Bahurutshe and Bull & Bush

Yesterday was the most fun I've had so far! We started off the day at 7:30 of course with a delicious breakfast: fried eggs, toast and bacon.. I made a breakfast sandwich :) Then we headed to our final Setswana lesson of the trip. Le ithutile thata (I have learned a lot!) After that we preceded to Bahurutshe, a cultural village outside of the city. They demonstrated their traditional singing and dancing and also showed us their wedding day rituals. It really is a whole village celebration. It was interesting to hear them talk about how traditionally the bride and groom were cousins but only through brother/sister relationships not through sister/sister. They said that a lot of westerners say that the children will be messed up or have defects if they marry in their family but they felt this was only true if it was one sisters child marrying another sisters child. It would have been interesting to hear a little bit more about why they believed that. I'll be honest, thinking about it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I just can't imagine marrying someone in my own family but I think I understand their reasonings. A main one was the idea of keeping the family's wealth within the family. If a woman married outside of the family then the son-in-law would be paying a dowry to a family outside of his own, if it's his cousin then it's sorta keeps the dowry within the family. Paying 8 cows to your aunt and uncle still gives you access to them. The reality is these kinds of traditions still go on in royal families throughout the world and yet because of their wealth we often ignore the incest component. They are less common than before and I feel that this is probably due to the fact that many cultures have eliminated a dowry component so there's not as much worry about where the money is but also disapproval by some larger groups seems to have made an impact in some areas. I think my real problem is less with the within the family thing and more to do with the age at which this tends to occur. I guess this is just one of those places you have to agree to disagree.

They made us a delicious lunch. I have been pleasantly impressed with the food. The only problem is while it may taste great, it doesn't always agree with my stomach which is nothing new since I'm lactose intolerant and love cheese, afredo sauce, and ice cream. But still having my stomach hurt a couple times a day is getting old. The one thing that does surprise me though is they always serve us pop or canned juice that's really sweet. There food seems moderately healthy so I would think they would drink a lot of water but we've only been offered water one time and of course we all took it. I think I'm really dehydrated so I've been feeling funny at times. I sure the amount of coffee I'm drinking isn't helping the cause but I only had one cup today because of the no water thing. Can't chance it when I don't know when I'll be able to flush again lol Thankfully the cultural village had water so I jumped at the opportunity to utilize it. Apparently you can stay their overnight. We went in the huts which were really nice, small but cozy. It would be the perfect getaway for a night or two! They also gave us clay and had us making something for them to keep in memory of us. I'm not so creative so I just made a sun.One of the ladies made a pig and handed it to me..I kind of wish I could have kept it but I don't think I was suppose to. It was really cool to see their traditions and even have opportunities to be participate in them. At first I was thinking I should have volunteered to play the role of the bride but once she had to take cow poop and spread it on the ground, I was glad I didn't! (The second picture in this blog is of the women showing her how it's done). I was advised by Dr. Bates to talk about the things I didn't like so much... for instance the men first rule and women do all the work. I prefer to feel as though chivalry never died and ladies go first haha no really I don't care who's first..I'd rather all go together. Then we were sweeping while the boys played games! I have seen documentaries in the past and it showed the men just kind of sitting around the village while the women cook all day and clean and hunt. It just seemed kind of ridiculous that they didn't help at all! It seems like so much more would get done and a women wouldn't have to spend her whole day slaving over every tasks but apparently that's not how they see it.

We still didn't have hot water when we got home and my hair was absolutely disgusting so I decided to wash my hair in the sink. It was awkward and the water was freezing. I compared it to dipping my hair into the Arctic Ocean. Of course about 4 hours later all the water was back but its whatever. Let's just hope there isn't a next outage!

It was our first night venturing out in Gaborone! Almost the whole group headed to a popular bar: Bull & Bush. There were a lot of tourist & locals so it was a nice mix of people. We met a lot of really nice people there including two marines. I was asking them quite a few questions since that's what Andrew plans to do next year. They actually made me feel a lot better than someone I had talked to a few weeks before. I guess each person is different but it's comforting to talk to people who are actually a part of it and see that while they have seen some scary stuff they aren't necessarily scared for life or anything. There's no doubt in my mind that some of the stuff they see will never leave their memory but all you can hope for is that they develop health coping skills and seek counseling if necessary. (Obviously I would say that since it's my field lol) It was a really fun night though! We were all dancing and just letting loose after a long week. I'm not gonna lie, I took one too many poker face pictures haha We also met up with some of the other exchange students staying at UB from UPenn, Kansas, Finland, Germany, etc. I had come to expect being hit on hardcore as we warned that the men often come on strong here because if they don't they are afraid you won't be interested but we didn't really have that problem at all. Maybe some of that had to do with being at a bar that had a lot of tourist or the fact that we were in a large group but whatever the cause I was happy not to be bothered too much! The guys we did meet were extremely polite and they had MANNERS! (Of course Andrew has manners as well, but I'm referring to how strangers in US with the ones in Botswana) Yes apparently on this part of the world they have no died yet! No but seriously, everyone- girls and guys alike, that we have met so far has been really nice. At the end of the night we went to Bimbos..yes it is really called that. It's pretty much like a Sonic so we all endulged in drunk food in Botswana and it was delicious!! Here are some pictures to document our fun times lol

with some new friends..

Manders & Corky :)

P-p-p-p-oker Face!

Clearly having way too much fun!