Here at last!!

Dumela everybody!! So I know my last post makes it sound like I'm still in the airport in South Africa, but thankfully that is not the case! Thanks to the amazing work of the International Studies Chair at the University of Botswana (Charity), I was able to obtain a new one-year passport from the U.S. embassy on Monday morning, and at 5pm that evening I was on my way to Botswana! The first night was fairly rough, as I was still not sleeping due to jet-lag, but I was able to hang out with the other kids from the States and feel part of the group again! This will be a long post just to warn you because I have so much to say about the last three days!
We are all living in apartments in the graduate blocks (buildings are called blocks, just as fries are called crisps!) and have our own rooms. We share a bathroom, shower, and kitchen with six others. My apartment also houses, Alyssa who is on the trip with me, and two Botswana graduate students, Victoria and Leish. They are both very nice and sing a lot! They are going to help us learn to cook some traditional meals so that we don't have to eat in the refectories (cafeterias) all the time. We also have maids that come in every day to clean our main common areas including the bathrooms and every two days they come into our rooms to sweep them. They also launder our sheets every two weeks and supply us with fresh toilet paper once a month! So we are pretty taken care of here! The government actually pays for all the on-campus services and the tuition for all students to go here. They receive a small stipend monthly for food and necessities, but from what Victoria says, it's not a lot and life is very expensive for UB students.
There have been many adjustments I've had to make regarding life here. For example, opportunistic theft is very common, and it is strongly recommended that windows and doors be kept locked at all times (unless you are in the room), and all valuables kept locked up or at least away from open windows. For example, the desks are right by the windows, and if you leave your window open with your laptop sitting there, it will likely be gone within a matter of hours! Despite the prevalence of theft however, there is very little preemptive burglary, and most arises out of a person seeing an opportunity to get something they want for free and taking advantage of it.
The campus is very modern and has a pretty good internet connection, electricity, hot water, most things you'd find on a U.S. campus. Power outages are relatively common (we've had two in our apartment), but usually they don't last too long. The bugs are everywhere here, and I've had to adopt a reluctant indifference to them lest they drive me crazy! Luckily, I have had few if any bugs on my bed, but they are all over the floor at night, and very common in the bathrooms.
On Tuesday, after successfully sleeping a total of about three hours in the sweltering heat, I met with the rest of the group to go to orientation where we sat for four hours listening to students, faculty and other administrators talk about life at UB. The take-home messages were mostly to keep your possession safeguarded, walk in groups whenever possible, and never walk alone at night. One student, Molwane, nicknamed Mols told us which clubs, bars, and restaurants were good to go to and which ones were not safe. We also met Pretty and Kopano, two female students who talked about various aspects of student life at UB. They were all very nice and spoke English very well. In fact, although Setswana is the predominant language heard around the city, almost every person that I've met can switch into English readily and speak very clearly. Oh to be bilingual!
After orientation, we went on a bus tour around the city. Our first stop was at a Kgotla (pronounced Hotla with a glottal H) which is a customary court of traditional Botswana villages. The chief, spoke to us about the Kgotla and despite our inappropriate dress (many of the girls were wearing pants which is not allowed in the Kgotla), he invited us all to come back on February 14th when the president of Botswana will be visiting and giving a speech!! The name of the village is Gaberone, after the Chief's surname (last name), and it is this family after which the capitol city of Gaberone is named. This is because the Chief of the village of Gaberone supplied the land to build the city! The function of the Kgotla was historically to provide administrative, legal, cultural, educational, and community support and authority. Today it still manages schools, health, agriculture, cultural ceremonies, public gatherings, and minor infractions of the law. The most fascinating thing I found about the Kgotla was that it is based on the belief in respect of all people and the freedom of expression. When decisions are to be made, the Kgotla will host a public meeting in which any person who wishes to can contribute his/her opinions and views and the chief takes all comments into careful consideration when he makes a decision. This ancient democracy was in place long before the British threatened to colonize Botswana, and shows that Americans weren't the only ones to come up with a system based on the right of all citizens to govern themselves! The rest of the tour showed us ministry buildings for everything under the sun, the prisons, the hospitals and the AIDS testing, research, and awareness facilities. Bill Gates, Harvard, and the U.S. government are responsible for most of the AIDS work done in Botswana. Our tour ended at a national monument celebrating the three "kings" that saved the Tswana lands from British settlement in 1895, by visiting London and holding public meetings decrying the British occupation and colonization of Botswana. These men are also pictured on the 100 Pula bill (Pula are the equivalent of dollars in the US).
After the tour, we were driven to the house of one of Charity's friends and given a traditional meal consisting of samp (similar to hominy) with garbanzo beans in it, porridge, goat meat, spinach, and best of all, mopanie or shrimp of the trees, but most commonly known as caterpillar!! Ok so I only tried one and it didn't taste terrible, but I couldn't get over the fact that I was actually eating a whole caterpillar, limbs, head and all! We also tried their form of ginger ale, which actually tastes like ginger, and is very common at weddings. After eating, the women who had cooked for us sang traditional Botswana songs and showed us dances. Much of what they do is stand in a circle singing, and people go into the center and "freestyle" although some songs have very specific dances. The dancing was a lot of fun and everyone got really into it! Afterwards, we all went home and I tried yet again to fall asleep to no avail! I never understood the true meaning of jet-lag until I got here!
Three hours of sleep later, I joined up with some kids from my group and we all walked to one of the city malls, called the Riverwalk for some essentials. The stores are much like what we have here, but you have to check bags in at the door and pick them up on your way out to prevent theft I presume. I finally got a fan in the hopes that sleep would come with the cool air! For dinner I ate in the refectory for the first time and found it to perfectly edible. The meals are tending to be very similar, consisting of a rice dish, meat (chicken, beef, goat), and different vegetable dishes such as coleslaw, "carrotslaw", pumpkin, green acorn squash, string beets, and other things like that. A lot of what I eat I have no idea what is in it, but mostly it's edible!
In combination with a sleeping pill supplied by a friend, the fan allowed me to get nine hours of almost uninterrupted sleep! I was very grateful for that seeing as how it was the first time in over a week that I had slept more than three hours! That and being homesick have been the most difficult thing so far I think. But I am adjusting slowly, and I think I will have a very memorable experience.
Today was pretty low-key. We had to meet with Charity to get our schedules because we are finally registered for classes! They technically started on Monday, but apparently no one really goes to class for the first two weeks or so. Most professors are still on holiday! I am taking a Setswana language class, Globalization in Southern Africa taught by a professor from the U.S., African Traditional Religions, and an Independent Study which I hope will involve volunteer work in hospitals and clinics in the area. I am also thinking about joining the club soccer team and maybe tennis as well! Life is certainly not dull here, although it is conducted at a much slower pace and as much as I love being occupied by activities and homework every second of every day, I am enjoying the change of pace. Perhaps I will bring some of that relaxed lifestyle back with me to CC... probably not, but it would be nice!
Anyway, for those of you that read this, good job! You should reward yourself for your hard work! I promise to keep the blogs much shorter than this in the future!

TTFN!