offal

A friend recently passed around one of those long 'getting to know you' questionnaires that one fills in and then sends around. A friend to whom I sent the questionnaire remarked in her answers to a comment I had made:

7. What is your favourite cuisine?
probably french or italian, though i like almost anything (though now that you've brought up offal, i'm not so sure that i want to eat in botswana)

This deserves some explanation.

Many a time since coming to Botswana I have eaten seswaa, a dish wherein meat is cooked and then pounded until it's shredded. The consistency is about that of pulled pork, and I think it's right tasty.

There's another dish, though, called serobe, which is described on one website as, "Thoroughly washed, then boiled mixture of tripe, intestines and lungs. They are cut into small pieces with a pair of scissors before being spiced to add taste."

Well, anyway, as you might remember, I was at the Third Annual 'Son of the Soil' party last month (sort of a reclamation of Tswana tradition). I had not at this point managed to bring myself to try serobe, despite my love of seswaa. The cooked food was arranged in sort of a buffet line, with each cook serving what he or she had prepared. I went through the line, collecting beans and corn and cooked vegetables, all the while scolding myself that I ought to be a good anthropologist and eat the serobe already.

The meat pots were at the very end of the line. I told the man who was serving seswaa that I liked it, and he gave me a nice, big scoop from his pot.

The man serving serobe gave me a huge smile and said, "This is just like seswaa --- with offal!"



I didn't touch it. The homonynic relationship between 'offal' and 'awful' didn't help the matter. My housemate, who has been coming to Bots on and off for years, told me it tastes like dirt and I wasn't missing much anyway, so while I feel kinda wimpy, I can't flog myself that badly.

toasty

I'd just like to record for posterity the current ten-day weather forecast from weather.com... and yes, I'm being biased towards those of you who think in Fahrenheit:

High 93, low 65
High 92, low 64
High 95, low 64
High 98, low 71
High 94, low 69
High 94, low 67
High 94, low 67
High 93, low 66
High 90, low 64
High 91, low 65

(The celsius conversions are here.)

My housemate was looking up the average monthly temperatures for Gaborone, and was cheered by the fact that March is, on average, 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than February. (She's from Boston, and was sighing over a nice average annual range of 30F-80F.) Anyway, I had her look up Phoenix by way of comparison. As it turns out, Phoenix gets hotter than Gabs, but temperatuers in Gabs stay higher for more of the year than in Phoenix.

All that to say that I should be accustomed to this climate -- and I find that I seem to adjust more easily than, say, the aforementioned housemate. But this also means that I am well- trained in pining for cooler weather. I had managed to put this out of my mind until my housemate looked up the weather patterns for Boston, but now I am longing for a breezy day with a high of 60F the way a thirsty person suddenly remembers what cool water feels like going down the throat.

birthdaypalooza

Those of you in the know will know that it's not quite my birthday. This did not stop my dinner companion of last night from convincing the staff at the restaurant where we dined to converge upon me, chanting and clapping, until I stood on my chair whilst they sang to me. (The bottle of wine we split may have contributed to this affair, as may have my companion's rapport with the contingent of the staff that comes from Zim.) My dining companion then bought me a celebratory blowjob. (Hm, does that sentence count as inappropriate content?)

Upon walking out of the restaurant, we ran into a couple of the doctors I've been shadowing. They'd been drinking mojitos at the bar, and had heard all the chanting and singing but hadn't realized it was for someone they knew. I assured them the birthday fun had only just begun.

I then wimped out by wanting to go home and sleep off my half-bottle of wine, etc., rather than dancing till 4am. (Yes, Gabs has a dance-till-4am scene, believe it or not.) There's also something about living with: a) a four-year-old; and b) an adult housemate who gets up regularly at 5am, that makes me reluctant to stumble in the door, smelling of god-knows-what, at 3am. The living situation sometimes feels a bit reminiscent of being a teenager, but I do want to be considerate. I did pledge myself to some serious merriment next weekend.

