We are Ghetto Fabulous

Hitchhiking to Francistown .. also known as the ghetto. The sign entering the city reads We Are Ghetto Fabulous

I am constantly a week behind with blog posts.. so much is happening its difficult to soak it all in let alone formulate the words to describe my experiences. The last two weekends have been absolutely epic… or ‘ep’ as Faisal would say, to which we had to convince him that in shortening the word the epicness is lost. I am in the far Northern part of Botswana so to meet the rest of the group need to travel about 600km on a sand road. This has made me a master of the bus system which is quickly becoming the bain of my existence and also has lead to some rather sketch hitch hiking experiences, which now just make for great stories …

The Chobe express only leaves in the morning around 4am as to arrive in Francistown at 12:30pm. This is entirely incompatible with my work schedule and the group travel plans to leave Francistown early in the morning. As a result heading into the long weekend I found myself on the side of the road, hugged by my pack, sleeping bag in hand. Susan was gracious enough to take me to Sha Shake the place where you go to hitch a ride or get a lift as it is referred to here. Also fun fact: standing with your arm outstretched thumbs up is not the universal hitchhiking sign, here you stick out your arm and flap a horizontal hand up and down rapidly. Sha Shake is a roadside stop by the boarder of Botswana/Zambia/Zimbabwe, a cross road where the highway splits heading to Kasane in one direction and Francistown in the other. She stood there waiting with me to get a ride for two hours even though she was feeling sick. I kept on telling her that it is okay for her to go back to which she insisted on staying with me saying she “wanted to see the car that I got into first.” I feel extremely blessed to have such a good friend here. After an hour of only truck drivers stopping and me growing restless Susan reassured me that “these things take time and I must have patients because the car that God planned for me will come.”

And it did. A benz going right to Francistown pulled over. I could not have asked for a better ride. After a lot of worrying I was so thankful. It was a middle-aged couple from Kasane traveling for the long weekend. She was a police officer and he worked in government. When they pulled over by me a swarm of people ran up surrounding the car. After asking them where they were going, he said okay get in pointing to me. Hands grabbing for the door and shoves from all sides, I quickly embraced Susan as she fought off the crowd, pushing me into the back seat. The couple decided to take one more and a young guy from Zimbabwe climbed in next to me.

Sitting in the car with ample legroom, gospel music blaring, the sun settling lower flickering through the passing trees I almost teared up. Susan was right. I need to learn to have more faith. It was the smoothest ride to date (which can be judged by the quality of my printing in my journal as I wrote this). The couple was absolutely hilarious and the most expressional people I have met. In between cds they carried out a lively conversation in Setswana, her doing the shrill Ahhs common among the women and he sounded exactly like jar jar binks from Star Wars. Going 180km/hr down the highway horn blaring for birds and goats to get out of the way… except for one unfortunate bird who bounced off the top of our windshield. Switching from one gospel cd to the next the woman asked me if I was Christian and if so why I was not singing. And so I sang, we sang into the growing darkness until my voice grew horse.

Arriving in Francistown they were staying on the other side of the city and so dropped me off at the rank (where the other guy was going) so that I could catch a cab to Faisal’s house. It was now 11pm and the streets were mostly empty. In the cab I called Faisal who responded with “oh no, you do know that’s supppper sketchy right?…. Okay well you got the licence plate right? ...Okay well someone else is in there with you right?...” I made it safely to his block where he was pacing nervously up and down the block. We hugged then walked back to his house, the nerves relaxing with laughter.