Initial impressions and new experiences.

I’ve been here for a week and a half now, and I have so many things to say about my (temporary) new life here. I’ll start from the beginning. The flight was pretty brutal, 40 hours in transit is tough. But, eventually we arrived.

I imagined it to be more like my experience in Mozambique than it is. Botswana is much more well off, because of their lack of conflict coming out of colonialism, their strong economy due to cattle and diamonds, and a relatively uncorrupt government.

My first impressions of the people here are that they are extremely polite people. Greetings are essential. “dumela mma” for a woman, or “dumela raa” for a man, can go a long way in trying to get information from someone, or just a smile. Botswana is truly bilingual, or at least the capital is. English and Setswana are spoken equally as often, and switching between the two comes easy for almost everyone.
I have my own room in the house that I share with Cassie from Montreal, and Brandy from Brandon, Manitoba. It’s quite comfortable, and very secure. If anyone wanted to get in to the house without our permission they’d need to get passed the electric fence with dead-bolted gate, the locked front door and the security system. Doubtful!

We do our own cooking and we can find almost all the food we’re used to at the grocery store down the street. The price of groceries is only slightly less back in Canada, although meat is significantly cheaper.

Work so far has felt like the coops I’m used to doing. I’m working at the Southern African Development Community, in the Gender Unit. SADC is made up of 14 of the Southern-most countries in Africa, and collaborate on things like trade, science and technology, and most importantly to me, gender issues.

The ladies on my team-work towards gender equality in Southern Africa, not an easy task. Some of the challenges they face are battling the traditional gender roles that see women as the property of men, gender based violence in conflict zones, and even some of the problems we face in Canada such as unequal pay. After a few days on the job I’m already feeling like I’ve learned so much, and I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface. I’m looking forward to the next few months.

The government workers here have been on strike for the last month, and almost everyone has returned to work so far except for people in health care and education, as far as I’ve been told. These two sectors refused to return to work after a court order, and as a result, all were fired on Monday. In the past few days the students have started to strike, and it’s caused some riots in towns outside of Gaborone, and from what I hear, some clashed with the police. There are rumours that a teacher has been stabbed and a police offer was killed, but haven’t been confirmed. I don’t know if news travels slower here, or if I’m just out of the loop. In any case, I haven’t seen anything change here in Gaborone, and I feel completely safe, so no need to worry about me.

As part of our orientation we were taken on a Safari at Mokolodi Game Reserve. We saw all kinds of snakes from baby pythons to fill grown Cobras, in their enclosures of course. We saw monkeys, baboons, and rehabilitated vultures, and on our drive around we saw warthogs, ostriches and my favourite… giraffes! They really are the most amazing creatures, somehow graceful and elegant, moving quickly but appearing as if in slow motion. I hope to get the chance to see more wildlife while I’m here.

Some of you have seen the picture up on facebook already, but I forgot to mention one of my roommates, Charlotte. Charlotte is a GIANT spider living in Brandy’s closet, who has since disappeared. I can only hope I don’t wake up to find her in my bed!

Nights are quiet here so far, it gets dark around 6, and we’ve been told it’s not a good idea to venture out alone in the dark. It makes for long evenings at home, and I pass the time by cooking, writing, reading, and watching movies with the roommates. I may have to take up another hobby!

The days start early, most people arrive at work at 8, and stay until 4:30 or 5. Getting to work was quite a challenge at first. People take combis and taxis that follow a route instead of a bus, and it costs about 50 cents per ride. I catch one close to my house that takes me to the taxi rank, and from there I have to ask which taxi will be going to “SADC house”, it changes everyday, but I’m starting to recognize some of the drivers. On my first morning going to work, I asked a well meaning man which taxi I should take, and he directed me to one. Turns out it was going right back in the direction I came from. Luckily I’d left early and I was only a few minutes late.

All being said, life here is just different enough from Canada to be exciting and challenging. I think I’m going to like it here.