Mochudi Part Deux

Other Things:

I spotted the coolest pair of shoes! They are built a bit like Puma's, but the outer shell is a silky pale green with ruffles, and the shoe laces are the same green but made of velvet. They were so pretty I almost drooled! Also, this morning (Thursday) I saw a gecko come out of a crack in the wall of my house in Mochudi. Instead of creepy centipedes they have cute little geckos! My sister Sepiso said that geckos were icky and that she wouldn't be able to sleep if she saw one in her room. Oh well.

More On Mochudi:

I am back from Mochudi now and I am happy to have my own space again in my room at UB. Although right now, as usual, my roommate has a loud pack of friends taking over. I will miss the giant bathtub, candlelit baths, puppies, home cooked meals, and people who aren't noisy rude friends of my roommate.

Most of the week I feel like I spent in commute! I got up Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 5 am in order to get to the bus stop at 6.30 and class by 8 or 9 am. The buses are cramped, but in the morning it is blissful to zone out and watch the countryside go by. I got off at Main Mall, which is a very interesting place to be, and either walked or caught a combi to UB. Wednesday morning I was 10 minutes late to my PR &Advertising class, which by the way hasn't met for the past month and is now being taken over by Jerk Face McGee, and the door was locked. The other 10 or students with me all tried knocking on the door for a while. No response. We slipped a note under the door asking to please let us in. No response. Jerk Face was on a power trip again. His class, when I went again on this past Monday, was solidly two hours of worthless facts about famous people in the U.S. and poor information on the Ivy League and criticisms of WWII. So worthless.

Anyway, Thursday was my last day of class for the week, so I was quite excited to sleep in on Friday morning. For breakfast we had soft porridge, which is porridge with creamy milk and sugar mixed in. Not the dread sour porridge, which is porridge with sour milk chunks mixed together. My host mom invited me to come to a funeral with her on Friday and I agreed. Funerals here in Botswana can take all week and there are many parts. There is a lot of food, a lot of people, and a lot of socializing. On Friday we reached the home around noon and set up chairs in the shade. There we sat for approximately five hours, being fed plates of food every so often. As with everywhere in Botswana the fare was sorghum porridge/corn meal, beef liver, and sauce. There was the also the grisly equivalent of two dead cows hanging from a tree in the yard. The hides of the cows were taken out and hosed down, then rolled up and left in a heap which looked disturbingly like a sleeping animal. Here the meat is not cooked or frozen right away, but left in the tree all day. It was still there when we let around dark.

My host mom noticed how glazed over I looked (everyone was speaking in Setswana, so there was really nothing for me to do) and invited me to come help the other young women cook vast tubs of dough into papatas and fat cakes. Mmm, delicious! There were three of four HUGE metal tubs full of dough, and one team of women was in charge of shaping the dough balls. Another team, myself included, shaped the dough balls into the appropriate papata shape. Then we placed them on iron cooking “stoves”, which really looked more like woks, over hot coals and waited for them to bake. So I was busy doing that for a while, and then a large group of people left to retrieve the body (always referred to as a corpse) from the mortuary. When they returned the coffin was carried inside and everybody sang. Then we sat and several people spoke. Again, it was all in Setswana so I am not sure what they said, but it seemed very similar to a standard eulogy.

Then it was time for dinner. Then, home at last. My host mom managed to fill a Tupperware bin full of papatas and fat cakes for me; in the morning these had all been eaten before I even got to them. A bitter disappointment.

Saturday my host mom got up at 4.45 am and returned for the final part of the funeral, which was the actual burial. I was not asked to go along this time, so I was able to sleep later. I got up and had a tasty breakfast and then...sat around for a while. I asked my sister Sepiso if there was anything in Mochudi that I could sight see, or at least check out. She said no. I later found out that this was not true- some CIEE kids got to go rock climbing, swimming, attend a festival, and other no doubt fabulous activities. Instead, around noon, Sepiso took Lone and I to the shops, which turned out to be a small strip mall next to the gas station and combi stop which was a hubub for activity. There was a Spar (hooray!), some hardware stores, a Chinese clothing store, and a few other miscellaneous places. We mostly sat around while Sepiso visited with friends. Then we went grocery shopping I was happy to get my hands on my latest food obsession, yogurt.

When we got home I walked across the road to my favorite little shop, Mogorosi, and bought Lesedi, Sepiso, and myself some cold Fanta's in glass bottle. I favor grape, myself, and I bought a pineapple and an orange for the others. Then, after a lunch of chips (fries) and Fanta I decided that it was high time for a nap. The heat of the day is a good time to hide from the sun and do absolutely nothing. When I woke up I had a text saying that my friend Grant was having a bonfire and his family was cooking a braai. A braai, in case I haven't mentioned it before, is like a barbeque. It basically means, everyone come over, we have an abundance of food and chibuku! Okay, I exaggerate here, most people won't touch Chibuku with a ten foot pole. It is, after all, sorghum fermented with yeast and poured into a milk carton and sold without shame for the bargain price of P5. Yep, that's less than $1 for a whole carton. The real challenge comes when you try to choke down a whole glass. Some CIEE-ers are getting quite good at it and will finish a whole carton. It takes a lot of Chibuku to actually feel the alcoholic effects, however. There was dancing (mostly enjoyed by the little kids who were Grant's host siblings) and we even made s'mores. They were comprised of regular marshmallows, heavenly Cadbury milk chocolate, and tea biscuits, which means buttery cookies. I think these were an improvement on the usual graham crackers and Hershey's.

When it was time to go I texted Sepiso and asked how I was supposed to get home. In order to get to the bonfire in the first place I had to take a taxi to the combi pick up, and then get on a combi to the police station, and walk a short distance from there. Sepiso texted me back to call her friend Bico. I did, and he said he was already waiting for me. Alright-very-well-so, I found him sitting in a school bus, waiting to pick me up. It turns out he was very talkative and friendly and dropped me off right in front of my house, free of charge. Yay for Sepiso's connections!

Sunday morning and afternoon I helped my host mom and sister cook a big lunch and make the most delicious custard desert. It was a layer of custard, sprinkeled with a layer or crushed cookies, topped with cream, then a layer of jello, and repeated about four times. Oh yes, just think about that. I sincerely hope they make it again when mom and I go visit on Sunday.

After the big meal it was time for goodbyes (I spent a lot of time with the dogs) and then Sepiso and Lone and I got a cap to where the bus was waiting to take all the CIEE-ers back to Gabs.

So that's my story.