Off to a rough start (in Africa)

Ending Madagascar:

It seemed that the moment I parted Bianca and Himali in Madagascar, I lost my 'good luck charms' and a plethora of negative incidences followed. The first was during my walk to the Rova (the old palace) in Tana when I was stalked by a somewhat crazed-drunk who refused to leave me alone and became more aggressive as time passed. At first I tried to pretend not to know French, English or Malagasy, hoping he'd leave me alone, but soon gave up with that tactic and started to command "Arretez" repetitively, getting loader each time. Eventually that developed into me screaming at him and physically shoving him away, but by this stage locals noticed and came to help. At the end of my tolerance for drunk sleeze accumulated over the trip, I opted to get the bus back from the Rova instead of walking. My luck continued later that evening when I became quite sick; passing in and out of fever in my sleep until I had to wake at 1.30am for an insane-o-clock flight.

Heading to the mainland

My plane was headed to Johannesburg via Nosy Be (an island in the north) and after going through the lay-over at Nosy Be, I started to nap in the next plane trip. Two hours later, I awoke to the sound of the hostess announcing our arrival in Antananarivo and could see airport infrastructure labelled 'aeroport d'Ivato' out my window. The airport in Nosy Be had been so chaotic I initially feared I had boarded the wrong flight. What had actually happened was that the plane on-route to Johannesburg had turned around half way across the Indian Ocean when we lost cabin pressure, concluding it was safest to return to Madagascar to land. As to when we would actually be able to get back on a plane to Johannesburg, no one knew.

Once off the plane they went to take us to domestic arrivals, then to international, then back to domestic and then back to international. For hours we sat there in the stuffy airport, no announcements, no food, no water, with my fever intermittently coming and going. I went to buy water, but the kiosk didn't accept local currency; just pounds, euro, swiss francs and US dollars and there was nowhere on our side of customs to change/withdraw money. One shop took card, but all they sold was alcohol. It seemed painfully ironic that I couldn't buy water (and tap water wasn't drinkable) but could buy as much booze as I wanted. Luckily some South Africans managed to get past security/customs to change some money to euros and swapped some with me in exchange for some Rand I had. For hours I sat in the airport with them chatting -- both extremely friendly people. Finally at 4pm (I had arrived at the airport at 3am that morning) we finally left off again for Johannesburg, arriving late at night (so much for a morning arrival). Once again, the couple was extremely hospitable, inviting me to eat with them and their family, buying my meal and providing me with a lift to my accommodation.

Trying to get to Bots

The next day I was meant to get the 2.30pm bus to Gaborone, and my university contact was going to email his cell so i could be picked up when I arrived at 9.30pm. At 12.30pm that day, I still had no such email and was feeling exceptionally weak and feverish once more. As such, I sincerely lacked the will to rush to get transport to Park Station if it meant me arriving in Gaborone at night with no contact, no ride and no idea of where to go. Needless to say, I didn't make it. I called the university and still couldn't reach Moagisi but spoke to another staff member who gave me his cell to call when I was to arrive the following day. Upon arrival in Gaborone however, he said all the cars were out -- could I get a taxi? I had no pula (the currency) and no idea where in the university to go. Nonetheless, I realized by now I couldn't rely on the university for anything and so I just agreed. A local who I befriended on the bus assisted me; he paid for my taxi and helped guide me around the university. The underlying irony of the story was; the people paid to help me (the university) did nothing, but a stranger paid to help me.

Falling sick...

Having averaged 4 hours sleep/night for about 4 nights in a row, changing completely different climates about 4 times in 4 days and lugging around a 20kg bag on my back, wheeling another 20kg of scuba gear around and carrying my small backpack and laptop from city to city, I think my body decided to give up. The next day my fever was shocking; I was convulsing in my sleep and coughing so much I felt like my head and chest were going to explode.

With no one around on Saturday and barely any taxi's on the road, I started to walk painfully slowly to the closest medical centre; it was shut. I started slogging back, keeping an eye out for taxi's, until a local started to chat to me. I realized with the effort it took to try and act normal in conversation, I was really not well. I told him I was just looking for an open medical centre and he helped me wave down a taxi. By chance it was probably the best taxi driver I could've possibly got. He took me to the doctor and the pharmacy and when I almost blacked-out attempting to buy food (pretty much collapsing in the taxi instead) he went and collected it for me.

When we arrived back at the university I was 10 pula short of the taxi-fare and offered to draw more out. He just said it was best if I go back and rest and not to worry about it. Now he is my official taxi-man in Gaborone and if I ever need a ride I call him first!

(Lack of) Organisation at UB

The next week I experienced the agony of class-registration in the University of Botswana (UB). Only 1 of the 5 subjects I originally opted for were actually offered that semester and to see if the classes that had been 'officially' timetabled were actually running, the only way to know would be to go to a class first. But finding that class would be another challenge. Even if it was operating, the chances were that it wouldn't be in the room timetabled and there was no logic as to where it could be found, often proving impossible to find.

