A night on the pan

The pan appeared to go on for ever

Sun rise and sunset on the pan was beautiful. Night was frigid though as all the heat quickly vanished into the night sky. It was spectacular to stay awake long enough to watch the milky way move across the night sky. 

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Sunday we went to one of the salt pans in northeast Botswana. It was more clay than we expected. Apparently on one side of the pan it's more salt like and they actually mine table salt from some portions of pans in the area.

I'm bringing a meerkat home. US customs will totally be OK with that, right?

On the drive out to the salt pan we stopped to see a herd? clan? group? den? Timon's peeps? of meerkat The little buggers are so much smaller than I thought they would be.

The "cats" are about the size of a ferret. One of the local people had habituated them to people, so Cyndra and I got to walk up fairly close to take pictures. We got to about 50ft away.

Our presence did not affect their behavior to the slightest. They sat around and groomed each other. It was funny to see one of them clean his butt, the same way my precious kitty does. I've thought about my cats surprisingly little, but seeing the munchkins roll over and groom their butts really made me miss my morning doses of cat butt.

It was really interesting to hear the chirp like purrs of the mercats to each other. Along with a lion cub, they are now on my list of critters to take home.

Butterflies, my butterflies!

Admittedly, it is winter and the dry season, so few butterflies are flying now. However, things are still flying and my collection is slowly growing bit by bit. Every so often I take my net with me and pause every now and again to chase a bobbing blur of color. Currently I’m at 36.

Some of my favorite moments are when someone asks what my net is for. When I explain they say “Oh, but no butterflies are flying now [you silly girl]. You should come back in the summer.” I agree and then offer to show them my catch of the day. I take each one out, spread the wings, and let them marvel at the beauty. They tend to then be rather quiet for the rest of the conversation.

In a rut: where are the children?!