But I am somewhat excused, I think, as I had rolled out of bed early that morning to go on a field trip with the 'teen club' of a local HIV clinic. We drove out to Gabane (a bit west of Gabs), where there's a set of crafts workshops, including a pottery company. The man who runs the workshop led the kids through the process of preparing the clay, using the potter's wheel, and forming figures free-hand, and then turned them loose. The kids (about 20 them, and most on them probably under 15) seemed pretty captivated. The shop will fire the objects the kids made when they're dry, and then the doctors who run the clinic will come fetch them for the kids.

something old, something new

This morning, I did something I don't recall ever doing before: I donned surgical gloves. I was shadowing one of the doctors on the ward, and a few of the kids we saw during rounds needed blood work done. One of the kids was a little girl about two years of age. We took them into the procedure room to draw blood. When we turned to this little girl, I stepped up to the table (joining the doctor, the intern, and the girl's mother) to help hold her in place so blood could be drawn from her femoral vein (presumably). I ended up holding the girl's legs, with my hands just inches below where the needle would go. The doctor hesitated a second, and then said to me, "Put on gloves."

The fact that I encounter a number of HIV+ people (adults and children) in clinical settings on any given day has become almost entirely disconnected from any anxiety I have about my own exposure to the virus. (The luxury of the anthropologist: I just want to watch...) On the other hand, I don't know what I would think about my own potential exposure to the virus if needles and the precautions associated with them ever became routine to me.

That said, the politics of the provision of post-exposure prophylaxis among expat medical professions is fascinating to me.

Today I also purchased a garment the likes of which I haven't owned or worn since childhood: a half-slip. (According to wikipedia, I can claim to have purchased a petticoat. How Victorian!) It's awfully toasty around here, and even when it isn't, skirts are de riguer. I stocked up on long skirts of a cotton/linen blend before coming here, but, despite their dark colour, there are times when I worry about their transparency.

So it goes. I don't think that I may be putting myself in the way of a potentially contaminated needle, but I worry that people can see my legs.

cell phone lovin'

So, I met a guy at 'Son of the Soil'. He seemed nice enough, keeping me company during the meal part of the party and translating what was going on... until he proposed that I go on a walk with him. Once we left the compound, it became clear that the purpose of the walk was so that he could pee somewhere.

I let him take care of that business himself, and entertained myself by wandering away and looking at fascinating distant things in the opposite direction. On the way back into the compound where the party was being held, he tried to hold my hand. I told him I might be American, but I didn't play that way. I left not long afterwards.

I received the following message later that same evening:

Thats my number from XXXX we were together at SON OF THE SOIL, were are u at? i'm missing u so much when i'm i going to c u I LOVE u more than the word?repl

Welcome to the phenomenon of the drunk-dial SMS.

Prof. X, round II

I also just had to record for posterity the fact that, when I ran into Professor X (of "Professor X thinks they're idiots!" fame) in a restaurant last week, he greeted me with an enthusiastic new year's hug and the kiss-on-each-cheek gesture that appears at seemingly at random in the southern African social landscape and that I always seem to expect from and bestow upon those who for whatever reason don't practice it.

Well, then. I guess it just goes to show that you never know.

the total feline institution

So, I had to find something to do with Methodius while I was away from Gaborone. I asked a friend and her family to look after him, which they were happy to do -- except for the week they were in Durban. But this was no problem: When one of Methodius' littermates had been ill, Methodius' mother's owner had gotten in touch with someone who stayed in a village called Gabane (ha-BAH-neh) about a thirty-minute drive from Gabs, and who was somewhat of an authority on cats.

As my departure loomed, I began asking around, and learned that this authority ran a "cattery" in Gabane. (In case you don't know -- as I didn't -- exactly what cattery is, this particular establishment describes itself as "a serene, stress-free environment, in which cats relax and enjoy their stay, and their owners leave with peace of mind.")

I left M. with my friends, but things were so hectic trying to get out of Gabs that I didn't have a chance to call and make a booking until I got to Cape Town. The day after I got there, the friend with whom I was staying and I made a 5:30am trip to the airport to pick up some colleagues. We ran around the airport in the early morning hours, but never found them. (As it turned out, they flew in the following day. But we later rewarded our efforts with a delicious, if sleep-deprived, brunch at the Olympia Café and a stroll on the beach.)

