it's bubb.: Diamonds and Birthdays.

Enjoying the morning in the bush!

Since its independence in 1966, Botswana went from being one of the world’s poorest countries to one of the few developing nations to reach middle-income status. The need for a skilled labor force is still great as HIV/AIDS severely affect development gains and impacts all aspects of life in Botswana. This country has the second largest diamond pipes in the world which keep the economy afloat. Bots 13 was lucky to have a tour of one of the diamond polishing plants here in Botswana and I was very interested to see what the process was like.

Beautiful diamonds. Don't mind my ugly knuckles.

Getting through security required in-depth measures but once we got in it was really exciting to tour such a nice facility. Steinmetz is a company whose diamonds are not associated with blood diamonds or conflict areas. These are some of the finest diamonds in the world and also some of the rarest. We learned that some of the diamonds of the Steinmetz Company was displayed in the Smithsonian, in Washington, because of the rarity of all their beauty. The plant employs about 160 employees. They are big on their commitment to their community and sponsor different sports teams and marathons in the country. We got to go through the unit where they look closely at a diamond and try to find most of its inclusions so they can find the best possible ways to cut the diamond without taking much value out of it. It was really cool to see how this process was done. We got to see where they cut the diamonds and where they smoothed and polished it. I even got to hold a 10 carat rough stone in my hands. That was really cool but the cooler thing was when we went to meet some of the gemologists and one of the ladies put five different stones in my hand, different colors and sizes, and then proceeded to tell me that those diamonds were worth 2-3 million dollars!!! I couldn’t believe these small little things could be worth so much! Of course I asked to take a picture because this will be the first and last time I would ever be near something so valuable and expensive. The picture does not do the diamonds justice so just believe me when I say the stones were really beautiful.

On November 9 I celebrated two birthdays – my host sister’s and my dad’s. I couldn’t do much for my dad but, like every year, I made sure to wish him a happy birthday, deposit some money into his account and remind him that I miss him and love him. He is always very grateful for that. For my sister I decided to bake her some cookies. In America we usually make a big deal over birthdays and in Botswana they really don’t. I don’t know if that is related to money or not but I’m pretty sure it does. The night before the 9^th I baked cookies for my sister because 1) I knew she’d love that since she said nobody remembers her birthday and 2) I needed my family to know what soft and chewy cookies actually taste like. (They do not have any REAL cookies here! Only “biscuits” which make sense since the country gained its independence from the English.) I made cookies from oats, peanut butter, and 2 bars of Cadbury chocolate. It was delicious! I even handmade her a birthday card which I haven’t done in years and took an empty peanut butter jar, washed it, and used construction paper and a marker to decorate it and make it a little prettier. Talk about recycling. My family LOVED the cookies and insists that I show them how to make them. (I’m pretty sure I’ll take baking back up since I’ll have a LOT of free time soon and I love to bake.) My sister said I made her day with all the nice gifts and sentiments and my family ate the cookies in 10 minutes. I made sure everyone would be at the house that day and so I gathered everyone up to take pictures of us being silly. I forgot to mention that lately I have been preparing for the moment I have to leave for my permanent site. I’ve been kind of sad about it and my family keeps jokingly telling me to stay. I decided to also give my host mom a gift as a way to say thank you for opening up her heart and her home to me. So we all stayed up all night eating sweets, singing and dancing, and being silly and having fun with each other. Let’s just say the night ended with happy stomachs and happy hearts.