Today was a particularly low day. The children were sent home on Monday for their month long school holiday. This dismissal was a week early. A disease (diarrhea?) is going around and the government wanted to curtail the spread in preschools.
The terribleness was not really due to events that happened today day or wandering around not knowing what to do with all the children missing. The larger culprit was lingering frustrations and disappointments, and probably some loneliness. I was further saddened to have a string of unfortunately mundane events reinforce the negative feelings that I was having.
Perhaps a tipping point for today was when one of the local people at the daycare who was telling me I should give her the shirt I was wearing because she wanted it and “we are friends”. She has continuously demands things from me “in a joking manner”. However, she laughed, hopefully in embarrassment, when I asked what she was giving me, as her friend, and why I should give her all these things if she gives me nothing.
Yesterday I returned from an overnight visit to one of the salt pans. It was the first touristy thing I have done and the most expensive. The experience was very disappointing in many ways. The most destructive component may have been the discussion with a fellow volunteer on the way back. The discussion gave voice to and articulated the frustrations and surprises that we have encountered. It also showed us that we have had similar experiences, so “it’s not me”.
I have been having feelings like: What is my purpose here
What can I do in 2 months?!
I’m not wanted (this is not entirely self-generated)
I just don’t understand the situation
Wow, I totally misread that and had no idea that this is how it actually is
I can’t do anything here
I’m not helping
Fix yourself if you don’t want my help
In the midst of these questions, I have struggled with the Batswana (plural for Motswana, which a person who is from Botswana).
Many negative customs have made getting things accomplished even more difficult. I have also been besieged by feelings of hostility, requests for money as though it is owed to them and money grows on trees everywhere outside of Botswana, requests for my phone number shortly after greeting a man (but I am apparently expected to greet people so…), and the sense that I am inconveniencing people even though they are paid to do something.
I had hoped that there would be an exchange of learning, or just an exchange of anything. Instead, I feel I’m constantly up against a wall. It’s as though they don’t want me or anything I have to offer. The longer I’m here, the more I think I have to offer, but they still remain uninterested. Is that just a culture thing, or are they really just indifferent?
The tour books tout Batswana as friendly, welcoming people. Two Americans that I met near the pans remarked on how they have always been impressed while traveling in Africa by the "kindness of the people". Why have I not experienced this? I cannot comment on what people are like in all of Botswana. Maun is very different from all the other parts, as it is the center of the tourist industry and thus inundated by tourists. Perhaps the incessant flux has colored the view of everyone that I have met.
The family I am living with is nice. They have let me into their home beyond just letting me stay here. They have cooked for me, eaten (and enjoyed!) food that I cooked for them, and let me into their lives a bit. I think they are the only people who have showed any interest in "showing me Botswana". I will conjecture that many Batswana I have met feel exploited. As a result, they are reluctant to show me anything or to care about the experience that I have here. However, this would be an unfortunate interpretation because in many places tourism offers the only jobs and is lucrative to the alternative of working at the local school. It also would be sad for people to have such little pride in their own country that they don’t want to show it off to the rest of the world that is coming to visit.
I ended the day at the place that has become my favorite location in Maun - Barcelos. It offers fast food, alcohol, coffee, and wifi! I live for wifi. I went to call my family and research places to go tour. However, I ended up looking up what the Peace Corps is doing here and where their volunteers are specifically located. I found blogs for some recent and current volunteers. It sounds sick, but hearing the volunteers suffer with the same frustrations I have was a huge comfort. The blogs covered successes and moments like: good job…” but nothing happens.”
Reading individual posts or pieces written for newspapers I saw the theme of frustration and culture shifts. Some of the sentiments were more positive than my current feelings, but it is not fair to compare my one month of being here trying to find footing (in the midst of the staff being on strike and the students being let out for a month of holiday....) with the community involvement that a volunteer reaches after months of working on a project. They also have a greater chance of success as they have time to stay and push through, while I am leaving soon, probably before I have time to push though. The volunteers spoke of persistence and the true trial not being avoiding the frustration that I am in, but pushing through it. Regardless of what the volunteers have done themselves, they reminded me of self motivation and persistence.
All these rosy feelings did not prevent me from giving my taxi driver a huge ear full on the way home. His fourth sentence was asking for my phone number and if he can call me or take my picture. It is not his fault that every other taxi driver has made a nearly identical conversation. He, however, got a rant about respecting women, how an American would not do such a thing, and how I would be ashamed if someone in my country treated a guest such a way. It was similar to a conversation that I had to have earlier in the day about how money does not grow on trees in the USA and an American would never ask a visitor for money, but would try to ensure that they had a good impression of America.
I returned home to my Batswana family, had dinner, and watched TV. My short time makes me more frantic than a long term volunteer, but I must remain motivated and fight the adversity that I have here. It is different than the struggles that I face at home, but that is why I am here: to fight new battles and do the best that I can in this new way. This time is about the innocent children who have been born into retched conditions, not fighting a stagnant society. Now, how to go about this....

Horse riding - week II

Tuesday was session II of horse riding. Everything went smoothly (you’d be surprised how quickly logistical problems appear here…) and the kids had a great time. We took the same group of 8 children. Eventually more children will get to go, but these children were chosen for their developmental level and because we have release forms signed from their parents. There was no surprise boat ride this time, but the children learned how to make the horse go, stop, and turn. They also got to give the horses treats – carrots.
I love this picture of the children smiling.

The Crimson Breasted Roller - indcredible

There is the most beautiful bird that lives around the daycare, a crimson breasted roller. It has aqua colored wings and when it flies the sun flashes off the blue and it looks like an aquamarine sailing through the air. I couldn't get a good image of the back of its wings, but you can get an idea of how beautiful it is just by looking at it sitting on the fence or taking off.

Merrily I chomp along

I have gotten to try a variety of new foods here. I am so blessed to have had these opportunities as the general food situation in Botswana is “not enough”. The majority of families don’t have enough food. Many children at the daycare don’t have a meal when they go home at 2 or before they come in the morning.

