A Place with a Soul

It’s the Fall of my sophomore year at the University of Florida. Architecture as a study fascinates me but I’m fairly terrible at it in practice. My grades reflect my lack of creative drawing ability although I am convinced my professors just don’t share my love of color and whimsy in the work I do. It turns out my love of designing and building Lego structures doesn’t translate into an architecture and design degree at a historically brutal college program. I guess they call it architorture for a reason. I’m doing well in math and economics so I change my major to Econ. If I can’t be an architect, I may as well try and work in government like my dad or perhaps pursue a career with a non-governmental agency and righteously (yeah right) save the world. Heck, worst-case scenario, I hear the economics majors who pursue an MBA at least make some money in business. I go for a jog down then up 8th avenue in Gainesville. That’s the biggest, baddest hill I know of near campus. I’ve got to sweat this feeling of failure out. 

The next morning I logged into my UFL account to see if I was able to get into French or American Sign Language as a foreign language credit needed to graduate. I figured I should get it out of the way so I don’t have to worry about it as an upperclassman next year. Damn! Both courses are full. I really didn’t want to have to take a summer semester just to fit in a couple of credit hour language courses. What does it really matter though, I’m not going anywhere this summer. My parents live in Gainesville so I can just move back home for the summer and pick up extra shifts at the coffee shop and work for the city’s summer camp as a counselor again. I guess it’s going to be the same old same old. 

Whoops! I need to head to class. I jump on my bike, old Trusty Rusty, and ride south on 13th street toward campus past my roommates' parent’s Korean restaurant and the Krispy Kream doughnut shop. Damn it smells good in the mornings. As I approach University Avenue and the huge University of Florida sign on the southwest corner of 13th and University I see a big yellow taxi stopped. It’s like a throwback to a different era or like a movie scene or something. I don’t know why it struck me as so odd. You just don’t really see those big, yellow, checkered cabs in Gainesville. Its passenger was standing on the sidewalk out front of the giant U of F sign pulling cash out of her wallet trying to pay the cab driver as the cabbie was pulling her 3 huge bags from the trunk of the car and placing them on the sidewalk. I just sort of stopped and watched. She paid the man and the cab sped off. Now the woman was just standing there on the sidewalk with 3 huge bags, an enormous duffle-style purse slung over her shoulder, on the corner of a busy intersection on a bustling campus, during a balmy fall morning in Florida. I stood there and stared a little too long. She caught me. She smiled. She said, “Hello” in the sweetest, most melodic voice I had heard since my own great grandmother had bid me welcome the summer before when I visited. 

“My name is Mae, will you help me with my bags?” she said. 

“Sure thing, where are we going?” I guess class can wait. There is something about this sweet old lady. 

“I don’t actually know, I don’t have a room assigned that I know of yet. Maybe you could help me find a place to stay,” she said.

“My roommates and I have a couch.”

“Ok, let’s go.”

What is going on? Did I just invite a strange, old woman to crash on my buddy Mike’s couch? 

I definitely did and now we are on the way back to Mike’s place and I’ve balanced some of her bags on Trusty Rusty’s back and I’m dragging another behind me while Mae tells me about the 30 hours’ worth of flights she had to endure to get to Gainesville from Johannesburg, South Africa. This was a time before the direct flights to Joburg that got you there in under 15 hours. I am captivated by her accent, her voice, her gentle way of speaking, and the pace of her words. She speaks with purpose and listens intently when I reply. I have always been involved with the speech and debate teams at school. My best friend, Ryan, got me hooked during my freshman year of high school. He coached me my freshman year and I took home 4th place at JV state in my very first year. There was no looking back for me. That’s likely why this conversation with Mae was compelling to me. Her voice was something unique to my “forensics” practiced ears. 

Back at Mike’s couch, Sis Mae (She was now telling me her friends called her Sis, short for Sister and Mae, short for Mavis back home, and since I was a friend…) was telling me she came to the University of Florida to finish her Ph.D. in linguistics and teach a course in isiXhosa and isiZulu. What luck! I needed a foreign language credit and this lady owes me! Perfect, I’ll take your course and now I have a friend on the faculty. I hope Mike is cool with a strange old lady on the couch for a bit while she gets her housing situation sorted out. 

