Roaches Be Gone!

Thursday 2/14 (cont.)
This day will be brief, just reporting on the documentary I watched on Rosa Parks. When Alyssa and I arrived at the auditorium (which I must observe was WAY nicer than any lecture hall at CC), a man who purportedly grew up during the civil rights movement was speaking about why this mattered so much to him, and it was cool to hear someone from the U.S. speaking, but his points were a little unfocused and not very convincing. Who knows, maybe we came in too late to understand his conclusion in the context of the rest of his speech. Anyway, the movie ended up being more about the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. as the leader of the civil rights movement, ending with the successful reversal of segregation laws in Alabama following the Montgomery Bus Boycott. What I found interesting was that the students that were there (many of whom were required to be there for their class) laughed at some things that I knew weren't supposed to be funny. For example, after his church was burned to the ground, a preacher remarked that he knew that Martin was a leader, he just wasn't sure where Martin was leading them, and the whole auditorium burst into laughter. I suppose that kind of ironic sarcasm doesn't translate well to nonnative speakers. It also struck me that many of the students didn't seem to really care about what was happening, but then I realized that this isn't their history, and although they can identify with the idea of their ancestors being connected by the slave trade, the idea of racism in this context is pretty foreign to most of these students. I was definitely left with a lot more than civil rights to think about after the movie.

Friday 2/15
Today was busy busy! Running, class, clinic, frantically packing, and then out to dinner for our weekly night out! Alyssa, Whitney and I went back to Spur because we had enjoyed the service and the food so much and were pleased to have a similarly pleasant experience this time around. I found myself very irritated by an Afrikan (white) woman sitting at a table near ours who was openly disdainful and rude to the waitress to the point of rolling her eyes and making what looked like disrespectful comments. I wondered at that point what Batswana see and expect when they see me. Do they expect this kind of haughty elitist attitude, or is that kind of thing fairly uncommon. From my experience, I've met a lot of nice white people, but I have heard mention of an elitist mentality that many of the white ex-pats have adopted. Actually, earlier in the day, we had a meeting with guys from the U.S. embassy about what they do, concerns we should be aware of, etc., and we all got the feeling that these men and their families spent much of their time in the company of other white embassy workers and very little time mixing with the local Batswana.

Saturday 2/16
Well, today is a special day for (although some of you may not really care!) because it marks 8 months with my boyfriend, Anthony, who has been so wonderfully patient and supportive of me spending four of what will be ten months of our relationship halfway across the world. Not that I don't appreciate you all for your support and love during this time, but I just want to say a special thank you to him on this special day! I love you sweetie!
Well the operation move out for a day was successful. It only took three trips to transfer all of my belongings from the graduate hostels to an undergraduate double approximately five minutes' walk away. After settling in a bit, Alyssa, Whitney and I walked to Riverwalk to catch a cab to one of the only indoor malls in Botswana, Game City. It took us quite a while to find a cab driver who would take us to Game for only P20 because supposedly it was P30 even though we've been strictly told never to pay more than P20 for a cab ride within city limits. What I've discovered is that rule applies for the employed cab drivers who are probably paid by the hour and not on commission. They are also probably not responsible for the cost of gas. The majority of cab drivers that are readily available, however, are private contractors who have to earn their money, so I guess unless we are taking a cab home from Riverwalk at night, we shouldn't use the private contractors because they will charge a higher price. Once we finally arrived at Game City, we wondered around looking at all the posh, over-priced stores and remarking on the cute clothes and strange contents of a little gift shop that even had an graduation photo montage (K-12) which is odd to find here since the education system is not set up K-12!
We sat down after almost two hours of window shopping at a very nice cafe that was serving mostly white British/Afrikans and had a cool drink (bottomless lemonade with extra sugar), and then a little bit later ate sandwiches at a very fancy looking deli where by some stroke of luck we saw the woman from Spur. Best of all, she was equally rude and disdainful to this waiter, but when we saw her wandering around the mall a bit later, she was talking animatedly with her daughter. Oh well, I guess that's what people get for being in the service industry.
After wasting some more time window shopping, the three of us argued with private cab owners to take us back to Riverwalk for P20, and then a driver with a cab company logo pulled up and offered to take us for P20. This is the point at which I realized the above revelation about private vs. company drivers. Back at Riverwalk, I saw my first cinema film (and first movie) since leaving the States: The Bucket List, with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. It was delightful, poignant, and cute. Definitely not an Emmy nominee, but a very entertaining flick with some truly legendary actors. I think the best part of all, however, was that after the movie, I needed to use the restroom as happens often after a long movie, and I did not expect the movie theater to have a bathroom. Lo and behold, it did, but that's not the best part. The best part is that it had toilet paper in the stalls, soap, and working hand dryers!! These amenities are not common in most public bathrooms, so it was a delightful surprise, and I happily took advantage of it!
Upon leaving the theater, we passed by the movie store which sells mostly Bollywood movies, and I wrestled with the thought of buying one of my favorites, Rang de Basanti, for P90 (I have yet to find the film at all in the U.S.), but held off for now because I want to find a way to confirm that it will work in my computer's DVD player and on players at home.
For dinner, Alyssa and I bought a loaf of French bread and Camembert cheese and we enjoyed a picnic with Whitney on the floor of our temporary residence that included the cheese and bread, as well as a couple of pears and a little chocolate for dessert. In general, it was not a healthy meal, but mmmm it was delectable! After dinner we trekked back over to our old rooms to survey the damage, and the three of us tackled each of our rooms with sponges and multi-purpose cleaner to remove the chemicals. There were definitely still many live bugs around, and the fumes were rapidly dissipating, so I wonder at the effectiveness of the fumigation. Oh well, it gave me a chance to reorganize my things and clean all off my living surfaces which were disgustingly covered in cockroach residue.
Off to the shower back at the temp residence where there was no door or curtain which made for a very invigorating experience, and then we crawled into bed at around 11 feeling fairly exhausted but content with the day's events.

Sunday 2/17
Today started with an early morning run that turned into a mid-morning run because we woke up around 7:30 and didn't start running until 8:30 at which point it was quite hot, and then we moved our first load of things back to the apartment where we wolfed down some yogurt and granola before taking the two trips back to get the rest of our things. By noon, we had finished moving back in and reorganizing, and then it was on to laundry. I had an absurd amount of laundry this time around, and it was quite the task to scrub and rinse all of my clothes. That done, we ate lunch, I began to catch up in my blog/journal/etc. and then we walked over to Dr. Lanegran's house (program director and professor for Glob/Independent Study) for pizza, veggies, and banana bread. The banana bread was probably my favorite part because it reminded me of home, something that I'm finding I miss a lot these days despite my preoccupation with life here. Tonight I suppose I'll have to start studying for my first Setswana test on Tuesday because I have no idea what we are going to need to know for it. Have a lovely Sunday everyone! Go siame (go well)! TTFN!