The mother of one of the kids at the daycare volunteers and helps at the daycare each day. When we were making flowers with the kids, she mentioned that Rose was the name of her late sister. I asked what the cause of her sister’s death was, she casually answered “malnutrition”.

Some people do have some food in Botswana and many of those that do have beef. Oh the beef. Beef is a major product in Botswana and cattle can be spotted everywhere, most frequently in or slowly sauntering across the road. Some company donates meat to the daycare, so the children eat it. The family I am staying with also eats a ton of beef. Tshidi asked what I eat most of at home, “chicken or beef or?” I admitted that I don’t cook much meat for myself. She started at me blankly and after a moment responded “oh, so you eat a lot of chicken?”

The family I live with cooks nearly every night and I think that their food is fairly representative of the food that the middle class eats. Food that I have had outside their home has also indicated that their habits are representative. Tshidi’s family typically eats a meat, a starch, and a vegetable. In the meals that I have had with them so far the meat has been one of chicken, goat, or any part of a cow. The veggie was mashed butternut squash (this is hugely popular) or rape. The starch has been pappa (maize I think), sorghum, or rice. Pappa reminds me of grits, if they were much drier and so clumpy that they would stand on their own. Sorghum is like brown pappa that tastes a bit more like whole wheat. Unless they are eating rice, they eat with their hands and use the pappa or sorghum to clump up the veggies and meat. It also seems to be popular to have a chicken and potato like stew/curry with rice.

It was really nice to finally try sorghum, even if I don’t take a package home. Pappa is nice only in its ability to pick up the flavor of whatever you are eating it with. I was surprised by how dissimilar goat is to lamb; it is more chewy, stringy, and smoky rather than smooth in flavor.

The most adventurous thing that I have tried was ox tail. Batswana cut up the entire animal and cook up every single piece. Even at restaurants you get all kinds of funky bones in your meal and as you gnaw away at them you begin to wonder if there is any meat on them. The ox tail was pretty nasty. I tried to politely finish the piece they gave me, but my bone wasn’t nearly as clean as theirs was. There is NO elegant way to gnaw away at the ox tail. I’m not even sure what we were eating as it didn’t seem to have a lot of meat. It was really difficult to note any experience beyond the gooey brown gelatinous case the bone was in. That part was probably supposed to be tasty...

Other adventurous trials included fruit chutney flavored potato chips. How could one resist? And how would one guess that they taste so good! I couldn’t imagine what they could taste like. I did one of my favorite travel activities – I went to the grocery store. It’s shameful to enjoy a grocery store so much, but it’s like a treasure hunt to find all the foods that are different to what I have in the States. The particular run I went on the other day was for junk food. The haul included:
Maize potato chips
Spicey Mexican flavored and fruit chutney flavored potato chips
Some other maize snack
A beautiful chocolate and rice flake blob
A fruit juice and milk drink (very lovely)
A very viscous, yet clumpy, drink made from maize (maize milk?)

I also made a trip to the liquor store. Botswana manufactures next to nothing, but they have like 6 varieties of beer. They also have bottled gin and tonics. There were quite a few hard liquors from South Africa that I have never seen before (including mint flavored), but I didn’t think I could hold those.

To complete the autopsy of my consumption thus far, we must cover chocolate. The chocolate is terrible. The cocoa content is not mentioned on a package of any chocolate bar here. Perhaps this is because they don’t have any cocoa in them and they would better be referred to as “chocolate flavored candy” than proper chocolate. The bars taste like they are made with more sugar and different kind of fat or milk solid than Dove or Belgian chocolate. Needless to say, this issue results in a bit of chocolate withdrawal. The most lovely chocolate that I have been able to find is the mass of cornflakes and chocolate, which is similar to the birds nests that we used to make for Easter or the spiders at Halloween.

The cakes and sweets here have done nothing to compensate for poor chocolate. The sweets are closer to sweet breads than cakes. Perhaps this is an effect of Botswana being so dry and far from a natural sugar source? Maybe sweets have just not been developed as part of their cuisine the way beef has.

