Mme Chiliwa has a more fancy shower than mine in the United States. The water was not yet warm in the main house, so I had the luxury of using the shower in Mme’s house next door. Did I mention this is also a steamer? I stood in the shower and listened to a Botswana radio station from the request of Mme, having a difficult time comprehending I was actually in Botswana. Mme Chiliwa always insists that I rise at least an hour earlier than necessary. I usually roll out of bed, change my clothes, brush my teeth, and run out the door in 20 minutes, let me remind you of the “dirty child” name I surely deserve.
Setswana training this morning was lovely. My small group of five volunteers led by Greene gathered at Vanessa’s house. We sat in a gazebo among a beautiful cactus garden looking out over the neighboring field and the College of Education in the distance. We learned how to pronounce vowels and consonants which was a nice change from the dozens of survival phrases thrown at us over the weekend. It was a relief to start from scratch and build upon a more structured foundation.
Training was unorganized and frustrating at times. Once at the college I entered the banking session. Banks and finance stress me out immensely. Banking documents require too much information and bank representatives need to utilize another method of explaining if I’m signing my authorization that the information is correct or if I am signing over my life. I left the session ready to pull my hair out only to find more lost faces and confusion among my peers. I spent most of the day laying in the grass, reading, going for a walk with Malcolm, and twiddling my thumbs.
I’ve started a routine with Mme Chiliwa that I very much enjoy. Once home from school, I put my stuff down and enter the kitchen to wash my lunchbox and help with dinner. I enjoy this time I have with Mme and I’m going to be on Master Chef Botswana by the end of my two months at the Chiliwa’s.
After I helped make a variation to the chakalaka we had the night before, I accompanied Mme outside to make a fire. Don’t get me wrong, if I was stranded on a desert island with nothing but matches, I could probably get a fire going; but Mme showed me the best way to get a fire started. While doing so I expanded my Setswana vocabulary by learning animal names and the words for firewood and fire. Mme exclaimed that my ntate, dad, brought home two chickens from the cattle post last night and she wanted to kill one. She continued to hint that she wanted to kill a chicken. As she was sharpening a knife in the kitchen explaining that she prefers to saw the head off instead of cut it quickly with an ax, I finally realized Mme was actually going to kill one of the chickens. My curious, intrigued self asked to watch, almost immediately regretting the request. It is one thing to eat chicken, but another to watch the life slowly drain from its flailing body. She wrapped the wings around one another, held the head and started to saw. Blood dripped everywhere and the chicken started to squirm. It’s head was half off and it was still moving around, trying to escape. Mme repositioned her hands and cut the head clean off with one more quick slice, throwing the pieces on the ground. I have a new unsettling understanding of the expression, “Running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
Needless to say, I was horrified. The head was laying on the ground and the body of the chicken was still trying to run around and escape Mme’s firm grip. I was slightly reassured of Mme’s compassion when she silently whispered, “sorry” to the dying chicken. Once the body was lifeless, Mme brought the body over to the fire where I was sitting. She pulled out the largest feathers on the wings explaining that these were the most difficult. Next you dunked the chicken in the boiling water, just briefly, to make it easier to pull out the feathers. Still in a haze, I helped Mme pull out the feathers and clean the bird.
We continued to sit by the fire and Mme Chiliwa told me I needed to go home and show my American mom how to clean a chicken. I was proud of my new skill; however, there is no way I’m going to saw the head off a chicken in the near future. I’ll clean it, but I will certainly make Sam do the beheading. “This is how we do it in Africa. If we run out of electricity, this is our electricity,” pointing to the fire. I have been consistently amazed with the resourcefulness of Batswana. I explained how when the electricity or water goes out in the United States, the world stops and we sit around helpless. I think Americans have a great deal to learn from Batswana and how to live more simplistically.
I helped Mme fold the laundry before continuing my Setswana lessons during dinner around the television. I learned the words corresponding to family members and how to refer to Sam as my fiancee. I was initially told there was no word for fiancee; however, a great discussion preceded in Setswana before providing me with a word. I looked from Princess to Onica to Mme to Ntate as they debated, smiled, and laughed. Finally they declared “moratiwa” meaning “my love.” I’m still unsure if this is a perfectly parallel definition; however, I couldn’t think of way to describe Sam better than “my love.”
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