Life in Manyana

It is so hard to sum up my first month in Botswana. My last post was from Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. I wish that hadn’t been my last post, because it certainly wasn’t my happiest. Although living here hasn’t always been easy, it’s been wonderful.

We spent our first few days in the country in Gaborone, learning the basics of Setswana and what we should expect during out homestay in Manyana, a medium sized village where we would be living for the first month. On our final night in Gabs, we drove about an hour out of the city to a game reserve. We went on a drive and saw lots of great animals. After safari-ing in Zambia just a few weeks before, a fenced in reserve just can’t compare, although it was fun to be with thirteen new friends. We had a braai, or BBQ, in the middle of the bush, which was incredible - so much delicious food and a warm fire to sit by.

The next morning we headed out to Manyana. I can’t retell my entire month there, so I’ll try to hit the highest highs, lowest lows, and most typical normals. My family in Manyana was small: my mom, Masa was sweet. She mumbled a lot, so it was pretty difficult for me to understand her whether she spoke Setswana or English. She has three kids, and only the youngest still lives at home. The older two work outside Gabs. April was my 25 year old brother (he was born during the fourth month) who lived at home. He is so incredibly nice and fun to hang out with. His English was great, so we mostly talked that way. He was on Manyana’s best soccer team (a goal keeper… of course!) so we talked soccer a lot. I got to watch one of his games which was really fun, even though they suffered a tough loss. April has a 2 year old son who I was never able to meet. He lives with his mom outside Gaborone. April visited once while I was in Manyana, although the trip was unplanned. He spent two days and one night with his girlfriend and son.

The last member of my family was my 5 year old nephew. His name is Brian. When he was born there was too much fluid in his brain and he’s now mentally handicapped. His head is much larger than normal, but he may be the sweetest child I’ve ever met. He can’t walk yet although he’d be physically able to learn with enough practice. He can’t talk or really communicate in any way. He mostly sits and giggles to himself. Sometimes we’d sit on the couch together. I’d have to keep my notebooks out of reach so he wouldn’t rip the pages, but he loved to play with my water bottle.

The hardest adjustment was seeing the living conditions he deals with. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t know what going on around him, although that didn’t make the reality any easier to deal with. He’s still fed three meals a day by someone else in the house. His mom works somewhere else and only came to visit twice while I was in Manyana. There are no resources to help Masa raise her grandson, and so without any judgment, I’ll describe Brian’s life. He has his own room in the house. There’s a low bed with blankets as well as a few blankets and pillows from an old couch on the floor. There’s a dresser tied shut with a piece of cloth in the corner. There’s a huge window that’s covered with a pretty transparent sheet. When Brian’s inside the room, the door is locked shut with cloth that is attached to the window on the other side of the wall. Essentially, it’s locked from the outside. Brain was pretty much only brought out for meals and little else. After eating, he stayed out for anywhere from three to thirty minutes, depending on Masa’s energy level and mood. He’d be put back in the room and the makeshift lock secured each night. Since he loved to play with and explore anything that moved, Brain loved to tug on the door. I could often hear it opening and closing. The lowest low I ever hit was when I had to put Brain back in his room for the first time. When I tried to leave, he crawled after me and whined even after I shut and locked the door. Then I could hear him pulling the door open and listen to it slam shut. I wish I could have kept him out and listened to his laugh all night. Before that, I’d only taken him out to feed and play with him. During those times, he always smiled.

Our house was great. Manyana wasn’t near as rural as I expected, but the surprise made the experience fun. My house had three bedrooms, a sitting room and a kitchen. We had electricity (lights and plugs in the wall) in every room. There was a water spicket in the backyard that we constantly used. My room had a queen sized bed and a dresser filled with Brain’s mom’s clothes. There was a comfy wicker chair, two bed side tables and two huge windows draped in a lacy covering. There was a fridge/freezer in the kitchen and a gas stove, plus lots of cabinets and storage space.

The bathroom situation wasn’t ideal… an outhouse in the back corner of our beautiful yard. The hole was covered with a seat, and there was newspaper there, although I opted to use the tp I’d brought from Gabs. The shower situation was worse. I had a green plastic tub (three feet wide, two feet across and one foot deep) and a small bucket at my disposal. Each morning, I’d heat water on the stove and mix it with cold water. I’d fill the bucket with that and take it into my room, where I had to wash with only that water. If I wasn’t smart with my rationing and ran out, I’d have to reuse the dirty water. Needless to say, I perfected my bathing ritual quite quickly. Since washing my hair and body at the same time wasn’t really an option, I switched between the two. Jesse, another student from Pitzer, described showering as “petting yourself with water” and she was exactly right. After each shower we’d dump the dirty water down the outhouse hole. Adding bath water to the small room somehow magnified the smell by at least 20 times, no exaggeration.

