I’m spending my last night in my 20s reading a good mystery
by candlelight. It’s not the bash most people probably plan for celebrating
their last night being 29, but I’m okay with it. I’m probably going to spend
tomorrow cleaning and doing laundry, because my house is still currently only
half put together after the move (see below). I’m okay with that too (cleaning on my
birthday, not my house in shambles), because I get to really celebrate my
birthday later in the week. I’m seeing friends on Wednesday and Thursday, and
on my Friday, my mom and Carol come!!! And I am super excited for that. And I
want my house ready for that, so laundry is an okay thing for tomorrow.
I managed to move across the village last Friday (as in 2
days ago). For those that I hadn't told, a bar opened near my house, and so I
asked Peace Corps if I could move. And they said yes, and 2 months later,
viola. For the record, I didn’t have any security incidents related to the bar…
but I didn’t really want to wait around to see if it would be an issue. PC
policy is that volunteers aren’t allowed to live near bars/shabeens/depots, so
I acted on that. And, I didn’t feel super safe in the other house simply
because the doors were flimsy. And the locks sucked. Rose broke into my living
room once when the lock on the door broke, and I had to get someone else to
break in for me once a few weeks ago for the same reason. Annnnnnd it was
pretty easy to do. So, move I did.
Of course, dealing with the ministry of education and Peace
Corps took time. PC asked me to look for a house, since I’m already in the
village. I gladly took them up on the offer, because it gave me more say in
where I would live. A teacher at my school recommended my new place, and then I
got the paperwork turtle moving. PC and
MOE looked at it, negotiated rent, told them to fix a few minor things, and
signed papers. I kept pushing to be able
to move by the end of June, so I wouldn’t have multiple leases, and so I could
be moved before my family came and stuff. Low and behold, it actually happened!
I was stressed out the day of the move, simply because I
didn’t know how it was going to go. There’s always the risk, being the lekoa in
the community, that I’d get surrounded by people wanting to touch and have my
things. So I recruited Aileen and her friend Parker who is visiting, and they
helped me move and guard my stuff. My old landlord said he would help me move,
but then passed it off to a guy I didn’t know, who looked at my furniture and
went and recruited a 2nd random dude to help. 4 pick-up loads
puttering 5 minutes across the village later, and I was moved. We only had to
push the truck through the deep sand twice. The actual moving took less than 2 hours. And that
was simply some furniture maneuvering logistics. I did some cleaning on Friday,
hooked up my stove and gas tank, hung some curtains, and collapsed in
exhaustion. Yesterday I put my living room together; tomorrow I’ll tackle my
bedroom. But it’s so nice to have
functional doors and locks, I can’t even tell you. And a gate for my porch, so
kids can play in my yard and not swarm my porch/house.
Today, I attempted to buy electricity, locks, sponges,
bleach and airtime in Letlhakeng. I was able to get the airtime and locks. For
some reason, no stores carried bleach or sponges, which I find odd. And whatever network is necessary to buy
electricity was down, so I couldn’t do that either. Hence the current reading
by candlelight. When I made it back to my village, I discovered I could buy
electricity here. But the network was still down. At least I can try again tomorrow
without trucking out to L again!
While I was in L, stalking the
small general dealer/grocery store to see if I could buy electricity, I ran
into a guy that knew Aileen’s friend Parker. Small world much? It was a little
weird for a white guy to already know my name. And let’s be honest, I now stare
at the white tourists just as much as the Batswana. But we talked for a few
minutes and discovered we were both on our way to lunch, so he and his wife gave
me a ride and we had lunch together at a little Botswana restaurant. They were
thrilled to get to try real Botswana food, and I could at least explain what
most of the choices were. At the end
they even paid for my meal, so all in all it was great! It was kind of funny to
be with people that were like, wow, we’re in the real Africa!! This isn’t like
Gabs! And I do understand where they are coming from, because if all you’ve
known is the capital of a country, any country really, going into the rest of
it, especially rural areas, will be quite different. But itwas weird to hang out with them because all of my friends in Botswana are either Batswana, or pcvs, and
the excitement of ‘we’re in Africa!’ has either worn off or was never there to
begin with. This couple also went against advice and tried to take a small
4-door sedan on the dirt road past my village up to Khutse game reserve, and
literally had to dig their car out of the sand a few times. Real Africa? Check.
So I’m hanging out in my new
house, looking forward to next weekend, thankful for locking doors, good
friends, and glad to be in ‘the real Africa’ J
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