Peculiarities of Living in Botswana

A perfect Sunday evening sunset...

Random Blackouts

We lost power at some point last night, which, has been a rather usual situation. (In the time I’ve been here, we’ve experienced about half a dozen to a dozen blackouts). The house we live in does not have central air, it has a water cooling system, which kind of cools the house a bit, but is in no way like having air conditioning! I purchased a fan to keep my bedroom cool, so that was my only indication that we had lost power in the middle of the night. I think what woke me was a little bird outside my window who was trying to get in!

Anyway- by 6am, the power was still out. Luckily on my “workout” schedule, I had already planned to go for a swim this morning, which was nice, because when there’s no power in the house, there’s no water (pump doesn’t run!). My housemates went to the gym as usual, probably thinking that they could get showers there – no such luck, the power was out at the gym also! Luckily, power came back on just in time for breakfast!

You know how this story ends right? We get to work at our regular time and – sure enough, the power goes out! I have less than an hour of time left on my laptop battery. And as I write this, there is no internet connectivity (hope it comes back soon!).

"Oh you know, just taking the family out for a
Sunday afternoon shop at the grocery store"

Road Traffic Accidents

So before you start to worry – I am fine. My colleagues are all fine. We are ok!

On Monday this week, we were involved in an RTA as they are referred to here in Gaborone. We were literally moments away from the office when we heard a big crash behind us, followed by us being hit.It was quite a hard impact, but luckily we are fine and there was only minimal damage to the car. The entire experience was more a shock to our system than anything. And the follow up process in dealing with the local authorities was something that is still on-going two days later.

You know how at home you ensure everyone is ok, then start taking down information for everyone involved, then go on your way to file the paperwork? Not here. Here the police arrive, talk to everyone, take notes and try and understand what happened. Then you go to the police station, wait for everyone involved to get there, then you all take your vehicles to another location to get a thorough check. (The accident happened at about 830am, by the time the vehicle inspection was complete it was about 1230pm). Next you go back to the police station to “hash out” with everyone involved what exactly happened. Then the police officers take time to deliberate and finally, return to read the verdict to everyone. By the time all the paperwork was signed it was about 3:30pm.

We were not at fault. We were hit by a car who was hit by a car who was trying to change lanes…That made a truck, who was trying to evade colliding with the lane changing car, to hit another car and end up in oncoming traffic! We were very lucky no one was hurt!

We are the white car in front of the blue Ford. The red car is the one that caused the RTA by trying to change lanes.