Luckily, and as expected, the food is much better than the tour books indicated. The local food is tasty. The pseudo British ex-pat food or anything you can find at one of the lodges is 3 times as expensive and pretty nasty. I do miss chocolate though.

Books are Golden

Yesterday I went on what ended up being a large excursion to the old mall. I was in pursuit on a “learn setswana” book. It’s not too surprising there aren’t many books on the subject and that they aren’t readily available. The one I finally found was one of 6 copies in the store and it was written in 1973… No joke.
Peace Corps is in Botswana and apparently in or near Maun as people keep asking me if I’m Peace Corps. Someone told me that the Peace Corps volunteers are fluent in Setswana (and must be the only white people who are).
Around the corner from the book store was the library. I know that they are, but I still hope that they weren’t the only bookstore and library in town. The bookstore had next to nothing beyond school textbooks. There was no Di Vinci Code or War and Peace. I was also the only person in the store.
It makes sense that there is little market for books here I guess. The Ex-pats all bring in their own from out of the country. The rest of the people have a hard time affording books. Many of the basic school books and things were around 100Pula. The teachers at the daycare have only received something like 500P in the last 10 months. One of the mothers of the children that we gave clothes to makes 200P a month, but she is only employed for 6 months out of the year.
The situation feels so bleak sometimes

Today we crafted!

Today was a huge success - we did our first craft.

I was finally able to bust open the treasure chest (my suitcase) of crafts that a very accomplished teacher (my mother) sent with me. For a warm up, we started with tissue paper flowers. These beloved flowers were a staple craft of my childhood, so it was particularly exciting to share them with the kids. When I gathered my supplies this morning, I also had thought that these would be a realtively easy project to start the kids with.

To do the craft, we start with few (4) sheets of tissue paper, scissors, and half a pipe cleaner.

My Setswana is still quite poor, so Kalilego helped me communicate with the kids. We had to set some rules:
1. no talking
2. you have to stay sitting in your seat

If the kids followed these rules, they could do the craft. If they didn't, then... After days of hearing the kids run around laughing, screaming, and making a general little kid ruckus, it was a incredible to experience the room being completely silent for an entire hour. It was fantastic to have a quiet room not only so that I could think, but because it should just how badly they really really really wanted to do the craft.

For further crowd control, we had to split the class into two groups, the first went before morning break and the second after.

When we started, I lead the craft and Kalilego translated for me. I'm not sure if she realized that I slowly faded away and by the end she was leading the second group by herself. The teacher for the little kids and one of the mothers (who is volunteering) slowly driffted over to our tables. At first curiousity may have been what drew them, but it quickly became clear that they were enjoying the craft as much as the little kids!
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It was really interesting to watch the different abilities of the children. Some had to wait for others to catch up, while others struggled a bit. I must admit that I had not realized how hard it is to like up 16 corners of tissue paper and keep them lined up through 3 folds! (Seriously, it sounds easier than it is).
Take a look at our group photo and tell me who you think is more proud of their flowers, the teachers or the little kids? It's hard to tell, eh?

Horse riding and unexpected kindness

Tuesday we took a group of 7 kids horse back riding. There is a woman at Island Safari Lodge who volunteered to let the kids ride her horses for a bit. The whole session was only a half an hour, but it is incredible to think about the impact of that time.

Sara had been asked by some organization to describe the effect of the horse riding on the kids. We were brainstorming on how to describe the impact and it was so hard to get beyond “it is something fun for the kids”. This explanation sounds trivial, but it’s not when you consider that there is nothing joyful about the mud huts they live in or about eating one meal a day, when there is a meal.

It was wonderful to see the kids do something beyond the confines of their home and the daycare. It was also great to see them experience animals as enjoyable companions, not stray dogs that must be chased away. At first all the kids were apprehensive and sported some very long faces. Their eyes slowly lit up as we strapped the helmets on and lifted them on to the horses. When we left Jen asked if they had liked it. What did she get? “I want to go again.” “Can we go again?”

