f-word

ACADEMIA

Ah yes, that most exciting of topics! To begin, after a month of hustle and hassle and university red tape, we are registered! I can't think of a day in the past thirty that has not included some sort of trek across campus for registration inquiries, and I am beyond thrilled to be done with that process. Penn, next semester, will seem like a scary machine of efficiency.

I am also rather thrilled to report that our classes are...good. YES. I kid you not, and I will also be perfectly honest and admit that prior to the start of the semester, I was rather hush-hush terrified that University life would be sub par. Thus, I am happy and slurping up books like a good smoothie, and as Seb and I are taking all the same classes (a coincidence of interests) we are having a grand old time frolicking through new fields of literature and history.

The run down:

Introduction to Setswana
A loud, boisterous class comprised solely of international exchange students – introduction to Setswana teaches us how to click our “tl”’s and e-e our no’s. Our teacher is a wonderful mix of tolerant and firm, and she is really enthusiastic about our own contribution to the weekly lessons – much of the first hour is often devoted to breaking down and translating the slang terms we horde and reveal in class.

Setswana itself, and the way in which it is taught, in no way align with any preconceived notions of language adoption, but eish, we go with it. I’m not sure exactly how intense the evaluations/tests/work will be, but a little extra free time is never less than a blessing.

Critical Issues in Modern African Literature
Not the most fast paced or rigorous of courses, but with a reading list like the one prescribed, it’s hard to go wrong:
Negritude Poetry
Song of Lawino
A Grain of Wheat
Anthills of the Savannah

The class has been a little bizarre, because even though it’s for third years, the level of class participation usually hangs pretty low. Students here can be surprisingly demure, and often murmur responses instead of raising hands and pronouncing them loudly. However, I’m still having a jolly good time and the pass few lessons have seemed to amp things up a little.

The African Novel
So. so. so. GOOD. Despite the fact that the class is held at 7 am every Tuesday and Thursday (I know I know, only freshmen are stupid enough to fall into that trap) I don’t mind the early hour a bit. Again, like Critical Issues, the reading list would be enough to make a girl happy:
God’s Bits of Wood
In the Fog of the Season’s End
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Sweet and Sour Milk
However, the cherry on top is the professor. Stately, of comfortable girth, impeccably well dressed, of poetic voice and turns of phrase, and impossibly, class commandingly, captivatingly, sage, this fellow is old school academia embodied. He always has neat tales of a Gabs of yesteryear up his sleeve, and although I can’t understand the jokes he makes in Setswana, they always get honest laughs.

Mfecane and the Settler Scramble for Southern Africa
Never heard of Mfecane? I hadn’t either. Thus, I am really incredibly glad to be enrolled in a course that examines this brief period of great violence, land dispute, migration, drought, etc. in Southern Africa of the early 1800’s. The best parts about the study of this period: the cause behind events is still hotly debated, and theboundaries that arose from the land divisions of the Mfecane gave rise to territories and states that now comprise SADC/Southern Africa. It’s more than wonderful to be able to study the roots of what’s alive around you, and it really helps to give new perspective to current events of the region. What’s more, the teacher is really commanding and knows his stuff, and I feel very welcome in the classroom. He also places an emphasis on discussing news events and the regional political situation, and it was great to briefly debate over Botswana’s actions/stance regarding Zimbabwe and Mugabe.

Politics of South Africa
Perhaps my favorite course. Seb and I signed up for it thinking that it was Politics of SOUTHERN Africa, but the misunderstanding has turned out to be a happy one. I learned more about South African politics, government, and history in the first hour of class than in all my accumulated twenty (one) years. Also, since South Africa is such a powerhouse in the region, their social, political, economic, etc. policies and practices often directly impact Botswana and neighboring countries. Our teacher, of a shiny bald head and flowery, flowing dress shirts, is still finishing up school work of his own (the class was foisted on him two days before it began) but I think it makes him even more intense about the material. Politics of South Africa is one of the only classes that we received a full-blown syllabus for (detailed outline of articles/readings required, and weekly topic breakdowns), and it demands the most in-class participation.

I find the course to be pretty challenging in many ways, especially since Seb and I, as foreigners, have come into it with a bit of a handicap. An incredible characteristic of a lot of people here, especially those studying political science, is a really detailed knowledge of regional politics – thus, we find ourselves uniquely stumped by some common questions about recent history. However, this is only more incentive to read and research. The class also makes me want to know more about my own home country, since I often find that I am called upon in classes to confirm or provide facts about the politics, government, and actions of America. My cheeks have flushed red more than once in stumbling over answers and I’d like to be a better ambassador.



To make sure that I don’t sugar coat things too much, I must once again pronounce my oft-repeated chant: “things are different here.” The classes involve much more dictation and note-taking than I am used to or comfortable with, and the difficulty we’ve had in getting books and reading materials from both the library and the book store is rather insane. A month into classes and some texts still have not arrived on campus. It also isn’t like the states where there are multiple outlets for purchasing texts – if it isn’t in the bookstore, it isn’t in the country. We’ve made do with borrowing materials and JSTOR’ing stuff (thank god for that one), but the near impossibility of finding a functioning printer here has hindered progress as well.

However, for whatever reason, I find that I am pleasantly non-plussed by this mess. Maybe I’ve finally sunk into the popular attitude here, or I’ve adopted a more passive outlook. Either way, it is nice to know I’m stressing less about inconveniences and daily “problems.” There is always maintenance issue that needs fixing, some task that needs completing, some office that needs visiting, and some contact that needs finding. Yet, chances are that on the way to do each of these things (minor annoyances that could be avoided completely if systems actually functioned here), I will meet a new person, laugh at some absurdity, or muse on some new thought, and really, so long as the dilemmas are benign, this isn’t so bad.

