Driving in Gaborone

All I have to say is, "Watch out Gaborone!" Ian and I are now driving. I will begin by telling you why it is so great that we now have a car. First of all, no more taxis! You never know what kind of driver you will get when you call for a cab. I will give two examples. For a while we were using Strongman (English translation to his African name which I will not even try to type). He wasn't the friendliest most outgoing guy, but he was fairly reliable.....until last week. I called and asked if he could take me to the Sanitas Tea Garden (for play group) at 10:15. He said, "no problem." At 10:30 he still wasn't here so I called him. "Hi Strongman, just wanted to make sure that you are coming!"



"Yes Mme. I am coming now."



"Okay, great - see you in a minute." 25 minutes later he still hasn't arrived. I don't want to seem rude, but what the heck? I wait 10 more minutes. I call again at 11:00. "Strongman, are you okay? I thought you were coming!"



"I am on the other side of town with another customer. I will be there in 20 minutes."



Why didn't he just tell me this in the first place. I was so frustrated and angry so I told him to forget it. It wasn't even worth going at this point since playgroup ended at noon.



My second example: last weekend we went to the grocery store to buy food for the week. Ian has Finn in the bjorn and I have the cart full of groceries. Ian walks around to the other side of the mall to get a taxi. The taxi driver parks in an illegal spot (we weren't really paying attention to that) so that we can quickly load the bags into his trunk. Suddenly, the parking patrol guys come and tell him that he needs to move. He says this will only take a minute. After this....I have no idea what was said (but I can certainly imagine) because they start speaking in Setswana. One of the patrol guy begins to put a boot on his wheel. They start exchanging words. To make a long story short - this exchange turns into a fist fight. Why didn't we get the heck outta there, you ask? Because half of our bags were already in his trunk. I look around and notice that everyone has come out of the stores to watch this fight. (I'm talking rolling on the ground kind of fighting!) At one point, a woman approaches me, "why don't you take your baby and leave - you don't need to watch."



"Yes, but our bags are in that guy's car!"



"Oh - well then you stay here and I will go tell these guys." She walks toward them and then walks back to me. "Maybe you will have to wait. They are very aggressive right now."



Ian decides we need to get out. So he walks right up to our taxi driver who is handcuffed at this point but still arguing. Ian interrupts, "Excuse me, can I please get my bags?"



It was like a movie scene. Everyone sort of paused - the arguing stopped, taxi driver reaches for his pockets, gives Ian the keys. Ian opens the trunk, grabbs our bags and walks away. Then the fighting resumes. Glad we can laugh about it now!



Anyhow, now we don't have to worry about cab drivers and other nuisances of not having a car in the city.



We bought a used car from an American couple who work in the Foreign Services. Their posting here just ended and they needed to sell their car. It's Ian's dream car....one of those little people cars (fitting for us I suppose). It's a Japanese car (they aren't sold in the US).



They dropped off the car Thursday evening. Ian got it registered Friday and Saturday we had our first driving lesson (we have to learn how to drive on the other side of the road). Ian went first and of course, did great. Then it was my turn. Ughhhhhh. I don't even really like driving in general. It wasn't that bad (driving on the other side). But I was so focused on staying on the left, that I managed to ignore other important things....such as....pot holes. Yep! Managed to run right over a massive pot hole. It not only flattened one tire, but two! I am just really sorry that I didn't have my camera! Thank goodness Ibrahim was with us (driving instructor/Ian's colleague). He knew of a nearby gas station. We put the spare on the front tire and filled the other with air so we could get to a tire shop (they don't change tires at gas stations here). This is when I really wanted to take a picture (maybe I will go back and take one). Ibrahim found just a couple of guys on the side of the road with a heap of tires. 20 minutes later and only 15 pula (6.5 pula to the dollar) our tire was fixed. Ibrahim drove us home, and that was the end of me driving for the weekend!



This morning, I had no choice. Ian had to get to work, and so once again I had to put all my fears aside and drive the car. This time I tried to pay attention to everything. At one point I almost gave Ian a heart attack. Let me put you in this situation. The sides of the road are full of pot holes (basically if you go too far to the left, you risk hurting your tires). In the middle of the road, there are lots of pedestrians (cross walks are completely ignored). So if you were driving (lots of cars in front of and behind you) with pot holes to the left and people start walking into you from the right....what would you do? Keep driving and hit the people or veer to the left and risk a flat tire? These are the new challenges that I get to tackle:) Anyhow, we made it to his office - I didn't hit anyone and the tires aren't flat. But just as I was headed home, Ian called to tell me that he had the house keys. I just took a deep breath (told myself no problem) and tried to find a place to turn around. I saw an entry to a bank and decided it would be the perfect place to make the turn. As soon as I make it into the bank parking lot, the gate closed me in....just my luck! Well, a group of guys certainly got a good chuckle early in the morning. After a few minutes of staring, pointing and laughing, they opened the gate for me to leave.



All I have to say is....please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we try and get used to driving here!