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..)
  1. Receiving a new name in a different language
  1. Reading military time
  1. Checking for spiders under the toilet seat 

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