My Nutrition in Botswana

It’s not all Magwinyas and Simba chips

Living in a large village, it’s easy to access a variety of almost any food. Which makes it even more important to pay attention to nutrition after a long day of PST when an 8 pula (~$0.80) large bag of chips is calling your name.

Thankfully, the variety of fruits and vegetables is impressive – grapes, peaches, oranges, bananas, apples, carrots, avocados, tomatoes, beets, bell peppers, butternut squash… the list goes on and on.

Our host mother always uses a significant portion of our food voucher on healthy foods, which I couldn’t be more grateful for. She doesn’t eat red meat and makes sure we have plenty of juice boxes for our lunch.

We’ve also learned to cook some traditional Botswana meals, such as pap, morogo, magwinya, Seswaa, stew, and porridge. Every meal that we cook with our mother is usually centered around the traditional foods, but we’ve also taught her how to make french toast, a Chinese noodle dish, and guacamole! The guac was all of our favorites out of the dishes we shared.

A typical day’s menu:

• Breakfast – an apple, banana, and maybe cornflakes, scrambled eggs (or sneak in a magwinya)
• Tea time – Rooibos tea or coffee
• Lunch – an apple, orange, peanuts, juice box, a PBJ, some veggies
• Snack – grapes or peaches, dark chocolate
• Dinner – (rice, pap, or noodles), vegetables (usually carrots, potatoes, green pepper, onion, and spinach), chicken, and hot sauce on everything
• ~96oz of water (with all of the coffee, sweating from workouts, and hot Botswana sun)

Sometimes the portion sizes can be quite large in Botswana, and I’ll have to turn down food. The people here are so loving and kind, most want to make sure we’re not getting skinny! Also, some volunteers have to communicate with their host families to request more fruits and vegetables in their diet. But it varies completely from family to family, just like in the US.

And of course it’s nice to treat yourself sometimes! So yes I’ll also have a beer or red wine with friends, my favorite Simba salt & vinegar chips, or some sour gummy worms. Everything is a balance, and I’m still finding mine. But overall, I love the food here in Botswana and feel like I’m able to stick to a healthy diet when I have the discipline to!

Tsamaya sentle,

Lorato