Amusing signs - installment 2

On a bike ride with Willie the other day, I came across this tractor trailer. Could this be anything other than a human smuggling operation? Or could there be a truck driver or owner of a trucking business named "Human"?  And could his last name be "Being"? Aliens driving a truck full of humans around Southern Africa?

With my 45th birthday fast approaching, I have been feeling old, and later on the same ride we passed a sign that confirmed my senility. "I thought we were in Africa, not the Northwest," I mumbled to Willie. Not ten minutes later I stopped by Matt and Jessica's house to see their baby girl, Beatrix, and learned from the Matt's mother, who happens to hail from Portland, that Portland has the biggest Apostolic Faith congregation in the world.

Open wide!

Better stop here!

"Caution...Legos ahead"?  I think I've been a parent for too long...

Willie's Birthday Party

Nancy here, with an inaugural blog.  I am joining the 21st century!


For his birthday, other than asking for an out-of-the-question 3-foot long plastic fire truck that we saw at Game City (Botswana version of a Target Store) a few weeks ago, Willie's wish was for a treasure hunt in the back yard.  He envisioned something involving lots of candy.  We humored him.

The birthday crowd

We invited Willie's buddies and their families for lunch, swimming, and treasure hunting.  Preparations for the party was David's full-time job last week.  We kept an evolving list of items to buy, and David made numerous trips to malls and stores to pick up items from the ever-changing list.  The apartment came equipped with minimal kitchen items, so we needed to get food that was easy to prepare.  It took the offerings of about 5 different stores to find all the items on the list, as one market may carry cheese but not cold cuts, for example.  Another tricky item was plates and cups.  In a testament that Botswana is not quite as much of a "throw away" society as the US, David found that paper plates are sold only in packs of six, and priced at over $3 per pack.  This meant several additional trips to other stores to find cheap reusable plastic plates and cups.  By the end of the week, we were ready for the party!


We began the morning by biking and walking to our nearest shopping complex, to pick up a few last items and the birthday cakes.

Mitchell and Elliot en route to Choppies market

The bread slicer at Choppies

Note that this convention took me over 2 weeks in Botswana to discover.  You buy your loaf first, then take it to the slicer by the front door.  It turns out that Batswana, too, can claim "it's the best thing since sliced bread".

Saturday seemed to be our hottest day yet in Botswana.  We had abut 13 children and 14 adults arrive for the party.  Our living room started to feel quite small and warm.  We survived by spreading a couple of blankets in the shade and spending quite a bit of time in the pool.  After lunch, the treasure hunt started.  We had prepared little tin foil packets of candy in the morning, and the boys did a great job hiding these and other treasure items amidst the plants and trees outside.

Find the treasure!

After lunch, the kids scattered for the treasure hunt.  They had a great time, with older kids helping younger kids to find the items.  We discovered that gummy bears did not survive baking in tin foil in the Gaborone sunshine; some of the candy packets were a sticky mess!

Elliot and Mitchell with friend Tichoana ("We shall see" in Shona) from Elliot's Standard 5 class at Thornhill. Tich spent the night after the party and joined us for tennis on Sunday morning. He is a lovely boy and we hope his nice manners rub off on our boys.

Swimming at the party

Treasure hunt begins

Ashley with a candy packet

Yu looking for treasures

Yu finding treasures

Baby Beatrix held by Ami-chan

Baby Beatrix is the reason we are in Botswana.  Her mom Jessica is on week 7 of maternity leave and will return to work before I leave at the end of November.

Birthday cakes catered by a nearby cafe

The "Pula" cake is the colors of the Botswana flag.  Pula means "let it rain!" and is both an expression of celebration and the name for Botswana's currency.

Botswana Move-a-Thon

Elliot and Mitchell before the start

On the morning of October 11th, Elliot and Mitchell participated in the first International John Stanford International School Move-a-Thon, riding their bikes around the perimeter of the Thornhill Primary School campus for four hours. The Move-a-Thon is an annual JSIS fundraiser that helps cover the salaries of the instructional assistants in the language classrooms.  Keeping with the international spirit of the event, family members pledged pula, the Botswana unit of currency, for each 2 kilometers the boys rode (2 km was roughly the equivalent of three laps around the school).  Nikki Loseff, a classmate of Elliot's at JSIS who is spending the year with her family in Ecuador, also participated making the event truly international.

