Mall Adventures

We've spent most of the weekend getting acclimated and getting all the supplies we need for our apartments/grocery shopping. The term mall here is used for any big collection of stores, but there are two major malls in Gaborone that look straight out of the US. One is called RiverWalk and the other is Game City. They are just like American malls and have all the same brands and are really really nice. RiverWalk has two great grocery stores where we've done our food shopping. No lie, they're better than Fresh Grocer. We also went to Game to get kitchenware, etc. Game is the South African version of Wal Mart. It even smells like Wal Mart.

Its really interesting to see the divide in income here, which is really apparent at the malls. Game City and RiverWalk are both relatively expensive and extremely Westernized. Yesterday I was talking to Carol, our student guide, who took me into a store that sold American brands like Guess. A Guess sweater was about P500, which is about $30 give or take. While that may not be over the top for us, it is an outrageous amount of money in Botswana.

The Main Mall is much more local in atmosphere and a lot more inexpensive. While there are stores, there are also stalls on the street which sell local food and handmade things. Its a really cool place. Some of the stalls selling cd's blare the traditional music they're selling and you feel like you have a soundtrack when you're walking down the street. It's pretty awesome!