There is so much to write about. I am not sure if it’s because I am less distracted by television in the evenings, but by the time I come home each night, my brain is full of thoughts. Uh, let’s correct that. Should read: “not distracted by television because I don’t have one.” Some of the thoughts are admittedly quite inane, and since I don’t have internet at home they all fall in the garbage where many Facebook comments belong, never to be written down by me, or read by anyone. For that, let’s all utter a sigh of relief.
Any news I get is on the morning radio or on Friday evenings, when I stop to buy the Botswana Guardian newspaper, or when I have conversations with colleagues about what is happening out there. I buy the paper at a grocery store, along with a can of 100% mango/orange juice that I mix, or not, with the bottle of white wine I buy at the bottle shop/bar just next door. It’s only on Friday’s mind you, and it is only to help me with my Friday evening chores, which consists primarily of washing my laundry in my bathtub, to have it ready to hang on the line early Saturday morning. My secondary “chore” is to read the paper I bought and write down any inane thoughts that haven’t already escaped me and are perhaps less inane than I anticipated.
The paper is in English and I am getting used to the English vs. American sentence structures, so it isn’t as taxing as it used to be. Quite the window into the Botswana world. Culturally and integrative-ly speaking I am batting 3 for 3: I am drinking; I am doing laundry by hand; I am reading about Botswana stuff. Okay, I am not drinking Chibuku with a bunch of other people, which is by all accounts a fairly strong, nasty, and cheap alcoholic beverage, but I can only do so much to integrate at any one time.
Chibuku comes in a container that looks like our milk cartons. The first time I saw it in a large quantity was early one morning when women with wheelbarrows were collecting stacks of it from the side of the road in Kanye. Cool, a milk delivery. Nice that some places still do that. No sir. Don’t got milk. Milk comes primarily in those long life packages that can’t be recycled. I used to buy Costco soymilk in the same containers and feel really bad about it. Now I buy full crème milk in those containers and feel really bad about it for multiple reasons.
None of this is what I wanted to write about, but whatever. I was just thinking on my walk home from work today that I have a great life here. A great house, great colleagues at work who really care about the people they work with/for, dedicated disability support group leaders who against all odds are still trying to make things better for the people they are caring for and for themselves, despite their disabilities. I have great friends at home who support me and send me great packages full of things I love!!
Check in with me again once the weather shifts from being like a pleasant spring or fall Eureka day to the insanely hot thing they call summer which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I am sure the things that really matter will still be good, but instead of cold and reasonably content, I will be sweaty and cranky. And I will probably switch to beer. And no, I don’t drink the whole bottle of wine on Friday night. What would I mix with the juice Saturday morning?
The only downside so far has been a mistake I made myself. Thuso, our security officer warned us, but I was still scammed. Thuso, by the way is Setswana for “help” so he obviously never had a choice in life as to his profession. Anyway, he talked to us about various ways we could be victimized and scammed and thought us what he called a song, but we kept saying WASN’T a song because, well, he didn’t ever actually SING it to us. But it essentially is: “all volunteers must do it every day.” Each word representing various aspects: awareness, vigilance, mitigation, defuse, escape, defend. “It” is just, well, “it.” And yes, I had to check my notes, but I had the main idea. And I am pretty good at it, but got caught in the Loveridge scam (my name for it) while not being vigilant and now am working on the mitigation plan before someone has to have me poke his eye out.
The Loveridge scam is when you pass someone in the village and say “dumela” which means “hello.” Normally they say hi back, we exchange “o tsogile’s” or “le kae’s” and keep moving. Well, the Zimbabwean men here deny speaking Setswana and speak English. Fine, no problem, I still keep moving. Fast forward a few weeks and there standing at my work place is this same Zimbabwean, there to see one of my co-workers. This is where I get scammed. Okay, he knows my co-worker, I know my co-worker. I like my co-worker, he is a nice guy with a nice wife. So now this guy must be nice and have a nice wife, so no problem.
See how the logic works? (NOT) Wish I had. So I am giving Loveridge (yeah, an odd name at home, but here, who knows) my cell phone number. And then he texts me how he “looks forward to taking our friendship to new levels.” Eh???!!! Then I ask my co-worker about him and….he doesn’t really know the guy at all. Scam-o-roo. I can at least see if he calls and just ignore the call, but then he calls on another number to see what I am doing for the weekend. Uh, I am really quite busy (and honestly, I am…) Cool. Blech. And I am 110% sure he has a wife, I know he has at least one young child because he had him there at the office. I just hope a village of 12,000 is really big enough for both of us. I feel for our younger, more attractive female volunteers here. I mean, jeez, if someone is coming after me?
The good news is my cats are adapting quite well to their new life of luxury. Sisi is getting fat and Pudi is recovering nicely from her trip to the vet ordeal. It has been so long since I have had a 6 month old cat that I wasn’t sure if she was mental or not until I saw my friend Matt in Lobatse who has one of her siblings. Now I know that both cats are mental, but that it is probably normal.
But they have their uses. The other night I walked into the bathroom to find a rather large cockroach. That’s how they come here; large and out of nowhere. I haven’t seen one in the house before or since. I had it on good authority that Sisi liked to hunt these buggers so I called her in. Being just after dinner, she didn’t come so I grabbed her and threw her at the roach. Yep, definitely she eats too much because she didn’t go after it with the kind of zeal I had been promised and frankly at that moment, hoping for. But she did the job and Pudi came in to see what was up and lend her support. Eventually, Sisi ate it, but left two legs, which I had to sweep up. Blech.
At least I know when I leave the house for training for two weeks in August, any bug will be deader than dead. Sigh. It is these future tense sentences that remind me how bad my Setswana really is and will always be. Love to see that written in Setswana. No, I am not leaving them for 2 weeks without food. I am borrowing an automated feeder from Matt and coming home half way through the training. As long as they don’t claw the door anymore, I am good to go. My landlord/supervisor will check on them if I ask, but then I have to explain the door…I guess I could ask Loveridge, but that is just inane Facebook talk.
Watched "the Social Network" the other night. Did Mark expect more from us than he is getting? Probably he could care less, given his can't see anyone through his billions....
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