Hide your kids

Let's start with how undergraduate dorms are shitty wherever you are... especially in Africa.

Good thing I'm living in a graduate student flat with five other roommates! 5 stars y'all. I've seen a spider on my bed. One of my curtains is broken so I safety pinned it up and my closet door doesn't lock. The best part is mopping after yourself because the shower overflows each time. College living sup. Don't get me wrong though, I've had one of the better living situations. 

The city has weekly power and water rationing cuts in sections to conserve energy because most of our energy comes from a local dam and well, it's drought season. So, a few of us were hanging out waiting for the water to come back and when one of my friends went back to her room...there was a layer of water flooded on her floor. There wasn't even a pipe that led to her room. It was so random and unexpected. Just a "did that really just happen" moment. Another flat has a bug problem so I'm sure that's fun to deal with. There are clothes lines outside for hanging up your hand washed clothing and there were birds inside the student building. This is Africa. 

There's also a creepy guy that tries to claim he's looking for a spare room to all of the international girl students. He seems like great news. I haven't met him personally but ya know hide your kids, hide your wife.
The randos are pretty sketchy at times though and you really have to be careful about where you put your things and how you present yourself. One girl lost $80 USD on a night out and the random attention gets annoying as well.

The Mozambique visa office is about a ten minute walk and the advice we got for it:

"The men that work there are notorious for hitting on American girls. Do not give them your phone number or let them deliver your passport to you (or any other ‘favor’), they will stalk you until you leave the country."

That's comforting.

But really, I do love Africa. 

Generally, I've heard this good things of this country...generally. I'll save the other stories for after I leave the country.

Best, 

Komal 

In and around Gabz!

Hi all,

I realize I've seriously been slacking on keeping up with my blog but to be fair, the daily time frame for me to write is so small and I have been choosing to hang out with friends or sleeping. Oh, also, our weekly power outage cut the internet for about 12 hours so Wednesday doesn't really count. Speaking of, we're having another scheduled power outage on Saturday from 7 am to 6 pm. That should be fun! Mondays are water cuts 6 pm to 10 pm for the part of the city I'm staying in.

Anyway, I guess I'll start with last weekend since that's where I left off (oops). Well, my group and I went on a "scavenger hunt" of the city, Gaborone (pronounced Hab-uh-ro-nae). It was awesome and also so tiring! Gabz is huge and so varied in what you'll find. The best/worst part about four tourists walking around in the city is the random attention. Sometimes, you'll get strangers (men and women) just come up to you and tell you how beautiful you are or they'll say "Hello. I love you!" or they'll try to take pictures of you/with you. It's definitely an interesting city. Lolz. Let's be honest though, the attention gets old because people also assume you have money... so you have to be careful to keep your things close, especially at popular places, like the mall or the bus rink.

Public transportation is also...interesting. People mainly use taxis and combis. To the left you'll see the front of a combi and I'll be sure and get a better picture in one of these days for full effect. They're 16 seater white vans that have routes and stop when requested. Oh, these routes aren't really listed anywhere either...you just know or ask a driver. They're pretty cheap but also relatively sketch at night. The ones with blue license plates are "safer" but hey, they get you where you want to go! One thing that sucks though is that when you want to leave somewhere in the morning from the bus rink, you have to wait for the 16 seater van to fill up before it leaves, and it can make you late to your destination. There's no set time for when a combi will arrive or if it will...it just does. The best part of the taxis is that you never really know what you'll hear until you get in the car... I've heard music from gospel African to "Call Me Maybe" there's no telling what's next!

Okay, so back to the scavenger hunt...my group also went into a few places we weren't supposed to get into... such as inside parliament (hey, who's fault is it if you have virtually non-existent security in a government building AND you leave the doors unlocked? Speaking of security, there is an embassy row with different government buildings like the embassy buildings for Zimbabwe and Canada... and then there's the United States embassy. So intense. You can't even take a picture of the parking lot they own. (If you try to take a picture of the US embassy, game over).

