I was walking back from my neighbor’s bottle shop and came on a woman with an umbrella, followed a few paces behind by an older man. I realized after a moment that music, loud music, was emanating from the top of her head and she was singing along just as loudly. The source: a small square transistor radio sitting on top of her head. They both were blaring and I understood why her old man was walking a few paces behind her. He wasn’t sure whether he even wanted to be part of the parade, but it was obvious he didn’t want to appear to be leading it.
I saw my host family in Kanye briefly last weekend. We had a PC regional meeting there and were released after the day to either go home or stay the night and leave in the morning. Those of us who lived close by skadaddled. I decided to forgo the relative luxury of a hotel room with air condition and definite, but not too exciting meals and headed to see my family, in a house with no air-conditioning and mixed food opportunities. I arrived with a bag of frozen chicken pieces so I knew we would be having a decent dinner at least.
My host mom spent most of the afternoon and early evening sacked out asleep on the living room floor while we all did whatever we did with the kids and watched the tv just above her head. She woke to greet me enthusiastically and told me something that I thought was simply hilarious, though I couldn’t laugh out loud. She said that PC had asked her to host one of the incoming volunteers during the 10 week training, just like I did last April. She said she was very happy with her eldest daughter Katli (my nickname at the homestead) but didn’t want a “newborn.” My niece Lucia is crazy about the whole Twilight thing, so I looked at her, raised my eyebrow, and tried not to laugh. Well sure, if you put it THAT way, what upstanding Citizen of Botswana would willingly accept a PC Newborn into their otherwise peaceful home?
Had an interesting hitch out of Gabs the other day. It was 4:30 or so in the afternoon so competition was fierce and I knew the buses would all be standing room only. A guy pulled over and I and two other women hopped in the back. I realized after I was the eager first in that this time of day you don’t get in first if it places you on the sunny right side of the car, which it did for me. Still learning these things. Not too far out of town I started to be distracted from my random thoughts and persistent sweating by the mannerisms of the driver, who sat in front of me given we drive here on the other side of the road than in the States.
He kept squirming in his seat and glancing over his left shoulder. It was as if he was expecting someone or something to hit him from the left back seat. I saw no threats, but it still started to worry me a bit. Meanwhile, the music was also a bit off, but in a more welcoming, or at least unthreatening way. It sounded a lot like Pink Floyd, but if it was them it wasn’t anything I had ever heard before. So a twitching driver playing Pink Floyd-ish music and me sweating in the back seat. Hmm…the silver lining? Well, it was literally there in the sky. As I looked out my window the sun went behind a humungous cloud and created a fantastic vision of light lining the entire thing– and blocking the sun from my eyes. Now I could relax and enjoy my music and twitching chauffer in relative comfort.
On December 14, on my way home from the airport, I convinced my taxi driver to stop at Game City so I could buy a much needed vacuum cleaner. On February 8, aforementioned vacuum cleaner decided to stop working. Now my one in the states is pushing 10 years, so this came as a bit of a shock to me. Sure, I paid P499, which is less than $100 for it, but P499 is also just less than 1/3 of my monthly salary, which means this was an expensive item. My friend Erwin was headed to Gabs so he took me and the defunct relic to the shop to see what could be done.
They looked at it, looked at me, tried to imply I must have done something very strange to cause this, but ascertained that it indeed did not work. They said they would have it repaired. It would take 3 weeks. I am not sure our short term relationship of just two months can handle this kind of separation, especially since it IS a dirt bag that doesn’t work. But ever trusting, and somewhat interested to see what three weeks in repair shop time translates to in Botswana time and then into American repair shop time, I agreed. I have seen what three weeks means in so many other areas….but still I kissed it sweetly goodbye and hoped for the best.
The other thing I learned on this trip is that Game the store is owned by Walmart. The OTHER, other thing I learned on the way home that day is that Game, owned by Walmart sells really cheap umbrellas. As much as I will never say a discouraging thing about the wind here, no matter how cold it blows in the winter because it is a lifesaver in the summer, it does wreck havoc on cheap umbrellas. But Batswana don’t give up on an umbrella lightly, nor shall I. At home we would laugh at someone carrying an umbrella that didn’t open and stay completely open and upstanding, right? Well here, I have seen people carrying umbrellas that only have half of their former selves working. I scoffed once. Now I am one of those people.
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