the first week

I love travelling - I enjoy the getting there part just as much as being there. My first flight was on Monday evening from Toronto to Amsterdam, a 3 hour layover, then off to Johannesburg, South Africa. The 10.5 hour flight was during the day and I had a window seat. It was quite the view crossing the beautiful Mediterranean and coming over the coast of Northern Africa and the Sahara with fairly clear skies.

Northern coast of Africa

Africa is amazingly brown!

After clearing the clouds I got to enjoy an excellent sunset as well.

I had a cold overnight layover in the Joburg airport, because I lost my sweater and jacket in Amsterdam. It is winter time right now, and the nights go down to about 5° C, and the afternoons go up to around 20-25° C. (Don't feel jealous about the weather just yet, apparently it has been colder then usual here) We actually were delayed because of ice on the plane’s wings. It was a short one hour hop on Wednesday morning over to Gaborone, Botswana, with a great view of the once again brown countryside.

Upon arrival I found out that my suitcase was not there. Our student guide Kevin picked me up and brought me to the University. 40 some hours after leaving home with almost no sleep and I was finally there! In the evening we went back to the airport and thankfully my suitcase was there. I spent the day getting to know some of the other international students and registering for courses. There are at least 60 exchange students here (Botswana is a popular destination), of which many are American so I do not feel too far from my own culture when I am with them. I am the only Canadian here, and it is interesting hearing all of the American and Setswana (the language) accents. Apparently I have an accent as well, and sometimes get a few chuckles when I say ‘aboot’ and ‘Eh!’

Over the next 2 days we went through orientation at the university. We also had a brief tour of the city, including the government grounds (very nice but no pictures allowed), and a monument of Khama III, Bathoen and Sebele.

  

They were leaders who appealed to Britain for protection of the Bechuanaland protectorate in 1885; Botswana gained independence in 1966. The countryside is very brown now (it is the dry season), and there are plenty of different looking plants and trees. We also had a tour of the university, which is very nice with many different buildings close together, and a lot of covered walkways going in between them. There are about 15,000 students (a little bigger than Laurentian, my home university), and it is sort of like a maze around campus in some places.

On Friday, we went out for a traditional meal in a field just outside of town. We ate around a campfire and had goat, Phalatshe (corn meal) and Mopani worms.

trying a mopani worm

 I unfortunately did not do very well with the worms, but I managed to eat half of one. The taste was not bad (salty), but the texture and crunchiness was a little too much for me. The food at the university is pretty good, and they eat a lot of meat. There is usually rice, pasta or Phalatshe with chicken or beef, and some (not very much) vegetables. Unfortunately there is not too much variation from this, but I am happy with it so far. They also eat a lot of ‘fat cakes’, which are deep fried balls of sweet dough. They are very good on their own, or can be dipped in meat or sauce.

On Sunday, I walked to a fairly big church called the Universal Church. It is close to the university and is very nice. It was cool to see a different style of worship. I am looking forward to going to a few different churches here as well and experiencing the different bodies of believers here.
One thing that is different out on the streets is that the traffic drives on the left hand side, which is very strange to see when you are not used to it. It also takes a lot of getting used to, especially looking to the right when starting to cross the road. After a close call or two, I started looking both ways just in case I forgot which way the traffic would come from, but now I am getting used to it. It will be interesting to see what going back to right hand side traffic will be like.

I have been getting settled in here, and getting a little bit used to some things that are different, including often having cold showers, and chilly evenings and mornings because the buildings are not heated. There is also a lot of time spent waiting for pretty much anything, whether for food or getting paperwork done. This is definitely the place to be if you need to develop some patience, but I am getting used to it. Next week I start school, and I’m looking forward to what it will be like...but not so much the studying part :-).

just outside of my room