Beef, Morogo and Phaleche!

Quick edit: 

I have learned a lot about food in the past few weeks. 

1. Batswana do know how to cook beef they just prefer it tough. 

2. The reason there is a bone in every piece of meat you get is because they like the connective tissue. It's like a treat. 

3. There is still an amazing amount of culture that surrounds the preparation of big meals (weddings, funerals, when the president decides at the last moment to come visit your district). I helped women cook 300 dipap this past weekend and it was so much fun! The women cook the bread and all the sides, the men cook the meat. This is what I have learned. 

I am literally learning new things every day here. Things I thought I knew turn out to be assumptions I made. I am 7.5 months in and still a baby when it comes to this culture. 

So here it is, the number one most requested post… Food.

The reason I have been avoiding this subject is not that I don't want to write about it, it's more because I don't know how to write about it. So Botswana is one of the most interesting places I have been in terms of food. It's not because there is this wonderful food culture with vibrant colors and flavors and a wonderful street food culture. No, it's not that. It's the exact opposite of that. There is no food culture here. I can tell you what people eat for every meal, every day, all year. It does't really change. The only thing that mildly differs is the kind of starch that goes with the meat and the spices they use (which don't vary that much to be honest). The food isn;t bad at all and in fact, I actually enjoy it. It's just that there isn't much variation of culture surrounding food. That being said, 

Typical Setswana meal:

• Extra large portion of starch- this can be a variety of different things from a porridge made of sorghum (with either sour milk or regular milk), phaleche (corn meal and water that is cooked until it's basically rubber. It's almost like grits... except not at all), or on very rare occasions, rice.
• Small portion of meat- Chicken or beef. The chicken is always butchered slightly oddly so you never know where a bone is going to pop out. In general the chicken is normally good and cooked well. The beef is either lovely dish called seswa (again the butchered spelling) which is dried, pounded beef that has been rehydrated. It's absolutely delicious when cooked well and salty, dry, and sometimes deadly (bones, bone fragments, large pieces of cartilage to choke on) when cooked badly. The other way they cook beef is to overcook it until it's so chewy you can't bite through it and you are left with this wad of partially chewed beef that if you swallow may get lodged in your throat (in fact as I write this I think I can feel a lump of undigested mystery cut beef in my throat from lunch). 
• Even smaller portion of green veg- Spinach or rape (yes this is a vegetable, kind of resembles and tastes like kale) that was either cooked to a fine mush or is dried into what I consider horse feed and rehydrated. It's often combined with cooked onions and enough salt to make a salt lick.

Other staples:

• Coleslaw (normal coleslaw with 'tangy' mayonnaise)
• Beetroot 
• Pasta salad 
• Potato salad (more 'tangy' mayonnaise)
• Seasoned steak fries 
• Samp (think mostly whole dried, cracked corn kernals) and beans (my favorite setswana food by far)
• Russians (weird, salty sausage hotdog things)
• Phologne (pulverized meat product… Basically bologna… almost. It's an acquired taste that I hope to never, ever acquire)

All of this is followed by a toothpick because of the beef that will inevitably get caught in your teeth. 

So when I come home and you all want me to make you a traditional Swana meal just be prepared for two servings of phaleche that had to be cooked until burnt on the bottom, mystery cut beef that has been cooked until you can't cut through it without a chainsaw, and a side of salty vegetables. If I can find samp I will cook it and you will love it. 

Now the thing is Botswana has some of the best beef in the world, but two variables contribute to how horrible it ends up being rubber and bones. 

1. The cuts are horrible. Cutting against the grain is a non-concept. Actually come to think about it I'm not sure how they cut their beef. I feel like whenever I eat meat there is a mystery bone in it. I don't know where these bones are coming from or, for that matter where on the cow the beef is coming from. 

2. Most people don't know how to cook it. I'm pretty sure it's just overcooked most of the time. I have never had beef this tough in my life. I always feel like a strange animal eating beef here. You will inevitably have to use your hands to help your teeth tear at the rubbery piece of "meat". 

I do not actually eat Swana food every day or even every week but I do really enjoy it whenever I eat it. Strangely it tastes like home. I just have to learn not to eat the beef… but it's so salty and nice. 

Oh I forgot to mention fat cakes and dipapata. Fat cakes are basically slightly sweet fried dough balls and are the best things ever. Dipap (as we PCVs fondly refer to them) are more or less like english muffins except fresh and warm and delicious…er. 

FOOOOD. I would post a song here but I'm being lazy and I won't, sorry. Not that sorry. 