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I spent the day lazily (after an incredible night of group dining and dancing) and am feeling a bit of that familiar Sunday crunch – but hey, it’s kind of a comfort since it just wouldn’t be the end of August/school without it. Seb, Daniel, Anna and I also spent the afternoon doing some research and planning for a trip to Namibia (!!) that we’re hoping to take over September’s week long break. I couldn’t be more excited to dust off my backpack in the closet.

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What else to say? Perhaps a meditation worthy of an F-Word meeting. I think the thought that has been bothering me the most over the past few days is something that Daniel put into words: Feminism has yet to hit Botswana. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I am really so insanely uncomfortable here sometimes because of the way men treat me. It hit a boiling point yesterday when I was sitting outside my hostel, reading under a pavilion in the quiet, sunny graduate complex. Not more than a few pages into my book, I was disturbed by an incessant spate of shrill whistling from a window of a slightly visible undergraduate dorm. I looked up to locate the source, and found two men staring directly at me and waving like mad. I lowered my eyes to the page and kept reading, but the sound wouldn’t stop and only grew louder. This went on for about three minutes (which, in real time, is quite nerve-rackingly long). A moment after this round of annoyance finally ceased, a man walked up to me, stopped, inched a few feet closer, stared me up and down with an unnerving intensity, and then went on his merry way. This was followed quickly by the approach of a total stranger, who demanded two minutes of my time (from a far too invasive proximity) and proceeded to attempt to seduce me in a strange mix of Setswana and English. “I want a most beautiful girl,” he moaned, “a very most beautiful girl. Wena. You.” “Not an option,” I replied and smiled, my rage practically seeping through my teeth, and he swaggered into the hostel next to mine.

I am not a piece of meat, an object to buy, or an animal for observation. I understand that I am rather out of place here visually, and that my status as a foreigner often warrants more attention, but I can’t help but feel completely objectified and debased by countless approaches and rude comments. Wednesday, as my friend Brianna and I browsed shelves of hot cakes and bread loaves in a small bakery, a man yelled at me “Hello nice white lady! Will you give it to me?” I was shocked into open-jawed silence, and then blushed and turned away. Yet he persisted in inching towards me and jeering and I had to quickly leave the store because no one else seemed to find his behavior unacceptable enough to censor.

The other aspect of my extreme anger and sadness over this issue is that so much of the problem seems to center around the color of my skin. I honestly don’t think that it’s anything I’m wearing, saying, or doing that is attracting this attention, and it’s not because I’m Helen of Troy that men keep leering at me (this was never ever a problem before my arrival here.) So many times, when I am approached, my skin is brought up in the first sentence, or used in a creative appellation. “I am NOT ‘white lady,’” I want to scream, “I am Ilana and you know nothing about me so there isn’t any way in hell that you can be so intensely attracted as me to warrant your sleazy behavior.” Cultural differences, you might suggest – tolerance is necessary – but really, I’ve had more than my share of this nonsense.

The chauvinistic attitudes of this still extremely patriarchal society make me want to vomit when I hear them in daily conversation and see them in the actions of some people around me (even the educated, and otherwise enlightened,) and it is painful to think that only time and a generation gap of information will help to change things. The craziest thing is that the attitudes that stifle women and disenfranchise the female population here, stand in stark contrast with what I see as the incredible strength, independence, and pride of the women who are my peers. I hold an overwhelming amount of respect for most of the women that I’ve met here, especially for their confidence and bold mentalities, and I only wish that they would be held more highly in the minds of others here.

I don’t really know how to conclude this – no plan of action to change a nation, or real resolution for my own dejection. I don’t want to have to get more aggressive with my responses to unwanted advances, but I feel like I have no choice anymore. Maybe by embarrassing the next man who comes along and wants to solicit sex I can gain some small victory. But to put so much energy into an offensive, rather than just buttressing my defense, is a difficult thing for me to decide on.

The only positive spin I can put on this situation is that going through these daily moments of embarrassment and anger has really made me think a lot about feminism outside of Philadelphia and the comfortable environment I’ve always known. In a way, it makes an issue I’ve always cared about somehow more immediate. I also think that it is good, if difficult, for me to begin to solidify my own boundaries – to decide a bit more firmly how tolerant I will be with disrespect for my person, and to get better at picking my battles. It’s not that I’m looking to be more aggressive, but I think my “ignore it” stance of yore is definitely getting modified.

turn the page

The days seem to flick by and there is this strange and stubborn rebellion that my fingers and subconscious seem to be waging against me – thus, I haven’t written.

I’ve been thinking about this strike a lot recently – calmly assessing why I suddenly feel semi-repulsed by the thought of a paragraph, and I’ve formulated a few ideas.
1. What do you do when a travel blog becomes a … blog? The fancy first has dropped and now the generic second word is left to struggle valiantly. For the past three months I’ve been interacting with this space and thinking of it very specifically as a bowl into which I could pour my thoughts on being somewhere foreign. However, now that I can no longer deny the fact of my residency – my more than temporary position in this now familiar environ - I’m faced with the challenge of reforming my mentality.
Excuse me if this gets too meta, but how far internally do you dig when the external turns flat? It’s not that there isn’t a variety of things to deal with on the daily, it’s just that they aren’t popping or punching as much. How comfortable am I with that? I don’t know.
2. I think I am tired of documenting
3. Free form formulations might be better
4. I am a little consumed by the all or nothing mentality of record-keeping. The overwhelming personal responsibility of choosing what to keep and what to reject in the text-based memory of this time has loomed and lingered.
5. I shouldn’t worry so much about this
6. Kicking back means writing a little less
7. Kicking back means writing a little more
8. A balance is always ideal
9. Is it?
10. enough of this

In conclusion, I think I have to cut ties with the (undocumentation of the) past two weeks and let the present speak.

