Maun Adventures

Adventure 1: Remember how I’d originally wanted to work with an organization called the Maun Homeopathy Project? Well after unsuccessfully looking for their sign for the past three weeks, I happened to see one on my drive from town to home. How I hadn’t noticed it before is kind of surprising and upsetting. The sign itself was for a clinic funded and built by the Project. The next day, Katie and I went on an adventure to find the clinic and ask if they’d still take me as an intern so I could write my final paper on something I’m actually interested in and don’t just enjoy doing. We found the sign again after walking about half an hour from our house. We turned off the main road onto a dirt path for cars in the direction of the arrow. We walked and walked but couldn’t find the building. We passed a huge Lutheran church though. We found a few abandoned, official looking buildings and guessed it must have been one of those. I was pretty troubled though, because the sign had looked so new.

We did see a sign for a hospital though, and went to investigate. Turns out we’d stumbled upon the old hospital that, it turns out, was abandoned in 2008. The only way we knew that was by the deserted memos still posted on the bulletin board. Katie and I spent over an hour looking around the grounds. There were at least twenty if not thirty buildings that had been part of this government hospital. We kept talking about how we expected a crazy old ghost doctor to jump out at us as we wandered in and out of the open rooms. We could have been on the set of a horror movie. We found an operating room that had an X-ray reader, a sink and a poster with instructions for how to make incisions still up on the wall. We found a storage room with a few pairs of shoes. The obviously beautiful landscaping was overgrown and taking over the paths we walked on between the buildings. We found the maternity and pediatrics wards, which were pretty creepy. An office was locked but pairs laid all over the desk and floor, I’m not sure why they were left. A number of rooms had lights on; the government must be losing money on electricity.

We eventually left and walked back to the Maun Homeopathy Project sign and I saved the number listed. We caught a cab into town and I tried calling the number. Somebody picked up! I was surprised, since phone numbers tend to change a lot here. The woman on the other side was incredibly helpful and willing to share information with me after I explained I was a student from the States hoping to do research on her organization. She told me they were going into the field this weekend but would be back in the clinic on Thursday. I tried to ask if I could come before Thursday, hoping she’d ask if I wanted to do outreach, but she didn’t. So Thursday at 8am it is! She asked if I knew where the Lutheran church was? They were located right next to it. So apparently Katie and I had walked right by the clinic and not seen it.

Adventure 2: When I was back in Gaborone, my host family had mentioned they had family in Maun. The husband owned Trekkers, the only night club in Maun and the wife owned a lodge. I should have thought to ask for the number then, but didn’t. So once I was in Maun, I called Tiny back in Gabs and asked for her aunt’s phone number. I called not even knowing her name. Turns out MmaDua is a wonderful lady who said she’d love to have me and friends over for dinner Friday night and then maybe the kids could take us to the club! She called on Friday and said “we’re having dinner at seven, how many friends are you bringing?” So I told her I’d bring one friend, and Katie and I left our house at 6:45, planning on getting there a few minutes after seven. She’d told me just to tell a cab driver to take us to MmaDua’s house and they’d know exactly where it was. We waited unusually long for a cab, and the first one we hailed said MaDua’s was 30kms away and he wouldn’t take us. He agreed to take us into town to find someone who would drive us the whole way. So we paid him the usual p3.50 each (about 40cents) and he helped us find another cab that agreed to take us to MmaDua’s for p20. A total deal. I called MmaDua and she said she was about 7kms outside town. It was already after 7 so I told her we were on our way and apologized for being late. So our taxi drove us to MmaDua’s Lodge. We told him we wanted the house and he agreed if we gave him another p10. We passed so many lodges on our drive – I didn’t realize they were all so far out of town. We drove another kilometer down the road to one of the biggest and most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen.

There was a wall ten feet tall with barbed wire all around the property. The gate was open. The first thing I noticed was the five cars in the driveway. Then I noticed the house itself. It was two stories, something I haven’t seen in awhile with a two car garage. There were three arched steps leading up to the double front door, which was behind a series of pillars. There were two or three balconies on the front of the house. We walked in to see a spiral metal staircase going up to the second floor and a beautifully decorated, modern sitting room on the right. We walked past a modern painting of shapes hanging in the hallway into the most beautiful kitchen. The cabinets were a deep red wood with black granite tops. The fridge was huge and there were a lot of appliances out. On the island was a dinner, complete with seven or eight different dishes… yum! CD, the oldest child and only daughter, had cooked for hours to prepare dinner.

MmaDua ushered us outside where Katie and I sat with her at a little table. Her youngest child, Lesego, a boy of about ten years old, brought us water. We chatted about what we were doing in Botswana and Maun specifically, as well as how she’s related to my host family in Gabs. We grabbed plates from inside and she insisted Katie and I each have a glass of wine. Since CD had finished the box of wine while cooking, we opened a bottle from South Africa (first bottle in awhile!)

We learned that CD had attended university in Cape Town and was back at school for accounting. She just wrote her exams last week and will hear in December how she did. It was interesting to listen to her talk because she spoke quickly and mumbled a lot. Plus she swore a ton, which has different meanings throughout Setswana culture. The middle child, a guy, is currently in university in Joburg and loves it there. Lesego raved about Six Flags in New Jersey when we asked him about it, after we learned that MmaDua travels to NY about four times every year (WHAT?!?!?). CD had two friends over who were also really interesting to talk to. One was named Chris and one was Shawn, although I never learned who was who. One was from Zimbabwe and was currently working as a lab doctor at the private hospital in Maun. He plans on moving to Australia next year to get his surgery degree and stay there to practice. The other man was from Jamaica and had moved to Botswana with his family about ten years ago. He comfortably used Setswana during our conversations, which were all in English.

We talked about random things while sitting outside. It was just like hanging out with friends back home and joking. Lesego, the youngest boy, was an easy part of the conversation. He loved to give his sister’s friends a hard time and initiated hilarious conversations about whether or not a cheetah was a cat.

At one point I went inside to use the bathroom and poked my head into a few rooms. First of all, to get to the bathroom, you had to go through the room with a bar. It was a fully stocked bar, with stools all around. There were also couches facing a big TV. The bathroom was really cute and clean. There was incense that smelled delicious – vanilla flavored, my favorite! Across from the bar room was another sitting room, this one had a Christmas tree decorated with lights and cards set out on the table.

After Katie and I had finished our glasses of wine, MmaDua said that was the last glass and that CD would take us out. We helped take in all the dishes and put the leftovers into the fridge. So we hopped into the car. We drove back into town so CD could get some money from her brother who had gone to the ATM. Then we drove back out of town, past CD’s house to the River Lodge, not Trekkers like we’d expected. It was absolutely packed, mostly with white people. There were two men on their cell phones standing far from the bar; obvious tourists. CD, Shawn and Chris tried to convince Katie and I that the rest of the people there were locals, but I wasn’t convinced. We ordered a round of beers and found a table a little ways away from the bar and sat down to chat and hang out. It was really nice to have such a low key night. After about an hour, we decided it was time to head home. Either Shawn or Chris (the Zimbabwean) gave us a ride home. That’s when I got to talk to him and hear about why he came to Botswana and his plans for the future.

Saturday, MmaDua texted me again to ask how we’d slept and if we’d had fun. I thanked her many times and told her what a great time we’d had. When I said we hoped to see her again before we left Maun, she responded “of course, my dear!”