Culture shock.

Woo it's hot here. Usually in the 90's, which is nothing for us Arizonians, but in AZ there is AC everywhere and we all drive. Here, we walk, we're lucky if there is a fan in the room, and there is no such thing as ice. Really, it's hard to find. Also what is hard to find is toilet paper and soap. Most bathrooms don't come with TP so we have to bring our own, and soap, yeah right. I carry around a mini bottle everywhere I go.

My first weekend here we went on a cultural excursion. A tour of Gaborone (pronounced: hab-a-rone-aye, if you are a local), which was miserably hot with 60 white kids walking in packs. That's how we travel, in packs of white. Since we are all international students we spend a lot of time together doing things, so we spend time hanging out too. We have mostly broken off into groups, the Germans, the Bosnians (who need to shower), the Swedes, and the rest of us. I would say there are about 100 intl students with 60 from the States. We have our groups we usually hang out in but we always meet together at the pavilion with a few locals. Anyways, back to that god-awful tour.

We all piled in on a hot bus and went to the Parliment. No pictures allowed. We stood out there for a few minutes not listening to the tour guide, trying to stay hydrated. 

 Then we went to see the 3 Kings. I can't tell you what they are about, I was standing in the shade. It's summer here! And that was a hot day. But here is a pic anyways.

 Then we went to the No. 1 Ladies Opera House, which is a cute traditional Botswana restaurant/entertainment place owned by the guy who wrote the series, located in Gaborone, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I haven't read it but have heard good things.

Here is the local food. The white mashed potato looking stuff is called pap, which is ground maize mushed together. It has zero flavor. There is some intestines in there, which they love here and really tastes like poo because that's exactly what it is. The bread tasted sour, the other piles of stuff are pap mixed with beans, and that little tiny black circle thing is A WORM. Yes ladies and gentlemen, a fat, nasty worm. It's called a Mopane worm and it was absolutely terrible. I couldn't swallow it. It takes like 5 minutes to chew and you can tell you are eating a worm. Never again.

  

A bucket of mopane worms at the Main Mall.

After the tradition dinner, the locals did some traditional dancing. 

 They had everyone that was from the same country do a song or dance from their home country. These are the Sweden girls. Monica, Megan & I did the Fifty Nifty United States song and since there were 50 of us from the US, we had to do other dances. I know the YMCA was in there somewhere. It was quite an interesting night, to say the least.