Thursday
Yesterday brought no major or minor injuries and only one freak-out scene.
At my favorite wireless hangout, the Equatorial Café, I saw a manager pushing something with his foot the way you would push a soccer ball. It was the size of a toddler’s pull toy, and it was A BUG!! Right out of the horror flicks. Honestly, I’ve never seen a bug so big, even in the Amazon. Thank goodness the manager didn’t squish it. He just coaxed it along to the sidewalk.
Be free, you primordial creature, and don’t come flying near me or my food! All I can say is that when Stuart Leavenworth told me I needed to get a book on insects because bugs would be my big challenge in Africa, he was on the money.
**
Also at the café, a waitress kept checking on me and whether I needed anything else. Then she said, “I feel like I’m bothering you. But I like you. I just like you.” (Don’t read more into this than courtesy. This is a country where, for the most part, kindness reigns.)
And then she said, “Do you have something to do with Amway?”
Well…
I said in fact I do. I’m staying at a house where the wife is big into Amway. (I’ve learned from Puni in the last 48 hours that Amway has pasta, olive oil and instant coffee, so I should have bypassed the Pick and Pay supermarket brand for products of superior quality. Next time, Puni.) I asked the waitress if she was an Amway rep on the side or whether she had been at the meeting at the Gab Sun last week and perhaps saw me there. No, she had not.
“I just feel it deep inside that you had something to do with Amway,” she said.
(Music from “The Twilight Zone” should be inserted here.)
Huh.
Could it be that the “brilliant sheen” on my hair from the Amway product is the giveaway, or could it be that my faux B.O. belies the truth? Do I carry myself with the air of a “home executive?” A lovable one at that.
**
I appreciate the e-mail heads-up from my high school friend Ann Baldwin Harris that Prince Harry is in the house – or rather, on a houseboat in the Okavango Delta, to be exact. That’s a 10-hour drive, and without a car I cannot throw myself into the role of exasperating paparazzi hound in search of a tabloid tidbit or a glittery crumb to throw your way. But feel free to start rumors about my hobnobbing with HRH. I could be at this moment swimming clandestinely through channels lined with papyrus and reeds up to his houseboat, a la Mr. Mean, to offer some generous tips about leech removal. Use your imagination, and take it from there.
Showing posts with label Amway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amway. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Be all you can be (with Amway)
Africa 5
Puni Sechele, the 46-year-old woman who instructed her husband, Sechele Sechele, “to open (our) heart and our home” to me, is on a mission. She listens to inspirational Les Brown CDs on a player in a bag she carries around like a purse. She reads entrepreneurial books, one of which she handed me the other night for bedtime reading: “The Slight Edge: $ecret to a $uccessful Life” by Jeff Olson. Nearly every night after she knocks off from her job at Botswana’s Industrial Court, she goes out to make presentations to build her “network,” pursuing the American dream that is now a big-time African dream: her multi-legged organization of “home executives” who sell Amway products – a plan, she informs me, that can turn ordinary people “like truck drivers, clerks and house help,” such as a Mexican cleaning lady in the States, into millionaires.
Puni invited me to an Amway meeting on Monday night at the Gaborone Sun hotel’s conference center, and I leapt at the chance. As I expected, I entered the vast room as the lone white person among smartly-dressed doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, even lecturers from the University of Botswana. These were seriously happy people, optimistic, exceptionally welcoming and intent on networking. They were upbeat and fabulous. Zee – a former IT lecturer and computer professional, is now a home executive and mentor to Puni. Puni proudly noted when we drove over to Zee’s house one morning that Zee gets up “when her body clock tells her to.” Zee’s husband, Ericton (sp?), was the motivational speaker for the evening. He said he has had private-sector jobs, policy jobs at Parliament and now is in the Ministry of Education for the Republic of Botswana, but he and Zee have already reached a high Amway level that means extra income every month and it’s obvious they are working on reaching something called diamond level and beyond. I admit I didn’t follow all the numbers thrown around about when exactly ever-growing monthly checks come in until eventually, after hard work building enough connections and delivering quality, “biodegradable” products for home cleaning and personal grooming, a person can walk away from a salaried job for good and have two important things in life: “time and freedom.”
Ericton let it rip (without ever using the word Amway): He bounced across the stage, smiled broadly and spoke to people where they live: Some who have made it didn’t have a “thebe” in their pockets to begin with, meaning a penny in our lingo. He drew a circle and divided it into quadrants. On the left were the poor employees, who have to depend on 100 percent personal performance or luck of the workplace to keep the money coming in, plus they have to deal with bosses. The other quadrant in that half of the circle was the self-employed -- capable people, Ericton said, who can end up being slaves to their jobs. What do those people in both quadrants lack? Time and freedom. He drew a frowny face. Eighty percent of the world fits in that half of the circle.