The most wonderful part of the day occurred while we were waiting to get picked up. The kombe had to take all the kids home from the daycare (which takes 3 trips) before it could get us. Suddenly one of the lodge’s staff came up to take us on a boat ride. A man who was at the restaurant had spotted our group and arranged for a boat ride, snacks, and drinks for everyone. Just out of the blue he decided to take us and I don’t think he had realized how special it was for these kids.

A boat ride on the river at dusk is a treat for anyone. The water lilies and reeds shined in the setting sun, but not nearly as much as the kids faces. They sat with juice in their laps and eyes the size of saucers, unable to fully take in the experience. I couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever get to go on a boat again.

&Beyond Visits

&Beyond came to visit last week. They are a tourist company in Maun who donated supplies to revamp/build the playground.

During &Beyond's visit, they delivered a huge donation of food. In addition to staples, the food included e'Pap, which is a diatary supplement that boosts the immune system for people with HIV.

&Beyond also dropped off a donation of hats and mittens to keep the children warm.

To thank &Beyond, and show them what they are all about, the kids performed a song and dance. "Boago can dance! Boago can dance! Dance Boago, dance! Dance Boago, dance!" Each child took a turn getting up to dance as their peers cheered them on.

What goes crunch crunch hmpff in the night?

You’d think that it’s easy to tell an elephant from a lion, but apparently some of us have more trouble than others. One difficulty is that elephants have many more vocalizations and noises than usually mentioned. They make deep sighs, roar-like groans, and mini-trumpets.

Last night Sara and I stayed in the bush (after our attempted supply run). Sitting around the fire, Sara told me about the time lions fought under her tent and another night when two hyenas settled some business under her tent. (The tents at De Batana camp aren’t little camping tents, but permanent structures built on stilts.) Note to Sara, these stories are not the best bedtime stories.

It was the middle of the night when I woke up in fear. There was all kinds of noise right outside my tent. “Lions won’t scratch open a tent. Lions won’t scratch open a tent. Don’t freak out; they can smell fear.” It felt like an eternity of just lying in my bed completely frozen and focusing on controlling my F.O. (fear odor).

The next morning, we found elephant prints all around my tent and a bull (with gorgeous tusks) still making a racket a few hundred meters from camp. As an FYI to anyone who is planning on coming to the bush, elephants don’t have to worry about making noise and they sometimes rustle a heck of a lot of leaves when they want to have a good go at an acacia tree.

The road out of town – where two girls try to fix a car….

Last night I accompanied Sara on a supply delivery into the bush. We left around 6pm and shortly after dusk descended upon us. The line of houses on the side of the road out of Maun quickly thinned and the houses changed from cement looking blocks to traditional one room mud huts with thatched roofs.

The round mud huts generally belong to low (or no) income families and few will be built near each other. If the family can afford it, they will build a hut for different family members and extended families will all live together. The single room mud brick houses are considered more modern, and apparently are more comfortable. Sara tells me that up to 17 people will live in the single room houses. The single room brick houses dominate within town and are seen everywhere in Maun. However, the traditional round mud huts are also in town and not just at the edge of town or in rural regions. Houses that have more than one room, much less a kitchen or a bathroom, are afforded by a minority.

Maun does not have much for outskirts. The houses quickly thin and eventually stop. Once it takes minutes to drive between houses, the pavement disappears in an abrupt jolt and yields to an extremely bumpy gravel mix. This jolt occurs less than an hour outside of the center of Maun.

We were jostling along on this very bumpy rocky path in darkness (electricity is not afforded by many houses that far out of town), when the engine started chugging. The motor cut in and out before it finally just stopped and we rolled to the side of the road. In defeat, we called to camp and asked for them to come save us. I wish I could describe the ridiculousness that followed of me and Sara (in her posh heels) with the hood raised peering in. Hey, at least we tried (and no, it wasn’t out of oil).