Sis Mae gets housed, I get enrolled in Xhosa class, and Mike didn’t seem to notice she was ever even there. The class is incredible. There are only 7 students total and the atmosphere is so relaxed that learning the language is actually not that bad. We learn about the history of Shaka and the dress and customs. We learn about daily life and about the horrors of apartheid. Learning from and with Sis Mae feels a lot like having a conversation with family. She’s wise and kind and patient. As the semester rolls on, U of F hosts Ladysmith Black Mambazo for an evening performance. I get to be part of the welcoming committee since I have some language skills in common. The performance was incredible, the voices were mesmerizing. Does everyone in KwaZulu-Natal sound this good? During the semester we organize a few cultural experiences which include cooking traditional Xhosa meals together, writing songs in Xhosa and performing them during class, and even slaughtering a goat (I didn’t care much for that but it’s a big part of the celebration in parts of eastern South Africa). I get really good at making the clicks and work really hard on my accent. It’s fun to see the reaction on people’s faces when I speak the language with clicks. As the semester wound down to the end Sis Mae approached me about continuing on in the spring for Xhosa 2. Without a doubt, I love this class and I love the culture, I’m in. She thought I might be interested. She also informed me there was an interesting scholarship offered to study abroad in Southern Africa. It might be something I would enjoy. Was there no end to this woman's wisdom? The scholarship is through the UFIC (UF international center) office that she was affiliated with. 

Here’s the opportunity; I would get to travel to Gaborone, Botswana for a semester in my Junior year and study Economics in a country widely considered the African Economic Success story. Further, they would cover all costs and all I had to do was write a blog post twice per month recapping what I’m doing and how much fun I’m having. The posts will be published on the UF website to attract other students to these types of programs. As evidenced by this post, I’m not a great writer, but it’s good enough for the program which is in its infancy, so they accept my writing sample and I am granted the scholarship. 

I doubled down on my efforts to learn Xhosa the following semester and build on my close relationship with Sis Mae even though in Botswana they speak Setswana. I’m just so excited to travel. I’m excited to do something meaningful and fresh and new. A change of scenery and a little bit of discomfort helps people grow. I know this inherently but I can’t put it into words at the time. I’ve seen my closest friends grow up around me to be doctors, professors, and engineers. They all seem to know exactly what they want to do when they grow up. Those things don’t interest me but I don’t know what actually does. Since I’ve met Sis Mae, I’ve found out that it’s language and culture that I’m fascinated by. I want to learn them all. I want to share them with other people. I want to be a global citizen (I heard that phrase on one of my visits to the UFIC building, sounds cool, I’ll try it on).

I wrap up the school year and get prepared for my big trip. My family was extremely supportive but scared.

Is it safe?

Will you be able to call home?

Do they have the internet?

Will you get kidnapped?

My dad told me he was proud. He grew up in northern Kentucky and when he moved down to South Florida to take a job after college it was considered a HUGE move in those days. So far from family and where you grew up. That was deemed really risky. Today, that’s hardly noteworthy as a move since air travel and the connectivity of the internet and cellular phones make people hyperconnected. I didn’t really have the answers to those questions but I also didn’t care. I was so excited about a change of pace. Now I know, it’s safer to fly than it is to drive, it’s safer in Botswana than it is in the US, you can call home anytime you like, they have the internet, and the only thing that got kidnapped was my imagination. The country, the people, the language all absconded with my proverbial heart.

I spoke to Sis Mae a lot before departure. Her daughter lives in Johannesburg with her son-in-law and their children. They have a spare bedroom, I can stay with them while I’m in South Africa and get acclimated before my bus ride up to Gaborone. We make the arrangements and I’m blown away by the care and hospitality of Sis Mae’s family. I would come to know later that they are extraordinary people but that level of hospitality is standard. In the subsequent years of travel and time living in southern Africa, I’ve found that the people of that part of the continent have enormous patience and their kindness knows no bounds. Matt’s coming over? Let’s have a brai (the equivalent of a BBQ)! Bring the Chibuku (local beer)!

I’ll write about the brai and chibuku culture later. I’ll also write an entire post about my time at the University of Botswana in its own post but suffice to say, the experience of living and learning in a distant land amongst a foreign-to-me culture inspired me. I absolutely fell in love with the Batswana. My professors were so encouraging and always gave me extra time on my assignments so I could leave campus and experience something outside of the city or visit a friend in their village or spend the weekend at the cattle post. I was honestly impressed by the quality of education at UB. No wonder they have a stellar economy and have managed to tackle many of the health crises that plagued the country in years past. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Botswana is projected to be one of the most brain-rich tech hubs in the coming decade or that it is so culturally rich. For all the incredible achievements in public health, public education, wildlife conservation, and cultural sensitivities the phrase that sticks out most to me when I think about Botswana is, this country has a soul. The people care for each other. It’s a place where you can be your true human self. It’s a place I’ve wanted to share with all my friends and family since the moment I got back to the states after my time abroad. My first experience in Botswana as a student inspired me to dream up and ultimately co-found Africa Culture Journeys. ACJ is literally the first step in sharing that dream with the world. I’m lucky to be surrounded by friends who share a passion for dreaming and doing. Follow along as our community grows and I hope you will Journey with us. Tsamaya Sentle!