Well, i know it has been quite some time since I have updated this, but this is really the first opportunity I have had to do so. We had no internet at the hotel we stayed at for the first week and only one room in my university apartment has internet, but now that classes have started it should be more frequent.
The first thing I woke up to find out today was that the Packers beat the Eagles in the playoffs, which certainly puts a damper on my morning, but I don't think I care as much since I am some 8000 miles away.
Anywho, this first week in Gaborone (ha-ba-RONE-ee) has been a lot of fun. We started off with a few days of program orientation where we met 9 students from around the US who signed up for the same program and so far we have all bonded well. One of the craziest things we had to do was a scavenger hunt and find 20 or so locations in Gaborone. Luckily we had a couple of local students to help us get around or else we would have been totally lost - we didn't even get every thing and it still took us over 4 hours!
We then had to go to International Student Orientation with all of the other international students at University of Botswana (UB). There are probably 70 int'l students with 60 of them being from the US so it definitely was not at diverse as I would have hoped. There are a group of students from Germany, 2 from Finland, and a few from Ghana, Swaziland, and Mexico. Everything we had to listen to was pretty boring, especially since we heard most of it during our own group orientation. However, I did find out that travel by combie - which is a small van which packs 15-18 people - is pretty cheap, so travel to other countries is very possible which I am excited about.
This past weekend we had some free time to hang out at the malls here - yes they have malls, which I was totally surprised by, and they are really nice (way nicer than the Shore Mall, which I guess isn't too hard to do). We moved into our apartments at UB on Saturday which was a complete debacle. The first room myself and another student from my group were supposed to live in did not have a key that opened the door. As I mentioned before, the room they moved us to only has internet in one room, and there were still clothes in the closets so we weren't even sure if we could live here. But in the end it all worked out and we are pretty settled in now. On Sunday we climbed Kgale Hill (elevation - 4,222 feet) which is the highest point in Gaborone and it took close to an hour and a half. I realized how out of shape I actually am, but it was a really fun hike and the view of the city was INCREDIBLE! You could literally see for miles. And a there were two rainstorms in the surrounding area which we thought were coming straight toward us, but from the top we could see them move to different parts of the city and we only felt a few raindrops. Sunday night we had an absolutely delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant called Moghul. We had various types of chicken, beef, and some traditional Indian foods...sooooo good.
My first class was supposed to be at 8am today, but I showed up to find the gates in the doors locked and no one except 3 Americans even showed up. I have a few classes this afternoon which are still in limbo which definitely suits my lifestyle better than always having class - although I am finding myself more motivated to go to class since I am in Africa.
It's time for me to go find out if I can officially be registered as a UB student now - which gives me access to the outdoor pool on campus which I plan to frequent - so I am going to head out.
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