On the other side of the circle are the investors and the “B.O.,” which stands for business owners. The B.O. crowd depends on the performance of lots of people and takes a percentage cut of their network members’ monetary success, so everyone wins! It worked for that retired colonel who started KFC, Ericton said. It can work for the rest of us -- once we know the secret! And it is simple! It really is ! And now we know it! He draws a happy face. That’s where the 20 percent lives, in those two quadrants. And when the B.O. crowd makes it, then they can dabble in being investors, using what amounts to “play money.” All of this means that anyone can go after his or her dreams with this formula; the dreams don’t have to be ground down as the years pass. (Newcomers see Ericton or the hosts who invited them to the meeting after the break…)
Puni is so fired up that she’s headed to an Amway conference in Johannesburg this weekend. She has already made a trip to Baltimore, where there was no time for sightseeing, what with all of the motivational speakers to meet in person. They came alive after all those CD lectures half a world away. And she wanted to investigate the program in more detail. Satisfied, she came back with her dreams intact: First on the list will be a vacation in Mauritius.
I have to admit I’m enjoying being on the B.O. side of the circle, at least with the time and freedom part of this journey. But, alas, I’m exhibiting faux B.O. By my choice of career, I rest on the wrong side of the circle – a mere employee, a sincerely grateful one, but an employee nonetheless, one lacking even a salary at the moment.
I made it only 5 minutes into “The Slight Edge” before falling asleep the other night, exhausted after my Gaborone treasure hunt for my residence permit. But I have to say those Amway products did a nice job of washing my clothes on Tuesday and cleaning the tub after my baths. And the “stylist” at the fancy hotel salon who gave me the bad bowl haircut even skipped all the Paul Mitchell products at arm’s reach and wielded an Amway bottle to spray a “brilliant sheen” on my hair. Let it be said there was nothing lacking in the sheen department—thanks, Amway -- only in the misshapen mop that passed for hair on my head.
Which leaves me thinking, my friends: What will you be today? What dreams do you have? How’s your hair?
Smiley face.
Puni Sechele, the 46-year-old woman who instructed her husband, Sechele Sechele, “to open (our) heart and our home” to me, is on a mission. She listens to inspirational Les Brown CDs on a player in a bag she carries around like a purse. She reads entrepreneurial books, one of which she handed me the other night for bedtime reading: “The Slight Edge: $ecret to a $uccessful Life” by Jeff Olson. Nearly every night after she knocks off from her job at Botswana’s Industrial Court, she goes out to make presentations to build her “network,” pursuing the American dream that is now a big-time African dream: her multi-legged organization of “home executives” who sell Amway products – a plan, she informs me, that can turn ordinary people “like truck drivers, clerks and house help,” such as a Mexican cleaning lady in the States, into millionaires.
Puni invited me to an Amway meeting on Monday night at the Gaborone Sun hotel’s conference center, and I leapt at the chance. As I expected, I entered the vast room as the lone white person among smartly-dressed doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, even lecturers from the University of Botswana. These were seriously happy people, optimistic, exceptionally welcoming and intent on networking. They were upbeat and fabulous. Zee – a former IT lecturer and computer professional, is now a home executive and mentor to Puni. Puni proudly noted when we drove over to Zee’s house one morning that Zee gets up “when her body clock tells her to.” Zee’s husband, Ericton (sp?), was the motivational speaker for the evening. He said he has had private-sector jobs, policy jobs at Parliament and now is in the Ministry of Education for the Republic of Botswana, but he and Zee have already reached a high Amway level that means extra income every month and it’s obvious they are working on reaching something called diamond level and beyond. I admit I didn’t follow all the numbers thrown around about when exactly ever-growing monthly checks come in until eventually, after hard work building enough connections and delivering quality, “biodegradable” products for home cleaning and personal grooming, a person can walk away from a salaried job for good and have two important things in life: “time and freedom.”
Ericton let it rip (without ever using the word Amway): He bounced across the stage, smiled broadly and spoke to people where they live: Some who have made it didn’t have a “thebe” in their pockets to begin with, meaning a penny in our lingo. He drew a circle and divided it into quadrants. On the left were the poor employees, who have to depend on 100 percent personal performance or luck of the workplace to keep the money coming in, plus they have to deal with bosses. The other quadrant in that half of the circle was the self-employed -- capable people, Ericton said, who can end up being slaves to their jobs. What do those people in both quadrants lack? Time and freedom. He drew a frowny face. Eighty percent of the world fits in that half of the circle.
