hiking adventures

Just to catch you up quick...Friday was our second day of classes. We learned a little bit about environmental health. Then we had a Setswana class. I'll give you guys a few of my favorites...unkoko means grandmother, rata means love/like (hear that a lot from ppl on the streets), o tsogile jang? asks if you woke well, modi is money, mathata = problems (probably remember that from lion king, hakuna matata), ke lapile = I am tired, and Wareng? is Whats up?

After lunch a few of us ate lunch on campus. It took us a while to get it though because apparently they don't have lines. I would be about to order then someone would step in front of me an place their order. apparently you have to be vocal. Same with the combis, no lines, no "I was first" you just have to go for it and jump in. Once I did get lunch I had french fries and a fat cake. A fat cake is basically a big piece of fried dough, kinda like a doughnut. I am looking forward to American fries when I get back, the ones here are barely cooked and smushy!

After lunch we went around in the Combis to find the clinics we will be working at. However there are 5 of them and they are all over the city so I definitely will be getting lost on Wednesday when I venture to my clinic, Broadhurst 3. It was really quiet when we went there yesterday so hopefully there will be a little more life come Wednesday! After clinic visits we talked with a Motswana Feminist and Folklorists. She told us about some Batswana cultural practices. By the way the country is Botswana, one person is a Motswana, and many people are Batswana. We talked about language and how it can have hidden gender. We also talked about the family dynamic and how most people use to have a field, a cattle post, and a village. In each of these places someone different was in charge, the women, the men, and the children, so the balance stayed intact. But now the town home has been introduced and things are changing.

Saturday we were up early and off for a quick tour of the city. Then we started our hike. The hill looked pretty small from far away and on our itinerary it seemed pretty leisurely. However when we got there Batsi (our director) told us that we would be making our own path up. That means lots of prickers, lots of rocks, and very steep. The combination of the prickers and our shorts were not a good combination. However the hike was an adventure and lots of fun. The view was beautiful and there were lots of rocks to jump on! But with a group of 22 we had a few people who weren't much of hikers, this meant lots of stopping and waiting. We asked Batsi how long the hike normally takes, he said 30mins...it took our group 2 hours. the hike down was suppose to be 20, it took as an hour, so you get the picture. We then went to Game City (a mall) and had lunch. Wonderful Greek Salad! At most of our home stays greens and veggies are cooked so it was refreshing to have salad. Also had a great beer called Castle brewed here in Botswana.

I hopped on a Combi home, took a bath and am shortly headed out for Indian Food with the rest of the group. Have to take my first taxi ride at night here home. will be kind of scary, people here are really forward and want you to go in their taxi. It also has been very interesting being a minority, especially in a big group. We all get stared at, whistled at, and proposed to. The last few days it has been nice to break up into smaller groups when we are in town, less stares but still a lot of comments. Half of the time they are in Setwana though so we have no idea what they are saying! My sister and I walked to get bread when it was dark last night and she just laughs at some of the comments we get. She gave a guy a dirty stare for me once which was nice! definitely not doing any walking at night by myself, I stick out like a sore thumb in my neighborhood.