Culture Shock and Smelly Socks

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We're actually here!

But to back up to two days ago, when we left.....

Feddy and I found many ways to make airports and travel more fun than the average person. We have been playing a game called "Talk to random people everywhere you go, and make up your story." It is fun creating an identity for yourself. So far, among others, Gertrude and Lindsay are on their way to return a lion cub to his home, and we have been two nameless girls (because this guy never inquired about our names), who quit our jobs, sold all our stuff, gave away all our money and are on our way to travel the world solely on the kindness and generosity of others (and I really like this idea...maybe my next adventure...I have enough faith in humanity to think this method would work). We have told people we are best friends whose mothers were college roommates, but we have never lived in the same city or spent more than 2 days together. My favourite, not yet used, is that we are on our way here to meet Feddy's birth parents. Lindz has a harder time with this game than me and lets me do the talking, mostly, and for those of you who know me, this suits me just fine. I think she feels guilty over being dishonest, while I am seeing it as a method to fine tune my storytelling skills.

The flights went really well. We got to fly over the UK at night (Dublin looked really cool from above!), The Swiss Alps, the Sahara... we flew over a lot more than just that, I imagine, but those are the things we were able to see well.

The only almost problem we ran into was at the airport in Amsterdam. We had a two hour wait, so we went and parked at our next gate. There was no one there. We decided to lay out and have a nap on the floor. IN any case, we woke up after what seemd like five minutes to hundreds of people rushing past us to the gate...out flight was boarding! We were so confused, which is probably a good thing because I am not sure what kind of looks we were getting for having fallen asleep spooning on an airport floor...but somehow I feel that Amsterdam is THE place for public spooning...it is a very welcoming country.

So, getting here was no problem, but actually being here has been a bit of an emotional ride. Cutlure shock: it happens. That's why there is a name for it. But neither of us knew what we were getting into. We are both fairly well informed and tried to rid ourselves of Western assumptions of Africa- the mud-hut, flies on babies picture so many of us have. We knew, too , that coming to Johannesburg first would be easy, because it is a well-developed, westernized city that would probably be not unlike Canada. I thought the culture shock wouldn't hit until Botswana (and even now I am beginning to wonder....)

Here were our frist impressions: Overpasses, McDonalds, fancy cars...it took less than a minute for Lindsay to say "This is just like a hotter Toronto." But worse: A SUBURB of Toronto. We are actually in a hotter Mississauga. There are no hostels in downtown JoBurg for safety reasons, so we are actually in some gated compound in suburbia. Don't get me wrong...it's really nice here...but it is not at all what the picture in our head looked like. Patrick, the guy who owns the hostel, stopped by a bar on the way back from the airport to pick up another guest, and it could have been any bar at home. We were so confused..it was reverse culture shock: we were shocked by how different it wasn't. I remember my first conversation with Feddy once were were safely in our room went something like "Where the hell are we and how quickly can we get outta here?" Now we are equally scared that Gaborone will be super Westernized too, and thinking of English colonization having such a far reach like that makes me sick. Complete domination of this continent?...I hope not.

Today was good, though. We wandered around and managed to find "Downtown". We succeeded in:
1. Withdrawing money from an ATM (after a false start at a bank where miscummunication led our teller to think we were trying to open an account with no address or proof of ID)
2. Get groceries (from a store patrolled by a man with an automatic gun...I guess it is not completely like home)
3. Find out that our accomodations for our 5 weeks teaching in Gaborone are actually non-existant.

(In regards to #3...expect a new post soon. It is a long story, and doesn't yet have a happy ending, or any ending, so I am waiting to tell it.)

(Don't worry, those of you who are worry prone (I am looking at you, Kris)...what sort of adventure would this be if it went totally smoothly?)


with love and confusion,
k and l

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