But before the scissors snip, some pictures and video of the visit to the Holy Cross Hospice that Pat, Seb, Ebony, and I made last Saturday [this one’s for you Becca!]

While Seb, Pat, and some local musicians were playing for the gathered patients, a frail yet energetic woman turned to me and smiled. Her cheeks were sunken in and her large eyes shone brightly out of dark skin pulled tight to hug her frame. Despite the obvious effects of the disease, I couldn't but help marvel at how beautiful she was, and how much stronger and more vibrant she must have been in years past. When she leaned forward a few moments later and told me that I was beautiful, I thought I might just sink into my seat and wither away with the weight of it all, or float off into nothingness because nothing could be lighter- the opposites converge.

To step outside of my head a little bit: let me proclaim my absolute adoration for my main companions, daniel and seb. It is impossible to describe how they infuse life with the most glorious of things, so I will leave it at saying I am deep sea, tall tree, hot tea, honey bee grateful for their presence. It is infinitely important to me to be able to process life with them through discussion and creative production, and if location makes a difference in perspective, so do good friends.

more tomorrow - it's in the works, but we're headed out for the night and I can't quite seem to sew up the sentences I've composed.

up high

*written on August 16th, but for whatever hesitancies that pass themselves off as justifications for delay, it wasn't posted. now, it is.

I’ve been walking around lately feeling like hot stretched glass, hoping for a breath of air to mold me fast. There is so much happening each and every day, in each and every way, and I feel myself getting quiet because of it. Does that make any sense? It feels sometimes like I’m sinking back into a corner because the only things left with any ability to handle the overwhelming absorption are my eyes.

I’m feeling uptight, and it isn’t right, because so much of what surrounds me is the essence of loosey goosey and free nights.

Our friend Anna made a brilliant and casual observation the other day: it is strange to be in a place without clouds, because we’re so used to relying on them to remind us the earth is moving and time is moving and life is moving. What do I look to now? Up above is just a blue, blank, endless expanse – how do I know that the days pass by at all? Do I count the number of red peppers that enter and disappear from my refrigerator? The number of cockroach babies that are born? The number of times I say ‘Dumela?’

I forget sometimes how much I crave a little order, a little pattern. The same breakfast every morning would suit me fine – just to remind me that although I can’t pat the doumbek, I can make some rhythm. This inaugural launch of classes has left my mind feeling a little helter-skelter, and I can’t hold onto minutes let alone hours. Wasn’t I just craving some excitement though? The winter was winding down and all I could think of was the New and the Good. It is funny how contradictory my subconscious can be.

Pots and Pans: I can honestly say that my newly forged relationship with my pots and pans and cutlery and plates and cups, is nothing short of sacred. Never before in my life have I truly valued such non-toy, non-gadget, non-novelty possessions. They are plain. They are not non-stick. They burn and they gunk and they chip. However, they allow me to function independently here, and that seems a miracle. Each morning, as I put a pot of water up to boil (to which will later be added the choke-inducing granules of coffee/chickory instant Ricoffy) I am flushed with a funny “grown-up” feeling, like I’m in fifth-grade again, playing mommy, puttering around and humming tunes. I turn twenty-one in about two months, so this make-believe seems a bit outdated, but I can’t help feeling the same things anyways.

Which brings me to the larger picture: I still can’t believe I’m here. Nothing and everything about my presence seems to link to my past, and I can’t seem to blend the images of childhood with what surrounds me now. If the world’s most aggressively cheek-pinching grandmother were to extend a long arm here, snabbing a thick piece of arm flesh betwixt her crushing fingers, I don’t think that even that reality check would snap me out of this stupor of incredulity. And it’s not just about the distance – it’s who I’m with and what I’m doing and how my days roll by. It’s the jam sessions and hospice visits and children’s names engraved in my mind. It’s the moon-like dam and travel plans and the impossible feel of a steady hand and sometimes I worry that on the far-off plane ride back home, I still won’t be able to tell you if it all really happened.

But that’s okay – what’s left in the imagination is better that way.

Keabetswe: Last Saturday, around one pm, Daniel, Seb, Pat, and I hopped into a cab driven by a man named Abdullah, and sped off out of GC. We were headed to Kumakwane, a village outside of Gabs, where a young man named Keabetswe lives. Keabetswe, whose age can’t be far off from my twenty years, has spent his entire life prostrate on a thinly padded mattress. From birth, his back has been frozen into curves and twists that render him paralyzed, and he can’t speak. Pat had met him earlier through his social work (and general life mission of making music and spreading a thick sweet jam of love) and learned from his family that he too, loves music. Thus, the impetus for our journey.

Scrunched into the back seat between Dan and Seb, a warm breeze blowing through the cracked windows, sent down from up in the strangely clear skies, I felt an elusive sense of calm. The route we took passed through Mogoditshane, and as I watched the normal turn to Kamogelo flick by, I marveled a little bit on this new trespass into uncharted territory (or course, this is a personal map of discoveries and demarcations). It is this strange feeling I keep having – as if my physicality is larger than myself, as if some part of me extends above Gabs, a little hovering presence over the spaces and places I’ve touched, and I can feel this air just pop when I hit a new section. I guess I could pinpoint it as the hyper-awareness of presence and absence, but I’ve talked about that already. What it really comes down to is this getting-to-know-you business of me and the city, because I can’t very well ask it out for coffee.

When we reached Kumakwane, the trip didn’t quite end. Nikola, a german woman who works with the Flying Mission, had given Pat directions to Keabetswe’s house. However, Kumakwane, like many other towns, is a place without road signs. The dirt roads and turns surround everything, and what looks like a perfectly proper route may just trail off into bush. For example, a landmark in the handwritten indications was “the new house with no roof,” and let me tell you, there are plenty of uncapped abodes.

