FUN DAY!

Today was my last day of orientation and preparation before school. School at UB starts tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to it and seeing the differences in college education between the states and Botswana. It will be interesting, and actually I’ve heard that not too much goes on in classes for the first two weeks; however, I think that may depend on the department. I’m taking 15 hours, including physical chemistry, physics, demographics of HIV/AIDS, and Setswana language.

Today was a really fun day…probably one of the best! It was our CIEE fun day. We all met at UB…which required me taking some more combies to get there. No mistakes were made today! I’m learning and getting much more comfortable with taking them. Our director, Batsi, rented a minibus/combie for us today, driver included! We first did another tour of Gaborone, mainly the places that are near campus that we will be going to during the semester. I do NOT have a very good sense of direction, so I’m trying extra hard to get my bearings!!! (I even got turned around when I went running this morning ) So, that tour helped me a lot, and now there are several places I know I could get to during my free time at school. During a part of the tour, I think I may have seen a welwitschia plant…not quite sure, but I made a mental note, so I’m going to go back there this week to take a picture. After the tour we stopped at a place to get fat cakes…yes, they are called fat cakes…and yes, they can definitely make you fat…they were basically cake donuts, but were about 6 inches in diameter, 2 inches thick, and were really, really dense…and really, really greasy. I had part of one, and I think that is probably all I will have for the whole semester! They weren’t good enough to justify the lack of healthyness.

After that quick stop, we made our way to the Khale Hills for our climb of the biggest one. The Khale Hills are a group of large hills, and they are right being my house! We had been told that is would be a hike…but let me just say it was way more of a climb than a hike…quite treacherous indeed! There was no path to get up the hill, so we had to climb some difficult terrain to get to the top. Along the way we saw some baboons sitting on the some boulders toward the top…pretty awesome! I knew they lived there, but did not think that we would actually see them!!! It took us probably an hour to get to the top…but once we got there, it was so worth the time and effort…a beautiful view of Gaborone was the result. We were able to see all of the city and the lake that it next to it. It was great to see UB in relation to other places we’ve been to…it helped me get a better sense of direction for everything…much needed! We took a bunch of pictures and then went down the hill on the other side. There was more of a path on the other side (which Batsi didn’t tell us about), but it was still a challenge to get down. We reached the bottom in about an hour, met our combie there and stopped at Debonaires Pizza to get some tasty food for the road to our next destination: Lion’s Park…a waterpark! Batsi’s two kids, Rtunda and Tekumste (spelling?!?) joined us then. They had amusement park rides, water slides, and a wave pool! It was really fun and felt so great after our long climb!

Today’s activities were a great way to end our long week of orientation. I’m definitely getting to know my way around the city better, but I’d like to be more familiar with certain areas of campus and also my neighborhood. I’m looking forward to making new friends these first few weeks…nothing against my CIEE friends, but I’d like to branch out a bit!!!