Time is the longest distance between two places.

Hey everyone!
So I know it's been a while. Things have been busy this past month. I was lucky enough to start the new year with some wonderful friends, sparklers, puppies, and sparkling wine. This past month I was at IST (In-service Training) for almost three weeks all together. It was eventful and overwhelming at times but overall a great experience.
But I have a fun story about the trip down to Gaborone.

So to get to Gabs I have to take a combi (22ish person bus that is crammed to the breaking point with people and luggage) down to Francistown (6 hours) then another down to Gabs (another 5-6 hours). Theresa and Kim were staying the at my house to get an early combi out but I had to leave earlier than them so I could get to Serowe (extra 2.5 hours) to stay with my dear friend Anne. So at half 5, I left my house with my 45L bag on my back and my daypack on my front and waddled down the steps to the Kasane bus rank to catch the 6am combi to Francistown. When I got to the bus rank there were two combis there. One had clearly broken down and the second was leaking something. Both clearly safe... almost. So I got on the one that was leaking (aka the backup) and we started driving toward Kazungula… it was then that I realized that the combi was smoking a little. I was only a little worried so I stayed on. So here we are driving through the bush toward Pandamatenga and we here a BANG. The combi pulls over and apparently the tire has popped. They decide since we are only 20 minutes outside of Panda, we should probably just try to get there. So we get back in the combi and start driving away. The only problem is now the combi is shaking but it’s not horrible so we keep driving. Five minutes later we pass two hyenas running across the road 1k later we are shaking so violently the driver has no choice but to pull over.  Meanwhile I’m sitting in the back like “Uhhhhh did you not just see those animals that can kill us?!” So we pull over into the bush and all the men get out to stare at the flat tire. It is clear that none of these men have ever changed a tire before as they start doing all appropriate steps in reverse order. I’m standing in front of the combi at this point just watching them in disbelief. I turn around and just down the road (not even 1k) I see two elephants cross the road. All I could think was “This is where I die.” I was freaking out on the side of the road being made fun of by the Batswana that were with me and playing with a little girl I didn’t know. Great ways to pass the hour and a half wait for a backup combi. Also the mother of the little girl I was playing with was genuinely hoping I would take her and may have offered me money at one point... But, after the wait and an imagined animal attack on my part (I was ready to be one of the videos from “when vacations attack” or whatever that show was) I promise, I made it safely to Francistown and subsequently to Serowe and Gabs.
So I spent almost three weeks at a hotel in Gabs for IST after that. I got to sleep in air-conditioning for a majority of the time I was there and was able to take a hot shower or fifty. I was living in luxury. We learned a lot and spent a lot of time with each other which was probably the best part. I didn't realize how much I missed everyone until I saw them in Gabs.

So, it's been six months since I came to Botswana and I can honestly say I have not only gotten used to life here but it is really beginning to feel like home. When I say I want to go home now, I am talking about my little house in Kasane, not my home in the US. Things are becoming so normal it is hard to distinguish what is new and what is old.
These past six months, a lot has stayed the same but a lot has changed. I have gained and lost friendships and relationships. I have become friends with some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. I have learned to (roughly) speak a completely different language. I learned a lot about myself and what I am capable of and a lot about human nature. I have learned what I require out of a working environment and I am learning to lower my expectations of the people around me and of myself (which may sound like a bad thing but it is the key to sanely making it day to day sometimes). I have learned a lot about happiness and as cliche as it sounds, the negative (and positive) effects of western culture. It takes very little to be happy and the constant greed and wanting that is engrained in some cultures is detrimental to the integrity and mental state of its people.
I think the most important thing I have learned in the six months I have been here is that I can do anything (again super cliche, but oh so true). I have sat through more meetings than I can count that are held in a language I do not fully understand but I am able to catch enough to pose relevant questions and get people to think from another perspective (sometimes). I am helping an organization write a grant for a project aimed at giving female sex workers another avenue to make money (I have never written a grant in my life). I have stepped so far out of my comfort zone I may as well be in a different country (oh wait). I pulled myself out of some pretty low spots (you know the whole frustrated to the point of punching things, crying hysterically, and wanting nothing more than to leave immediately). I think the accomplishment I am most proud of right now is my ability to walk down the road and greet people, not because I am just greeting people (what I did for the first few months), but because I actually know them.

It's been an amazing experience so far and I am very much looking forward to the next year and a half in Botswana. This is home.

Erica

Happy Valentines day! Hope you all have someone special to spend it with (even if it's your pet or a bowl of ice cream and a horror movie).