The route

The start at the school gate

Remember to keep left!

Single-track near the Art of Living Daycare

Past the Japanese family's house

Around the back of the school

Single-track past the back gate

Single-track past the termite mound

Mitchell approaching the start

The forecast was for 85 degrees and Elliot and Mitchell were both a bit sick the week before the event, so we figured they would only be able to ride for two to three hours, but the weather was vintage Seattle and perfect for riding; overcast skies, cool, with intermittent light drizzle (the Setswana word for rain is also, not surprisingly, "pula", as rain is valuable around these parts).  They rode from 8:35 AM to 12:35 PM with only a handful of brief stops for water and snacks.

Cranking down the backstretch near the start

Elliot completed 74 laps and Mitchell completed 62.  I measured the route with the GPS application on my iPhone a few more times and it averaged .45 miles (.724 km), which was a slightly longer than my first measurement.  Their totals were:

Elliot - 53.6 km (33.3 miles)

Mitchell - 44.9 km (27.9 miles)

The final tally

With these totals, they both exceeded their distances from last year's Move-a-Thon.  One advantage to the route here was that it was a continuous loop, so they didn't have to slow down to turn around and get their punch cards punched, as they must do every half mile on the Burke Gilman trail in Seattle.  Nor did they have to navigate through the throngs of JSIS kids along the trail.  Most of the time I simply stood at the start near the front gate of the school tallying their laps and chatting and playing soccer with the guards, who thought we were out of our minds.

The end of Elliot's final Move-a-Thon!

Elliot and Mitchell were spent at the end!

Africa through the eyes of a 4 year old

At the restaurant

Willie turned four last Monday. We went out to dinner at a restaurant at one of the fancy malls, RiverWalk, but the gathering was more for a handful of Nancy's colleagues from I-TECH than for Willie's birthday. He was stunned, appearing on the verge of tears, when we all sang Happy Birthday to him as dessert arrived. His official party will be this Saturday and will be attended by the four friends he has made to date.  They include:

Ashley, who is the 6 year old son of Tendai and Monica, a taxi driver we often use and Willie's nanny most mornings. Tendai and Monica are from Zimbabwe, as are many people in Botswana (Zimbabweans supposedly outnumber Batswana - over 2 million Zims to 1.8 million Bats - due to the implosion caused by Mugabe's inept and corrupt leadership and the subsequent exodus of anyone with enough resources to leave). We actually do not see Ashley very often because he is in reception (the first year of primary school, similar to kindergarten). This morning Monica did not show up at the customary time, 8:30 AM, and soon after, I received a call from Nancy explaining that Ashley had been hit by a car and was in the hospital getting x-rays. Although we have not heard the full story, he is apparently OK and does not have any broken bones.

Ashley (hit by a car and only got a Band-aid!)

Yu is the 4 year old son of Seiji and Yuki, the Japanese family that lives behind the school. Yuki graciously spends four to five hours per week tutoring Elliot and Mitchell in Japanese. She refuses to accept payment for her services, claiming that she is not trained as a sensei, though Yuki and Seiji have agreed that the provision of accommodations for some future visit to Seattle is suitable compensation. Hopefully they will redeem this offer. Willie has gotten to know Yu through our visits to their house for the Japanese lessons, or I should say that Willie has gotten to know Yu through Yu's toys (we could only pack a token collection of toys due to the airline baggage weight restrictions), which he zeros in as soon as we step through their door. Yu is very sweet and speaks English reasonably well for a 4 year old. Seiji works for the Japanese embassy. They also have a 7 year old daughter, Ami, who is perpetually excited and wide-eyed. Mitchell ostensibly spends more time horsing around with Ami than improving his Japanese, but at least he is horsing around in Japanese.

