Arrival and Orientation

I started my long two day flight journey on December 31, 2009. I left Seattle at about 3:30pm and arrived in San Francisco at about 530pm. My flight to New York JFK took off at 10:20pm, so I had a few hours to kill in the SFO airport. I wandered around for a bit, looked at endless magazines, and eventually bought one. I had a nice and simple dinner at the Anchor Steam Restaurant in the airport. I wandered around some more and eventually found my gate and took off to JFK on a plane. On this overnight United plane, they had movies and great service. Apparently this was what’s called a Premium Service flight, a special only to a from JFK to SFO and Los Angeles. I was in the very back of the plane, but I had a seat with extended leg room. I did not sleep much on the plane and it even got into New York about 30 minutes early. So I had 4 hours to kill in JFK before my next flight took off to Johannesburg, South Africa. I thought about going into the city as I had to go through security again anyways, but decided against it when the people at the JFK Airlink connect to downtown Manhattan told me that since it was new years day, service was extremely irregular. So I waited for a few hours in JFK before boarding my plane to South Africa. The airport was so busy even on New Year’s Day. I left JFK at 1030am and was due to arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa at 8:35am Jan 2. During the flight I slept a little, and watched almost 4 movies. It was a long flight, the longest ever in my life. 15 hours and 5 minutes. Got into and through the passport control at Jo’burg (as locals call it) and had a 3 hour layover. I took a nap on a bench and then went to my gate. Here I met my roommate, Eric, and my director Ouma, and an assistant to the director, NJ. All four of us took the plane from Jo’burg to Gaborone. It was a quick one, before I knew it I was on the ground again in Botswana after a total travel time of roughly 35 hours. When I stepped out of the plane, I thought to myself here we go, just a little over 4 months in Botswana. The heat was a bit stifling as I stepped out of the plane, I thought to myself, I wonder if its going to be this hot during my entire stay here. It was about 90 degrees at 1230pm. Walked onto the tarmac and around the soon to be new airport, and through customs. All of my baggage arrived safely and we headed to our rental car. Sitting right next to our rental car was an old Volkswagen rabbit probably from the late 1980s. Apparently you could rent that car.
As I was driving through Gaborone, I started to notice some things right away. There were no sidewalks and very few traffic lights. I noticed that there were no cross walks. People walked on dirt paths and quite frequently got in and out of these mini-van type things. Later I found out these were called combis and are Gaborone’s transportation within the city. From now on I am going to refer to Gaborone as Gabs. I noticed that houses had fences all around them. I kept seeing these security signs, saying Group 4 Securior protection. I noticed that there really were no tall buildings. In reality there are three buildings, what we in the states would call mid-sized skyscrapers. And of course the major thing was that they drive on the left hand side of the road. I knew that funny left hand drive thing was going to take awhile to get used to. From my observations I knew I was in a totally different world.
We got to the “lodge” we were staying at during our orientation. We stayed at a place called Lalowopa Lodge, which was right next to the University of Botswana(UB). My new roommate, Eric, and I shared a room. This room had a huge bed stuffed in it as well as a small one. Luckily it had air conditioning. After lounging about in the lodge for a bit, we decided to go to the Riverwalk, about a 5 minute drive from UB. At Riverwalk, I had not so tasty milkshake. Later that day, we went into the city center to whats called the main mall. The main mall was the city’s first mall developed in the 1970s. It is a bit ancient, but at the end of it, sits the Botswana Parliament. There is also a Spar on the main mall. Yes a Spar. For those of us who were in my CIEE group last semester we all know about Spar. I thought they only existed in Europe, but I guess not. Spar is a grocery store for those who don’t know. At the Spar in Hungary, everything was obviously in Hungarian. At the Spar in Bots, everything is in English, a nice change from a foreign language. Don’t get me wrong, the Spar in Hungary was quite interesting to navigate and I always ended up getting what I want. Later that night, we had dinner at this place called newscafe, where if you buy a drink, you get free internet for an hour. After dinner, I crashed and finally got a nice long night of sleep.
The next morning, we went to Newscafe for breakfast and then left for a day excursion. This gentleman picked us up in a Land Rover and drove us around Gabs and the surrounding area. We had a tour of the film spots for the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a film that is based in Bots. We also went to Mochudi, a village about 20 km north of Gabs. Here we saw a kgotla, a central meeting place for the people of the village. Punishments and city/governmental proceedings take place at the kgotla. It is a very important cultural tradition in Bots. In the village, we hike up a small hill and got a gorgeous view of the surrounding area. For being extremely hot, Botswana is very green. Greener than some places in the US. After the day excursion, I ran into a German exchange student, Caroline, who was staying in our hotel and studied at UB the semester before. She invited us and we went to a place with live music on Sunday nights. I also met her local friend Montle, and we have been hanging out ever since. Also I met my friend Kabo, who occasionally performed at this place. It’s a very local scene, except that some members of the live jazz band were from Zimbabwe. It was a fun night to celebrate officially being in Gabs. The next day was full of orientation stuff and what not. Also I went shopping for some dorm room essentials. My most expensive purchase was my $30 fan. Later that night, I met some more international students, Lucy, Ayumi, and Machy. We went out to this place called Bull and Bush. Here we had ribs for about $9. The next few days involved more orientation and figuring out which classes to take. At the end of the week, I was ready for orientation stuff to be over. A whole bunch of the international students went out on Friday for some fun. On Saturday I continued to meet more locals. And on Sunday I went back to the same place that has live Jazz on Sunday nights. A packed first week indeed.