Sat., July 23- Step 2 CK; Mon., July 25- Move everything out of my apartment with the U-box delivered 2 hours late; Tues., July 26- Still packing and HEALing clinic; Wed., July 27- Cleaning and flew out of Dulles to Botswana...
At the airport, one suitcase was 20 kg overweight, another was 20 kg underweight. The surcharge? US$100. The real charge? US$0 b/c I moved a little bit from the big suitcase to the small suitcase and the South African Airlines lady felt bad for me and let me go... I didn't even have to plead or beg. So nice! And the bags would go straight to Botswana (Gaborone, pronounced Ha-bor-oney). During the 17 hour flight with a stop in Dakar, Senegal, I watched Sherlock Holmes, Just Go with It (hilarious but not Oscar-worthy), and half of Wall-E. I guess robots are not very entertaining b/c I passed out and woke up to blasting air conditioning in Dakar. Flight attendants all had S. African accents... love it! On the descent, I looked out the window, which I normally don't do on flights because I get motion sick. But as I looked over Africa and saw the cars on the highways and the red roofs of buildings, I became a bit ... emotional. This was my dream for as long as I could remember. "I'm going to Africa and help children and cure HIV!" I told my parents when I was 10 or so. They always laughed and said, "How are you going to Africa when you're scared of bugs??" And so step 1 of that dream accomplished. Landed in South Africa and waited an hour for all the bags to come out... just to make sure mine didn't accidentally get placed in the S.A. pile instead of the Gaborone pile and on my way out, the airport attendant who helped me asked for my number. hahaha sorry, I don't have a phone yet. "Hope to see you when you come back!"
I look for my hotel in the airport... turns out it's across the street. Stepping into the wintery S. African outdoors, I felt a chill hit my face I hadn't felt in months, especially not since the heat wave in DC took over. I walked into the Intercontinental (doorman was S. African guy wearing a Chinese hat) hotel and gave the receptionist my reservation number. "I'm afraid I can't find you in the system, ma'am." (What?? I booked this with my flight in April). Hmmm... turns out I walked into the wrong hotel. My real hotel is the Southern Sun, which I have to take a 3-min bus ride to. Still it's pretty nice and I get checked-in and was brought a glass of white wine. Paid $15 for 2 hours of internet and 65R (USD10) for room service dinner. Asked for a robe but never got it and proceeded to sleep under the thick warm comforter with a broken heater in the room. Otherwise, room was nice. But not worth USD 210.
Flew the next AM to Gaborone but had to wait an hour for a bus to take the passengers to the plane. A mom and her son appears fidgety and walks right up to the front desk counter. "We're not ready to start boarding," I assume the airline attendant says. They sit down and I glance at their passports. I was right, China. So many Chinese tourists in Africa. Flashback to Cambodia when a friend said that Cambodians couldn't travel even if they had money to the US due to visa restrictions. I wondered if that was the same for the mainland Chinese. Finally the door opens to the outside and I am hit again with that winter chill, though this time, the wind is more fierce and my fleece is no match for the wind. I climb onto the bus chattering my teeth and shivering. The son asks me in Mandarin, "Are you from Hong Kong?" I replied back in Mandarin, "No, America." And receive that respectable "Ahhh, Mei Guo (America)." I board on the small plane and I have 2 seats to myself! Breakfast is served in a box, of cold cuts, and yogurt, and cheese.
I arrive in the Botswana airport an hr later and borrow a taxi driver's cell phone to call the Baylor driver, who was amicable. As he drives on the left side of the road, he teaches me a few Setswana phrases. "Dumela-ra" hello to a man. "Dumela-ma" hello to a woman. "Ke allaybouhah" thank you. He drops me off at the Baylor Clinical Center of Excellence, a gorgeous building. In we walk and I see a waiting room full of parents and kids, no doubt their faces tired and worn from traveling from far-away places I would soon hear about. I meet some of the staff and my housemate, whom I shall dub "Blondie" (not b/c she's a ditz but b/c I cannot think of a better name- she's actually quite nice and accomplished). My housemate and my conversation is cut short when a staff member brings a slightly-bald African girl up to us and says, "she doesn't like her picture for her ID card. We need a new one." Of course, we get the camera and take a few pics, settling on one where she's laughing, wrinkles and teeth and all. She is 13 but looks 15. Very skinny. I'll see her tomorrow AM at Teen Club, where she'll come sit next to me in a room full of people, not afraid to get close to me.
I go home to unpack, unwind, and wait for Blondie to come home to show me the mall for currency exchange and grocery shopping. After doing all of that and reading and showering and meeting another housemate (resident about to leave next week), I took a nap and woke up just before Blondie came home. We walked about 15 min to the mall and I marveled at the unexpected development of Botswana. This mall was not like an American mall, but it had 2 grocery stores, restaurants, a cinema, an American Express exchange store, and other odds and ends stores, like a greeting card store run by an Indian man. I change my money, US$1=6.7 Poula. We buy groceries for over 300P, which is astonishing. In a country of small exports, most things are imported and are expensive. A sweater at Woolworth's was over USD50. Blondie and I go home, make dinner in the oven (frozen chicken and roasted veggies), make salad (Blondie is a chef and makes vinaigrette from scratch), and share garlic bread. Blondie has severe food allergies to nuts, sesame, and eggs. But we all have to be careful to cover up these things and use a separate sponge or else we have an Epi-pen moment. Over dinner, the resident housemate joins us and we decide to go watch Larry Crowne at the theater. Blondie's male friend, who is an Afrikaans pilot, picks us up in his Honda CRV and we go to the theater. The small popcorn at the theater truly is a small bag. (No obesity here). The toppings for the popcorn? Not butter but peri-peri chicken spice, salt & vinegar spice, and some other spices in a spice bottle. No butter in sight. It was quite good, the salt & vinegar spice. The movie was cute... and the pilot drives us home. Blondie and pilot make egg-less cookies for tomorrow's Teen Club and it is divine-smelling, reminding me of America b/c they made chocolate chip cookies.
I go to bed too late, staying up reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, a tribute to reading the Kite Runner 2 summers ago in Cambodia.