After about forty-five minutes of Pat and Abdullah stopping locals to ask for directions (and also a few strange character encounters), we finally found a kind woman who hopped in the car and directed us there. She disappeared just as quickly as she arrived, and we were left at the stick fenced entrance to Keabetswe’s family’s compound. A woman greeted us in Setswana (the only language she spoke) and quickly began to move some plastic chairs into a dim, cool hut where Keabetswe lay.

We entered the structure and moved quietly around his form, his large eyes gazing up at us, his jaw hanging open in a huge, earth encompassing smile. I found it a little disconcerting at first to interact with someone who couldn’t respond, but I quickly reminded myself that there are many people in this world that I can’t speak with for various reasons. Seb and Pat pulled out their instruments, and as Pat tuned up, small children began to trickle into the hut. They stationed themselves, quietly, along the far wall, and sat with legs pulled up in silence. Their smiles were shy, and every now and then a new boy or girl would peek his or her head through the doorway, to be beckoned in by another little one. As the music began to play, I had to remind myself to breathe. Everything felt so still and constant and present, and the peace on Seb and Pat’s faces only reinforced it. They played a medley of Pat’s pieces (the soundtrack to our past few weeks) and the familiar tunes were once again infused with more memories and meanings. The look of pure enjoyment on Keabetswe’s face, delicious, delectable savouring of the moment and the sound – it was heart breaking and heart mending and heart making. If a plant seed cracks and new life is born with every true expression of happiness, then a field in this arid land turned green that afternoon.

keabetswe and family

daniel, pat, and seb - making their music

Pat and Seb played for about an hour, occasionally joined by Daniel on his harmonica, and it was brilliant. The children warmed up a little bit after I showed them my camera, and let them play around with picture taking (a sure fire trick for giggle inducing that I learned at Kamogelo,) and they eventually began to dance and clap. I tried playing hand games with two little girls, and we ended up with a kind of rhythmic musical patty-cake.


By the time we left, I felt both out of breath and full of it, and it was hard to tear away from the kids. Everyone thanked everyone with soft movements and low tones, and it was a humble bunch that piled back into Abdullah’s waiting car.


To do this event (and all to come) better justice, I highly recommend that you visit Daniel and Seb’s blogs (incredible, both.) They, with their own magical minds, capture much more than I could hope to present.

Daniel’s: http://reportswana.blogspot.com
Seb’s: http://sebswana.blogspot.com

Seb, Daniel and I just returned from an early afternoon trip to the Gaborone Sun, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything more surreal here. A ten minute walk from UB, (almost visible from the campus grounds,) is GC’s nicest luxury hotel, casino, and restaurant complex. I had never been before, but heard that the food was excellent and pricey, and that the pool was a little oasis. Strolling through the lobby in our swim trunks and bikini (singular), trying to look as nonchalant as possible (we didn’t think you had to pay for pool access, but we didn’t think you didn’t have to either), we were taken aback by the incongruity of the Gab Sun’s presence in Gaborone. It is clean, sparkling, lush, private, ritzy, smoothly efficient and so utterly normal that I almost choked. I was suddenly so bizarrely uncomfortable to be back in a setting that I wouldn’t have blinked an eye at three months ago, and I couldn’t help but fidget.

Thanks to the swimmer in Daniel, we sniffed out water and wound our way through softly carpeted corridors and out into the sunshine of a protectorate leftover. The grass was green and the palm trees swayed in the breeze, as glasses clinked and South African accents wound around the ears. Everything was pristine and white or beige and the water was a placid blue, if frigid. We shuffled around and settled into a few poolside chairs, whipping out the reading material and basking in the shifting sunlight (the great irony – a pool on a rare cloud-ish day). It was splendid beyond belief to just read in the open air for a bit, in part because I haven’t ever really sat outside here before without the constant bug in the back of my mind reminding me to be alert for approaching men. (A digression for later, but never before coming here have I felt so vulnerable or reliant on others because of my gender. It makes me angry.)

daniel, poolside, 'neath the african sun

We only stayed for a couple of hours, and then packed up and headed back through a breeze to UB. I am now sitting in my room typing, listening to the mingled sounds of a whistler’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” that wafts through my window, and the giggles, screams, and cries of one of my new suitemate’s visiting daughters. These are not unpleasant sounds.



and now, for a miscellaneous picture montage:

UB courtyard jam session

more fun at the gabs dam - lunar landscape

D and Pat the Great

Pat

lovey-dovey

international exchange student crew
(with our powers combined, we know a lot about beer)

The Forensic Ear

* a note: the names I list here are probably mispelled, but I did my best. It's hard catching on here.

There is so much in my head right now that I don’t know how I can possibly compose it in a narrative form. The urge to just pour it all out is overwhelmingly strong, but due to the already bizarre and magical nature of the past days’ events, I sense that structure is essential for general comprehension. If this ends up sounding bland or boxed, it is only because it was too smoke-curlingly fluid for words.

It started at 18:00 and ended at 3:30.

At six pm on Tuesday evening, as Daniel, Seb, and I sat at the kitchen table, watercoloring swans, alligators and giraffes, respectively, Pat announced that his friend Ngozi was at Khwest. He had been speaking adoringly about Ngozi and her crew of artists since the day we met him, so we jumped at the chance to meet the already legendary bunch. No one was sure if it was poetry night or not, but Seb and Pat packed their instruments anyways, and we hopped in the car with Shorty, Kwasi, Tubs, and Will, headed to the Main Mall.

