Tsamaya Sentle

I’ve left Botswana. I’ve packed my stuff, sold my furniture, gotten on a plane, and left a whole life behind.

I am still processing everything, I think. This feeling of loss, of grief.

It feels like a dream, that life that I lived there. Almost like I cannot find a way to merge the before, the during, and the after. I felt like a different person there, like someone who was truly alive for the first time in her life. Maybe that girl is lost forever now that I’ve left.

But even as I return home, I cannot help but hold onto Shakawe, to Botswana, to Africa, to the person who I became there.

Botswana has definitely left its mark on me. There are the goats who strolled outside of my window. My two-bedroom house with a sprawling yard. The rushing river and captivating bridge. The teachers at Shakawe Senior who took me in as their family. The village children who are sometimes adorable menaces, as any child should be. The women in the village with headscarves and dresses with beautiful textiles. The unapologetic blackness. The tranquility. The colorful birds tapping on my window everyday. The sunsets and sunrises. The practice of saying good morning, good afternoon, or dumela to everyone you talk to or pass by. The food, both traditional foods like seswaa and magwinya and contemporary foods like peri peri chips from Nando’s. The language. The community and care. The eerily polite and adorably shy students. The growing confidence of the students in my after-school programs. The hustle and the struggle of the Batswana. My yellow Volkswagon, the first car I’ve ever bought. The elephants casually walking across the road. The countless, hypervisible stars in the night sky in Shakawe. My friends and coworkers who made me laugh, made me dance, and made me think. The complexity of the Setswana language. My English classes. My co-teacher, Mma K. The different cultures of the tribes. The Herero women with their horizontal hats and long, flared dresses. Tuck shops with mafresh. The obsession with coca cola. The football matches with Lexumdjira Social Club. The diversity of life. The architecture, which is often beautifully handcrafted and sustainable. The smell of wild African sage. The curiosity about who I am and where I come from everywhere I go. The word lekgoa, meaning ‘one who was spit from the sea.’  The faint British influence. The delta. The bush. The freedom.

These are the things that have stuck with me, have inspired me or changed me during these past nine months. And while I could not stay in Botswana, I’ve made sure to take some souvenirs back with me, both the tangible and intangible kind.