Our yard, both front and back was incredible. I’ll try to get pictures up ASAP, but it’s unbelievable. We had three magnificent orange trees that ran along our front fence. The gate always opened with a recognizable creak so that we always knew if someone was coming or going. There was a path that led up to the house, lined with bushes. Some of the bushes had beautiful pink flowers while others had striking white thorns. To the right, Masa grew sugar cane, which April was often munching on. To the left was the outside kitchen, where Masa built a fire each morning and did work outside. That kitchen was attached to what April lovingly referred to as his “drunk house.” It’s the room he moved into so that he wouldn’t wake his mom up all the time when he came home after she’d gone to bed and locked the doors.

Food.... mmmmm. I certainly tried lots of new food, some of which I loved and some of which I didn’t. I decided that while I was in Botswana, I’d eat meat. I’ve been a pescitarian for about three years now, and going back to eating beef and other meat wasn’t easy. I decided to eat meat because food in general is such a large part of Setswana culture and I’m not opposed to the way animals are treated here. Although I was expecting to eat fresh meat here, the majority of meat that I ate came from cans and looked just like cat food. During the week, we ate breakfast and dinner at home and had lunch at school. We ate all weekend meals at home. School food wasn’t much different from what we got at home - it was all soaked in oil. Vegetables are never eaten raw and the meat is cooked until it resembles jerky in texture. On one of my last days, I tried chicken gizzards. Ick. The staple dish is phaleche, which is similar to nsima in Malawi. It’s made by adding maize flower to boiling water and stirring incredibly hard and fast. We didn’t eat phaleche very often, but when we did, it was either with morogo (vegetables) dripping oil or heavily seasoned meat. Other dinners included rice or pasta with vegetables or meat. Breakfasts were pretty much always motogo, or sour porridge. Plain, it was pretty gross. Not even a Motswana will eat motogo without ample amounts of sugar and milk. I learned to ignore the gross amounts of sugar I added each morning to make the porridge sweet and yummy. When we were lucky or Masa had just been to the store, we had scrambled eggs for breakfast. All of that said, I also had some delicious food. Our house often had homemade bread as well. There were lots of delicious kinds of bread, dipapathatas are similar to English muffins, magwina aka fat cakes is dough boiled in oil and dumplings are dough boiled in water. I didn’t get to cook as much as I would have liked. One of my assignments for a class was to write a narrative about any cultural experience we’d had. I decided to write about trying to cook, and my paper's the previous post. Just know that while I do enjoy cooking, I have a hard time without a recipe.

On days off, I went on a few hikes with friends. We found a few great spots. The first was a rock overlooking the entire valley. The view was breathtaking. We tried to hike up toward the end of our trip to watch the sunrise but the day we picked was too overcast. We ended up watching the world around us get lighter without actually seeing the sun.

A really common hangout for us was at the river. Since it’s heading into but not quite the rainy season yet, the river was pretty low. There were a few spots we’d hangout in the afternoons to pass time. Sometimes we’d work or study, sometimes we’d all read silently and sometimes we’d just talk. I always managed to take my shoes off and stroll around in the cool water. One place had incredibly gorgeous rocks all around. You could see the layers and imagine the time that had passed. Here, we’d either sit on stepping stones in the river or about twenty feet on a cliff up above, looking down on the water. We lovingly referred to another favorite spot as “the waterfall.” In reality, it was another beautiful rock face where water trickled down. The water source was as huge field that had once been dammed. It was maybe thirty feet tall, with no “waterfalls” bigger than two feet anywhere. There was one tree that provided shade on hot days. When the sunset, the view was breathtaking. (again, see facebook pictures)

One Friday, we went to Mankodi’s Culture Day. Mankodi is another village, about twenty minutes from Manyana. We took public transportation for our first time. There is a completely different concept of personal space here. People were literally sitting on my shoulder. We got there at 8:00, right when it was supposed to start. We anticipated waiting around a little since we’d already become very familiar with “Botswana time.” The event didn’t end up starting until 11. We had also anticipated seeing cultural dances, hearing songs and experiencing other aspects of Setswana culture. In reality, it was an event based more on talking about preserving culture than it was actually preserving it. The day started off with a procession of men, followed by women in traditional dress into the kgotla. When the kgosi (chief) entered, we all stood. We then sang the national anthem, and people were really impressed we all knew the words. We’d been singing it every morning since arriving in Manyana. A series of men made speeches about the importance of preserving culture. Unfortunately, they were all in Setswana so I could only pick out words. We saw one youth group perform a song/drama about HIV/AIDS and how having multiple partners can quicken the spread of the disease. We left at 1 because we had to get back to Manyana for a wedding. None of us had ever met the bride or groom but we were ushered into the tent. In Setswana culture, events don’t require an invitation; you can show up to a wedding, funeral or party if you want to. Invited guests were seated under the tent and everyone else was seated on the ground or on rocks outside. We dressed formally – in black and white. We’d missed the ceremony itself and showed up for the reception, which could have taken place anywhere in the states. It was held until a white tent, with plastic chairs covered in white material and beautiful settings on the table. The bride wore a beautiful wedding dress. Her train was lilac, to match her bridesmaids. There was a ring bearer as well. We were served yummy, yummy food. What we’d been told about, and certainly lived up to expectations, was seswa, or shredded beef. There was a choreographed dance for the wedding party, but really no other dancing.

