Seemed like a good idea at the time...

I have just arrived at the Cumberland Hotel in Lobatse, Botswana, home to the country's high court and mental hospital, separately, of course. I've checked into neither one. But I ought to have my head examined.

My friends I met here in March, Gerald and Lally Warren, invited me then and renewed the invitation last week for me to attend their 25th wedding anniversary. It would be a traditional Batswana celebration, with seswaa, pap, morogo, dancing and singing. I thought in March I should come and when I heard from Lally last week I was sure I shouldn't miss it. (Read about Gerald and Lally around March 17th on my blog.) I have just moved into my cottage in Maun and still have no wheels. What the heck, I thought. I will travel as Batswana travel -- by big fat bus. I didn't do much planning, just got a notion to head West, skirting the Kalahari to Ghanzi, then south to Lobatse and come around on the eastern side through Francistown back to Maun.
If you've ever seen a Botswana bus stop, you won't mistake it for Switzerland or Germany, that's for sure. It's chaos with buses coming and going and no centralized information about what leaves when. You ask around and hope you climb onto the right bus, and if it's not too much to ask you hope it's clean.

I got dropped off at the bus stop and to my dismay the Ghanzi bus was broken down. One man was telling me I could take another bus to the northern delta, get dropped off on the side of the road and get picked up by another one. No way! I envisioned standing under the searing sun with no one passing me by and certainly no hotel within walking distance. I jumped on a bus to Francistown.
It seemed like a good idea.

I was lucky and got a front seat in the aisle beside Bone (pronounced Bona and translated "them"), who got quite a kick out of me. I thought the fare was 20 pula; it was 70. I asked about where we might stop to go to the restroom along the way and she and the other seatmate fell over laughing. To the bush, was the answer. And so the traveling began. Whenever the bus would lurch, my seat cushion and I would go flying. The seat must have been torn from the frame oh about 15 years ago, I'd say. We would slow down for donkeys, cattle and goats. We kept picking up people on the way and depositing them. This is fun, I thought. I can see the country. Trouble is, the country looks pretty much the same for hours and hours and hours. I did practice my Setswana for a while, then read an "Oprah" magazine I got at the local supermarket in Maun.
I set it down for a minute to let someone pass and across the aisle a woman starting talking Setswana to me and laughing. When I didn't understand, she translated. The gist: Hey, I'm an elder and in this country elders get some respect, so can you let me borrow your magazine?
OK

I made it to Francistown after 6 hours on the bus. Lunch was a whole packet of vanilla cremes and I mean a big packet (think nigh on Keebler size), potato chips and a coke. What can you do? It was either that or french fries, rice and some weird looking meat to top it off, all of this from a truck stop. Forget the healthy living on a roadtrip around these parts. The thing about Francistown is that I had hardly stepped from the bus and asked directions when a handsome man in a security uniform decided to escort me to my hotel. He went into the usual M.O. among Botswana people: They want to know about my husband and my children. Without any, I am quite the object of curiosity, if not outright pity. This fellow was perplexed but undaunted. He insisted that he could be my Botswana boyfriend, and if not my Botswana boyfriend, my Francistown boyfriend. I sent him on his way. Wish I hadn't so soon, because I needed him in the grocery store when I was buying water and FRUIT. A woman in a black beret I noticed was awfully close. When I walked to the magazines, she walked behind me. When I went to the dairy counter, there she was again. I tested my theory, moving hither and yon and a clipped pace.
I whipped around and faced her. "What are you doing?!" I hissed.
She was shocked. "Uh, I was short 2 Pula," she said.
Right.
I waved her away and watched my back the whole way to the hotel.

The bad news is that I had to get on a bus again: this morning for a 5 1/2 hour bus ride to Gaborone, and on this bus they packed 'em in so tight that they were standing in the aisle. For miles I had a standing passenger's pink plastic pocketbook gouging me in the back of the head. At least I had a nice man from Zambia beside me. We had to stop at one point and exit the bus to show our passports and IDs. The police hauled away two guys and placed them in handcuffs. I'm guessing they were from Zimbabwe. Many are trying to seek refuge here, as you would expect, and the government wants to stop the influx. Francistown, only about one hour from the border, is one of those main entry points.

By the time I got to the bus stop in Gaborone, I'd had enough. I called Ernest, the trusty taxi driver who used to take me to my work at the University of Botswana. Would he take me to Lobatse? "Sharp. Sharp," he said. And so I am here, finally. When the sign said drive 50, Ernest drove 120. I know he was in a hurry to be at home "and just chill," as he puts it.
You can imagine that I'm already hatching a plan to catch that 8 a.m. flight from Gaborone to Maun if there is any seat for me and if there is any way under the sun to avoid another 13-14 hours on the bus and two nights in pricey hotels that are anything but posh. (This one has a lavender sink and toilet and truly ancient linoleum. Its rating? 3 stars.) Even the thrill of authentic experience has its limits.
But I did appreciate Bone's exclamation to me somewhere between Maun and Nata.
"You are living life to the fullest!"
That I am.