How to Spend Your Final Weeks in Botswana
Eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grilled cheeses, Simba peanuts and raisins (your absolute favorite snack from South Africa), packaged noodles and apples. Intersperse these with the occasional cafeteria meal s of pap, chicken on the bone, and vegetables. And savor the cafeteria chips when you need a pick-me-up.
Think about how crazy it will be to leave this place. A lot.
Journal.
Sleep like a baby, until noon sometimes. Learn a whole new meaning to the word “relax.”
Read the news about political ridiculousness occurring back at home. Wish that the U.S. would learn some things from Botswana.
Go to a friend’s 21st birthday party. Take lots of pictures and address your friend in front of her entire family.
Spend lots of time with your American musketeers Dominique and Maggie. Talk about how much you will miss each other.
Become the official girlfriend of a boy you’ve liked all semester. Spend lots of time together. Think of how wonderful it is but what a challenge it will be to continue the relationship long-distance. Consider it worth it.
Go to Riverwalk many times, like you have all semester. Eat at your favorite places Equatorial Coffee, News Café, Wimpy, Linga Longa, Golden Thai, Spur, Nando’s, MilkyLane.
Celebrate your friend Dean’s 21st. Buy him a black forest cake and make him a bracelet.
Make new friends and marvel at the kindness of Batswana people.
Listen to football fanatics during Manchester United games.
Realize how much weight you’ve lost when pants that were snug when you arrived in January now require the use of a belt.
Spend time with friend Maggie’s parents when they come to visit. Eat at Primi, haggle for souvenirs at Main Mall, go to the Botannical Gardens and Botswanacraft. Appreciate the fact that you paid for none of it.
Get hit on by the taxi driver you use all the time. Be flattered but disappointed at the same time.
Be jealous of fellow international students’ travels to places like Namibia, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, but realize how much you like taking it easy in Gabs with the people you love here.
Sort of study for exams. Do well on Politics and Setswana, do semi-well on Sustainable Development.
Enjoy dinner at Linga Longa with internationals and a local and exchange stories about the semester.
Ride combis and enjoy every second of being smashed next to strangers, with the wind whipping your hair through the open windows.
Love the beautiful weather. Even if you're freezing sometimes at night or in the morning.
Hug your housemate when she finishes all her work for the semester. Go out to celebrate.
Laugh. A lot. For many reasons, some unexplainable.
Go see movies that you never expected to enjoy. Appreciate the fact that they are half the cost of what movies are in the States.
Love being in the company of pets when you hang out at a house that some of your international friends are house-sitting in.
Listen to the rain fall outside your window as you sleep.
Say goodbye to the first international student, Nicole, and feel sad when you see the emptiness of her side of the room.
Get messages from friends and family back home telling you how much they miss you. Get excited to be reunited with them all.
Get excited when you think about going home.
Cry when you think about leaving.
Think about how crazy it will be to leave this place. A lot.
Journal.
Sleep like a baby, until noon sometimes. Learn a whole new meaning to the word “relax.”
Read the news about political ridiculousness occurring back at home. Wish that the U.S. would learn some things from Botswana.
Go to a friend’s 21st birthday party. Take lots of pictures and address your friend in front of her entire family.
Spend lots of time with your American musketeers Dominique and Maggie. Talk about how much you will miss each other.
Become the official girlfriend of a boy you’ve liked all semester. Spend lots of time together. Think of how wonderful it is but what a challenge it will be to continue the relationship long-distance. Consider it worth it.
Go to Riverwalk many times, like you have all semester. Eat at your favorite places Equatorial Coffee, News Café, Wimpy, Linga Longa, Golden Thai, Spur, Nando’s, MilkyLane.
Celebrate your friend Dean’s 21st. Buy him a black forest cake and make him a bracelet.
Make new friends and marvel at the kindness of Batswana people.
Listen to football fanatics during Manchester United games.
Realize how much weight you’ve lost when pants that were snug when you arrived in January now require the use of a belt.
Spend time with friend Maggie’s parents when they come to visit. Eat at Primi, haggle for souvenirs at Main Mall, go to the Botannical Gardens and Botswanacraft. Appreciate the fact that you paid for none of it.
Get hit on by the taxi driver you use all the time. Be flattered but disappointed at the same time.
Be jealous of fellow international students’ travels to places like Namibia, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, but realize how much you like taking it easy in Gabs with the people you love here.
Sort of study for exams. Do well on Politics and Setswana, do semi-well on Sustainable Development.
Enjoy dinner at Linga Longa with internationals and a local and exchange stories about the semester.
Ride combis and enjoy every second of being smashed next to strangers, with the wind whipping your hair through the open windows.
Love the beautiful weather. Even if you're freezing sometimes at night or in the morning.
Hug your housemate when she finishes all her work for the semester. Go out to celebrate.
Laugh. A lot. For many reasons, some unexplainable.
Go see movies that you never expected to enjoy. Appreciate the fact that they are half the cost of what movies are in the States.
Love being in the company of pets when you hang out at a house that some of your international friends are house-sitting in.
Listen to the rain fall outside your window as you sleep.
Say goodbye to the first international student, Nicole, and feel sad when you see the emptiness of her side of the room.
Get messages from friends and family back home telling you how much they miss you. Get excited to be reunited with them all.
Get excited when you think about going home.
Cry when you think about leaving.
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