On the other side of the circle are the investors and the “B.O.,” which stands for business owners. The B.O. crowd depends on the performance of lots of people and takes a percentage cut of their network members’ monetary success, so everyone wins! It worked for that retired colonel who started KFC, Ericton said. It can work for the rest of us -- once we know the secret! And it is simple! It really is ! And now we know it! He draws a happy face. That’s where the 20 percent lives, in those two quadrants. And when the B.O. crowd makes it, then they can dabble in being investors, using what amounts to “play money.” All of this means that anyone can go after his or her dreams with this formula; the dreams don’t have to be ground down as the years pass. (Newcomers see Ericton or the hosts who invited them to the meeting after the break…)
Puni is so fired up that she’s headed to an Amway conference in Johannesburg this weekend. She has already made a trip to Baltimore, where there was no time for sightseeing, what with all of the motivational speakers to meet in person. They came alive after all those CD lectures half a world away. And she wanted to investigate the program in more detail. Satisfied, she came back with her dreams intact: First on the list will be a vacation in Mauritius.
I have to admit I’m enjoying being on the B.O. side of the circle, at least with the time and freedom part of this journey. But, alas, I’m exhibiting faux B.O. By my choice of career, I rest on the wrong side of the circle – a mere employee, a sincerely grateful one, but an employee nonetheless, one lacking even a salary at the moment.
I made it only 5 minutes into “The Slight Edge” before falling asleep the other night, exhausted after my Gaborone treasure hunt for my residence permit. But I have to say those Amway products did a nice job of washing my clothes on Tuesday and cleaning the tub after my baths. And the “stylist” at the fancy hotel salon who gave me the bad bowl haircut even skipped all the Paul Mitchell products at arm’s reach and wielded an Amway bottle to spray a “brilliant sheen” on my hair. Let it be said there was nothing lacking in the sheen department—thanks, Amway -- only in the misshapen mop that passed for hair on my head.
Which leaves me thinking, my friends: What will you be today? What dreams do you have? How’s your hair?
Smiley face.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Bureaucracy overcome!
It's official: I'm a Motswana for a year, which means citizen of Botswana, although I am just a temporary resident.
Of course the search for the official document was anything but easy. Last I heard in the United States from the Bots embassy, I was supposed to call a woman to check on where to pick up the permit in Gaborone. She was out sick the day I called in January. So I left the country hoping it would all work out.
Today, my hostess Puni took off plenty of time from work to help me navigate the bureaucracy. The sick govt. worker woman is now officially on leave and I was in the lurch. Puni spoke Setswana and wouldn't take no for an answer at every office we visited. I cooled my heels for over 2 hours in the U.S. embassy, which independent of botswana immigration officials was helping to track down the paperwork. I'd hoped to see the U.S. ambassador, but she is out of the country. She had wanted to have coffee after former ambassador Bob Krueger had told her a lot about me by phone. Bob and his wife, Kathleen, hosted me at an amazing dinner at their home in New Braunfels, Texas, on Valentine's Day when I was traveling across the country. I didn't leave their driveway until 12:30 a.m. We had such great conversations about Africa, destiny and spirit-- and politics. When I gave his wife a thank-you gift at the beginning of the evening that included a card with a quote I love from Doris Lessing, Kathleen burst into tears. She, too, feels the pull of the African sky and misses it every day. I'll share the quote later when I have my journal nearby. I recommend with great enthusiasm the book the Kruegers wrote together called, "From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi," published by the Univ. of Texas press. That was their first ambassadorial post before Botswana; they were there for the genocide that coincided with what was happening in Rwanda. They both were brave in trying to stop the killings, document the massacres so that the murdered were identified and support the choked gasps of democracy. They are an exceptional couple and among the precious guides along my path.
On the lighter side -- but don't judge it by my waistband --at the moment I'm in the Gaborone Sun hotel business centre, having downed the biggest celebratory lunch you can imagine with Puni to mark the occasion of putting the permit into my backpack and becoming official and able to come and go as I please across borders. The lunch, as usual, included major spillage -- beets on my white jacket that I wore today to meet govt folks and the dean of the university. There is an emergency laundry crew on the job. I'll pay whatever it takes for a bleach-out. I also took the afternoon break to have my hair trimmed, and was it ever a disaster! I've returned to my childhood haircuts that looked like someone put a bowl on my head and cut around it. Egad. This head is going to have to be under a hat for weeks. Of course, I didn't let on to the nice guy who whacked my hair; he might as well have used a weedeater.
