Life here feels normal...

This is the third time in the past week that I have sat down to write something for Jon to post for me on our blog. As you can see I haven’t gotten very far – there is too much and too little to write about. I feel like we have been so busy but as I look back it is hard to account for all the time that has passed.

Our New Ntlo

We have been living in our new house for a week and a half now and we love it. The house is more than adequate for anything I can imagine us needing – we have enough room for the visitors (both our guests and the ones that we will host for Flying Mission), the kitchen has all the basics, we have running water and electricity, and an enormous yard but at the same time the house doesn’t feel pretentious. The village is perfect – close enough that it is very easy for us to get by with English and my meager Setswana, far enough out that I’m learning a lot. There are no big stores but if I run out of anything basic it is a 30 second walk out our front gate to the nearest tuck shops (little shops the size of an outhouse that sell snacks and essentials). Unlike in Gaborone, as makgoa (white people) in Mmopane we still get funny looks, ‘hellohowareyou’s from giggly children, and often encounter people who only speak Setswana with no translator around.

Usually several times a day someone will come through our gate and up to the front of the house either shouting a ‘ko ko’ of greeting (it seems like it is impolite to knock or approach a house without being invited) or waiting a few meters away until we notice them. I know my Setswana greetings quite well now so I will come out my front door, shake their hand (with my left hand holding onto my right elbow – a sign of peace and respect), and greet them. Even though the majority of these visitors do not speak any English I have been able to figure out what they are looking for almost every time. Usually they either want to know where our neighbors are, want a job, or want something from me (usually money). On Saturday I was talking on the phone when a older gentleman in a three piece suit and felt hat arrived on a bicycle and waited a few meters from our house. I quickly gave Jon the phone and went outside to greet this man. After our greetings, no matter how long he rattled away in Setswana I couldn’t find any familiar words that would tip me off as to what he wanted. Finally I think he could tell from my crinkled forehead and blank expression that I wasn’t going to get it. I told him that I was sorry, I didn’t understand and he held my arm and laughed. Then he pointed at himself and said ‘kgosi” (chief) and smiled a broad smile. I chose his way of communication and rattled away in English throwing in as many Setswana words as I could fit,

“Oh! I am so glad to meet you. Re batla (We have been looking for) a time when our neighbor was available so that we could tsamaya le gagwe (go with her) to the kgotla (the village court) to have her introduce us to you. Re kae US le (we are from the US and) have been living here for one week. Ke nyetswe (I am married) to my husband Jon. Let me get him so you can meet him too. It is such an honor to meet you. A o batla tee? (Would you like some tea)?”

I could tell he was there to meet my neighbor so I took him to her porch and then ran back to my house to make tea and grab Jon. As I was turning on the tea pot our neighbor arrived home, I went out to explain to her that the chief was waiting on her patio and I was making him some tea. She laughed and said no tea was necessary and that he wasn’t the chief – but the chief would be coming soon and she would introduce us. I learned that my neighbor’s husband was coming home after having been gone a long time and the entire family was meeting to discuss this as they do with all changes (don’t ask me what they were discussing, I indirectly asked but she was a little evasive so I let it drop). Five minutes later she returned to say that the chief (a relative of hers) had arrived and she would introduce us now. All the elders (parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins – everyone seemed about 50 or older) were seated in a semi-circle. We were first introduced to and greeted the chief and then individually greeted everyone else in the circle. The chief was warm and hospitable, he welcomed us to the village and told us to visit him at the kgotla if we needed anything. (Apparently the man in the three piece suit that I thought was the chief was her father’s second oldest brother).

Now that we have moved in to our house we have discovered a few ‘quirks’. The day we moved in we quickly threw our bags in the door and then drove to the airport to welcome a new couple arriving. When we retuned home that evening (around 9:30 Saturday night) we realized that we are less than 100 meters from three different chubuku joints (outdoor bars serving local sorghum beer), each of which blast hip hop/electronica from speakers pointed directly at our house. Now we know: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings from around 4 until 11 our house is a very noisy place to be. We are relieved that the music does actually shut off at a reasonable hour (apparently that is a recent change thanks to the new President – he has been very strict about ceasing alcohol sales at 11pm). The next morning we woke up for church – Jon made breakfast while I squatted in our bath tub to use the hand held shower wand to bathe (we have no shower). As I turned the water on a small trickle ran out of the faucet (a trickle slightly smaller than the size of a drinking straw). Apparently we have no water pressure on Sunday mornings. By the time we had finished breakfast the bucket was full. Jon took one of our measuring cups and washed my hair while I did a backbend over the bathtub. Now before you start to think ‘awww, that is so romantic’ – let me just tell you that the water was cold, the rim of the bathtub was cutting into my back, and a spider started crawling on my leg. Jon is sweet, but it was not romantic. By the time both of us had bathed (yes, it was necessary) we were over an hour late for church, I guess there is always next week.

