A Day in The Life

So you’ve heard about my fabulous travels, so I thought I would give you a detailed account of a regular day at University of Botswana. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I usually go to SOS in the morning and eat out for lunch and stay and use wireless and work on homework. Therefore I will focus on a typical Tuesday/Thursday when I am on campus all day.

On this typical day I wake up at 7:15. I have class at 8:00 with my program director, Todd. I would probably get ready, put on clothes, brush my teeth etc, before pouring some bran flakes into a bowl. Our refrigerator is in Jordan and Emilie’s room, so acquiring milk for my cereal requires me to knock softly on there door. Sometimes Jordan answers, in which case we make awkward conversation because we are both half asleep. Otherwise, I have to use the key that Avery and I share to Jordan and Emilie’s room to sneak in and quick grab milk from the fridge, hoping Jordan won’t wake up, but she inevitably does because the refrigerator is right by the head of her bed. I then head back to my room and add honey to my cereal and eat it. At around 7:40 Avery rolls out of bed. She doesn’t talk to me. She groggily gets ready for the day in stony and angered silence, cursing the world for giving her an 8:00 class. I usually leave at around 7:50 or a little after. It takes 15 minutes to walk to the classroom, but Todd is late nearly every day, so I find no reason to be there earlier than 8:05.

Our class consists of Jordan, Emilie, Avery, me, Rupert, and Robert. Robert is a local student, and Rupert is German. Robert sometimes doesn’t show up. Rupert strolls in at 8:20 with his blond hair side parted and a sweater, and sometimes colorful socks and a tin cup of coffee. Todd lectures for an hour on Tuesdays and two hours on Thursdays. Usually he goes over the time allotment without realizing it. Also, when we have two hour classes, students come in to get chairs for their own classes starting around 8:50. This is the bane of Todd’s existence. He tries to explain to the students that he is holding class and they are interrupting by barging in looking for chairs. But they don’t seem very put out, because after all, there’s not enough chairs in their classroom and they need a place to sit. Another favorite interruption is when Rupert questions Todd or tells a long winded story about his past. Robert doesn’t generally speak up in class. We’re not sure how much English he understands. Sometimes Todd will try to joke with him and use his awkward nervous laugh, but Robert doesn’t understand and smiles hesitantly. Todd was also very disappointed in Robert’s Excel assignment. We tried to explain to Todd that a. Robert maybe doesn’t speak English well enough to have understood the assignment b. he probably never used a computer until he got to university, and c. he’s probably never been expected to use Excel in his life. Todd didn’t seem to think these were valid excuses. Sometimes I get really bored in this class and fight sleep, but it’s not so bad. We generally just have to write down what Todd puts on the board and sometimes recite things from the readings. The whole class is about economic growth, and while interesting, is not a course I would have chosen on my own.

After Todd’s class on Thursdays I head to the laundry area to turn in my dirty sheets and get new ones. The women that work there never really understand what we are bringing and what we need, but they do understand “Ke a le boga” which is “thank you” in Setswana.

After that I go back to my room and nap for an hour or so. Avery is usually also napping. I usually stop napping before Avery and she is annoyed because I make noise when moving around the room. Sometimes I will read or do homework at this point. Once 12 rolls around we need to think about lunch. Half the time we order a large margarita pizza from Debonair’s to share (free delivery!). The lady that takes orders over the phone never understands me and thinks my name is Nabbie. She sometimes gives us extra cheese when we didn’t ask for it, or won’t write down that we need change for a 100 pula note even though we told her we did. But we have a friend named John who got blacklisted from Debonairs when he complained about his order (seriously, they told him he could never order again), so we are afraid to say anything. The delivery person is either a man who is albino, or another guy who always invites me to church when he comes. He got my number once and now periodically sends me text messages about the light of God. I get bored of margarita pizza, but Avery won’t eat any other kind. On the days we decide not to order pizza we make tea and eat crackers with peanut butter, or crackers with tuna fish. Sometimes there are apples or banana bread. Seriously, it’s not a fun food situation when you only have a fridge and a hot pot.

At 1:00 pm we have Setswana. This class usually also starts 10 minutes late. This class consists of Avery, Emilie, Jordan, me, Kelly, John, Dianna, Lisa, Jamie, and Rupert. All American international students, except Rupert. In this class we have learned such useful things as body parts, greetings, articles of clothing, numbers, and some adjectives. Usually we go over a worksheet. Our teacher is very nice and easily sidetracked so sometimes we will end up talking for a half hour about HIV/AIDS, Mormons, pregnancy, rural villages in Botswana, traditional belief systems or other random topics. At 1:50 we get a five minute break and all head to the convenience store to get juice, ice cream, or Coke. The class ends at 2:50.

From 2:50 – 4:00 I usually sit outside the library at some tables and use the internet. Sometimes random people sit with me and take an interest in me and will talk about my laptop or ask how I like Botswana. One time a lady gave me a Batswana name, Naledi, which means “star.” During this time I will also go to the post office and mail things, or to the bookstore to pick up airtime, greeting cards, or pens.

At 4:00 I have History of Christianity. This is a large class of all local students. The lecturer lectures for a while and he has a very booming voice, so sometimes it feels like I am being preached to. But he is always quick to pull back from his opinions when it feels to preach-y and ask, “but what do you think? Was Robert Moffat successful despite his lack of converts? Was the missionary attempt misguided? How did the missionaries understand Tswana culture?” He also has a constant refrain of things like “the missionahries were normal people like you ant me, they had both success and failua” and “the mission-ahries understooood ChristianiTy to be intertwined with European cult-a” (I’m trying to show the accent here, imagine all the “r”s are rolled as well). Although over the last few weeks class has been filled with student presentations. Student presentations here are very strange. Generally people copy some passages directly from a book and read them aloud to the class. It seems public speaking skills are not stressed here.

At 5:00 I usually text with Andre over g-mail chat for an hour or so. At 6:30 I get dinner at the refectory with Avery. Dinner there is not fun. There are very long lines and it is common for men to budge in front of women. Just yesterday some guys asked Avery if they could go ahead of her. She said no, but they just laughed at her and didn’t listen. The food is also really unpleasant, rice and gravy, chicken, and some weird cabbage/carrot/beet or something salad with a tang-like juice drink. I stopped eating the chicken after I found a muddy poop-like substance on it. Sometimes after dinner I buy an ice cream bar to console myself. After dinner we head back to our dorms at Las Vegas (these dorms were apparently considered so nice by students here that they informally named them the Las Vegas dorms). At night I will usually make tea and do homework. Sometimes Avery and I get visits from Sambwa "SomeCash" Kashiba, Katlego, or Tswello. At around midnight we go to bed.

That’s a typical day at UB. My next post will be about cultural differences.