The coolest place we saw that we weren't supposed to be able to see was inside the high commission courts. We got to go inside because we're American and it was Sunday so the courts were vacant. Now, we actually got to go inside the courtrooms and all. We even saw the cells where those who are accused of committing murder and treason are detained before being seen by a judge. I'm talking maximum security. I saw the scuff marks of people who resisted their court appeals. It was intense and old school.

Here are some visuals to fill in the gaps! Enjoy!

High Court

Three Chiefs monument!

Outside the taxi station! 

Nicest hotel in Gabz! Rooftop chillen' y'all!

INTERCAPE WOOOOO!!!

Mokolodi Nature Reserve

 Hello all,

The group of 28 students plus student volunteers and staff went to Mokolodi Nature Reserve, which is a reserve just outside Gaborone and we did an overnight there. We went on a game drive and saw giraffe, warthogs, zebra, baboons, impala,wildebeests, spotted hyenas and kudus. This reserve is huge. The reserve is also known for its education and conservation lessons. This includes learning about the different wildlife as well as animal population control. I learned a lot about the dynamics of wildlife control, poaching, hunting and exportation of animal goods. For example, the country has declared that no more hunting licenses will be issued after 2014 and hunting will be banned. This is due to 12% of Botswana GDP coming from ecotourism (National Geographic) and the negative effects poaching has had on trophy animals, such as Cape Buffalo. The Okavango Delta in Botswana was nominated as a UNESCO heritage site so, if any time to ban hunting, now would be ideal in essence. However, for non-endangered species, hunting helps control wildlife population. The guides helped us understand a little more background about the issue.

Impala

Warthog

The problem with letting animal species overpopulate reserves is that the reserves can only accomodate so many animals before they overpopulate, eat all of the vegetation, overuse the lands, and starve to death. So, another option is killing the animals, which is never a crowd pleaser. This also discourages tourists from visiting and sponsors from contributing to keep the parks funds afloat. Another option is providing supplementary feeding to animals which is wonderful in theory. However, this poses the problem of providing monetary assistance for the extra food. Another option is exportation of animals (preferably alive) to countries in SADC such as Namibia, who is looking to vamp up it's wildlife preservation. Exporting gives much more bang for your buck than selling to local markets. This is also a great option except the ministry of agriculture recently stopped giving out permits for the exportation of any wildlife. Now, there's a problem. Keeping the country's wildlife population under control while maintaining economic stability is something that may be a future issue for Botswana's wildlife reserves. Hopefully, there's a master plan behind all of this somewhere in between the lines! Only time will tell what's in store for these animals and reserves.




We had a wonderful dinner out by the lake and it was gorgeous. It was gorgeous. We saw the sun set as well and I'm losing words for how to describe the natural beauty found in this country. Let's talk about camping with 28 college kids and well, a little something to get the group's night started. The group ended up playing "Never have I ever" and for some reason that game mixes perfectly with camping, bonding, and booze. I'd say this was a great bonding night for everyone because we all got to relax and get to know each other. Also, I enjoyed hearing stories about other peoples' travels and just what brought them to Botswana. Everyone has a story and I'm enjoying discovering everyones purposes for being here.



I ended up staying up with a small group late because we were talking and discussing life stories. One of the guides was still up with us as well and we heard two Impala males fighting over a female. One of the Impala backed away and our tour guide walked us through it. This was pretty cool because he knew what was going on, timing and all,  even though it is pitch dark at this point.

We also saw the stars. Man, the stars. I don't think I can accurately convey the beauty I saw this night. The southern hemisphere has different stars than those that we see in the states. The air pollution is so little in this area that the clarity was un-parallel to anything I had ever seen. I saw the milky way as well as the scorpius constellation. Oh, and I saw three shooting stars. I'm no astronomy major, but damn, this was a sight. It was literally perfect. It was one of those sights where you can see it as soon as you search your google images, you can learn about it in class, you can even map it out, but there is no comparison and it's that simple.


Hakuna Matata,

Komal 

  Mokolodi Education Center