I know I’ve written about poetry nights at Khwest, but the space itself deserves an explanation as well. It is a small-ish café with ample outdoor porch room, situated on the second floor of the two-story shops that line the Main Mall plaza. Regarding ambience, my memory conjures up a dim-ish orange lit interior, a black light in the night air, clinking glasses, a good sound system, and wobbly chairs. When we arrived on Tuesday, the place was emptier than I’d seen it before, and we soon located Ngozi and her cousins.

From the start, I could hardly keep my legs still – there was something about each person I was introduced to that just sent small shivers of excitement throughout my body. Astoundingly, each time I said hello to a new face, it seemed as though another one would join the crowd – a constant flow of hand shakes and warm greetings, popularity with all the pop. Most incredibly, the unifying and unique group characteristic was that everyone seemed to be an artist of their own sort – eager to talk about the scene and their dreams and to scroll through reams of ideas and thoughts and sketches and music notes. And more than humbly revealing themselves, they all were genuinely and electrically interested in what we and everyone else had to offer. Within the first five minutes of sitting down at an outdoor table, Ngozi whipped out three phenomenal pencil drawins she’s been working on, and Daniel was passing his camera to enlighten with light graffiti. Seb was chatting drums, Shorty and Kwasi were reminiscing about lost music tracks, and I was talking writing. Perspectives on the development of the Gaborone art scene also cycled round the table, and it was absolutely fascinating to hear about the fledging efforts to really make change and foster creativity here.

It may sound strange, but I have often felt intense pangs of nostalgia for creative movements that I wasn’t a part of. The artistic and intellectual renaissances throughout history have all seemed as distant and magical as the fiction I adore. Until now. It isn’t that I’m claiming to have stepped into a great revolution, not by any means. But the energy and enthusiasm projected Tuesday by this group of artists was the closest I’ve ever felt to the center of things – the closest I’ve ever gotten to the beginning of something. Over the past two months I have often bemoaned the seeming dearth of art and creative energy in the city. Gaborone is a creature unto itself, and does not resemble any focal point of culture that I have ever encountered before. Tuesday, however, these illusions were cleared as I lay my finger on the pulse of something beautiful.

Two phrases that Kwasi kept using when speaking about music and art– and Daniel immediately jotted down – were “the forensic ear” and “the forensic eye.” I know I just wrote a few days ago that it is rare for something to be able to explain itself, but I’m going to have to contradict that here. Kwasi, IS the forensic ear and eye. Everyone there that night was. Over the course of evening, conversation skipped smoothly along the surface and then down into the depths, gliding through religion, love, history, life, death, childhood, parenthood, music, art, poetry, politics, stasis and dynamism, production and destruction. The instantaneous click amongst minds was brilliantly refreshing, and it carried its own energy as well.

After a few drinks and some conversation, we shifted over a few tables and unobtrusively assembled for a quiet outdoor jam session. In the glowing purple of a black light, Seb and Pat began to play the latter’s own tunes – now well beloved by all of us. The circle was tight and the rhythm was tighter and heads were nodding as shutters clicked, and I sat at the feet of the beat with a recorder in hand. It’s hard not to move and be moved in company like that, and soon remarkable things were happening. People all around me began freestyling about the pain and gain of love, the loss of a child, the presence of god, and the feeling of feeling. Pat’s soft strumming and seb’s pitter patter lifted the words to inexplicable heights and I felt like I was floating along on some strange sea.

Perhaps around 11 pm, everyone decided that a studio session was a must (you see? things just roll here) and we all piled once again into cars to head to Mex’s house. There was a strange stop at a dodgy bar, but otherwise the trip was direct. Along the way however, Marsha, a beautiful, young, composed, smooth breeze of a woman, casually dropped a sentence that caught my soul in my throat. She was speaking adoringly of her baby boy, when Daniel asked her how old he was. “He was a little over twelve months,” she said. “He passed away three weeks ago.” I started crying before I could realize that I needed to and scrunched my eyes as hard as I could to hide the moisture from a woman who looked bone dry. I don’t know that I have ever felt so intensely close to death, or such an overwhelming urge of sympathy and sadness. Perhaps it’s that I’ve spent the past two months cheek to cheek and hand in hand with the tiniest of beings, or perhaps it’s just an instinctual, visceral, painful identification with a mother’s grief, but regardless, it was terrible. Much later in the evening, as one day shifted into the next and Pat revealed that Mex had just had a baby boy, Marsha would talk about how her baby was a life changing gift, how parenthood was a joy, and how wonderfully perfect it was that now she could give all of her son’s old things to the new child. The baby’s father, Kago, was also present, but his emotions exploded erratically, in contrast with Marsha’s demeanor. Although obviously struggling with the finality of death and the horrible absence she now faces, she was visibly and firmly standing in opposition to the forces of grief. I still can’t wrap my mind around that strength. After a few more minutes of light hearted conversation in the car, we pulled up to a residential gated house, greeted a roaming dog, and walked through the door of heaven.

A garage converted into a top line recording studio, Mex’s spot was like an oasis in this arid land. Daniel and Seb and I kept swapping glances and shoulder pokes of astonished “WHERE ARE WE’S?” and seb’s luminous eyes grew only wider when they alighted upon a gleaming set of drums. Everyone assembled and popped tops off Savannah Dry’s, and Mex began consulting with all involved artists on the vision for the track. Ngozi would add sweet smooth vocals, Seb would record a few loops using various drums, Pat would add some bass to his guitar strummings, and perhaps Kwasi and Shorty would rap over top of the concoction later. We had the opportunity to listen to a few of the past projects by the group, and we were all absolutely blown away by the individual and collective talent.

The night was long and spiraled inward on itself, and I felt my eyes closing against my will around midnight. I spent the next few hours curled up on chairs, shifting half closed lids back and forth between each beatific face. I don’t think I’ve seen so much natural glow and beauty in a room in a very long time. Seb was in another world with his drumming (everyone was there with him) and the end product of a few hours work was an excellent foundation for future mixing and tweaking.