In any case, I took the opportunity of three hours of down-time at the arrivals gate to phone the cattery in Gabane and make a booking for M. At first it seemed that the cattery was full -- horror of horrors! When I indicated that M. was only four months old, however, the situation changed dramatically, and a booking was eventually secured. The only catch was that, as with all the Christmastide bookings, M. had to stay until 3 January. But it didn't quite happen as easily as it sounds… I was making an international call, and ran out of units in the middle of giving some long (and, I might add, rather enthusiastically solicited) explanation of M.'s unusual name. Imagine, if you will, your plucky narrator sprinting across the airport lobby to the phone units machine so she can continue her explanation of the origin myths of obscure Slavic saints.

My friends, familiar with Gabane, had no trouble finding the place and depositing the cat there.

A few days after New Year's, I received the following email from the proprietress of the cattery:

I thought I would drop you a line to tell you that your little cat Methodious had a lovely stay here at my Cattery,
He started off very defensively by puffing himself up 'till he even impressed himself and he spat at all of us for the rest of the first day.
He let himself out early and made friends with Sushi Alexander a very crotchety seven year old lilac point Siamese, Sushi and Methodius looked for each other when quiet time started each day but did their own thing once all the others were up and about.
He played with Felix, Oscar, Max and Squeak all a tad older than he. He loved a cuddle and has a huge purr for his size.
I took his collar off while he was here, it seemed to attract too much attention from the adult cats for some reason. When your friends came to collect him I knew I was forgetting something and this turned out to be his Paddington bear. So sorry but perhaps when you come to Gaborone you can collect it and see the Cattery.
I enjoyed his little visit.
Wishing you a happy New Year 2007.

... all of this for P20/day. Can you imagine? When I went to pick up M's stuffed Paddington, I discovered that my friend Pinky's suspicions regarding the proprietress' proclivity towards mince pie were correct. The proprietress sat our doughty heroine down with a plateful, soliciting in return her reasons for being in Botswana specifically and her biography generally.

It took me three hours to extract myself from the cattery, by which time I had heard more than I really needed to hear about the proprietress' conflicted social relations with neighbouring and labouring Batswana, and Zimbabweans; her thoughts on my research; her thoughts on the history of southern Africa; and the general organisation of, and challenges posed by running, a cattery. By the time I left, I had a book to borrown and an open invitation to stay for a weekend in the 'guest wing' of the proprietress' house (as long as I didn't mind the parrot). I can't say I didn't enjoy myself on some level, though this encounter was somewhat reminiscent of a certain grandmother of my acquaintance, minus the bad temper and plus an entire apparatus dedicated to cats.

quotation

This quotation came off a list compiled by graduate students in my department of “Things I wish I had known the day I came into grad school.” It's my favorite:

Grad students are psychoanalytically schizoid: they praise the virtues of oralism, while engaging in the politics of analism.

How true, how true...

professional sacrilege

I just received a message informing me that Mr S is giving the Monday Seminar in my department this week.

The Monday Seminar, (colloquially known around in the Department as 'the MonSem' and colloquially known around the rest of the anthropology world as 'the snake pit'), is an institution wherein scholars present their work for approximately 50 minutes and are subsequentially bombarded with questions for another 30 minutes. Those who survive troop down to the mezzanine afterwards to apply the balm of wine & cheese to their wounds.

Marshall Sahlins is an eminent member of the faculty. (That's 'academic staff' to the non-Americans in the audience.) In addition to having a wikipedia page dedicated to him -- so much for the obscurity of the ivory tower! -- Sahlins is also the author of a 1976 publication entitled Culture and Practical Reason.

In 1939, T. S. Eliot published a set of poems entitled Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. (You may recognize Eliot's work as the basis for the musical Cats, which, hopefully, won't necessarily dampen your opinion of Eliot.)