There was only one staff member in the whole university that all of the internationals could register through and for the most part you could never find him in his room. He even went on leave in the middle of registration (though I do believe he was legitimately sick, which suggests they should've had another staff member on). No one else could access the databases and I had to wait weeks before I could actually know if I was registered and THEN confirm with my university that my units could be approved -- if Monash had declined to approve them, then I would've been in a very sticky situation indeed as by then it would've been too late to change it with UB.

The break-in

A week after arrival in Bots, I was out drinking bottomless coffee (a phenomenon in some cafes in Gaborone where you have as much filter coffee as you want for <$2) with some friends when my roommate called me. We had both been out at different places and she had just returned to our room before 9pm to find it broken in to. My apple macbook pro had been stolen and her laptop, 400 pula ($50), phone and camera taken too. Quite honestly, after all the bottomless coffee, upon hearing this news I was raging on adrenalin and caffeine - it was not a good mix. The frustrating bit was that the bolt cutters required for our door would've had to have been a good 1m in size, illustrating how bad security is around 'Las Vegas'. Las Vegas is the name of our accommodation compound on the campus with little guess where the pet-name came from.

The only thing security managed was to take us on a pointless mission to fill out statements and re-do them several times, including at the police station. All this took more hours than it should have, so we only got to bed at 3am that night.

Somewhat determined to get my laptop back I approached a 2nd hand dealer in Main Mall, pretending to be interested in buying a macbook. He said he didn't have any in-stock but he could call his friends because sometimes they would get different 'second-hand' laptops. Whilst the dealer didn't seem to be a thief himself, it was quite clear he was the recipient of stolen goods from thieves wanting to sell them on quickly. My guess was that he would fix them up if necessary and sell them from his shop. For example, one macbook he got in was a 2012 macbook pro complete with thousands of dollars worth of engineering software. I sincerely doubt someone would buy a 2012 model, pimp it up with all that software, only to sell it second hand immediately afterward.

In any case, he showed me two laptops that I knew weren't mine but I saw one that looked uncannily like Lindsay's HP. We got in contact with the police, telling them we saw a HP much like Lindsay's. They stormed into the store, demanded the serial number for the macbook and left. They had only briefly read the police report, didn't ask us which laptop was whose or what laptop we saw and went straight for the mac -- not the HP -- subsequently ruining any chance we had of getting the laptops back. Afterall, following that incident the dealer knew I had never been interested in buying a macbook but just wanted to recover my stolen property.

All the police really said about the situation was to free themselves from blame by saying that the laptop was probably sold on through to Zimbabwe and that the only real chance of recovering the goods would be chance border inspections. The fact of the matter is though, if anything goes wrong in Botswana it generally gets blamed on Zimbabwe; true or otherwise.

After the theft, certain behaviour on our block made us uneasy (in these situations, often the neighbours are in some way involved and there was strong evidence to suggest that was the case for us); consequently we were moved blocks. In the process of doing this however, the University relocated us to an already occupied room whilst our old room was re-allocated to someone else; effectively rendering us homeless for a few hours until they finally managed to sort it out...... the magic of UB.

The stories

From my first time in Botswana I knew that theft wasn't abnormal -- it just wasn't of the 'I'll stab you for that' kind of theft as it is in most other countries in Africa. In fact I had already experienced my very own snatch-run-and-chase incident with my bag in Francistown in 2010 (several of you probably know that story). What surprised me was the fact that, despite how Botswana is portrayed as this safe haven of Africa (which it largely is and has been), it is really not quite as angelic as people lead you to believe. As such an open and economically advantageous country, it has received alot of migration from poorer countries in recent years and crime is on the rise, particularly in Gaborone.

For example:

·         Just before we had arrived, there had been a stabbing outside the south gate of UB and in recent times a lady was stabbed outside the west gate for her laptop.

·         The loss of our laptops was not uncommon and when I saw the incidences logged at security there was a huge list of 'laptop theft/ laptop theft/ laptop theft... etc'.

·         The university is quite open, security is lax (and I mean 'they go to sleep at night' type of lax) and all the thieves in Gaborone know this.

·         An international girl was mugged by two men on a short walk to the local shops in the middle of the day, Sunday

·    Another local friend narrowly dodged an attempted stabbing when he was mugged

..and all of this occured within quite short spaces of time just outside the university recently.

·         Finally, at last years ‘Fresher’s Ball’ at the university a gang ‘gate crashed’ and proceeded to rob students as well as rape allegedly up to 8 international girls. The police and security were reportedly ‘nowhere to be seen’ at that event. Needless to say, when it came time for the ball this year, I took a weekend trip elsewhere. In all fairness though, reports from those who stayed on campus during that weekend this time said that security had been significantly increased with police on campus accompanied by guard dogs etc.

Overall feelings:

BUT having said all that; those experiences really haven't stopped me enjoying Botswana/travelling at all. The fact of the matter is, it's quite the opposite. In times of stress, people often come together -- for every bad person or situation you have to endure, there are hundreds more better or supportive people willing to help. You meet some of the most amazing people. Sure, I can't rely on the university to help me with most things, but I have friends here I know wouldn't hesitate to lend a hand!