Last week, Jason and I went to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). It was sad, but fitting that our last adventure was the first one that we had talked about.

The CKGR is a magical place. I'm not sure if anyone could spend enough time there. It was so quiet that the wind roared in the dry grass. The grass glowed gold in the sun and the sky was an electric baby blue. Briefly looking over the pictures, I am very depressed that the camera captured none of the CKGR's beauty. The pictures do not show how the landscape glowed or the majesty of the antelope grazing.

Highlights include seeing the Kalahari lions with their black tinged manes (which contrasts with the Moremi gold lions) and 7 honey badgers within a few kilometers of each other. The beauty of the open space cannot be described by me. We spent the week commenting on how many people we were seeing. However, upon reflection we only saw 1-3 cars a day. Not bad, eh?

My eye! – why am I better treated in third world countries?

A large lump developed in my eyebrow last weekend. When it wouldn’t go away, I went to a medical clinic here. There was an exciting moment when we speculated that it might be a putzi fly larva burrowed in my skin. While disgusting, that would have been an exciting (and harmless) affliction. However, it hurts waaaaaayyyy too much to itch, which is a major sign of a putzi fly.

It’s a staff infection. This morning I woke up and my eye is swollen. It hurts a little less, but it looks terrible. 

When I went to the clinic yesterday, I just showed up. I had no appointment, but the doctor saw me less than 10minutes after I arrived. I walked out from the clinic less than half an hour later with an oral and topical antibiotic. Both the visit and medicine were 293 Pula (which is less than $50 USD). I kid you not. Even with my fancy private medical insurance in the States, my visit and medicine would have been more than $50. Further, I would not have gotten seen and diagnosed as quickly. 

 “It was a trivial condition!” you say, but the trivial condition that I had in the States in May was misdiagnosed after 4 phone calls and 3 visits. This is the third time that I have received medical aid in a “third world” country and the third time that it has made me cry over the state of medicine in my home. While my conditions were fairly simple in all three cases, I was correctly and swiftly diagnosed in all three cases.

While I was there, I also asked the doctor about a chronic knee issue I’ve been having. I told him I was worried about asking my doctor in the States (and have been unable to get an appointment) and he smiled in knowing sympathy. He then diagnosed it and told me what to do.    

My time is winding down

 Sara took me out for a last visit to the NG34 concession. Time is running thin, but it was beautiful to see the watering hole, the lodge, and the animals again. It is so serene in the bush. Sometimes I wish I could stay forever. As I went to sleep the last night, I listened to the lions in the distance, and then just across the field from my tent at the watering hole.

Next (and probably final) stop: The Kalahari!

The campsite is booked and paid, the park fees are paid, today we buy food and diesel, and Monday we head to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR)! The English language cannot convey my excitement.  

I was shocked by how expensive the camping fees are. The campgrounds and parks separate fees into tiers: citizen, resident, foreigner and each person has to pay to camp and enter the park. The increments between the tiers are NOT equal and they make the park fees so much that it’s almost just as cheap to go with a tour operator then by yourself, which is ridiculous. 

People refer to the CKGR as a desert because of the severe dry conditions that it experiences during the winter, the dry season. The CKGR to technically not be a desert, but the land is basically a big sand box, so rain quickly drains through the soil leaving very hostile conditions once the rains have ceased. 

I can’t wait.

Along with Chobe and the Okavango River Delta, the CKGR is one of Botswana’s gems and most famous places. The travel guides warn of difficult conditions and really discourage visitors. It is easy to get suck in sand, run out of water, run out of food, or run out of diesel. There are basically no facilities within the park to aid unprepared visitors. The only water available is at the gates, but that is when it’s available. Currently the water at our house is off and these water-less conditions are typical even within Maun. It’s hard to trust there will be water when we are there, or diesel at any of the petrol stations between Maun and CKGR.

I’ve been to Chobe, Moremi (twice), a private concession (twice), Tsodillo Hills, the Okavango Delta. The CKGR is the last major thing that I wanted to see. Unfortunately, my time is so short that it looks like it will also be the last thing that I see in this beautiful country.

Freight run and the ENTIRE delta

The white puffs are nests of communal spiders

Last Wednesday I was invited to do a freight run into the delta. Many of the lodges are fly-in only. The small aircraft are too small to take heavy loads, so large supplies need to be delivered by boat while the floods are here and before the water gets too shallow. Our mission was to deliver fuel to one of the tourist lodges that is deep in the delta.

We left Wednesday, were hosted by a lodge one night, and camped ON THE WATER in the middle of a lagoon the next night. It was so incredible. We tied up to reeds in the middle of the water, bundled up (it was so cold), and cooked with a gas stove on the boat. As I wrote in my journal: “We watched shooting stars on the water. We didn’t look at the milky way, we looked at its reflection in the still water. Oh it was so beautiful! How do I take it all in?”

