18th of August, 2018.
I buy some bread, cheese and tomatoes to make a different sandwich apart of peanut butter ones. I also buy some spices to cook a little bit more tasteful and some beetroots because they don’t have any carrots.
I go to the library looking for free wi-fi but it is closed. I try to access from outside but my computer goes crazy. I make my sandwiches over there and after eating, I take my way out of town.
It looks like it will be a long way. Apart of the heavy weigh I am carrying, it is almost dark and I am starting to get concerned.
In the opposite side of the road, two boys ask me if I need any kind of help with information. I say no but thanks. But then I have an idea: crossing the road, I ask them if any of their parents would let me put my tent in their garden just for the night. Jayson Lekoko say it would be fine for his family. So they offer to care my food bags and I am leaded to Jason’s house.
It is not to far and there I meet his uncle Kefilwe and his grandmother Maria Mogae. They listen to my story and totally agree with the request. I could not actually put the tent on the garden because the soil it is too hard, so I used the varanda. No wind, luckily.
While cooking my dinner, I talk with Jayson. He is a very polite boy who wants to become a drawer. He shows me some of his drawings. He even invite me to watch a movie later on television but I tell him I would like to go to sleep very early. In the morning Jayson invites me to have breakfast with him: tea with bread.
It is Sunday and the plan is going to Palapye, get connection for a while and check all my stuff and make camping out of town. I have some extra days since my volunteer work in Zimbabwe is expecting me just for the first of September and the first few places I visited took me less days than I imagined. If I knew at that moment that: Serowe is such an important town to Botswana and the first president is from there, I would have spent one more day there, going around and visiting, asking more information to Jayson’s uncle. Why they did not tell me?
Out of Serowe a pick up stops. The driver is a banker who has a farm in Serowe but works in Gaborone. He is going to his farm. We have some thoughts in common and it is nice talking to him. He is intrigued and surprise by my travels but he says it is a nice thing to do. He is the person who tells me about Serowe. He drops me at a Wimpy and insist on giving me one hundred Pula. He sounded so nice that I had to accept. I had no idea how that money would save my ass later.
At Wimpy, no good news about the volunteer work in Botswana and I decide to send some requests to CS in Francistown. Many of the hosts with references are not active in the last few months. Great! I put down a public trip without too many hopes.
I spend the whole day in a mall nearby. I prepare my sandwiches and have to deal with all the weird looks from the people.
I meet and talk with two people: one of the receptionists from the Goo Moremi Gorge, not Wendy though (I should have done two things: gave to her my email address so she could give to Wendy, and asked her for a lift only until somewhere on the road, where I could make my camp, but I did not); and a lady from Moremi, who I met two days ago (to her I actually asked about the lift but she was taking public transportation).
Walking out of town, I am tired and it is getting dark. I see a small trail going across the fence and I spend some good minutes deciding if I should take it or not. After I decided for taking it, I cannot find a gap between cars coming and when it is not the car, it is some people doing exercises. I should have taken that as sign.
When I start to make my camping, two workers are passing by and one of them sees me. An old man as I could see when he approached to “talk” to me. We do not understand each other. After they leave I am in a The Clash dilemma: should I stay or I should I go? I decide to follow Cheryl Strayed’s steps and move on. But as soon as I get on the road, someone stops. The gentleman inside, an old man, looks very trustful and tell me he had seen me before. I accept his help. Mr. Mabina is actually a police officer and he drops me in a Police station not to far from where we are.
At the police station, there are two women in service. I talk with one of them. She tells me I would be assisted. After waiting for a while, I talk with a man. He does nothing. After a while they put me in an abandoned room, without lights. I say I have to cook and the lady show me the “kitchen”: a sink with a tap and a cupboard. At least there are lights.
After watching n episode of Lie to me I try to sleep.
How can I sometimes forget why I should not ask for help in Police stations anymore? Before five in the morning, a police woman wake me up and say that her superior wants to see me. What? Fuck yeah! I am pissed off, man! When I ask the officer why they did not make the questions they want last night when I arrived, she tells me is because her superior has just arrived. Liar! She was in there last night with me! She did not give a shit when what she should have done was t do her work! She prefer to wake me up before five in the morning just because she also had to wake up that early to go to work. Bitch! I am not nice with her. I ask her the same thing I asked the officer: Why wake me up? Why the questions were not made last night? Her excuse it is because she was leaving. She write down some information (just to show up because they did not even checked my passport, I could be completely lying) and when I mention again something about being sleeping, she says a fake “I am sorry” followed of her fake face of “I did not know you were sleeping”. No bitch, what in the hell I would be doing at five in the morning since I came here just to ask for a pace to sleep?
That made me realize something: you do not need any intelligence, smartness or mental qualifications to become a police officer. You just need to pass on the physical exams, to do some tests, ask some questions to prove you are not crazy and that is it. Of course it is quite more easy in African countries but is basically that. Our security and our lives are in the hands of ignorant people, who have no idea of our rights or how to treat people. They might, might know who to arrest and how to treat the bad guys, but people? Innocent people? No clue. The most qualified people in the world, the genius minds, all the most intelligent and brilliant people in the whole world, have ignorant people to defend them from the criminals. I am saying, it should be mandatory to have a law degree to become a police officer. Mandatory! No University, no degree: bye, bye. Human rights, people! Let’s learn how to deal with people!
Of course I do not come back to sleep. After preparing and eating my breakfast, some tea with peanut butter sandwiches, I take my way.