I had the most incredible experience shadowing a potter. It was another group’s Day in the Life project, but I decided to go along and make a pot. We ended up spending five afternoons with the potter, each making our own unique pot. On day one, we made the top half of the pot. Two days later, we made the bottom. The next week, we smoothed the outside with a rock and then rubbed goat’s fat on it to make it smooth. The next day, we smoothed the inside with part of a soda can. We each had to find a soda can and then rub the top on the cement until the very top became detached. We used that to scrape any bumps off the inside of the pot. On the final day, we fired our pots using cow dung, which we had to collect off the road. Our pots all turned out wonderful.

On our last Sunday in Manyana, a group of us went to visit the mosimo, or the lands. We went with Robert, one of our Setswana teachers who’s from Manyana, to see his family lands. Although we’d planned to head out at 3pm, we left around 4. We walked for at least forty minutes through gorgeous fields. There were occasionally cows and goats. We eventually got to Robert's lands which include huge granite hills. As I understand it, his family is currently negotiating with mining companies to extract the rock. We kept walking and eventually came to a pretty sizeable hill. We climbed/scrambled/jumped up the hill to what is now known as Pride Rock. The land stretched forever in all directions. We could see fields, the outskirts of the village, animals, more hills, and beautiful trees. We stayed at the top until the sun was completely behind the horizon and then headed down. We ended up walking home in the dark, but it was worth it.

Sunrises in the morning were beyond description. I tended to wake up right at 6:30. I’d walk to the bathroom and stop every time to look at the sun. I never saw the beginning of the actual sunrise, but my timing couldn’t have been better. The full sun always hung just over the horizon. The sky would glow brilliant pinks and oranges. I love that moment when the sun is still dull enough to where you can look right at it and soak up the new rays.

We saw all sorts of animals everyday in Manyana. We passed donkeys, chickens, goats and cows on our way to school. Since it was spring, there were lots of babies everywhere. Sometimes the animals were penned and sometimes they weren’t. Lots of the goats and cows had bells on. One day, on the way home from school, Ian and I came across a chicken fight. I’d never seen a chicken fight before but watching was pretty incredible. We stopped to take some pictures and I luckily got some great shots. A few batswana stopped to watch us watching the chickens.

Stars were incredible in Manyana. Since most homes had electricity, outside lights were often left on and contributed to the minimal light pollution. Just on the walk from the house to the bathroom I could pick out the very few constellations I know in the southern hemisphere: Scorpio and the Southern Cross. When I’d walk around at night, I could find patches of sky that were breathtaking. The Milky Way was visible every night.

TV in Manyana was insane. My family watched all the time. When I got up in the morning, it was already on. Most of the time, a show would be on but gospel radio would be on the audio. One morning, I woke up and it was eerily quiet but I couldn’t figure out why. I tried to turn on my light and realized the power was out, and so the TV was off. Most of the students got hooked on a soap called Generations. It’s a really funny show filmed in South Africa. At least three different languages are spoken and subtitles were in English. At the first break of Generations, a commercial for Omo washing powder always came on. It was by far my favorite commercial. There were also a lot of commercials for HIV/AIDS prevention, testing together, and the possibility of having a negative baby even if the couple is positive. My least favorite commercial’s tag line: “Unsure? Insure. Be sure.”

For my last morning in Manyana, I woke up at 530 and climbed a hill in total darkness with Ian to watch the sunrise. It was great to watch the whole village light up before our eyes. There were clouds that they lit up brilliant colors. The sun didn’t rise above them until I was walking home, but the view was still beyond words.

I hope that was enough of a description for now! I'll try to write and post more often, and hopefully I'll have more access to internet in the near future. Now, we're spending one night in Gaborone, where I'm online checking email and writing this. Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn (Botswana time) we leave for the northern part of the country. We're spending 8 days touring Chobe and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. I can't wait!

pictures from Manyana and Vic Falls: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065125&id=1036350539&l=c6e0c95b23