Looaa looaa looaa looaa looaa! to the beginning of your life together

Today I had the honor of attending a Batswana wedding. Unfortunately I was unable to attend another one that I had been invited to, but man, the one I went to was a blast! First they danced. Then they shook. Then they trilled. Then they danced. Then they prayed. Then they took a break to let the wedding party dance. Then they danced some more. Then we ate. Then, well, they just had to dance some more.

My good friend Mma Tshweu (Ms. White) invited me to a wedding at her church today. I think she invited me because I taught her how to make tissue paper flowers at the daycare last week. Tshweu loved them so much that she made a whole bunch to decorate her church for the wedding. She also declared that she will make a bouquet of the flowers for her daughters’ weddings rather than have to buy real flowers. The children at both Motse and A&E have really enjoyed the flowers, but the teachers have loved them even more. It is incredible to see a simple craft that every American student enjoys give women such pleasure. It has also been a stark example of how much I take for granted.

Tshweu assured me that, as her guest, it was totally cool for me to attend the wedding. It was hard to shake the feeling that it was rude to join the party a day before and that it was OK to not dress up. This trip is the first that I have not brought something nice to wear, and today it bit me in the tushie. Many people here have so little money that they don’t have a set of nice clothes to wear, so I wasn’t the only person wearing jeans or sneakers.

When I arrived at the church the party was in full swing. A figure wrapped in a bright pink shawl, gold head scarf, and huge earrings approached me at a bouncing gait. It was hard to recognize Tshweu because her intense happiness made her so beautiful, more beautiful and happy than the teacher I see during the week. She was beaming as bright as the sun, like everyone else. She grabbed me close, moved in time to the kickin’ music, leaned close, and gave a loud trill: looaa looaa looaa looaa looaa!  Women repeated the trill throughout the day; it was as if there was so much happiness bubbling up inside of them that they had to relieve some of the pressure by letting the happiness burst forth - looaa looaa looaa looaa looaa!  

The wedding party started dancing outside. They were in full swing by the time they got to the entrance. The bride and groom entered the church together, also rocking out. While the father was not needed to walk the bride in to give her away, the parents of both bride and groom were needed later to get up and publicly approve the union during the ceremony.

The pastor met the energy of the music and swaying guests. He gave a fiery sermon that stumbled between English and Setswana, as though he kept grasping to find a language that would get his message out. It was really bizarre to meet a peaceful and serene pastor later at the reception after seeing his sermon. He lectured the couple on how to behave to preserve the union. The bride needing to dress nice, be beautiful, do her hair nice (but switch it often, every two weeks, to stay looking fresh), and serve her lord. The groom was supposed to love his wife and do nice things for her, like buy her shoes so she can look nice. He lectured both on the need to behave well so the groom did not come home to a baby that wasn’t his and the bride didn’t come home to a husband who had many women.

The sermon was translated realtime by a guy who stood at the back and repeated whatever the pastor said in the other language. The pastor went back and forth between English and Setswana, so the poor dude had to go between Setswana and English, while keeping up with the pastor. He clearly struggled to keep up with the lighting pace and occasionally didn’t even try to translate when the pastor lost control and let it rip, which was often.

Awkward moments (for me) included when they asked me to join the wedding photos and when the pastor asked people to contribute money to the couple. Of course I contributed, but I was so shy to go up and congratulate a couple that I had never met, that I gave the money to someone else to take up…. Idiot. It was also awkward to sit under the main tent with tables. There was a second, undecorated tent for “the other people” to sit in and watch the main tent. Some of my worry was dispelled at the church when I asked the women next to me something about the couple – “Oh, I don’t know them. I was just walking by and saw a wedding was going on, so I came to check it out.”

Heaping plates of home cooked food (which Tshweu helped cook) were doled out: Pappa, traditional beef, beet root, coleslaw, potato salad, rice, bean and veggie stew. I think they had to wash plates as people finished so that the plates could be refilled and given to another guest. Music played the entire time and there were various instances of dancing. The bridal party stomped through the arch and down the path, but then they had to do it again. One group stomped along and then the groom’s family came in with a totally different song and dance that took them stamping up and then around in a circle. I asked Patricia what the song meant, but it was in a language other than Setswana, so she didn’t know.

As dinner continued the scraggly neighbor kids filtered in. They just watched from the sides and I think many of the people under the undecorated tent were also there to just watch what was going on. The party was hopping and I discovered on my walk home that the music could be heard all the way to the main road. 