Yu and Ami

Tafara is another Zimbabwean friend who is 5 years old and lives at the opposite end of our apartment complex. Finding Tafara has been a blessing for all, as he is also isolated at home all day with his mother, Ruth. Willie and Tafara have a great time romping around the grounds and splashing in the pool ("Tafara" means "we are happy" in Shona, after all). Tafara offers another collection of toys for Willie to consume.

Tafara and Willie

Ashley, Tafara, and Willie

Pitso ("Pete-so") is the 3 year old son of Jenny, an American colleague of Nancy's who is married to a Motswana man.  They live about one mile down the road beyond Choppies. Pitso and Willie have been having weekly playdates. Pitso has yet another collection of toys and two cats that look unlike any cat I have ever seen in the US; their markings are almost giraffe-like. Photo of Pitso's cats pending.

Willie and Pitso

Outside of Choppies

Having these four friends has been great for Willie, since he is not enrolled in any kind of daycare. When he is not with Monica, he is often surveying the city from his child seat on the back of my bike. He typically rides with me to drop Elliot and Mitchell off at school. We play for a while on the beautiful grounds of the school - complete with myriad creosoted wood play structures - and then head home to meet Monica, often trying new and longer routes. The more I bike through Gaborone, the better sense I get of its prevailing traffic paradigm. My initial impression was that biking around the city would be fairly risky because bike facilities (e.g. bike lanes, paths, or signed routes) are virtually nonexistent, few people bike, and drivers are ignorant and unconcerned about bicycles. However, over time I have found that most drivers in Gabs are actually quite competent, maintaining their lane position and often courteously yielding to us at intersections.  Having two other kids on bikes in formation and a small child on the back probably helps, but I am also generally treated well when I am on my own. There are certainly the handful of crackpots that blast through stop signs and demonstrate general disregard for any human life beyond their own, but these outliers exist in Seattle as well. Ironically, one of the greatest dangers is that many drivers are so amused and agape at Willie perched behind me in his little seat that they don't watch where they are going!  Most have never seen such a set up. Passengers in passing vehicles will often point and wave while laughing with joy at the sight of us, as if we are an circus act that inadvertently rode out of the bigtop. Willie also shouts out "Dumela Rra/Mma!" (Hello sir/maam) as we pedal past pedestrians, which always elicits grins.

Our wheels!

Yesterday we went on a fantastic four mile ride down to one of the malls to get a few items for his birthday party. There is a store called Woolworth's (no relation, I think) that sells an odd melange of chic clothes, household items, and overpriced gourmet groceries. We bumped into Yu and Yuki san, who offered to take my giant backpack full of groceries and Willie back to the apartment so that I (and the rims of my bike) would not collapse in the 90 degree heat on the return trip. Gaborone has a population of just over 200,000 people - rather small for a major capital city - and with a relatively small group of expatriates who frequent common destinations, we always seem to bump into somebody we know.

When priming Willie before we left Seattle, I was explaining to him that many things would be different in Africa. For example, I told him that it would be much hotter than it was in Seattle and that most people would have black skin. He looked at me earnestly and asked, "Will our skin turn black?"  "No," I replied, "although it may darken slightly from the strong sun." Then, last week he told Monica that she should come to Seattle with him so that her skin could turn white! I am not sure how much of this experience he will remember in a few years, but it has been awesome witnessing him taking it all in and interacting with people.  As a third child, he relishes all the attention he can get...

Willie likes to chew on his shirt (nice stainless steel Botts dots!)

Safari boy at the rhino sanctuary

Sidney shows Willie a tortoise at the rhino sanctuary

The trip back from the rhino sanctuary (click photo to see drool on chin)

Defying gravity at the playground (not Wallingford!)

Motswana boy

Amusing signs

Botswana was a British protectorate up until 1966, so the main languages are English and Setswana, the native language.  Most signs are written in English, but the application of English can be amusing due to translation or sometimes due simply to the lack of maintenance.

Daycare center near Elliot and Mitchell's school

 On the main mall in downtown Gabs

Middlestar neighborhood center near our house.  Note the dangling "S" in "Progress"

This is one of my favorite signs above the deli in one of the upscale supermarkets, SuperSpar.  Who would have thought that food is an important part of any balanced diet?