Our only sliver of luck in failing about 45min out of town (on a 2hr drive,) was that we were not beyond the buffalo fence. The buffalo fence runs for hundreds of kilometers across Botswana and was built to separate buffalo from the cattle south of the fence. The idea is similar to the Australian fence, which tries to control rabbits. One goal of the buffalo fence is to control hoof and mouth disease from spreading to the cattle (beef is a major export of Botswana, along with diamonds). In addition to controlling the buffalo, the fence separates, lions, elephants, and all the other scary beasts from the people. Once you are past the fence, you can’t just get out and walk around; it’s too dangerous.

Eventually Sven and the camp’s mechanic came to save us. The relief of seeing the red land cruiser approach was second only to the moment when the car failed on Sven and we knew we hadn’t needlessly called to camp. It did take Moses and Sven about10 minutes to tighten a loose cable, but we won’t talk about that…

Lion Cubs Are Little Piggies When They Eat

Today we saw lions! We found a mother and about 9 cubs. Apparently the cubs were young, 1-2 months old, but they were already nearly a meter long and maybe 40lbs. The mother was relaxing as the cubs devoured her most recent kill. Each cub was greedily tearing at the zebra carcass and making the lion equivalent of "nom nom nom" sounds. They were very loud munchkins and not a bit worried about hiding their enjoyment of fresh meat. Another adult lion was lounging around nearby. She was so relaxed that she almost looked dead. With her paws up and belly raised, she had a remarkable resemblance to my kittens.

Tomorrow we will return to Maun and the relative hustle of the city. This time in the bush has definitely left me with some valuable lessons. First, I didn't know that being only a few hundred feet away from lions would be so terrifying. When you are cruising around the bush and see lions, you give much more thought to their ability to charge and literally rip you to pieces you. Such a feeling defitely increases your reverance for the animals and the desire to return to camp for tea.

Similarly, I did not know that elephants are regarded as such a danger. Sven has told me horrific stories about how elephants have disposed of trespassers. It is not the lions and leopards, but the elephants that have us frantically shining our torches in all directions as we slowly make our ways to our tents at night. It is also the elephants that make it dangerous to go very far from the lodge or the car during the day. When we went to track impala earlier in the week, we did not walk about. We only got outside of the car to take measurements before driving on. The danger of elephants is increased by their silence. The little sparrows hopping around in the leaves make more noise than a herd of elephants, so it is easy to creep up upon them. Disney did well to portray waltzing elephants in fantasia. The elephants float across with slow movements as though the hot midday air was actually corn syrup. Even the elephant that came within 200 feet of the car was inaudible.

Finally, I have learned that getting a working knowledge of Tsetswana is going to far more difficult than I had hoped. Learning materials for tsetwana are sparse. Unless I can find some primary school books in Maun tomorrow, I will be left trying to piece together a vocabulary from lists of words, academic papers on the structure of the language, and many hours of humility. I promised the staff at the lodge here that next time I visit I will speak to them in tsetswana. They just looked at me and laughed.

On Safari: Thursday 7 June 2012 10pm

Today was a marvelous reminder of why I travel – for the fantastic opportunities that come up, that I never expected, and that I would never have had without simply getting up and coming out.

I don’t think I have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe today’s events.

I am on safari! Elephants are currently trumpeting outside of my tent and my heart is beating with the terror of their sound. Elephants aren’t as cute when you can only hear out of the endless darkness. The night is black and the only sounds are of ticked off elephants, insects, what I’m guessing are birds, and occasional rodents hopping by.

Sara’s fiancé works for Rodney, who has a whole camp in a remote section of the Okavango Delta that he uses to support researchers from the University of Botswana who study the local fauna and for his personal safaris.

