Dumelang (Hello)

To kick off the semester, we take our students to Bahurutshe Cultural Village and Mokolodi Nature Reserve, which are both slightly outside of the capital city, Gaborone. In today’s issue, we will be taking you on their first CIEE excursion of the Semester. Here’s what is in today’s issue:

Welcome to Bahurutshe!

Exploring the Village

Immersed in Culture

Mokolodi

Bahurutshe Cultural Village is an innovative cultural lodging facility which offers a wide variety of different traditional practices for guests to enjoy. As the students are based in the capital city where rich cultural practices are not easily accessible, Bahurutshe Cultural Village is a great way for the students to get acquainted with a few of our native practices.

On arrival, the students were welcomed by Vicky followed by a hearty breakfast to kick off their jam-packed day. 

Eggs, Mince, Wedges and Phaphatha

Breakfast is served!

Exploring the Village!

While Bahurutshe Cultural Village offers a variety of different cultural practices, it is located in and around villages which have a lot of historical monuments worth visiting. To avoid restricting the students to only staying at Bahurutshe, we took them to a number of different places to experience not only current traditional practices offered at Bahurutshe, but to also get a chance to learn about our history.

Manyana, a neighbouring village to Mankgodi where Bahurutshe Cultural Village is located, is home to Manyana Rock Paintings. It is said that these Rock Paintings date back from 1100 and 1700AD and were made by Khoi Herders for sacred, religious and spiritual rituals. The images include giraffe, antelope and human figures amongst other things and now serve as a popular tourist attraction. Have a look at our students’ experience:

Our students taking in the view!

Ariana!

Faint human paintings

Next on the agenda was a visit to Livingston’s Tree on the south end of the village. This Fig Tree which now rests on its branches, is said to be a common place under which David Livingston preached. Take a look at their time at the tree:

Keya and Gontse with the students!

Immersed in Culture!

To end off the day, the students were welcomed back to Bahurutshe Cultural Village where they partook in varying cultural practices. While these are done for the purpose of entertaining guests and are as such in some ways performative, the primary focus is in preserving different Tswana traditional practices and sharing it with those interested. The Bahurutshe Cultural Village was established in 2005 for the purpose of conserving the rich culture of the Bahurutshe people. As an unfortunate result of colonialism and westernization, certain aspects of Tswana culture at large has slowly disappeared and as such the need to preserve it has sprung.

The students got a chance to witness how a traditional wedding is done, pound sorghum, watch traditional dance, ride on a donkey cart and see their livestock. Have a look:

Emily and Alexa pounding Sorghum
  
Traditional dance!

Paige cuddling a goat!

After a long of day of exploring Manyana Village and indulging in different cultural activities, the students called it a night after dinner and prepared for their trip to Mokolodi Nature Reserve the following morning.

Mokolodi Nature Reserve was established in 1994 where it was previously land used for cattle farming. It has now grown to be the home of a wide variety of animals and plants of which some are rare and endangered species. In addition to offering Game Activities such as Game Drives, Rhino and Giraffe Tracking, Mokolodi Nature Reserve offers luxurious accommodation, camping facilities and a delicious restaurant. To give the students a taste of what Mokolodi has to offer, we give them the opportunity to go on a Game Drive and have lunch to end off their first excursion!

Hey! Look! It’s a Giraffe!​

Emily and Hayley get up close and personal with a Warthog!

Lunch is served!