Guns Up Red Raider Fans!

One afternoon three Red Raiders, Ashleigh, Amanda and Kelly, were driving down the road.  As Kelly rounded the corner she began pointing out the window and shouting with excitement, “Look!  Texas Tech!”  The three Red Raiders began waving at the young man walking down the road, talking on his cell phone.  The young man was wearing…. A Texas Tech sweatshirt!  After a year of searching through more than a dozen African countries Kelly had finally found a fellow Red Raider fan.  Not only had she found him, but he lived in her neighborhood in Botswana.  The three Red Raiders jumped out of the car, surrounded the Motswana teenager with the TTU sweatshirt and took a picture with him before he even knew what had happened.  Just as quickly as the encounter began, the three girls jumped back into the car and set off for the Gaborone Game Reserve in search of zebras.  The zebras were never located, but at least there was a Texas Tech sweatshirt sighting that evening.

Sadly I did not have my Texas Tech flag at the ready when we met our new friend.  During my time at Texas Tech I’ve take nine different groups of students (about 200 altogether) on trips to various locations across the globe to learn about hospitality and tourism from a different perspective.  I always take my TTU flag with us and we take lots of group photos with our “guns up” and the school colors.  Here we are in Switzerland:

Grand Turk during our Caribbean Cruise class:

And Las Vegas:

The picture of the Three Red Raiders and the Motswana just isn’t the same without the flag.  In an effort to make up for the missing accessory, here we’ve added it in twice for good measure:

Money, Money, Money, Money...MOOOOOO-NEY!

Though I’m not scheduled to leave Africa for a few more weeks, I thought it a good idea to start going through all my belongings and trying to downsize as much as possible.  Believe it or not, I spent a good 20 minutes trying to streamline my wallet this morning.  As a rule, when I travel, I eliminate all unnecessary items from my wallet.  When friends come to visit and I see them carrying a wallet full of 10 different credit cards, their library card, their Red Cross blood donor card, their Social Security card, and countless other cards they will never use, but are highly likely to lose here, I cringe.  When I moved to Africa I brought the following: 1 personal credit card, 1 credit card for university-related/business purposes, 1 bank debit card, my travel insurance card, and my emergency evacuation/I’M IN A LOT OF TROUBLE GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! supplementary insurance card.  That’s it!  I have since added a Botswana driver’s license.

Despite having the two credit cards and the debit card, I only use these about half the time.  Southern Africa has begun using plastic on a more regular basis, but Zimbabwe and most of central and east Africa still operate on a strictly cash system.  I knew cash would be necessary, so when I came here I brought $5,000 with me and have since changed or used most of it.  Similar to the patriotism displayed in my blog post about how I was proud to be an American and would NEVER give up my passport to obtain citizenship elsewhere, there is a lot to be said about the power of the U.S. dollar.  You know the commercial, “Visa: Accepted Everywhere”?  Not true.  It should really be, “U.S. Dollars: Accepted Everywhere.”  Though I should add that when travelling to Africa if you plan to bring a credit card, choose Visa.  My university card is a Master Card and I haven’t been able to use it several times because Master Card isn’t as widely accepted as Visa.  Apparently those Olympics commercials with Morgan Freeman ARE telling the truth.

As I was organizing my wallet today there was no need to go through my cards as those have remained stagnant.  But my supply of banknotes and coins has changed considerably.  My stash of U.S. dollars is barely enough to get me through the next couple months, but I can now rest assured that if I get stranded in any one of a dozen African countries I can buy a bottle of water, and in some cases, even dinner if necessary.  Here are some of the bills I’ve collected during my tenure in Africa:

(Left to right, top to bottom): Ugandan Shilling, Rwandan Franc, Congolese Franc, Ethiopian Birr, Zimbabwean Dollar (This is no longer in circulation. Zimbabwe has no official currency, so the U.S. dollar is primarily used, but you can now use 8 different foreign currencies as legal tender), Zambian Kwacha, U.S. Dollar, Kenyan Shilling, Namibian Dollar, Botswana Pula, Sierra Leonean Leone, South African Rand, and Lesotho Loti.

None of these bills are worth more than a dollar or two, except for the Rand and Pula which are about $20 and $23, respectively.  But I will definitely spend those as SA and Botswana are where I will be most of the time until I leave.