I have often prided myself on the fact that I don’t hesitate to take new routes, try new directions, and wander around aimlessly on a path that “feels like the right way.” I’ve navigated London, New York and various other foreign language speaking cities on Earth with no more than a map and a smile. (And a lack of inhibition about asking strangers for help and directions..) In relation to these situations, Africa takes it up a notch.
I first realized I was in for a new ballgame when I got to Molepolole and was trying to describe my home to my mom back in America. “What’s your address?” she asked me,” We’re looking at Molepolole on google earth, and we can see the soccer stadium, and want to see your house.”
At this point, having just arrived in Moleps, I had no idea there even WAS a soccer stadium, much less where my house might be in relation to it… And I certainly didn’t have an address.
You see there are nearly no “streets” much less street names outside of the larger villages, and generally no house numbers, and in Seronga, no pavement delineating roads from paths. When people ask me where I live now, I say MaKeitikile, the woman who owns my compound or Kagiso (the name of the former PCV who lived in my house before me). Sometimes I just wave my hand as though I’m hitchhiking and say “that side”. These responses generally get the “Oh ho kay” that means I’m understood (or that they no longer have any interest in watching me attempt to pantomime and stutter in Setswana over my placement on the Earth). I pride myself on being able to navigate by the sun or in relation to water, but in Seronga, there are new challenges. Namely, without names for anything, it is exceedingly difficult to give directions. Or follow them. I’m not even going to try to explain how the boat drivers navigate the winding paths of the delta. To be honest I have no idea….
Back on land, the density of animal paths and lack of regulations regarding where roads shall form mean that navigation is an interesting challenge in Botswana. It’s not as though there’s generally any grass to worry about keeping off of, so roads and paths are created everywhere. The only thing differentiating much of anything is how deep the sand is that you are trying to walk through, how much animal excrement is in the way, and how many goat heads (little burs that get up under the feet in sandals) you must avoid. This means you can go nearly as the crow flies anywhere when you are walking and you are inhibited only by fences around yards, occasionally.
Now initially, this seems great, and to the American mind, thinking about the American standard of efficiency and directness it would be. If you can navigate in the manner of Hansel and Gretel. (And if you happen to have breadcrumbs to spare. I do not. In addition, with my luck some animal would follow after me eating up the damn things as soon as I marked my path) Simon lives less than a kilometer from me, and every time he drives me home at night we take the roads, which would take me an extra 20 minutes to navigate along, to get back to his house the next day. Traveling along what might be best called back alley’s to get to his house, I get desperately lost EVERY TIME. I try to keep track of things like which side of me is the red colorful tree on as I walk this time, and have I passed the trash hole with the brand new DVD box in it yet (don’t even ask). It’s so absurd it’s almost a game at this point. I’ve learned that animals and children are not stationary, although children are useful in asking how to get to “Uncle Simon’s”. Either a small child or actually any adult leads me there nearly every time, laughing at the lost white girl who can’t find her way from point a to point b every day. They are never bothered to take the time out of whatever they are doing to help me, which is another absolutely beautiful part of the African culture I often forget to mention.
At the end of the day (and sometimes it genuinely is the END of the day) I always get where I’m going. I just couldn’t tell you how to get there…
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