Power in Southern Africa is getting to be a problem – there isn’t enough to go around. Here is the Gaborone area the power company selects different areas in the city that won’t have power each night (it usually is cut right around 5 or 5:30 – just in time to make it hard to cook dinner). I have heard they intend to put these cuts on a schedule so people can plan for them but it hasn’t happened yet. These nights without electricity feel very long even when we go to bed by 8:15. The other night we had a power cut and Jon and I actually had a several minute conversation on whether or not I could take Chuck Norris if I studied martial arts intensively for five years. Jon’s vote was yes.

I’ll try to post some pictures and maybe a short video tour of our new house but as I’ll be posting at a coffee shop and will have limited time and bandwidth I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to upload. Sorry, I wasn't able to upload anything. I'll have Jon add them later.

Learning Setswana

I am still struggling to figure out how to be involved here (more about that later) but have found that this uncertainty has pushed me to really work at learning Setswana. It is easy to get by with English here but the people I am most interested in - the poor, the elderly, and small children – don’t speak any English. I study some every day and have gotten a lot of encouragement from people. A week or two ago I was at a home based care center (where HIV positive people are cared for) and I stopped to greet a group of bosadi bogolo (old women) during my greeting rounds. After we had all greeted one another (none of them spoke any English) I had a conversation completely in Setswana on a very random topic – I was so excited. Some more common conversations are easy to plan for but this one was just me knowing Setswana. I still get excited when I think about it.

Woman: A o nyetswe? Are you married?

Me: Eee, mma. Ke nyetswe. A o nyetswe? Yes, mam. I am married. Are you married?

Woman: Eee. …kae… dikgomo…? Yes. Something about how many cows?

Me: Go kgomo. Rata. No cow, just love.

Woman: Tsk, tsk, tsk (shakes her head)

(pointing to herself with a smile) Eight dikgomo. Eight cows.

Yes, I had a conversation about how many cows Jon paid for me and she knew what I was saying! Progress is being made.

Our landlord has a ten year old daughter, Teo, who is adorable. She has promised to be my Setswana tutor and came over Monday night to correct my Setswana homework. People say strange things when learning languages just to practice using different grammatical concepts. Teo laughed the whole time she read through my homework, “Why are you saying that the lion is going by foot, not by car? Of course, he is. That makes no sense. You should really say that the lion is stalking through the grass because he is hungry and wants to catch a fat antelope.” Thanks, Teo. I think next time we might just play store.

Highlights

Some random highlights from the last few weeks.

· Tutoring – I have been faithfully tutoring Anny every night in math for the past five or so weeks. She has been making good progress and is scheduled to re-take her high school entrance exam next Thursday. She is starting to get nervous and I’m really praying she passes - if she doesn’t pass her family will be faced with a lot of touch decisions about how to get her a good education. I have been teasing her since the beginning that by the time we are through she will love math, at first she emphatically promised that will never happen as she doesn’t understand it, she doesn’t like it, and it is boring. Now at the end of our sessions when I ask if she wants to be done she’ll look at me shyly and say, ‘oh, we can do a little more’. Her siblings have apparently decided that math is fun – her nine year old sister attends all of our sessions, watching over our shoulder just to see what we are doing. Every day her brother and sister ask me to make them math tests to work on. We are planning a flashcard party for the night Anny is done with her exam – we will eat popcorn and race each other at math flashcards. Sounds like fun, eh?

Honestly there are more highlights than that, I was just getting to the important ones. But, unfortunately, I have to run. More in the next installment.

By the way, thanks to everyone who sends emails, snail mail, and quick notes of encouragement. You have no idea how nice it is to hear that we are missed, that you enjoy hearing about us, and that we are loved. We need that.