Day 5

June 29
Gaborone! Today, we got out of Mokolodi, if only for a few hours, and we went on a day trip to Gaborone! This trip to Gabs (as the locals call it) had a purpose. Before entering the city, we split into three groups. Each group was assigned a mall, as there are several malls spread throughout the city. We took a combi, which is the main form of public transportation in Botswana, to Gaborone. Our mission was to buy all of our necessities at our designated mall, and to exchange our money, before finding our way on the combi system to Main Mall, the largest mall in Gaborone.

A Combi

Everyone was very excited getting into the combi. We were told all of these amazing things about the malls in Gabs. Carson, who came to Botswana in 2010, said that the malls reminded him of malls in America. Of course, we were excited to see these malls for ourselves. The first mall we stopped at, Gamecity, was amazing. It didn't look like an American mall; it was much more beautiful. All of the roads were paved, the building itself was huge, and the stores, while not American, would certainly fit in any American mall. The first group excitedly jumped out of the combi, and the rest of us just became even more excited. The second group got out at the Riverwalk mall, which was even more beautiful than Gamecity, with a palm tree-lined parking lot and a tiled walkway.
My group, the last group, was practically jumping around the combi, ready to see what our mall, the BBS mall, would be like. We pulled up, got out of the combi, turned around and saw........... nothing. The BBS mall was probably the saddest mall I've ever seen. There were probably two buildings in the entire mall, and I doubt that either building had been cleaned since Botswana's independence in 1966. We basically stopped in our tracks, looked around, saw and assessed the situation, then turned around and began searching for the combi to Main Mall. We found the correct combi easily, as the driver walked right up to us and asked us if we were going to Main Mall. The ride was about 10 minutes, and we were dropped off only a short distance away from the center of Main Mall.
Once we made it to Main Mall, things got much better. Main Mall was very different from the other malls we had seen, in that there were booths set up in the street, and these booths sold everything, from touristy items to music CDs. In addition to the booths, Main Mall had stores (unlike the BBS mall), so we were able to exchange money and get more necessities like toothpaste and nail clippers. We also had to approach the different vendors on the street and ask them to translate different phrases for us from English to Setswana. We were taken aback by how eager everyone was to help us. It really made us feel welcome.

Some of us with a vendor

Today was our last day before the homestay. I'm very nervous to meet my family. I hope all goes well tomorrow!