It took us about an hour to get a cab to take us home, and by the time we walked out of Mex’s, back into the cold of a 3 am air, we were all floating around a bit. Numbers were exchanged and thank yous whispered ,and real live genuine hugs were pressed.

Back at UB, over thickly spread pb&j sandwiches in Daniel’s dim suite, the three of us could hardly speak, and I can assure you it wasn’t the peanut butter. It is hard to even begin to address the random, lucky, absurd, incredible, beautiful, strange, intensity of those 9 hours, and at the time it felt almost sacrilegious to try. Seb went to sleep as a musician with tracks in Africa, and we all dozed off to the stuff of magic.

I said it that evening, and I’ll repeat it here: it is incredible, the people you can’t imagine.

This is something that has been swaying through my head over the past few weeks, occasionally lodging in a specific spot and prompting the urge to fiercely hug the people around me. I feel so humbled and so lucky to be here with Seb and Dan, meeting the beautiful people we’re meeting, and adventuring daily into the new and surprising – a feeling coupled with my never-ending astonishment at the simple fact that I’m here to begin with.

How? Why? I really don’t know. But I’m glad.

hazy

It’s 11:30 am on a Sunday morning, and the view from my ground floor window affords me a glimpse of dripping laundry and sun-sparkling beer bottles. There is a constant baseline of standard American main stream hip-hop rustling the brown and patchy grass, and I can’t quite tell whether the music ever stopped last night.

And last night? What can I tell you about that? I know that I’ve waxed philosophical more than once about the writing of writing, but once again I have to pause and think a bit. How much do you let in and out? A public place for private space is inherently paradoxical, so how to ignore the contra and focus on the diction?

And what if I told you a story? Perhaps you can learn more about my reality, from that which isn’t. Knowledge via comparison can be awfully useful sometimes - it’s not often that something can explain itself outright, it’s usually necessary to build an approximation of familiar associations and mold that shape into the thing you’re trying to describe. Babies are interesting to me because of this. The rate at which necessity dictates they accumulate references just boggles me. How can they begin to understand the world otherwise? And not that I consider traveling to be any sort of a regression, but I do think that it takes you back a little bit in that way. Traveling is not just about seeing and experiencing new things, it’s about the process of sorting and storing and remembering and calling them forth again when another new thing comes up. And quickly quickly quickly it must be done because the fate of your future accumulations depends solely on your ability to hold onto the ones that came before them. Reading’s like this too. This new word recalls that last word and you don’t even know it and can’t even stop it and that is why you are incredible. In part.

Are these new thoughts? No, but I’m thinking them now and so in some ways they’re a little refreshed.


Pause. Restart. It’s now 17:25 and I’ve just spent the past hours munching green beans and start to finishing Murakami’s ‘After Dark.’ Back to the question: Last Evening. I can tell you that it required a Sunday spent in bed, just enough sunshine to clear the head, and a postponed return trip up Kgale hill. It was a relatively short evening, with Seb, Anna (another American exchange student here – way way lovely and oddly connected through a mutual friend at Penn) and I cabbing it to Gianni’s house. A London local, with roots in Gabs, Gianna was introduced to me by MK and he has proven himself to be an overly hospitable host on two occasions now. However, a few hours can be more than tiring when they involve rowdy, internationally eclectic 20-somethings (or just 20-somethings in general) and I shut eye early.

Some things I have been thinking about:

Facial Recognition. This is a subject that I have been hesitant about laying flat for examination because I’m wary of misinterpretation. My thoughts certainly don’t self-censor for political correctness, nor am I ever really sure what is correct about being political (or vice versa) so please read on the with firm assurance that what I write is nothing other than a transcribed close inspection of what’s going on between my ears and behind my eyes.

To begin, some background:
I am “white.” [already, I worry about going on, but regardless, continue:] I spent the entirety of my youth in a Philadelphia suburb, which was composed almost solely of other Caucasian families. The diversity in my everyday life was mostly limited to height and hair color, and I can honestly say that aside from Mrs. Brown, my third grade Humanities teacher, I really didn’t have any close personal contact with a black person or anyone of another race or ethnicity until my junior year in high school. This fact has always made me extremely uncomfortable – I feel as though I need to apologize for the isolation of my youth or my inability to reach out farther into the world at an earlier stage. However, it is what it is and subsequent years have proven that it really was just physical distance that impeded my contact with people much different than myself.

Yet, I find myself now once again reflecting on my youth and that distance and wondering what hidden impacts it had on me, and this is where facial recognition pops up. I haven’t read enough or taken enough developmental psychology courses to really know the theories and thoughts behind this, but I am hyper aware of the fact that after two months in Botswana, I SEE things differently. Literally. And specifically, faces. I could feel it happening and I don’t quite know how to explain it except to say that it’s as though someone has changed the prescription on my non-existent glasses and suddenly things are in focus.

I really started to notice this with my kids. When I first arrived at the day care, they all looked “the same” to me – I know this sounds like a gross and stereotypical generalization, but I don’t know how else to put it. They almost all had shaved heads, regardless of sex, and wore green uniforms. They’re almost all tiny, with thin legs, and round stomachs and regardless of appearance, they were overwhelming enough in number to lend the allusion of countless replicas. After a few days, I began to start making distinctions, based on the color of a t-shirt, the sound of a voice, etc. However, I struggled for a long time, calling Sethunya, Bofelo, and passing out the wrong workbooks. I was a little bit puzzled, since I’m usually better with that sort of teacher-thing, but wrote the confusion off to a new language and numbers.

