Firsts

I've complied of a list of "firsts in bots". These are all things that I've never seen, done, witnessed, etc.  before living in Botswana. Thought it might be fun to share & add to! I wrote these down in no particular order at all...

1. Living on my own (no roommates)
2. Marriage proposals from strangers
3. Owning a cat (and actually wanting to)
4. Bucket bath
5. Watching a chicken being slaughtered
6. Living in the southern hemisphere
7. Making my own homemade fridge
8. Washing all plastic bags to reuse later
9. Killing spiders (and actually wanting to)
10. Learning to wash my clothes by hand
11. Eating rice with ketchup (it grows on you)
12. Baking my own bread
13. Living without electricity
14. Brain freeze from washing my hair
15. Puke & diarrhea (at the same time)
16. Drinking chibuku - really awful traditional beer
17. One bottle of shampoo & one bottle of conditioner lasting over three months
18. Using cash as my primary method of payment
19. Learning two new languages that are not offered in high school or by Rosetta Stone
20. Living in a house without insulation or indoor heating
21. Making good use of a solar charger
22. Seeing giraffes in the wild
23. Going on a game drive
24. Chasing spring hares in the middle of the night in the Tuli Block
25. Watching traffic stop for cows crossing the road
26. Witnessing children who are allowed to carry/walk/run with sharp objects (like knifes)
27. Drinking tea several times a day to stay warm
28. Boiling water to bathe
29. Drinking oral rehydration salts (yay for dehydration in the desert)
30. Sewing clothes to keep them from falling apart
31. Burning trash
32. Playing double dutch with 50 adults
33. Finding a cow head in the fridge at my homestay family's house
34. Also, discovering cow limbs & organs in the freezer
35. No car- just walking & public transportation
36. Living in a rural village
37. Traveling six hours to go to the bank & grocery store
38. Continually washing my feet & dumping sand out of my shoes
39. Watching south african soap operas
40. Meeting the kgosi (chief)
41. Unable to show my armpits (no tank tops)
42. Living in a country without gender equality
43. Eating sweet root (similar to sugar cane)
44. Shared taxi rides
45. Carrying a role of toilet paper everywhere
46. Hanging laundry out to dry on a line
47. Chasing goats away after they try to eat my trash
48. Hands going numb while washing the dishes
49. Praying in a language other than English
50. Eating fat cakes
51. Pay-as-you-go cell phone plan
52. Walking to work
53. Ants taking over the kitchen
54. Frequent electricity & cell phone network outages
55. Grinding sorghum (a type of grain)
56. Attending a traditional Botswana wedding
57. Creating a community map
58. Discovering that wine is sold in juice boxes
59. Receiving a love letter from a 14 year old
60. Reading more than one book in a day
61. Paying for my own P.O. box
62. Sending international mail
63. Seeing ostriches in the wild
64. Seeing baboons in the wild
65. Truly appreciating solitude
66. Jumping up & down in the store when I find something I've been looking for (like cinnamon)
67. Making tea for every person who visits my house
68. "checking" people (visiting people without warning to see how they're doing)
69. Dance parties by myself
70. Using Vaseline as a lotion substitute
71. Having old men touch my chest during conversation (it's a cultural thing, not sexual)
72. Causing a car accident because a man stuck his head out the window to talk to me
73. Sweeping sand dunes out of my house each week
74. Learning to cook in a traditional kitchen (cooking outside over a fire)
75. Finding millipedes thicker than my thumb & longer than my hand
76. Listening to music as an "activity"
77. Ignoring ants in my food & pretending they're pepper
78. Eating a hazelnut lollypop (delicious by the way..)

79. Receiving a new name in a different language

80. Reading military time

81. Checking for spiders under the toilet seat