  Some of my favorite moments were when the little old lady who looked straight out of a National Geographic issue on the cultural heritage of Botswana demanded that I take her picture. She was from the groom’s family who had come from a village near Francistown piled in the back of a pickup truck in plaid shawls and head wraps. The other moment I’ll cherish is when the ladies taught me how to dance, or tried to teach me. I was doing my little butt wiggle to the music (you would have been too) when they came and took pity on me. They had babies strapped to their backs bouncing along, but they still got down, down, down. They laughed pretty hard at me, the least I could offer in return for the fantastic experience was a bit of entertainment.  

  If I ever get married I want my wedding to be such a party. The bride was the only person who cried. There were no other tears or guests sitting. The mood was one of exuberance, joy, excitement, and celebration. It was fabulous and wonderful to see Botswana at its best – happy, swaying, grooving, partying, dressed up, and optimistic for the future. 

A Fieldtrip to Nhabe

Finally finally finally, after 3 weeks of talking to people and organizing we took the kids from Adam & Eve daycare on a fieldtrip! We visited the Nhabe museum, where the children learned about Batswana culture, and then walked to the airport to see airplanes. It may sound like a trivial affair to take 11 children into town for 3 hours, but it really wasn’t.

Maun’s only museum, the Nhabe museum has a collection of cultural objects. It is in a quaint building with 3 exhibit rooms, 2 offices, a bathroom, storage space somewhere, and a tiny gift shop that I haven’t seen anyone in. Joyce (Maleba) is the curator. She is a fantastic woman who I go to visit often.  

The museum is free, but it seems totally under utilized. Thinking about all the times that children in the States have excursions and being inspired by the many activities that Sara organizes for the children at Motse Wa Tsholofelo, I talked to George (the boss man at Adam & Eve,) about taking the children out. Obstacles kept flying at the idea, but finally things came together. A key component was transportation, but Bana Ba Letsatsi very generously gave the 11 children, 2 teachers, and 3 volunteers a ride to the museum in their kombi.

The children packed into the  (I think we were one over the holding capacity) and we headed out around 9:30. When we arrived the children had their snack. After, Joyce began a very interesting presentation of some objects from the permanent collection

Joyce taught the children about musical instruments, bellows for the fire, a gourd ladle, a clay pot, dancing rattles, brooms, and, my favorite, the hippo drum. The drum has a reed inside that when pulled with a wet hand sounds exactly like a hippo calling: “whoo whooo whoo whoo”.

Her presentation was extremely hands on, so the students were able to try out the different instruments and I was able to try out the dancing rattles. The rattles are strapped around a dancer’s ankles and make noise when the dancer moves around. The rattles are made out of moth cocoons that are dried, filled with gravel, and then sewn together.

Joyce telling us about baskets

Joyce also taught the children about traditional baskets. The current exhibit is a basket competition for artists from all over Botswana. The students learned about how the baskets are made, the materials used, and what different patterns represent, e.g. tears of the giraffe, head of the zebra, flight of the swallow, and urine trail of the bull. My favorite pattern is running path of the ostrich.

Joyce spoke to us mostly in English, but she also addressed the children in Setswana as necessary. However, even these two languages weren’t always enough. Semi comes from bush men and only knows one of the clicking languages. Some of the other children come from Uganda.

An unexpected addition to the day was a sidetrip, on the fieldtrip, to the airport. The Maun airport is roughly on the other side of the street block that the museum is on. The teachers mentioned that some of the students had never seen an airplane before, so we walked in and let the kids look through the window at the airfield. The kids really adored the trip and were fascinated by the runway and large noisy planes.

Group at Maun airport

It is really unfortunate that I hadn’t realized such a simple fact, as I would have arranged to have the kids go out on the tarmac and maybe touch one of the little planes. It is also unfortunate that I don’t have a picture of us each taking two kids by the hand, holding on tight, and trudging down the street. All I could think on the walk was “please god don’t let any of the kids get hit by a car” and “well, now all of Maun knows that Adam&Eve Daycare went on a fieldtrip today”.

The first time some of the kids saw an airplane

Hopefully the children were as happy with the day as Joyce and I were. It was wonderful to see them get out of the possibly only two environments that they know - home and school. It was even more wonderful to see the joy it gave Joyce to bestow the kids with their cultural heritage.

Getting in to kombi. Can you see the "Oh my god I can't believe this is happening" look in my face?

The kids weren't interested, but I had to try the dancing rattles

At museum sign

Learning about marembas

walking in to the museum

While this trip is a trivial accomplishment when compared with the huge problems that plague Africa, it has given me a very strong taste of reality here. People who work at NGO’s here must feel like they live in a videogame. Obstacles keep coming into their path and they have to dodge them, often each in a different way than before. I don’t know how the volunteers and coordinators here keep themselves together. They constantly dodge flying objects or put on a force field that lets the obstacle hit them, but just roll right off and then they move on.