A Typical Day in Gaborone

My days are starting to form some patterns, so wanted to share my musings about Gabarone in general and our little slice of it. We get up early - the sun is bright and Peter is over at the hospital by around 7:30 for morning report. Botswana time is kind of a fluid measure so apparently people straggle in. I start the day with either a walk or run, depending on how energetic I feel. I have not had the nerve to put on running shorts yet - don't want to totally shock the locals. A woman running seems to provoke enough amused surprise. Each day I take a slightly different route and spread out see to see more of our neighborhood. We are surrounded on one side by lots of embassies- the Chinese having the biggest and splashiest that I have seen so far. On the other side is hospital and University of Botswana and then below is the Main Mall and the African Mall - apparently the first shopping area in town.

Men and women are all dressed pretty western. Only older women are in traditional dress with those nifty head wraps. Unlike our experience in Liberia, I have only seen a handful of women balancing enormous loads on their heads. I suspect we will see more traditional dress once we leave Gabarone and set out for villages. Everyone has cell phones and internet cafes are plentiful and cheap ( about7 pula/hr -- around a dollar). I am swapping Setswana lessons for teaching Alima about the computer. She is a quick study so I suspect she will be surfing the net long before I can get through a simple conversation.

Shopping is an adventure. There are some larger stores in outlying malls, full of fancy imports, but our local Spar is more the norm. Lots of big bags of maize and sorghum meal for the porridge that is the basis of a lot of Botswana cooking. Lots of interesting looking spices that I check out but have not purchased yet. Everything fresh is all from South Africa. The fruit is fabulous but nothing local. I asked about what was farmed in Botswana and was told "diamonds."

After the walkabout I come back and do some Muskie work, catch up on the mail, work on my local connections. I met a Peace Corps volunteer yesterday who works with on NGO development. I was kind of surprised to know that PC was in town, but apparently they are involved in all kinds of organization capacity building.

Botswana is ground zero for all kinds of HIV/AIDs research so it is a real magnet for medical and social science researchers and also the govt seems to have invited in a lot of consultants for all kinds of tasks.

Usually have a dip in the pool late afternoon and then on to the evening's entertainment.