Four exfoliating sugar scrubs…three new shirts…two vacuum sealed pillows…and a partridge in a pear tree

Good news! My other bag arrived! I believe that my greatest sense of accomplishment was when I asked the woman at baggage if Dereje could pick up my bag for me because he was already in Gabs…she quickly said "yes", but what she really meant was "anything to get you off of the phone." One more thing checked off my list of things to do: exasperate an airline more than they exasperate me…check.

So, one pepper grinder, one rock salt grinder, and two vacuum sealed pillows, and four sugar scrub exfoliating tubs later…I am complete! Turns out my second bag was filled with pretty much non-essential items that are absolutely necessary for me!

Okay….I just had an "Africa" moment…I looked over at my kitchen and thought to myself, "What is that crawling across my kitchen floor? And why is it crawling in a direction that would suggest it came from my pantry?" After swatting the thing to death (with my trusty fly/any other living creature swatter)…I am still at a loss for what it was. It might have been a centipede or a millipede (I can't remember which one of those is poisonous…but either way I vow from this moment on to always wear shoes before entering the kitchen…or opening the pantry…or, heck, the whole house is now off limits for bare feet).

One thing I have wanted to clear up. Because of my past blogs many of you have asked me, "So, you have a driver?" The answer to that is two fold…"yes, I have a driver", and "no, I do not have a driver". My driver is assigned to my district's office. His name is Ntseane and he is far from being "my driver." He is, however, incredibly helpful to me, and has become a very good friend of mine! For the last 4 months he has pretty much been strictly a friend and not a driver because our truck had no tires on it (honestly, I'm not kidding you, for 4 months our car has remained stationary because of an unpaid debt to this particular tire company…it kills me). Ntseane, however, texted me this morning to say, and I quote: "my vehicle now has tyres on it"! (The exclamation mark had been left out…but I think it was implied). I realized that I failed to mention that I went to his wedding a couple of months ago and forgot to post pictures! I shall remedy that now:

This is a picture of Ntseane before the wedding: he was helping to set up the tent that the reception was held.
There are always two weddings in a Botswana marriage (and we think we have it tough). There is one wedding at the groom's family's house and one wedding at the bride's family's house. This is so there can be two separate guest lists…one for the bride and one for the groom. Tradition says that when the wedding is at the groom's house he will go to pick her from her family's house and bring her to the party. Ntseane, of course, likes to do a little bit of dancing in the middle of everything).
A procession of cars follow Ntseane to his bride's house…this line of cars has a job: their job is to honk their horns and yell as loudly as they can outside of the windows. I was a part of this procession, and I joined the honking of horns with as much enthusiasm as any other Motswana! Oh, one more thing: in the picture with the bride and groom is their son. It's very common for couples to have children before they get married. Mostly, because it is very expensive to marry as the man must pay a lobola, a bride price. A bride price can be anywhere from 5-8 cows (translates to 5,000 – 8,000 Pula)…this can be very expensive to a man on a government salary.
Ntseane and his wife, Dineo