In any regard, the two publications are like chocolate and peanut butter in my mind, and I am dying -- dying, I tell you! -- for a synthesis, namely:

Old Possum's Book of Practical Reason

greasing palms

Some you might remember the P10 lunch I mentioned with so much affection back in September. I'm quite fond of this institution -- not only is it tasty, but it means that I'm not preparing a hot meal in 90 F heat, and it's so large that my inclination to prepare a large (read: hot & sweaty) dinner is quite reduced.

Anyway, I've spent the past weeks observing paediatric care in its various forms at the main hospital around here. This has, for the most part, involved following paediatricians around, many of whom are Americans. Some of them work in a clinic setting, while others are working on the in-patient ward.

These good doctors have been clued into the P10 lunch. They know it exists. Sometimes, on a very good day when they have a lunch break -- or feel like they can take a lunch break -- they eat it. But the ladies who serve this fabulous lunch eventually run out of food and/or close up shop. (This is not McDonald's, people - no 24-hour drive-thru here!) If you don't make it to them on time, you're out of luck.

Fortunately (for some), the chips ladies are a bit more flexible with their hours. This means that if it's 2pm and you haven't eaten lunch, you can get a little plastic bag of fried-and-I-mean-fried-like-hell potato pieces, and a coke. (You have have a Fanta instead, if that really lights your fire.) Seasoning the chips is self-service, so you can dump as much salt and vinegar and peri-peri seasonings on them as your little cardiovascular system desires.

After shadowing my MDs faithfully for a few weeks now, I could swear I've had chips for lunch four days out of five. I find this fascinating. Is this how doctors eat? What does this say about the medical profession? Are half the young paediatricians going to drop in the harness in twenty years? Today I couldn't stand it anymore, and I ran off at lunchtime for a meal of madombi and chicken and merogo that didn't make me feel like a ball of grease afterwards.

The other thing that fascinates me is that the doctors -- or even the nurses -- at the hospital don't send out for lunch. In Togo, you could send les petites to fetch you something (e.g., tasty rice and beans with gari [ground dried manioc] sprinked on top) from the market if you couldn't go yourself (or just didn't feel like it). Some local folks will stop what they're doing and leave for lunch -- a phenomenon that drives some American docs to distraction. Meanwhile, the American docs, when they feel they need to work through lunch, simply keeping going and then eat the kind of crap I found unsatisfying as a meal even in junior high.

I know that the private clinic I've attended sends out for its lunches, and they're delivered at lunchtime, and people can either eat while they're working or take a break if they can. Eating while working is really not the way here, but it's a better compromise -- to my mind, at least -- than eating crap.

a serious question

So I walked in the door around 2:30pm this afternoon to find my hosts'/housemates' four-year-old daughter curled up asleep in an oversized chair while the tv showed footage of the Pixies playing 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' live.

Is it wrong that I found that so heartwarming?

first things first

My apologies to you, faithful readers (whoever you are), for my long silence. It's too much at the moment to bring you good people up to speed in one post, so let's cut straight to the important stuff: I was on TV!

A friend of mine sent me an SMS last week, inviting me to a 'son of the soil' party. The message went like this:

i am inviting u 2 son of the soil, where we cook traditional food, play games in tlokweng on the 27th, traditional attire, whole day, bring a friend, camera and urself.

Now, for all I knew when I received this invitation, 'son of the soil' was a well-established genre of party in Botswana. I started telling people I was going to a 'son of the soil' party, hoping someone would respond along the lines of: "Oh, son of the soil! So you'll be doing... etc., etc." No such luck.

As I learned, this was only the Third Annual Son of the Soil. My friend Allison and I arrived around 9:30am, and soon we were hard at work removing the skin and claws from a small mountain of scalded chicken feet. (Removing chicken claws feels a bit like breaking someone's nails by bending them backwards. I think this proved to me the unsuitability of 'professional torturer' as an potential occupation.)The rest of the day was spent drinking, singing, dancing, and playing games (as promised). I peeled some more chicken feet, I tried some chibuku (which was way over the line in terms of yeastiness to my palette), I danced when I could pick up the steps, and watched women jump rope while chanting something about dirty panties. I stayed until about 6pm, when I dragged my tired, sunburned butt home. I know: this lekhoa is a serious party light-weight.

