Mara Gordon's Blog

So I’m finally starting a blog.

I’ve been here in Gaborone, Botswana for about a week — although unfortunately my luggage hasn’t been. I lost it somewhere along a poorly-thought-out trip from Madrid to London before I came to Botswana. I guess it’s some kind of metaphor: leaving it all behind, learning to be less materialistic and more self-sufficient, etc. Instead, I feel like it’s making me more materialistic, as I’ve been having a hard time getting settled here without it.

Luckily, Gabs is full of malls. Yep, American, suburban-style malls. The population density seems to be about the same as an American suburb as well. I feel like I did at fifteen in Palo Alto: no way to drive, but I really, really wanted to get to the mall. The lack of mobility is a little frustrating, but we manage to get rides here and there. We have two trustworthy cab drivers — Mr. T and Khunong, no last names provided — who get the Penn stamp of approval, and every morning I get a ride to work at 6:45am from two nuns in a minivan.

We also manage to get rides from Gill and Nikki, a mother-daughter pair who run the show for Penn in Botswana. Tough-as-nails British expats, the two of them have lived here for years and seem to know the lay of the land pretty well. Penn hired them a few years ago to coordinate stuff for Penn doctors and med students doing HIV treatment and research at Princess Marina hospital, and now that us undergraduates have come into the picture, they’re also babysitting us. These women do everything — they’ve ferried me around in search of my luggage, told us the insider scoop about Quizzo at Bull and Bush, the main expat bar, and invited us over for dinner at their home.

As kind as they are, I still feel a bit like I’m on a high school trip. It seems to be a fine line, in Gaborone, between adventurous and really stupid, so we’ve all been relying on Gill for a lot. We tend to travel in a pack of ten to expat-sanctioned restaurants and shops. I’m getting the sense that the white community here in Gabs is tight-knit and gossipy.
For example: At the Bull and Bush Quizzo last week — Team Ruckus, named in honor of the ruckus we’re hoping to create, came in 8th place — there was a question about a famous African football player who was a World Cup star decades ago. The quizmaster asked what country he was from; correct answer was Zimbabwe. “Although if we’re going to be really technical,” he said, “you all should have put Rhodesia.” The crowd laughed, and as I turned around to watch them, I realized almost everyone there was white. Guess it’s only funny if you are.

I’ll write more later but I wanted to get this up and running. Please send me emails and let me know what you are all up to this summer!