Sept 10th

Sept 10th


Ahh it’s been a long day…. It started off at 3am, when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. My internal clock hasn’t caught up with the rest of me, but at least I was able to talk to people in the US. Anyway I caught a cat nap for few minutes before I finally got up to get ready for work. My roommate and I try to arrive at PMH by 7:30am so that we can get a parking space. Otherwise you have to park on the street, which is less secure. Unfortunately I had to turn right back around and return home because I forgot my laptop “sigh”. Of course on the way I got totally lost and went the wrong direction on the combi, but at least I’ve discovered the that the Tlokweng 4, which takes me to and from home, goes over to the main mall and to the area where immigration and the British embassy is. Good to know. Anyway I arrived back at BHP and then went directly to the NNU. I haven’t started my data collection yet, hopefully, I will start by the end of the week. Currently, I’ve been going to the NNU to figure out what data sources are available. This helped with writing my data collection form, which I just finished and sent off to my mentor to have him check. Hopefully he won’t have too many changes, so that I can get started. I definitely want to keep busy here. If I have too much time on my hands I think I will start to miss home a lot. For the first time since I got here I started to miss home. The ease of getting around, my family and friends, TJ’s. I actually made rice pudding today just to have a little familiarity, and it came out really well. Also its’ great that the gym is nearby. I decided to try a workout step class today after work. I’d done one before at fitcorp, and figured it would be easy to adapt to this one. However that wasn’t the case. I essentially was falling all over the place as I tried to keep up, and I looked liked I had absolutely no rhythm. There was this shimmy step, which almost everybody else in the room glided through with ease, while I twitched about like a disjointed robot. I’m definitely going back next week!

sept 7th

Mokolodi Game Reserve

Today I went with my roommate and some other friends on a day safari at mokolodi. Its about 40 mins from where I live. Though we didn't get to see any giraffes we did see impalas, kudos, and elephants. Check out the pictures below. It was a really fun day, however I found myself falling asleep during the game tour, guess I'm still a little jet lag. Cheers B

Sept 6th

Car! 

Well I finally gave in and have decided to buy a car. I've been debating with myself as to the merits of such a purchase. 1) it would be convenient for getting around/going to buy groceries/going to clinic locations outside of the city. However I had to weight these positives against 1) I don't really like to drive/my roommate has a car and for the most part I can and probably will ride with her to work/what if I get in to an accident/it gets stolen/etc. However what clinched my decision, were a few things. First would be my first time on a combi. Combi's are little minivans that essentially work at the bus system here is Gabs. There actually quite cheap (50 cents per trip), and are relatively fast and frequent in the mornings and early afternoon. Yesterday I rode in to work with my roommate and then decided to ride a combi home for the experience. Well catching Tlokweng #4 wasn't that difficult. However I ended up sitting next to this guy who reeked of alcohol and switched from staring at my chest to intermittently looking at me while he asked me where I lived, what I did, did I want to spend time with him etc. It was very uncomfortable. I initially replied politely but then kind of turned away with the hope that I wouldn't continue to be his main focus. No such luck though. We were approaching my stop at which point he offed to pay for my combi ticket for me and again asked if we could hang out. I quickly declined and jumped off.  Though that probably was a one time experience and things like that definitely happen in the US, it was nonetheless really annoying. Plus being in Bots where I don't really know where I'm going most of the time definitely makes me feel more vulnerable. My other reason stems from a trip I took to Game city with my roommate. Game City is a pretty big mall that's essentially like most malls in the US, they even have a store called Game that reminds me a lot of Walmart, you can find everything there. However it is not at all near where we live. It was about a 30-45 min drive there, but it was well worth it. I was able to buy my down comforter (it definitely gets cold at night. My first night here I slept fully clothed under the minimal sheet and blanket my room came with)and other supplies there. There really isn't anything near where we live except the gym which is right next door. Other than that nothing is walking distance by Botswana terms= a few hundred feet. I say this because in Boston I would walk all over the place, from Coolidge Corner to Chinatown and back. Even over to Cambridge. I really didn't worry at all about being mugged. However that's definitely not the case here. One cannot traipse all over the place. Essentially this is car country and you drive or you take a combi from place to place. This idea was best illustrated by our maid (I know I have a maid..strange.... but she came with the apartment). She states that she never walks now after experiencing multiple muggings. People coming up to her and placing a knife in her side and asking for money. Also she told us of a prior student (she cleans all the BHP houses) who was walking and found herself between two motswana (singular for batswanan) who initially seemed nice and engaging, but who then politely asked her to give them her cellphone and her camera which she had slung over her shoulder or the would stab her with a knife. She handed over the items right away and quickly walked away. I heard that she was most flabbergasted by how politely they asked her for her things. Furthermore as my roommate is apt to say a car = freedom. Though I have survived quite nicely without one in Boston, I think I may find having one here as a real benefit So today my roommate had to go and get a cd player placed in her car, so I went with and took a look. I ended up finding a pretty clean looking Toyota 1997. I had my uncle (not actual uncle but family friend) take a look at it and we were able to reach a reasonable price per him. I actually thing cars are much cheaper in South Africa, however getting the car here would be a real pain! Otherwise today has been pretty uneventful I'm just arranging the logbook that I will use for my study. Tomorrow should be more fun though. I'm going with my roommate two people in her lab and another post-grad that I met on my South African airways flight to look at cheetahs and go on a day safari! Cheers B

Sept 5th

So before another day goes by I thought I’d write an update of my adventures so far. I arrived yesterday and have essentially been running around trying to get acquainted with the area, scheduling meetings with my mentor and the nurses in the NNU, figuring out the visa procedures, and lamenting the loss of the Trader Joes mostly cooked foods. It’s definitely been a full 2 days. At least getting here wasn’t too terrible. I actually slept quite well on the plane thanks to my therapeutic vibrating neck brace! Also I had a 12-hour layover in London, which was quite nice considering I got to hang out with my cousins (see pics above). They are some of the many relations that I have heard a lot about from my mom but had never met (well except for Ade and Lara). Anyway after that I was on a 10hr flight to Jo’burg, and then on to Gabs. I wish I had charged my camera before getting on the flight it would have been great to take some pictures of the landing. Botswana is a very flat country, but really beautiful from the air. The airport was unbelievable small but was beautifully landscaped. BHP sent a driver to pick me and he took me to PMH where I met my new roommate who took me back to our apartment. It is really nice!!! Thank goodness. Best of all we have an Internet connection, which is actually kind of rare in most homes in Bots. It’s really fast too, and seems better than what is at work. Anyway I’ve included pics of my room, though its nothing special. The roommate that picked me up is a Fogarty/NIH fellow, and she’s doing research in Dr Max Essex’s lab (he’s at Harvard school of public health). The other roommate is a Clinton Foundation fellow, though he’s not here and is letting his room to two other Clinton fellows. So it’s a full house. On Monday I get to tour the NNU and the maternity wards, and I’ll meet with my hospital-based mentor to discuss my project, then it will be work work work! However this weekend I’m going to Mokolodi Game reserve to pet cheetahs! Cheers B