week which will make the next two weeks of my life quite stressful as I have to do exceptionally well on everything as they are worth 50-60% of my final grade.  Also I haven’t had hot water in a week and the internet decided to go out on the day I have to register for classes at OSU.  Aish… there are a number of things about Botswana I will not miss and it will most predominantly be UB and its deplorable system of education.  However these last 4 weeks are already going by quickly and I am sure before I realized it I will be riding through the Okavango in a dug out mokoro.  I cannot wait.  Except then I will be gone L and will not see Africa again for quite some time.   

It should never be over 100F on Halloween

It has been a fun filled and busy week in Gabs.  School is not winding down as I have three tests in the last two weeks of school and then a slew of finals over two weeks.  Final exam schedules just came out but like everything in Bots are bound to change before the week is out.  I have no idea what to expect with the exams other than that they will be two hours long.  I have never been more excited to be done with a school term and can hardly wait to be able to understand my professors again and understand what they expect of me as a student.  For CIEE I have to do a final project on an aspect of Setswana culture.  I chose to learn about funerals because at the time I didn’t know anything about Tswana culture and that was a category that was recommended.  Earlier in the week I sat down and interviewed my religion professor about the subject, because who better to ask than a reverend?  It was a painful 30 minutes and I all he did was give me a brief lecture on the subject, but when I would ask a question he couldn’t understand me so he would simply ignore it, so I guess I will just do this project with what I have to work with, rather than what I want to work with. 

Outside of school recreational activities fill a small but wonderful portion of my time.  On Thursday someone organized a football (soccer) tournament between International Students, Undergraduate UB students, and Graduate students.  There was no grad student team and somehow I ended up on the international student team because we were down three players.  So the co-ed international student team with no subs played against the all male UB undergraduate team as surprisingly we didn’t do that poorly.  We ended up losing 4-5 but there were several times where we were ahead and it was so much fun playing football without shin guards and cleats against a team who had both.  For participating we all received a UB hat and water bottle, which isn’t too bad for playing 90 minutes of football when I haven’t done that since high school.

Friday was Halloween in the US but not Botswana unless you were an international student.  Someone threw a house part off campus and everyone went dressed up as one thing or another.  I was a Motswana simply because I could wrap my hair and wear my mosese without having to buy anything new.  It was so much fun to get off campus, spend time with my friends, and not time about school.  Also for the first time in my life I spent Halloween sweating.  I always think it is disgusting when you stand up from sitting in class and you have sweat soaked clothing covering your entire back.  It is impossible to feel attractive, clean and unsalted in Bots.  Even as I sit here now I have sweat pouring down my face, arms and legs.  Sleeping is nearly impossible and I spend more time trying to nap in my room than doing anything outside because I am always too hot and tired to do anything, especially exercise.

Saturday was another busy day.  First we went to a traditional healer to hear a presentation on what he does.  It would have been so much better if I twelve people were not stuffed into a tiny 3m x 3m hut that smelled strongly of incense and we can only guess what else, but based on the mummified snake, bird, and drying hedgehog and our sweltering bodies we had a few ideas to go off of.  After the traditional healer we went to the Gaborone game reserve for a braai and short game drive.  The lunch was nice but it was too hot for me to be outside.  I literally could not function and felt so miserable.  All I wanted to do was sleep and do nothing, and thankfully I had that opportunity after our drive.  Botswana while much more green than I have ever seen it before it still far too hot.  Only two weeks left of school and next week scarcely counts as we are leaving for Victoria Falls on Thursday morning.  I have less than five weeks left in Botswana, a number that is hard to believe, but I still have a lot to do before I can even think about heading back to the states, but to everyone, I am thinking about you and look forward to sharing my experiences in 5 weeks time.  Go siame le sala sentle. Ke a go rata.