A Thing Called Botswana Time

First off, apologies to those who actually are following this blog. It has been two weeks since I first arrived, and while my first week I plead the fifth since there was no internet, I am pretty much at fault for the lack of posts this last week. I intend on mollifying that by sharing some pictures from our cultural excursion this weekend.

My first week of orientation was pretty uneventful insofar as most of my time was spent unpacking, getting the lay of the land and hours upon hours of orientation. Tedious things like buying more toiletries, getting sheets, buying a new and temporary cell phone, etc. Other than saying my CIEE participants, as well as the twenty other international students (mostly from the States), are great companions, I think it will be more worthwhile to jump into this last week.

This post's title pretty much sums up everything around here: it's slow. From walking to class registration, we all like to take our time in this 95-degree heat. Remember that catchy song from "The Lion King"? Hakuna matata? "It means no worries, for the rest of your days." The students queuing up to add/drop classes in the first week will definitely tell you that they indeed have worries, you can't feel it. While we didn't finish registration until mid-week, classes "started" on Monday. I must emphasize the quotation marks, as lecturers and students don't really show up in the first week. The reasons are numerous, changing and insignificant. But all that free time allowed the students to prepare a demonstration and class-walk out.

The issue is student allowances. Botswana's students do not owe school fees and in order to encourage all to attend university, the government uses some of its diamond wealth to give UB (University of Botswana) students a living allowance every month. While historically these demonstrations have included weeks without classes, this one was only mildly disruptive. Most students avoided classes and lecturers just shook their heads during the classes that actually showed up.

If student riots in the first week isn't exciting enough, I saw zebras this weekend. Today, in fact, on safari. This weekend was UB's International Student Cultural Excursion, in which I took part and which included short trips to a missionary school museum in Mochudi (learn more in the link), rock art from Botswana's aboriginal inhabitants and an overnight in a "cultural village" which reenacts traditional Setswana dance and song in order to keep it alive. Upon leaving the cultural village this morning, we spent the afternoon at the Mokolodi Game Reserve just a few kilometers outside of Gaborone.

Tomorrow is the hopefully the real start of classes, with reading and studying to commence in earnest. This shall not interfere with my blogging as my laziness has, so please keep me on my toes by commenting and emailing me.

Cheers!