There was more than one video camera about, so I took the rumours of Botswana TV (BTV) with some serious salt. So I was in the middle of a game of Boggle when my friend, Tiro, SMSed me to say that Son of the Soil was on the news. I have no idea how my housemates/hosts found BTV, but they did, and there I was, displaying my flaming red shoulderblades to the nation! There was a spot of footage in which I was among a group dancers, and another bit wherein I stood facing 90 degrees from the camera behind the person being interviewed.

Son of the Soil may only be three years old, but it bought me my fifteen minutes of fame.

And you should really see the pictures.

an earache in the heart of darkness

Today I got some first-hand experience with the private medical sector in Botswana. I had a rather nasty cold a few weeks back. I eventually found an over-the-counter decongestant, which knocked me out like no drugs I remember since demerol. I took three-hour naps in the middle of the day while I was on that decongestant. The naps weren't even really voluntary -- I simply couldn't keep my eyes open -- but I gave in, figuring the sleep would help me recover more quickly.

The cold started with congestion in my nose, and eventually developed into a chest cough. My ears bothered me a bit during all of this, but since they usually bother me when I have a cold, I didn't think much of it. The nasal congestion returned last week, and, once again, I found myself flat out in the middle of the day about an hour after taking the decongestant. (I had even tried a half-dose, but no luck.)

My ears had bothered me again with return of the nasal congestion. Then my nose cleared up, but my left ear kept bothering me. Discomfort would come and go; I would feel the pressure that one feels in one's ears when underwater. Yesterday, discomfort became pain bad enough for me to call a private clinic and make an appointment. (I also tried another half-dose of the decongestant yesterday afternoon, even though I was desperately afraid I would fall asleep in my 5pm appointment. Fortunately, the appointment part of the event was canceled and it turned into an impromptu casual coffee date instead with a friend who didn't mind that I yawned continuously throughout the affair.)

Anyway, off I toddled to a private clinic close to the 'embassy' part of town. The clinic itself is lovely -- I'd be there on 'business' before, but never for treatment. It's very lovely and cool, with clean, white painted walls and shutters. I was weighed and my height was taken (in kilogrammes and centimeters, which was new to me), and, as is standard practice with new patients at this clinic, I was asked to give a urine sample.

The doctor saw me in another lovely, white, cool, windowed room, with a door that opened onto the courtyard around which the clinic is built. He invited me in, and drew the blinds before beginning. A native speaker of French, he inquired what brought me to Botswana, and told me first about a French anthropologist who works in Lascaux who is visiting Gaborone, and told me next about a lecture he plans to attend next week at the HIV Clinicians Society. I knew about the lecture, as it's being given by a friend of mine, and the doctor assured me I would be welcome. We chatted about my surname, about the difference between American and French computer keyboards, and about the name of the procedure performed on my spine some years ago (which he charmingly referred to as the " 'Arrington system").

Upon examining my ear, he explained that the eardrum was inflamed on the outside (rather that the inside, which would have been otitis media and would probably have had me howling rather than just grumpy and distracted). He wrote my a prescription and sent me back to the reception area, shaking my hand and telling me he hoped to see me at the lecture rather than back at the clinic. I paid for my services and the prescriptions all at once, which came to about $65. I then collected my drugs at the in-house pharmacy. Three prescriptions for an earache! A course of ciproflaxin, eardrops, and an anti-inflammatory. I'm not really complaining, as I received lovely care from everyone I encoutered and only paid $65 for treatment and drugs combined.

So, there you go. That was the nicest medical care I've received in a long time. All this in 'the developing world'. And neither the staff nor the clientele were entirely composed of white folks; most of the people I saw around me were Batswana --admittedly, probably Batswana with medical insurance. But still: eat your heart out with your glossy generalizations about 'Africa', New York Times.

SMS decoding guide

What some of you know as "texting" is called "SMS-ing" in Botswana. "SMS" stands for "short message service." What you may not know is the lengths to which people will go to abbreviate their SMS's.