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world as I was “dragged” along with Sara to spend a few days in the delta with her fiancé. The Okavango Delta is one of the most ecologically rich regions of the world (rivaled only by areas such as the Amazon forest, the Congo, etc.) and I was worried before I came that I’d never get in to see the delta. The delta has some of the best wildlife viewing on the continent and after only two days in the country I find my self in a tent worried that I’ll wake up to the sound of lions roaring.

We flew out on a 4 seat plane from Maun. Driving into camp (after the flight) we saw an ostrich, which was slowly making its way across the road. On our pre-dinner drive, we saw zebras, elephants, warthog, hippos, tons of impala, kudu, giraffes, wildebeest, waddle cranes (which are endangered), and an array of birds. The amount of life and mega fauna that this seemingly parched land supports in incredible. To me, a New Englander resigned to stifling humidity, it looks as though this golden plane is dead, yet out of it rises a swarm of insects and mammals and birds (and of course dust).

Slowing Down to Pace: Thursday 7 June 2012 afternoon

Very very slowly I am settling into the pace of Maun. As a result, my typing might get slower, my speech, my movement, everything. Things don’t move quickly when you are in the tropics, and Maun is no exception. You simply can’t be in a rush here. If you were, you’d go crazy.

Yesterday I met the children at the day care. Like any bunch of kids, they are noisy playful, full of life, hope, and excitement, and all over anyone who can provide them attention. It is fun to travel and find that some things are the same everywhere. Children are inherently inquisitive, happy, and energetic creatures. Now if we could just give these children the same opportunities for education and health care that other people enjoy.....

Bon Arivee: Tuesday 5 June. 5:42pm local time 8:42am PST

Tuesday 5 June 2012 5:42 BST 8:42am PST I have arrived!

Fortunately, none of the flights were delayed and everything went smoothly through the multiple customs location and flight transfers. I arrived at the airport after my 5th flight in the string that it took to get here: SFO -> Philly -> NYC -> Johannesburg -> Gabarone -> Maun. 3pm BST, I walked out and met the very lovely Sara. It was so welcoming to have a smiling face to meet at the airport.

Despite being one of the country’s largest cities, Maun seems very small compared to the north American mega-cities. Beyond the boarder of Maun there is no “next town over”, no suburbs, no urban sprawl, there is wide open country. The little houses are spread out and small shops pop up in clumps. It sound like tomorrow we will head into the Okavango delta to visit her boyfriend Sven for a few days. It’s fantastic to arrive and dive into one of the richest environmental treasures that the continent boasts.

On a side note, I hope I don’t get malaria. Sara heard of a recent case and other cases of people dying. I dismissed prophylactics as over cautionary, but apparently that was just another case of ignorance. Thanks mom; getting the Malarone was good advice.

Flying to Africa: Monday 4 June 2012

Monday 4 June 2012, 5pm EST, 11pm Botswana time With this post, I begin a chronicle of yet another adventure:

For the next two months, I will be living in Maun, Botswana near the heart of the notorious Okavango Delta (the largest inland delta in the world). In Maun I will be helping Sara in the Village of Hope, which is a community day care for HIV positive children and children who have lost their parents to AIDs. My mother has packed me with some of the most amazing craft projects to tickle the children’s imagination and my father has packed me with insect collecting equipment to make a small collection for the school. Hopefully, I can document all the fantastic crafts and creatures the little kids will be making.

I am writing now from somewhere over the vast Atlantic ocean, 6 hours into the 15 hour non-stop flight from NYC to Johannesburg, South Africa. The anticipation to be on the second largest continent in the world is mounting and the pulse of adventure is ramping up, as the reality of home is slowly drifting away. Slowly, the little yellow line showing the plane’s progression gets longer and longer.

For the first time in my travel experience, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Botswana is beyond any land that I have imagined. It is apparently one of the most stable nations on the continent and one of the most wealthy. It is also estimated that 24% of Botswana’s people are infected with HIV. Maun itself is in malaria territory and the launch pad for safaris into some of the best game reserves and parks on the continent.