Well it is my last night in Gaborone. Flight out is at 10am to Jo-burg, then to Frankfurt where I will have breakfast and get on a train to Zurich, where I will meet THE WAYNE TSE!! As excited as I am for that, it doesn't make these goodbyes any easier. I've met so many great people here from Botswana and the States. The month has been full of so many adventures, nights of laughter and dancing, discovering new cultures, and making life long friends.
Anyways, to catch you up on the last few days. Friday, did some shopping at Main Mall with Maren and Leslie and spent a lot of the day working on the electronics for the bike generator. After dinner, Maren gave me, Leslie, and Andrew a tutorial on soldering since the breadboard holes were too small for the diodes that we needed to use. We then had a dance party in the physics lab. Quite the Friday night.
Saturday, Zee and I made our last visit to Lentsweletau and Dry assisted us in our surveying again. It has gotten cold here! While in the village, the locals were bundled up with winter coats, hats and gloves. I was even cold. It went into the 30s that night and since we were there in the morning, the sun hadn't warmed everything up yet.
When we arrived back to UB, I quickly scarfed down lunch and ran over to the football field to watch Botswana vs. South Africa. It was world cup qualifier match so the stakes were a little higher than the previous game we watched. The crowd was crazy and filled with passion for the team. They crammed as many people as possible into the stadium. Even in our seats, we essentially had two to a seat, but since we were standing the entire time, it was fine. South Africa scored first, but Botswana came back to tie. I'll post pictures and videos eventually of the game. The chants were really cool and more involved than our simple cheers in the US.
After the game, we had a quick powerage before we began a casual peer editing session. We all mostly talked over our papers and gave a little advice to each other. It's great to bring intelligent minds together.
Sunday, Lebo took us to church. It was amazing. The service is supposed to last 2hours, but since we did an extra 30 minutes or so of singing and dancing, it was going on 2.5 and the pastor was still in his sermon. We had to duck out during the sermon in order to make it back in time for lunch. It was a really refreshing and uplifting experience and I have some good videos I'll post soon.
At dinner, we (I say we, I mean Chef Andrew) cooked leftover sausages from last week's barbecue and had a little cook out of our own. Maren and Leslie made a cake for Kevin's birthday with some pan engineering assistance by Andrew. We've really had to master inventive cooking/baking/soldering techniques since we've been here (again I say we, I should not include myself as I just eat the deliciousness that the rest of the research group).
Monday, Mallory and I went to check to see if our bike stand had been completed by the technicians on the engineering campus. It had not been started, so all that hard work of bringing it here and working on sketches and circuitry had kind of been for nothing. O well, we got some good group bonding time during it.
The research crew then took a final trip to Main Mall for last minute souvenirs. When we returned, I had to do laundry. I had to struggle with my machine repeatedly to keep running. The techniques I used: open and close the lid, and kick it. Both worked surprisingly well.
After a final trip to Curry Pot, we got together for food clean out party, which naturally turned into a dance party. It was a nice final night with the whole gang.
OK, now to sleep before I venture off to the next continent.
Until next time, (when you'll get to see a lot of pictures and videos!!)
M.e.
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