Cell phones are very popular in Botswana. Landlines are difficult and expensive to install, and the installation process, from what I've gathered, is not generally accomplished expediently. While some cell phone companies offered pre-paid contracts, they all seem to offer the more popular pay-as-you-go option, whereby one purchases a phone and a SIM card, and purchases units of airtime as needed. Networks sell units by means of scratch cards, which are available for purchase in a range of denominations, from P10 cards to P100 cards (that come with a P20 bonus).

SMS-ing is popular because it tends to be cheaper than calling, and therefore one uses one's store of minutes more slowly. But, since one is charged by the length of one's message, this urge to conserve units also leads some people to configure their written messages so as to use as few letters as possible. I've become accustomed to the rather predictable "b4" and "2morrow," the "r u there?" and "c u later."

Yesterday, however, I received a message that, at first glance, threw me for a loop. It read:

Ok. No prblm. U wl let me knw wen u r free nd c f m fre.

Admittedly, I was driving when I glanced at this, and it looked like a jumble of letters. Given a few moments to study it, it became clear that the author meant: "OK, no problem. You will let me know when you are free and see if I'm free." The fascinating part is how many letters one can let fall out of any given sentence and still get the point across.

right back atcha

So, I've been sitting in on a Beginning Setswana course at UB. It meets three evenings a week for four weeks. It's a little disorganized, but not horribly so, and the teacher is both very good and very sweet.

Now, I don't really need Beginning Setswana -- at least, I don't need to go through the greetings for the umpteenth time. We haven't really covered material that's new to me, although I must admit the review has been quite helpful. I've found the course's real utility to be in the fact that it seems to encourage me to at least try out my broken Setswana in everyday situations.

This has led me to the following observation. When I manage to say something in Setswana, at least half the time the Setswana-speaker to whom I've spoken repeats back to me exactly what I've said, and then chuckles.

Example:

A: O tswa kae? (Where do you come from?)
B: Ke tswa kwa America. (I come from America)
A: 'Ke tswa kwa America.' Ha, ha, ha...

Sometimes the conversation continues in Setswana. (More often than not my Setswana breaks down mid-conversation; Batswana speak quickly, and it's hard to keep up.) Sometimes this happens more than once in a given exchange. I really don't take it personally -- it's not malicious, or even mocking, laughter. It's more the sort of laugh you give when your five-year-old manages to use a four-syllable word, or when your cat dances on its hind legs: a mixture of appreciation, amusement and dismissal.

That said, I really don't mind, because I get enough positive feedback for even attempting to converse in Setswana, however feebly, that it rather rolls off my back.

adrenaline

So, before I got Methodius, I had noticed that there was a tortoiseshell-looking cat that roamed our yard from time to time, slinking along the walls and napping under my or my landlord's cars. I was a therefore a bit leery about letting M frolic unsupervised in the yard for the first few weeks, though he eventually figured out how to get out through a window I generally leave open at night for a breeze. That said, I would still shut the window and essentially lock him in the house while I was gone, partly because I didn't trust him not to get into trouble, and partly because he didn't know how to get back in through the window. I'd been told by the friend who gave him to me that M doesn't always flee when it's in his interest to do so, and this tortoiseshell-looking cat didn't exactly look like the forgiving type.

M's a smart kitty, and he figured out pretty quickly how to get back through the window via an upturned bucket I had placed beneath it. He tends to stay in at night, I think, since he generally wakes me up. But what do I know? He has generally been coming and going as he pleases these days, though I don't think he has left the compound (for which am grateful). And though I've been keeping my ears peeled when he's out, he hasn't really gotten into trouble...

... until tonight.

M was outside, prowling around, and I heard a noise. It might have been the noise of two cats making angry noises at each other, but I couldn't tell. I went outside, listened, and called for M. Nothing. He doens't always come immediately, and I couldn't know whether he hadn't just come in through the window. I heard more noises, which turned out to be someone showering in the next house. Still no M.

Then I saw a cat that looked bigger than M slinking along the far wall. That started to worry me. Had M been badly hurt by that cat? Was he bleeding somewhere? I couldn't hear any hurt kitty noises, either, but did that mean he had been hurt so badly that he couldn't even cry?

