scenes from a wedding in Kachikau

thoughts from the sky

A few mornings ago I visited the kgosi (the chief) in his office and mentioned that I would be going home to the States for Christmas, and that I was excited to see my family and friends but not prepared for the winter weather! He gave a little grin and recounted for me his first arrival in the UK, years back, for his military training. He was with a colleague and they had landed in Heathrow in the dead of winter, from Botswana. “You know those buses, he said, the ones that take you from the airplane to the airport central terminal?” And indeed, I do know those buses. “Well”, he continues, “those buses, they were heated, and my colleague is standing next to me shivering in his coat, and they open the back of the bus, for where the luggage gets stowed, and he—well he jumped right in!! And everyone looked at him, as if to say, what is this African doing jumping into the luggage rack, but he was so cold he couldn’t wait to get into the heated bus!” The kgosi broke out into laughter at this memory and I suddenly had a flash of what it must have been like to arrive in wintery London in the 1970’s with only a thin wool coat as protection, after spending ones whole life in sun-drenched, hot, hot Botswana.

Then on the plane ride home today, I found myself squished into the middle seat between two rather large American gentlemen. About twelve hours into the flight—the point at which I basically want to curl up into a ball and cry I am so tired and uncomfortable—the one man next to me starts to ask me about my research, which I am really in no state to talk about, and I basically tell him so. Oh, he says, well all I know about Botswana is what I’ve seen in the movie, “The Gods Must be Crazy”—is it really like that? I stared blankly for a couple seconds, thinking back to the kgosi’s comical story of his first chilly landing in the world’s largest airport hub, and trying to reconcile that story with this man, an educated American adult, who seriously is wondering if people in Botswana might think a Coke bottle falling out of the sky came from God. I think I mumbled something about there being TV and candy bars in the village where I lived, and escaped into the bathroom.

Driving into Kasane last week with Tori, my Peace Corps friend stationed in Kachikau, we got to talking about how it would be for her to go back to the States after having been here for two years, and what the adjustment process would be like. I thought back to my return home after being in Botswana for a year after college, and gave her some of my thoughts. I told her to try not to be too angry or bitter towards people who make seemingly inane comments like, “oh, Botswana, now is that in Africa or South America?”, or, “was there a lot of war and fighting in the area of Botswana you were in?” Those comments and questions are going to drive you crazy, but you have to remember that not everyone has just returned from two years living in a rural Batswana village. And Tori, who seems to have a lot more figured out than I did after just a few months in Botswana, added that while your experiences abroad may give you added perspective in certain dimensions of understanding the world, there is still a heck of a lot you are clueless about. Now I wonder, am I able to even take my own advice? I find it so hard not to just write people off like my airplane seat neighbor. And how do you even begin to explain your experiences of life in Botswana so someone who asks such a silly question, without sounding (or feeling) condescending or preachy? Then again, I feel that it might be irresponsible not to at least give it a try. What’s the point of doing all this research and writing a dissertation that could serve as a doorstop if I can’t at least use my field experiences to talk to people on an everyday level about what I’ve learned and hopefully, maybe, correct—or at least adjust according to my still very limited understanding—Americans’ and others’ perceptions of the country in which I currently live and work?

Addendum: After actually writing this blog on the airplane, at the end of the flight my chatty neighbor revealed that he is actually a doctor who works part of the year in Angola, both at a town clinic and village clinic out in the bush. Huh. Go figure.