Dumela

There is always a bit of pressure on the first words of something - just the slightest extra weight to anchor a beginning. If not, the start might just drift into the middle or the end and this would be inappropriate, for everything usually has an order.

My order: After months of talk and preparation, I finally set off last Wendesday for 7 months in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. I will be working at an internship until the last month of July, and will begin classes at the University of Botswana in August. Land-locked, and situated just above South Africa, Botswana is known for its incredible stability and wealth of natural resources (think diamonds.) I don't want to sound too much like wikipedia just yet since I'm still working on my own voice, so you can reference it for yourselves.

The trip here was incredibly long. Philadelphia to London, London to Joburg, Joburg to Gabs. It took about two days, and more than the shifting of the hours or the cramped seating, I was much more disoriented by the silence. I didn't really speak to anyone except to order coffee or board a flight, and I was forced to reflect a lot on what I where I was headed, and what I was leaving behind. I tried to speak to my seatmates on all three flights, but only the last obliged. The first man, small and bearded, began weeping as soon as we sat down. He didn't seem to speak much English, but I was grateful for his quiet and his melancholy. He seemed to be feeling similar things and I appreciated the privacy we gave each other. On the flight out of Heathrow, I had the window seat and tried to strike up conversation with my purple-clad South African neighbor. However, after about five minutes of me babbling about my excitement and worry, she abruptly informed me that she was on her way home to her mother's funeral. It is interesting that people can be traveling to the same place for so many different reasons. Movement is necessary for all, but you can never really predict why. My final friend by proximity was an Egyptian man, headed to Botswana for the day. He was an operations manager for Shell, and handing me his business card, told me to ring him if I ever made it to Cairo. My best friend on the trip was Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity, which I finished en route, and it was appropriate text for the time (I strongly encourage reading it if you haven't.)


Things have been slow, yet interesting since I landed in that last (terrifyingly) small, propellered plane. Gaborone is a city, but unlike any I've ever seen. No building rises above a few stories, and the houses and stores sprawl across a relatively dry and barren landscape. The highest point in Botswana (a hill) can be seen from most points, and the majority of the water resides in the Gaborone dam (a beatiful spot to have drinks and watch the sun set). People seem to mainly speak Setswana, but Enlish peppers dialogue and I can communicate with most. As we've driven around (escorted by Lorata, a wonderfully friendly UB student,) we've seen some "lower income housing areas" (what some may deem slums), and cows grazing on the side of the road. The language and dress is also slightly different. Otherwise, the malls and restaurants are pretty Westernized and I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm incredibly far away from home.


The current situation in South Africa, with the burning of Zimbabwean refugees and general unrest, is pretty terrible. It headlines the Gaborone newspapers, and I've spoken a lot with Botswana about the politics and relations between countries. Eveyone I've met so far (which is not that many) are incredibly well informed about regional and American politics (they know way more than I do, and it has been embarrassing to admit the gaps in my knowledge.)

Right now, this feels to me to be a lot of bland, verbal vomit, so I think I'll break and gather my thoughts before spewing more into the internet air. There are a lot of things churning around in my head at the moment, and I want to make sure to articulate them all, in a fashion worth writing and reading.

A mission statement feels appropriate for this blog: I came to Botswana to absorb something new, to observe life in a different space, a different place, and to assess myself and my thoughts in a different context. I've only ever known the world from one vantage point, and I am eager to widen my view. I also came to make friends, to help in whatever way I can, and to connect with another section of humanity's geography. This blog is a space for reflections, a way for me to keep in touch with the ones I love, and hopefully a way to assemble my random thoughts and feelings into an eventual, meaningful whole. I can't predict how things will progress, how I will change, or even how often I will be updating this space, but I'll do my best to record an inconsistent life consistently.