As I was standing there, peering into the darkness and wondering just how bad the situation had got, M staggered into doorway, and shook himself, spattering some liquid on my foot. This put me through the roof: I couldn't see him, and I was afraid it was blood. I brought him inside, and after a thorough check (which he didn't really appreciate), I realized that it was only water. He was pretty soggy for a cat, particularly on his belly, but he wasn't wet through. He seemed annoyed rather than injured, and between my attentions with a tea-towel and his assiduous bathing, the two of us managed to sort him out. The little bundle of fur is asleep on my lap as I type this.

My guess is that he encountered the other cat, and somehow wound up in the mostly empty swimming pool that lies alongside my little cottage. The pool has collected some rainwater lately, and that's the only place I can think that he could have gotten himself so wet. And while I'm greatly relieved that he's no worse for wear, I'm glad at least that I'm a single woman in the field with a kitten rather than a single woman in the field with a child. Yikes.

plants and papers

Last week was extremely busy -- or at least I was physically occupied. Two weeks ago, I learned that a team was coming to Gabs to train health workers, and I asked to sit in on the trainings. This seriously chewed up the week, what with getting up at half six, being at the training most of the day, and then trying to take care of the rest of my life in the evenings. Is it any wonder I caught a cold?

One of the reasons I was up early last week was because on Monday, I got a call from the local garden centre. This garden centre sports a lovely tea garden. Underneath the chalkboard on which the menu is posted is usually a large potted plant bearing the sign, "You could win this plant!" The garden centre holds a drawing each month for the plant in question. Now, I don't exactly remember entering this contest, but I must have done so at some point, because the garden centre was calling to tell me I'd won.

The centre opened at 7:30am, so I had a one hour window in which to pick up the plant and bring it back home before scooting off to the training. I absolutely misheard the name I was given on the phone; the woman to whom I was meant to speak turned out to be Maikutlo, which, I was told, meant "feelings" in Setswana. Maikutlo and I had a brief chat, a good portion of which was in Setswana, and then I heighed for home with my plant.

Botswana, said a friend in response to this story, is the place where people you know actually win things. Between last month's trivia night at the pub (wherein six of us walked away with P500 to share) and the plant, I'd say I'm doing pretty well.

I've been going to introductory Setswana classes at UB. I paid for them, and there's no intermediate class being offered right now, so I figured I would go and try very hard not to annoy everyone else in the room by being that kid in the back of the room who knows all the answers. It's been mostly review for me, though some of the vocabulary is new, but it seems to have the effect of encouraging me to try conversing in Setswana as I go about my daily business. That itself seems worth the $100.

The other news that came to me while I was at last week's training was that I was scheduled to give a paper this Thursday. Yes, this Thursday, the 16th. And I only found out about it because a friend was running an errand in the History Department and happened to look at the schedule. Now, one of my local advisors is in the department, and suggested some weeks ago that I give a paper. I agreed, but told him that I would like to wait until, say, March or April whenI would presumably have some data to work with. So much for waiting... and so much for advance notice.

Saturday I was wrapped up in a brunch and a poetry slam and getting some much needed sleep. Sunday morning, I sat down to revise my masters thesis, and almost immediately my nose started running. By the time I woke up yesterday, I had a full grown cold on my hands.

Now, let me also say that finding a decongestant in Gaborone is no small task. I did eventually find one, but it has also made me a general space cadet. (You may already have noticed that from the narrative style of this post.

I mailed the paper out Sunday night, and I actually just had a good chat with a mentor/colleague about how I might want to shape it towards publication (and to which publication I'd want to submit it). She seems to think it could be publishable, and hers was the feedback toward which I've been looking most seriously. If I stay on this decongestant, though, I may have to record the seminar so I can listen later when my head is less cloudy.

the permit and the kitten

So, again, you've probably noticed that I'm horrible about keeping this thing updated.

It's been a busy, busy week. I've just come home from the last session of the class I've been auditing at UB. Professor X (as I've called him) took me and the two other students to dinner at a hallal Chinese restaurant, which was quite lovely.