Now, reflecting, I don’t think it was just that. I believe that over the past few months, my eyes have learned to recognize new features. I don’t think this is specific to race, as one might jump to conclude, but rather to difference in general. I have never in my life felt my own features to be so completely alien as they are here, and surrounded by normal, with the difference internalized, I find that I have come to adjust my lens to the standard. When I look at people here (regardless of nationality or race), I find that their faces are being more firmly etched into my brain. The arch of an eyebrow, the texture of someone’s hair, the height of their cheekbones and the hue of their skin just somehow make more sense to me – this minutia sinks deeper into my eye rather than reflecting back off.

Is this an adequate explanation? Perhaps not. Maybe it isn’t even really an explanation at all, just some musings on the possible cause of a phenomenon that might just be imagination. But it’s there and here and perhaps you know what I mean. It is strange when your eyes stay the same but your sight changes.

Plants. Jen left her little potted plant in my care when she flew to Korea, and god is it good company. It just sits serenely on my desk and sunbathes and sips cool water, but a constant living presence is wonder enough.

Heat. It is getting hotter. I fear for September.

Pause. Restart.

It is now 19:48 and Seb, Daniel and I are just back from the refectory. None of us have ever left that brightly lit cafeteria feeling better than entering, so I’m thinking that the future will hold a whole lot more home cooked meals (something I’ve grown fond of). The night promises another jam session with Pat (resident demi-god of love, hugs, and sweet talking guitar arrangements) and a movie. Class officially begin in the morning and I find myself jitterbugging without music because I really can’t begin to imagine what it’s all going to feel like or how many times we’ll get lost or if we can even attend classes at all (yup, registration woes.) Luckily, Seb and I have registered for all the same courses, so at least we can pool our mental resources and face the day together. It still feels like a bizarre and wonderful dream to me that suddenly he and Daniel are here, but it’s one I’m happy to keep my eyes closed on.


And finally, I leave you with the words that have infected our conversation as of late: where are we?

Lilliput

“[…] when I awakened, it was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards” (12)

Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift

So here I sit, mumbling and bumbling and stumbling through a week and a half of memories and my fingers feel like they’ve been bound by a thousand Lilliputians. How can they type when such ties hold them down? Each past minute is like a tiny string, and I can’t decide whether I want to sever them all in a jerk of the wrist, or to patiently untie the knots of seconds.

To begin, there has been change, and there has been more than change. After ten weeks of growing accustomed, developing routine, marking maps, and stretching my arms just a little bit father than their wingspan in an attempt to get a hold on things, I find that the world has transformed around me. I spent the entirety of last week holed up in my room, reading books and counting calendar blocks, and when Friday arrived, it was like emerging from a cocoon.

Around five pm, as the sun started to dip, the Kansas kids and our crew strolled to RiverWalk to catch the opening showing of The Dark Knight. I was eager to see the film, but could hardly pay attention because I was waiting for something more exciting. At 7:40, twenty minutes before the credits began to roll, I got a call from the OIEP office, and I ran out of the theatre. A cab took me back to UB, where I met Charity and our driver, and we proceeded to the airport. At 9:30 pm, one hour after his scheduled flight arrival (who knew that an additional sixty minutes could feel so interminable?) Daniel appeared.

What happens when you stop missing? It is a curious moment, that split second of change, that shift from the future to the present. In a furious tidal sweep, every ounce of missingness whooshes out of you, the empty spaces simultaneously filling with elation and wonder because perhaps you can never really get over the marvel of absence and presence and just exactly what the difference is between the two. I won’t elaborate further, except to say that reunions can be completely surreal and incredibly glorious for a million reasons and also a million and one.

Also on the subject of glorious reunions, our dearest, globetrotting Sebastian followed with an arrival on Sunday. Aside from a little mishap with his bags (they didn’t quite make it from Addis Ababa to Joburg – instead they were mysteriously and temporarily diverted to Lagos) he arrived whole and sound and with sound (an extra appendage otherwise known as a djembe). He and Daniel are now situated in different suites in the same building in the graduate complex, just a few steps away from my own 417 F. For those of you who know these boys, you understand intuitively what their presence means. For those of you who don’t, I can only list the words luck, adventure, green, laughter, beats, gatherings, magic, reclining chairs, streets, worn shoes, and hot sauce, and hope that you will someday understand. I feel four times taller and ten heads shorter and if I smile too much well it’s a little problem I just have to deal with.

What else? Memories are bouncing around and colliding with fact and it doesn’t help that my eyes are drooping and that recording feels futile because more minutes keeps piling up. To bar Overwhelmed from entering my head (an unwelcome guest), I proceed with snippets.

The Campus: An entirely different creature. Overnight, it morphed from a sleepy ghost town into a bustling crazy hub of chatting, laughing, staring, dancing students. It is entirely confusing and overwhelming and humbling and exciting and reassuring and terrifying and everything all at once, and it has been a true shock to the system to witness so much activity again. I hadn’t quite realized just how tame life had grown until I found myself once again mixed in with the swagger of youth and the heightened tension of social pressures and that high flying, nausea inducing first day of kindergarten feeling. I feel out of place more than ever, but I’m glad that things are finally picking up.

Abode: The suite feel suddenly empty and quiet all of a sudden, now that Abby, Jen, and Mma Dioka are gone (the former two headed to the States and Korea, respectively, and the latter headed back to her village home.) Neo is still around, and I’m finally conscious of just how much I’ve grown to appreciate her company. She’s a familiar and reliable friend and housemate, and I’m glad that she’s staying put. I, however, uprooted a little bit, and move across the kitchen into a room opposite my old one. It looks exactly the same, except the window faces into a barren little trash strewn courtyard instead of out to the main walkway. I chose it for privacy but I now have to be a little bit more wary of sneaky intruders since it’s a less visible entrance. But hey, you weigh your options.