So Puni is coming back soon from her office to hang out -- government workers "knock off" at 4:30 pm. Her husband, Sechele, has set off today with U.S. embassy officials to Ghanzi, a full day's drive away, to do some workshops for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he works as a communications director, as local staff. I'll see him again Friday, and I'm looking forward to it. He's a trip -- funny, friendly, former editor of the Mmegi newspaper who took it from a weekly to a daily, a history buff, a maniac squash player and a fan of "township jazz," which he promises to introduce me to. I'll be attending tonight's AMWAY motivation session with Puni here at the hotel; she's got big dreams to be a millionaire selling Amway products and she's making it happen, she says. (Wonder if they have miracle hair care potions to make my hair return to curls from frizz and to grow really, really fast?) We'll see. My savings will be draining away for hair products. Ain't it always the way for us girls?
Of course the search for the official document was anything but easy. Last I heard in the United States from the Bots embassy, I was supposed to call a woman to check on where to pick up the permit in Gaborone. She was out sick the day I called in January. So I left the country hoping it would all work out.
Today, my hostess Puni took off plenty of time from work to help me navigate the bureaucracy. The sick govt. worker woman is now officially on leave and I was in the lurch. Puni spoke Setswana and wouldn't take no for an answer at every office we visited. I cooled my heels for over 2 hours in the U.S. embassy, which independent of botswana immigration officials was helping to track down the paperwork. I'd hoped to see the U.S. ambassador, but she is out of the country. She had wanted to have coffee after former ambassador Bob Krueger had told her a lot about me by phone. Bob and his wife, Kathleen, hosted me at an amazing dinner at their home in New Braunfels, Texas, on Valentine's Day when I was traveling across the country. I didn't leave their driveway until 12:30 a.m. We had such great conversations about Africa, destiny and spirit-- and politics. When I gave his wife a thank-you gift at the beginning of the evening that included a card with a quote I love from Doris Lessing, Kathleen burst into tears. She, too, feels the pull of the African sky and misses it every day. I'll share the quote later when I have my journal nearby. I recommend with great enthusiasm the book the Kruegers wrote together called, "From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi," published by the Univ. of Texas press. That was their first ambassadorial post before Botswana; they were there for the genocide that coincided with what was happening in Rwanda. They both were brave in trying to stop the killings, document the massacres so that the murdered were identified and support the choked gasps of democracy. They are an exceptional couple and among the precious guides along my path.
On the lighter side -- but don't judge it by my waistband --at the moment I'm in the Gaborone Sun hotel business centre, having downed the biggest celebratory lunch you can imagine with Puni to mark the occasion of putting the permit into my backpack and becoming official and able to come and go as I please across borders. The lunch, as usual, included major spillage -- beets on my white jacket that I wore today to meet govt folks and the dean of the university. There is an emergency laundry crew on the job. I'll pay whatever it takes for a bleach-out. I also took the afternoon break to have my hair trimmed, and was it ever a disaster! I've returned to my childhood haircuts that looked like someone put a bowl on my head and cut around it. Egad. This head is going to have to be under a hat for weeks. Of course, I didn't let on to the nice guy who whacked my hair; he might as well have used a weedeater.
So Puni is coming back soon from her office to hang out -- government workers "knock off" at 4:30 pm. Her husband, Sechele, has set off today with U.S. embassy officials to Ghanzi, a full day's drive away, to do some workshops for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he works as a communications director, as local staff. I'll see him again Friday, and I'm looking forward to it. He's a trip -- funny, friendly, former editor of the Mmegi newspaper who took it from a weekly to a daily, a history buff, a maniac squash player and a fan of "township jazz," which he promises to introduce me to. I'll be attending tonight's AMWAY motivation session with Puni here at the hotel; she's got big dreams to be a millionaire selling Amway products and she's making it happen, she says. (Wonder if they have miracle hair care potions to make my hair return to curls from frizz and to grow really, really fast?) We'll see. My savings will be draining away for hair products. Ain't it always the way for us girls?
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A magical flower
The guide squeezes this flower and it squirts water like a water pistol
Cathy and Joe Wanzala
They couldn't wait to paste the Obama sticker on their car
My main man
Ernest is my trusty cab driver who blasts music as we make our way through Gabs
Ted Thomas, man of intrigue and style
My friend, Ted, and his wife, Mary Ann, hosted a Safari Send-Off for me in Austin and treated me to a special mix of African music that already a UB student and a professor want to download.