Rishi's post: I arrived safely in Gaborone

Rishi wrote the below post about a week ago. 

Hello Everybody,

I arrived safely in Gaborone, Botswana on July 25 around 11 PM. All flights were on time and I had a comfortable journey. The University put me in a Lodge that was quite far away from the campus and was not a good place. Since I had no car, I could not go anywhere so asked the university to move me to a place with which I was familiar. After some wrangling, they let me stay at the place of my choosing.

The next day, I arrived on campus: it is a bureaucratic mess. Everybody wants paperwork and if anything is not quite right, then one has to go back and start over again. They love to stamp documents, accept only certified copies, and to get certification one must go to a police station. I think bureaucracy is everywhere but here it seems excessive. I am still struggling to get all the paperwork done. I have a very short fuse when it comes to bureaucracy and I almost blew it in the Dean’s office. Sensing my discomfort, they assigned me a paper-runner to do legwork for me. I am talking it all in stride, after all I have come here to experience their way of live.

The campus is really nice. It is brand new and has modern architecture. It is under construction therefore one has to drive around in a convoluted manner to reach where one wants to go. One never knows where the barriers will appear and there is no signage for detours etc. (It appears somewhat disorganized, but the campus residents seems to know their way around because the information spreads from word to mouth. I have a disadvantage here that I do not speak and understand the local language. The campus buildings are super clean. One notices an army of cleaners always cleaning the buildings, windows, and floors. The toilets are as clean as anywhere in the advanced countries. One day, our department secretary dropped some food on the floor in the hallway. She immediately went to get some cleaning materials and cleaned it up. I wish the Indians could learn these habits.

I am teaching a class on Mondays and Tuesdays from 7 AM to 9:30 AM—these are combined lectures and practicals (in the US, we call them tutorials). I have the liberty to run my class any way I want to except I have to adhere to their examination rules: the finals contribute 60% of the grade and up to 40% can come from the midterm examination and other CA (continuous assessments). I like to give homework and in my case, 20% grade will come from homework, 10% from midterm examination and 10% from laboratory work). I went to see the classroom where I will teach around 2 PM Friday, the floor was being polished, but I am assured that it will be ready on Monday. From my experience here at the university so far, I am very skeptical; I will see if I am right and post in my new blog.

Traffic in Gaborone is orderly: everybody follows the traffic rules, but they are less courteous then US drivers. Taxis and minibus (they call then “combis”) are as rude as anywhere. Again traffic is far superior compared with Indian cities, where there are essentially no rules. I am driving a lot, getting lost and then finding my ways in the city. I am quite comfortable while I drive, which is on the left side of the road like the UK and India, but have not yet mastered the layout of the city. Roads are not always marked and signage is often poor.

Most people (professionals) here are amazingly punctual. They keep their schedule by the minute. They arrive when they say they would; if for some reason they are running late, they always call for send a text message. Text messaging is more popular then calls.

On Friday (8/1), I moved into a furnished apartment, where Jan and I will be living for at least 3 months. The furniture is quite new and comfortable. The utilities, internet etc. are included in the rent. When I moved into the apartment, I found it super clean! All things in the apartment are in working condition except for the television, which I suspect that I am not operating it correctly.

I have included some photographs of the views from our apartment. One view is from the entrance to the apartment, and you can see Kgale Hill in the background. The other view is from the balcony. The road in the picture is an access road highway A1 that runs through Botswana.

View from the front of our apartment with Kgale Hill in the background.

View from our balcony; it's not much but the sunsets are great!

The weather is about 80F during the day but it cools off at night so much so that I have to wear a full sleeve sweater in the evening. I do turn the heat in the bedroom just before going to sleep for about 30 minutes. Nights are quite comfortable. Locals wear warm clothing in this weather, even during the daytime —you see them wearing hoodies and coats. At the university, in one office a lady had coat on and she had a heater on!