Mochudi Branch Halloween Party

Elder and Sister Taylor who support the Mochudi Branch asked us to help them with their young single adult Halloween party on Saturday, 27 October. They asked us to judge the pumpkin carving contest and the Halloween costume contest. We had a wonderful time with the young adults; most of them are institute students.

Halloween is not celebrated in Botswana so Sister Taylor explained what happens in the United States on Halloween. The young adults thought that trick-or-treating sounded like a fun thing to do.

Because it is spring in Botswana pumpkins are not available so butternut squash was used instead. Everyone had one squash to carve and they showed their creativity without really ever having seen a jack-o-lantern. They had a lot of fun.

About a dozen people dressed up for the Halloween costume contest. The top prizes went to the cereal killer who came loaded with knives, meat cleaver, and cereal boxes and to two young men waiting for their mission calls dressed up as Tongan missionaries. Elder and Sister Taylor were bacon and eggs for the costume contest.

Dinner was chili on rice. The young adults did not want plain chili. We brought jack-o-lantern cookies for the dessert and there was punch. Everyone got to make their own caramel popcorn balls. There was plenty of caramel and popcorn so many popcorn balls were taken home as well as eaten at the party.

Another event was a mummy wrapping contest to see which team would be first to use up their two rolls of toilet paper wrapping their mummy. We think they were having such a good time wrapping and laughing that they lost track of trying to be fast.

The final event was pumpkin bowling. Lack of pumpkins changed the event to cabbage bowling. Two people were able to get strikes and win the top prizes.

All of the activities created quite a mess so everyone pitched in to clean up the building after the party so it would be ready for church in the morning.

Real Wheel Fun

Children in Botswana do not have many toys. We rarely see children on bicycles. Often they will have an old worn-out ball or may have made a ball out of something like grocery bags. They do make fun with what they have and are quite creative.

During the summer we often saw boys having fun with push cars. They make these out of cartons or wire. They put wheels on them and decorate them. They push them up and down the streets with long sticks. They become quite expert at "driving" these cars.







One day at the pedestrian plaza in a shopping area we saw three boys who had gone farther with the push-car idea. They made one they could ride! They were having a wonderful time; we only wish that we could have caught them in action with the camera. We had to settle for getting their picture just sitting on their hot wheels. Notice that every wheel on this push car is different. It is a one-boy powered car, but were they having fun.






A popular thing for young boys to do is push automobile tires down the road. We see this often and they seem always to be having a grand time. We found these three boys pushing tires in our neighborhood while we were walking so we hurried home and got the camera. They were more than willing to have their picture taken and show their skill at rolling tires.

Gaborone Flowers

Gaborone is at the edge of a desert and extremely dry for about eight months of the year, but there are many beautiful and exotic flowers in the city. We are delighted to see the beauty as we drive and walk around town. We thought you might like to see just some of the beauty they bring to Gaborone.

 

 

Our yard had not been watered or taken care of for a year before we moved in but we were amazed and surprised at the flowers in the yard that survived and flourished. Here are a few of them. The white frilly ones at the end are the flowers on a guava tree.

 

 

 

 

We not only enjoy the flowers in our yard, we also enjoy the flowers in our neighbors' yards. Some amaze us at how long they can be beautiful. The red hibiscus grows in a yard with the house under construction and gets no care. Last night the cows found it and the bush was badly eaten back. The cows, goats, and donkeys eat almost anything outside a fence.

Bougainvilleas win our award for the most profuse, colorful, and longest lasting flower. They will grow up through trees to amazing heights. Some people keep them nicely trimmed so they are a uniformly shaped mass of flowers. Others have beautiful arching branches. Some are almost continually covered with enough flowers that the leaves are difficult to see. They grow so well we have seen people hack them down with machetes when they get too big. Like many plants in Botswana they come with nasty thorns. No matter what they are beautiful.

 

 

A large percentage of the trees people in Gaborone have planted are flowering varieties. They flower in almost every season so there are almost always trees in bloom. Some of the trees have exotic flowers; others are a mass of color.

 

 

 

Some of the flowers are obvious volunteers. They seem to be able to grow almost anywhere and must be almost indestructible. We thought you would like to see some of the volunteers. The vines on the fence below are regularly chopped back by the city but within a few weeks they are back and in bloom.

 

Tuck Shops

Tuck shops are the convenience stores of Botswana. They are located alongside streets throughout Gaborone and other towns and villages. Because many people walk they are located by kombi/bus stops or locations with heavy walking trafffic, or they are just the local neighborhood market. They range in size from card tables to small permanent buildings. Many of the tuck shops are modified metal shipping containers.

The small shops that are just a table, chair, and large shade umbrella are usually set up and taken down each day. Many mornings we see people pushing wheelbarrows with all their equipment and supplies heading to where they will set up their tuck shop for the day. We have seen people sleeping in their wheelbarrows when business is slow. Running a tuck shop is not an easy job when the weather is cold or very hot. Think about being in a metal box or out in the open with an umbrella for shade on a 38 degree Celsius (100 degree Farenheit) day. Many of the tuck shops are set up to take advantage of the shade of a tree. They are most often manned by women, sometimes with small children.

They all sell snacks, cookies, and candy. The larger, more permanent, shops also carry cold drinks, and staples such as bread, fruits, vegetables, etc. They keep the drinks cold in coolers with ice because they do not have electricity. Some appear to do a pretty good business. They are popular places to shop. At some busy kombi stops there will be a row of tables set up all selling similar items.

 

 

We enjoy seeing children reaching up to the tuck shop window to buy a loaf of bread or something else to take home.