Ever shower with a bucket?

I believe I have officially become accustomed to African life.  There are only two or three things that I feel like I need to blog about.  The first is about my new family here in Botswana.  The Mosetses (David, Charity, Obakeng, One, and Wabotlhe) have been going out of their way since I stepped foot on African soil to make me comfortable.  It is not until Saturday, that I have felt so comfortable and welcomed in this country.  I was asked to go to their house and make a traditional Setswana meal with Ms. Motsetse.  When I went on Saturday, we immediately began boiling some Botswanan meat.  She told me we were going to make nama which is meat in Setswana and bogobe which is almost like porridge.  The trick to making traditional nama in Botswana is pounding the meat.  Little did I know that when they say pounding, they literally mean pounding.  I was given a bowl full of slabs of meat and a wooden spoon.  It took me about 45 minutes to get the meat to break down.  It almost looked like pulled pork.  The cooking juices are then poured back into the meat and it is absolutely delicious.  As for the porridge, I will spare everyone the details on how they make it.  Just know it involves old porridge which they allow to sit in the sun for a few days and go sour.  Anyway, in the long run, the meal turned out delicious.  It also included some fried meat and some type of soup made from beef stock, potatoes, and onions. 

The reason why I felt so comfortable during that time was because some family friends came into the house and when I was being introduced, I was introduced as their daughter.  It is an honor here to be accepted into a family and I believe I have been.  I was also told that I am a true Motswana because I know how to pound meat. Continuing on with being part of the family, both parents and the oldest son who is 14 helped me do my Setswana homework.  It truly felt like I was at home in this house.  Probably one of my favorite days yet.

Moving on to Sunday, we decided to hike back up Kgale Hill again.  This time is was just me, Sean, Ronnie, and Grady.  Needless to say we made it up MUUUCH faster than last time.  In fact it took us about a third of the time.  The catch was that it was so humid that I don't think I have ever worked up that much of a sweat in 20 minutes in my life.  Once we got to the top though it was amazing because we just sat on the top of the hill/mountain for about 45 minutes.  I had a lot of time to think and clear my head which I think helped me get over some stresses from last week a lot.  We eventually headed down and found some more baboons.  This time however, they were way more interesting.  There was a family with somewhere around 10 babies playing.  We stood and watched them run around with each and climb trees until the mother started to grunt at us.  She was pretty big, I wasn't trying to play with her.  After we made a quick pit stop to get some well deserved milkshakes and french fries, we headed home. 

This is the second big thing that I wanted to write about.  Last night, Sunday, I had the biggest reality check of my life.  I went to turn the shower on and there was no water coming out.  I had heard of this happening before but thought it was only in the undergraduate dorms. We are staying in graduate housing.  When I asked my roommate what we do about it, she said we just wait.  So, despite being disgustingly sweaty from hiking, I sat down to attempt to do some work.  When I got hungry, I thought about making dinner and realized my options for cooking were severely limited considering the fact that I had absolutely no running water.  I got around that issue fine by making some eggs but around 8pm (4 hours had passed at that point), I began to start getting irritated.  I called the family but there was no answer so I asked a friend if I could shower at her flat.  I eventually got there around 9 to find buckets everywhere.  We thought that just meant the showers were not working (which is normal) but we realized there was only ONE faucet in the entire building which worked.  I quickly filled up two water bottles then went to claim a shower.  When I came back with my bucket to fill up, there was a line of three girls ahead of me.  The first two went through with no problem but the girl in front of me was in the middle of filling up her bucket when the water pressure went from the already measly half pressure to slightly above a trickle.  It came to be my turn so I put my bucket in the sink to wait.  About 30 minutes in, my bucket was half full when the water cut out completely.  I felt terrible for the people behind me but there was nothing anyone could do.  I took my half a bucket full of water into the shower to attempt the impossible.  I am so proud to say, however, that I was able to even wash my hair successfully!!!  I never thought I could do it.  At first I was so excited that I had done that and it felt SO good to be clean again but then I started thinking.

The part that bothered me the most about all this is that this is the way people live every day.  I have been so privileged my whole life to be able to turn the faucet on and have clean water.  Yesterday taught me just how precious water really is in life.  I was so thirsty and could think about nothing else.  I have no idea how people in Africa or anywhere are able to live daily lives like that.  My friend was saying that it is normal on this continent to simply run out of water or electricity.  They have adapted to these issues but it makes me angry knowing if I were to go home right now, people are wasting water left and right.  People are filling tubs to take baths, people are allowing the water to run while they brush their teeth or just dump water bottles out to fill them up with alcohol in the case of many college students.  I know that we should be able to enjoy what we have access to but I cannot help to think about all of the people who just won't have a drop of water to drink today.  I have heard so many talks and taken many classes that talk about how precious our resources are but yesterday and into today (18 hours later while there is still no water to be found) have taught me more than I could ever learn in a classroom.  We are lucky right now that it is raining so we can fill buckets and pots from the rain water and boil it to have some form of water but that too will stop eventually.  Hopefully, the situation is resolved soon enough and life goes back to normal but I hope to whatever power anyone believes in, that maybe one day these situations can be changed for good.  It is my hopes that Americans can be the start to that change seeing as we have so much power to influence people and places, especially those of the developing world.  So, anyone who reads this, please...please think about the water you use today and try your best to conserve as much as possible.  It honestly will make a difference.