Food

Botswana is a meat country. Standard fare consists of a choice between chicken and beef, cooked in seasoned meat juice, with rice or pasta. Coleslaw is the most typical vegetable. Sometimes butternut squash is served on the side, or potato salad. This fare is served in its most minimal and barely consumable form at the refectory, where we have been given a meal plan for dinner (the exact same food every day). It is also available from some stalls which are outside of the main entrance every day, and is absolutely delicious there. “Hot dogs” are also available from campus stalls, which are really gigantic sausages with sweet chili pepper sauce, as well as meat pies (essentially hot pockets that taste like chicken pot pie).

Off campus, there is an array of delicious restaurant food. Nando’s, a South African fast-food chain, makes delicious, fresh grilled chicken with a special peri-peri hot sauce. There are various American bar and fast foods, delicious Indian, pizza, Italian, and some Asian places we haven’t tried yet.

“Traditional” food is similar to standard fare, but generally not as good, which may explain why it is not available in the city unless you arrange a special tourist meal. Gritty goat meat or intestines are often involved, as is pap and sorghum, which are grain-based starches pounded into dust and recrafted into mashed-potato like consistencies (expect much lighter). They also eat cooked mopani (sp?) worms. These are crunchy with an interior like shrimp and an extremely salty flavor. They are not revolting but with not be tasted again by this author.