Before I begin this post, let me apologize, my dear readers, for the long lapse in communication. The work days seem to be getting longer and longer, and the weekends and evenings shorter and shorter. I was also feeling a bit under the weather this past week, so I decided to be lazy. I will fill you in in due time, I promise!
We got up super early, because Boitumelo wanted us to be ready to go at 8, which meant that we didn’t actually leave till 8:45. There was a bit of a conundrum about our clothes, because I wanted to wear my dress, which was fairly conservative, plus I wore leggings underneath it, but Boitumelo said that it had to be below the knee, which it wasn’t. I really didn’t want to wear my work clothes yet again, but they’re the only nice clothes I have other than the dress and two skirts. Harumph.
Poor Olivia was up half the night throwing up – food poisoning or the flu, we weren’t sure – so we plied her with medicine, DVDs and magazines, and promised to take lots of pictures for her.
We took a combi to the bust station, because pretty much our whole group was going (minus Olivia ☹). None of us really knew what we were going to be doing, just that there had been vague promises of “dinner at Boitumelo’s house” and “a wedding.” We were excited though, and enthusiastically piled onto the bus to Ramotswa (roll the R’s, it’s really fun to say). Jose had overslept and said he would meet us at the bus stop, and he made a dramatic entrance by running after the bus and jumping on it as we were pulling out. We all cheered, like the obnoxious Americans we are.
The buses can be combis for shorter trips (like a minivan), but since Ramotswa is about an hour outside the city, we took a big tour group type bus. It’s very comfortable, though some of the seats have questionable smells (like any other public transportation…), and people walk up and down the aisles selling candy, water, and trail mix. One guy was selling plastic folders, which was a bit bizarre. Julia, MK, and I played “I Spy” and “I’m going on a picnic and I’m brining…,” and we got up to an impressive list of about 50 items (for those of you who don’t know this game, you’re missing out). Yes, we are easily entertained.
We got off the bus in Otse, which is where Boitumelo’s family lives. We went to a pottery places, which wasn’t as interesting as Gabane, but it was in a nursery which was pretty (see pictures, when I get around to posting them). They also had orange trees with the biggest oranges I’ve ever seen. They were delicious, and free(ish).
Next, we piled into Boitumelo’s parents’ car (an older model Mercedes!), and truck. We went to her house, which they just build a few years ago and was super nice. I would have taken pictures, but I thought that would be kind of weird/rude. Her parents own some kind of cattle company, which is one of Botswana’s main exports and therefore means that her family makes a fair amount of money. They also grow peanuts and things – we had some freshly picked peanuts, which taste kind of like uncooked green beans. Then we had boiled peanuts, which are super yummy (I don’t know why I’ve never liked them at home). Boitumelo also picked us prickly pears off a cactus in her front yard, and cut them up for us. They apparently have pretty wicked thorns, and their juice stained all of our fingers, but they have a really interesting tart flavor.
Next we piled back into the various vehicles – I joined the contingent riding in the bed of the truck, which was way more fun than cramming in the backseat of the car. We went to vulturary outside of town, and Boitumelo’s dad passed around handouts from the reserve nearby, about vultures. They live in these very dramatic cliffs above the town, but they’re usually only out in the morning, so we didn’t see many. People also were starting to get hungry and tired, so we looked around for about 10 minutes, then headed back to the cars.
We stopped at the village kgotla (prn. ho-t-la), a traditional meeting place, on the way back. We took pictures, but the group energy was definitely ebbing. We were relieved when they apparently decided that they had showed the tourists enough of the sights, and took us back to Boitumelo’s for tea, coffee, and tea sandwiches with cheese and tomato. It was very sweet, her family had like 12 mugs set out and boiled water for all of us. Our tea time was fairly uneventful otherwise, though at one point I did somehow manage to lock myself in the bathroom. Awesome.
We sat around chatting (a few people dozing – and yes, I still have the pictures, mwha) for a few hours, until Boitumelo and her family were ready to go to the wedding. Weddings here are full-day affairs lasting several days. It was already 3, so we had missed a lot of the ceremonial parts, but we went to the reception. They showed us around, and basically the entire village was there, so they were cooking massive amounts of food. Boitumelo explained that weddings are considered to be open to everyone, so a lot of the expense for the wedding is related to making sure that you have enough food for everyone.
They seated us in the middle of the dining tent, so that everyone could stare at us, basically. They gave us gingerbeer first (not actually alcoholic), which is a traditional drink at weddings. Next, they brought us huge bowls of meat, coleslaw, beet salad, and papa (a cornmeal dish). We tried everything, but unfortunately a lot of the meat here is very fatty, so we mostly ate papa and boiled peanuts that Boitumelo’s mom sent with us. The wedding party made a few turns through the tent, changing outfits in between. Boitumelo explained that a blue cloth is considered traditional Batswana attire, and it’s how other Africans identify a Motswana, because each country has a different color/pattern. In South Africa, for example, red cloth is the tradition. Once I figure out how to post videos, I’ll share the recording I made of the wedding party singing as they walked through the tent. It was super neat, and Boitumelo said that they came into the tent just so we could see them, which was really nice. We congratulated the bride, then took our combi back to Gabs, because it was getting dark. It was a little disconcerting when the combi had to be pushed for the first few hundred feet by a couple of guys before it started, but after that we were good to go.
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