International Student Orientation: I never expected it, but as of late, I’ve been hearing more German than Setswana. There are about 30 international exchange students here this semester, and the majority of them are German or Norwegian. There are also a few kids from the Netherlands, a few more from the States, one boy from Mexico, and a bunch of older graduate students from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland. Everyone that I’ve met has struck me as really laid back and interesting in both background and academic interests, and I am incredibly relieved to have such a good group to begin things with. We had a two day orientation program (basically an exact replica of my internship orientation), and while most things were a bit repetitive to me, it was good to sit through it if just to chat with everyone now and then. The orientation speeches were very frustrating in some ways because I felt like the advisors and volunteers really weren’t being clear about a lot of things, and I had to keep biting my tongue when the urge struck to clarify or elaborate.

The Odd-ball: It is hard to describe exactly, but having been here for a while already, I find myself feeling like a bit of an outsider amongst the other international kids. I keep trying to offer some helpful hints about night life and grocery shopping, etc. but I fear that I’ll end up sounding like a know it all if I blab too much. I think it all really boils down to the fact that people are adventurous and want to discover things on their own and in their own time, so I have to learn to wait for help requested. Additionally, while I’m grateful for the other student’s fresh enthusiasm, there are some instances where, again, I find myself biting my tongue. It took me two months to even begin to come to terms with the frustration I feel in regards to the bureaucracy and inefficiencies here, and it is a little hard for me to try to explain these feelings in a sentence or two when asked about the summer. How can I explain working at Kamogelo? The standard answer to “how was it” would be “great – tiring and hard, but great,” and yet that doesn’t touch on anything real at all. I know that everyone will quickly come around to things on their own (a few days of registration horrors has already started the chatter) but it’s a little uncomfortable for me nonetheless. It’s the great waiting game for the conclusions to start rolling through.

Kgale hill: we climbed it. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top, which seems like nothing in exchange for the view it provided. The entirety of Gaborone was visible below us, and glazed with the glow of the setting sun, it lay looking prettier than it’s ever seemed up close. Height is good for perspective, and it was nice to zoom out for an hour or so.

Monday: Seb and Daniel came with Abby and I to Kamogelo for a last official day of classes. It was really surreal to finally be able to point out in person all of the daily landmarks, and to share my thoughts real time with them rather than via email or skype. The kids fell in love with both of them immediately, and we had a really good time just playing hand games and singing songs. However, without a doubt, the crowning moment of the visit was our gathering in the Dining Hall. Seb had brought his drum and Daniel had his harmonica, and with those two simple instruments they sparked a whirlwind of tiny feet stomping and wild laughter. I have never seen children more fascinated by sound, and the hip shaking and pelvic thrusting that accompanied the wide-eyed wonder was a comical treat. It all depends on our class scheduling, but we’re hoping to go back to Kamogelo at least once a week to continue helping out and making happiness.

Registration: _________. that is almost all I have to say about it. almost. I once again marvel at the fact that UB functions at all, because based on all indicators, it shouldn’t. Course registration here is all done by hand, and this is of course contingent upon your ability to get a hold of a course calendar, schedule, list, and timetable (rare and valuable commodities.) Some things I have learned in the process:
1. Even if a class is listed as available for this semester, it may not be. You will not find this out until you attempt to register and are denied a few days later.
2. The lines to register with your Faculty can snake through campus and last for hours.
3. Wait.
4. If there is no explanation for things, there is no explanation for things.
5. If your registration paper work has passed through less than fifty hands, it is not done moving.
6. If classes start on Monday and you’ve been trying to register for a week but things are still not complete and it doesn’t look like they will be any time soon, you are part of the majority.
7. Trust the process. What process? Trust that there is a process.

Out with the old, in with the new: It hasn’t fully sunk in yet that Jen, Julio, Abby, Rajiv, and Pratik are really gone. I got carried away with Orientation things just as their departure dates were nearing, and so the goodbyes felt more clumsy and stilted and rushed than I would have liked. We have spent so much time together and been through so much (a ton of communal processing has been essential to functioning here) and I know that when the space of the absence finally solidifies, I’ll really miss them a lot. I know it sounds cliché, but being here together was a unique and incredible opportunity for us all to form some quality friendships. Our studies and interests are so varied, and only a few of us had any knowledge of the others existence before this summer, so I can’t help but assume that we otherwise would never have been introduced. It’s funny how sometimes you have to travel around the world to meet your next-door neighbors. I look forward to more good times at Penn.

Writing: it was strange to be away for so long. My head felt clogged and time seemed to stop when my fingers weren’t hitting the keys daily. I’m glad that it has become such a comforting habit to discharge my thoughts each night, but I worry that things will only get busier with the start of classes. I’m trying to hold firm in my resolve to document, especially because it seems more important now than ever.

Jam Session: Wednesday night, after ret urning from a game of Quizzo at Bull and Bush, Seb, Daniel and I stumbled upon a spontaneous German party in Daniel’s suite. Pat, his older hippy throwback social worker Texan roommate, was present with a guitar, and one thing leading to another, we ended up circled around the strummer and the drummer, joined occasionally by melodies from Daniel’s heavy breathing harmonica. A few hours of eyes closed chair swaying, punctuated by loud German conversation, and we were all feeling that feeling of feeling. It was like someone had sprinkled magic dust around the perimeter of our clustered chairs and if we weren’t there, we weren’t anywhere – which is to say, we’re in Botswana.

I’ve written now for pages and I don’t feel like I’ve scratched the surface of things (sorry, it’s an itch that is too big), but I also think I should give it a rest. I’m shaking things up and sipping them slowly and I still can’t decide whether I’ve perfected the recipe of my thoughts. More later when the ratios are right.