The big news this week is that my application for research has been approved. I knew that the committee charged with reviewing my application was meant to meet last Thursday. Friday morning, I got up and emailed my contact at the relevant ministry to confirm that the meeting had happened. She emailed back immediately, asking if I could drop by before 10:30am as there was "one small issue" she wanted to discuss.

It was about 8:30am, and I was still in my pyjamas, drinking tea. I replied that I would be there around 10am, and hurridly put myself together and headed out the door.

When I arrived, my contact was in the middle of typing a letter for me. So I sat there, staring around her office and wondering what on earth this "one small issue" could be, and how exactly "small" it was.

She finally finished, turned to me, and explained that the committee wanted me to switch advisors. This, frankly, was nothing that hadn't been suggested to me at least once before. Other than that, she told me, the committee had been satsified with my revisions.

Quite cheered, I walked outside and phoned the one anthropologist at UB. (How I happened to meet her is another story.) I asked her for her advice, and after concluding that there really was no one suitable in the Sociology Department (UB doesn't have an anthro department), I suggested a historian who has written on the medical history of Botswana. The anthropologist, whose work isn't very closely related to mine, nevertheless volunteered herself as a local authority on socio-cultural anthropology. It wasn't even lunchtime, and I already had two new advisors.

The ministry has three weeks to actually get the permit to me, but at least I know it's in the pipeline. This has been an enormous load off my mind. In addition to being the key to getting access to some people and institutions, it's also the key to unlocking my grant money.

The other big news of the week has been the arrival of Methodius. While I have been writing this, he has been attacking my bedskirt, though the bedskirt is apparently scary enough to send him scurrying for the bathroom. He has now taken on the big, bad plastic bag on the end of my bed. Whatever monsters are under the bed, though, have someone new with whom to contend. He is a sweet, purring, sleepy thing one moment, and a vicious little tiger attacking my toes the next. I've never really had a kitten this young of my own, and I'm still learning what to expect. That said, I'm delighted to have the company.

one-way glass

In the pictures I took of Otse, you may notice that the side of one of the buildings looks like glass.

It's actually one-way glass. While I was down there, a bird flew into it. T., the man whose house this is, went outside, picked it up, and brought it into the house. It was a small bird, somewhere between a parakeet and a cockatiel, maybe.

The bird wasn't dead, but it was certainly dazed. How would you feel if you'd flown into a house, even if you only glanced off it, as this bird had? It had probably looked in front of it, and seen sky and trees and open space.

T. said that this happens from time to time. He said that if he picks the bird up, it often lives, but that if he leaves it, it will die. He said he had once found a hornbill that sat on his shoulder for half an hour before it finally gave itself a little shake and flew off.

So, he just sat on the couch with me, stroking this little bird, and talking softly to it. I stroked it along its head with my finger, and it didn't flinch at all. It alternately closed one eye, and then the other. It was bleeding a bit around the mouth, and we weren't sure it was going to make it. Then it shat on T.'s hand, and we took that as a good sign.

T. kept stroking it for a while, and then eventually put it on the window sill. He said it took birds a while to recover their equilibrium well enough to fly. It sat there for a bit, fluffing up its feathers, and eventually flew off into a nearby tree.

A note: you may have noticed I avoid the use of proper names. This is partly a sensitivity to the privacy of the people with whom I interact, and another part of it is not wanting this blog to come up in the search results should a prospective employer google my name. I'm sure you'll understand (especially those of you on the job market), and respect this in any comments you might leave.

putting the 'social' back in 'social anthropology'

This will strike the graduate students among you as particularly funny, I think.

I was just reflecting -- with a certain amoung of unreflective guilt -- on the amount of socializing I've been doing lately. My life seems peppered with lunches, braais, and coffee dates. Friday night I was out at a pub. Saturday night I was braaing. Wednesday night I hope to be back at that pub for trivia night. What kind of research is this?

Of course, the untold story is the degree to which these 'social' engagements are also fodder for my ethnographic sensibilities, if not my ethnography per se.

The irony of my pre-field social anthropology education is how accustomed I became to an anti-social existence. But really! -- oughtn't I be slaving away in the library?