A brief answer to a common question

Lots of friends and family have asked me what it's like in Botswana, how things are different from life in the US, how we've managed, etc. There's a lot to say in response to those questions and some friends and family have certainly heard an earful. I decided that I would, rather economically, post a reply that I wrote to those questions in an email to my friend, Alice (one of the directors at Decision Resources, the company that employs me), which should give people a short answer to some of those questions. There's a lot more in the details ;)

Botswana is…interesting. I have learned a ton just coming here. Not necessarily all good things, but very good life lessons. For one, I've learned how much I took for granted living in the U.S. (more about this in a future post). It’s been difficult setting up the home here, just with the different pace of getting things done in a developing country. Botswana’s way ahead of the curve in terms of development too, so we have the ability to do things here that one may not have in a developing nation with fewer resources than those we have in Botswana. For example we have DSL. Granted, it took them 6 weeks to get it up and running, and that was a complete bureaucratic nightmare, but hey, at least they have DSL available and it runs almost as fast as it does in the US. The culture here is way different in so many ways that it’s hard to even start to describe it. But we’ve run up against cultural differences in everyday situations. On top of that there are the old world and more specifically, old British-colonized world issues that we never confront in the US. There are the attitudes of British ex-pats, South Africans, fleeing Zimbabweans (both white and black), the influence of Chinese and Indian merchants and businessmen, and the attitudes of the local Batswana toward all these groups and the groups’ attitudes toward the Batswana. While it’s not nearly as crazed and crime-ridden as South Africa, the whole context of race and ethnicity here in Botswana is simply very different from the US, especially culturally mixed urban areas of the US. The word for foreigners here is “Lekoa” which literally means “vomit of the sea”, clearly derived from a description of the arrival of foreigners and colonizers on ships from far away lands. Even though I’m African-American, I’m Lekoa to people here.

The toughest thing to deal with are the double standards the Batswana have. We come across double standards constantly and it has become one of the most frustrating aspects of our experience here. For example, it’s rude to speak loudly, and the locals will get offended if you speak in a medium to loud tone of voice to them, yet they seem to take/give no offense when they speak to each other loudly and see nothing wrong with speaking to you loudly either. They do not like direct requests. For example, you cannot simply ask someone to tell you how much a stamp costs. You must first say “hello”, “how are you?”, “how is business?”, finish the small talk, then say “I need to post a letter and I was wondering if you could tell me how much it costs to buy a stamp”. Usually the answer will be “I don’t know” Then you just have to stand their and wait silently, or say “hmmm…”. Eventually, they will cave in and tell you the answer to your question. It’s frustrating.

My favorite quintessential example of a conversation with a Motswana so far was when Shanthi went to the dry cleaners to pick up a pair of pants they had cleaned for her. She had lost her receipt/slip for it, and the dialog went something like this:

Shanthi: Dumela, mma! (Hello, ma’am)

Clerk: Dumela, mma

Shanthi: Le kae? (how are you? Though literally it means “where are you”)

Clerk: ke teng (I’m fine, though literally it means “I am here/there”)

Shanthi: I am here to pick up a pair of pants that I dropped off to be dry cleaned…

Clerk: hmmmm…

Shanthi: But I have lost the slip for it. I was wondering if I can still pick them up.

Clerk: hmmm.

Shanthi: -silent-

Clerk: You have lost the slip.

Shanthi: ee, mma (yes, ma’am)

Clerk: hmmm…

Shanthi: -silent-

Clerk: Why have you lost the slip?

Shanthi: (a bit baffled)

Clerk: -silent-

Shanthi: I don’t know why I have lost the slip. But I cannot find it…

And so on. The thing about this dialog was that I knew, before the clerk said it, I KNEW that she was going to ask WHY Shanthi had lost the slip. It was like anticipating a punch line and it typifies a conversation with many Batswana. Asking why someone has lost something gets nowhere because it’s a rhetorical question. Why does anybody unintentionally lose something? Who knows why? But it was so typical of the clerk to ask why and patiently wait for Shanthi to say she did not know why before the clerk could proceed with the business of carrying on to find the pants without the missing slip. Shanthi did collect the pants that day, about five minutes later.