Final Day in Gaborone

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Today is our last full day in Gaborone, Botswana before we fly down to Cape Town, South Africa. We started the morning around 8:00 and tried to send a few more emails and finish catching up with the Blog. At 10:00 we were picked up from our hotel/apartment by Victoria O'Connell, the Regional Health Officer for the US Embassy. We had met her last week when she joined the Malaria Campaign to help pass out nets and be a guest speaker. She is American and is based here in Gaborone with her husband, Chistopher, and 3-year old son, Wesley. The three of them picked us up and took us to brunch at a local place, Fresh Cafe. Doug and I both ordered omelets and they had various egg dishes and french toast.

We talked about her background in the Peace Corps. and traveling around the world for her job. We also told her more about us and our backgrounds as teachers and members of the Burbank Sister City Committee. It was nice to sit and chat with some fellow Americans over a basic American-style breakfast. It was very nice of them to take us out.

After getting back, we walked down the street to the Gaborone Museum that we have been wanting to visit since arriving 2 weeks ago. We finally had the time to take a nice stroll and look around for about an hour. Across the street, a church was having a multi-cultural festival featuring foods from different African countries as well as India and the Philippines. We walked around and had some Filipino food.

We decided to do one last shopping stop at the Main Mall, which is really an outdoor area with a few shops and some street vendors selling African crafts. We did some bargaining and got a few gifts before coming to our favorite Internet Cafe for our final email session in Botswana.

From here we went back to our apartment and started the challenge of packing, hoping that everything would fit in our suitcases. Somehow we managed to get all of our clothes, souvenirs, and other items into the suitcases we brought. We're taking a bit of a gamble on the weight restrictions and carry-on requirements, but it will have to work. It felt good to have that monumental task out of the way so that we could try to enjoy our last night in town.

After relaxing a bit, we started to take a walk to get a taxi to Nando's for dinner. On our way there, we also stopped at our old hotel, the Cresta President, to see if we could get their help arranging a taxi to the airport tomorrow morning. We had the number for a reliable driver, but he wasn't answering his phone. Maybe he's not as reliable as we thought. The hotel find us another drive who offered to take us for a decent price, and he drove us back to our apartment so he would know where to pick us up.

We were hoping to go to Tommie's house this evening and say a final goodbye to his wife and daughters. While we were arranging the taxi, Moono (Tommie's wife) sent us a text message to say that they were home from church. After the taxi dropped us at the hotel, we walked over to their house for one last visit.

Saying goodbye to Moono and Chubota

Twins Chubota and Kubota

Moono cooked us a simple dinner of beef, vegetables, pap, and macaroni noodles. While she cooked, we played with the twins and showed them how to write our names. When dinner was ready, we all ate together and it felt good to have another home-cooked meal before leaving Botswana. We finally said our goodbyes, and Bobby (Tommie's brother) drove us back to the apartment.

Our flight to Cape Town leaves tomorrow morning at 8:30. We will be there until heading back to the USA on Thursday. We hope to find another great Internet Cafe while there to continue to keep you all posted. If not, then we will update when we get home!!