Goodbye Porridge, Hello Pizza and Ice Cream

Whoa... today has been such a rush. At 9 this morning we caught the public bus from Manyana, the village that had become my home for the past month, to Gaborone, the capital city, which has malls, pizza, real bathrooms, and other white people. I never would have thought I would gawk at every "lekgoa" (as they're known in Setswana) passing by, but I am. We counted, and outside our group we'd seen 5 white people during the last month.

Despite how utterly euporic it was for us to order three pizzas, garlic bread, and chocolate ice cream here at Gaborone's Riverwalk mall, it was pretty sad to pack up and say goodbye to all my friends and family from Manyana. Last Friday we had our going away party at the school, and all our parents and some siblings came, and it was so great to see everyone together! We also got in touch with a traditional dance group from the village, and they performed in full costume at our party. We also did a group skit (which involved me playing a drunk donkey cart driver and running over a bunch of kids) and read thank-you speeches in Setswana to our parents, which was really nice even though I still couldn't understand too much of the others' speeches.

This weekend was a rush to finish all the various assignments we had for school, but that all got done yesterday - a nice relief. I spent my last night at the Mangope house talking with Labo and playing a couple games of chess together (both of which were stalemates, neither of us are very good). I'm hoping to be able to visit my family there again in April, when we spend two weeks in Gabs; there's a bus that goes straight to the Manyana bus stop down the road from house, and there's really no question I need to see Mme and Rre and Labo again before I leave for good.

We've got the day today to shop and eat in Gabs, and tomorrow we have a 3am wake-up call for the 12+ hour bus ride to Kasane, where we'll see elephants and lions and who knows what else on our 5 days of safari. And we're going to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls!!! Unbelievably excited for the next week, dreams comin' true right here and now. And Manyana, with its chickens and maize meal and delicious fried dough balls and all its wonderful people, will always have a special place.

Dumela from Botswana!!!

I am currently at Sonia's house - the Peace Corps volunteer here I just met - who owns the only Macbook for I don't know how many miles around. I am also eating the first CHEESE in almost a month, it is heavenly, I really can't believe what is going on right now.

OK, let me back up a bit. The 8 of us on the program (4 Pitzer, 1 Scripps, 2 Colby, and me) are staying in Manyana, a village of 3500 south of Gaborone. We've been here for 3 weeks now, living in homestays and walking to Setswana lessons (in a hut at the horticulture field) every morning. When we arrived here and met our host mothers, we all got Setswana names: I am now Lebo Mangope. My host family is really great - I have an older brother who works in Gabs with diamonds, and a 19-year old brother, Labo, who is outgoing and fun and also does most all of the housework around my house. My house is here is actually unusually nice - I'm the only one of the 8 of us who has running water and a toilet indoors. Making progress in Setswana - I can do simple sentences, past, present, and future tenses, and I can usually get my point across with the help of a little English. Everyone in my family except my dad speaks a fair amount of English, though, so the majority of communication is still on that familiar turf.

I live next door to Melissa, from Pitzer, who lives with my cousins, and I do the 20-minute walk to school with her every morning. The scenery here is beautiful and green; a tiny river runs through the village, and mountains/hills border the village. Last week we visited the Manyana Rock Paintings, made by the San some 2000 years ago, and the Livingstone Tree, which has giant branches in every direction and was a lot of fun to climb. A couple days ago (the day after my 21st birthday) we got the opportunity to play with cow dung, using it to pave the patio of the house of one of our school cooks; afterwards one of our school staff delivered me a belated b-day cake! The food here is rather unvaried, and generally consists of a giant heap of starch (rice, pasta, or paleche, made from maize meal) with a couple bites of meat. Thus the cheese and ice cream cravings, and the utter bliss I'm experiencing right now. I've also been to masimo (the lands / cow post) with my family a couple times, so I've gotten to try cow herding and weeding the maize crop.

We've got one more week here in Manyana, during which time we have a crap load of written assignments to finish for school. Next week we're going to Gabs for a night, then taking the 12-hr trip to Kasane to go on SAFARI! Can't wait. Sorry I can't write more, but hopefully I'll find an internet cafe in Gabs or Mochudi, where our next homestay starts in March. I am loving Botswana, though, the people here are so friendly (and most of them know me now by my family's name), and it's definitely as far as possible as I could be, physically and mentally, from Pomona. More coming soon-ish, hopefully with news of animals other than chickens, donkeys, cows, and goats! Go siame, and sala sentle! (In Setswana, stay well.)