December 2005 Archives

We are back in Molepolole and things are pretty quite in the neighborhood. Many people are still out at the lands (masimo) or cattle posts (moraka). I asked a colleague of mine if folks do anything special for New Year's. He said, "They stay up until 12 and go 'WOO, WOO!'" The grocery stores have been selling cheap fireworks, so I expect to here a few booms along with the woo's.

We are having dinner and hanging out a friend's house this evening--nothing exciting. Assuming our telecom service is working we will try to make a few phone calls this weekend as we were not able to on Christmas. If not, we just want to wish all of you a happy, healthy new year.

I took a lot of pictures of wild animals this weekend, but spending time with some of my favorite PCVs was a highlight too. So I had to share a few more pictures, but this time with people in them. We love Colman and Melody. They are a lot of fun to hang out with. It was a treat to spend our first Christmas in Africa with them.

It was so cool! I have to start with the ultimate highlight of the weekend, and then I’ll get to the other details. :)

So, we had been on a game drive almost all day on Monday. We were hurrying back to camp because it was starting to rain. As we passed by a watering hole where we had seen an elephant earlier Colman yelled out, “Look! There’s a ton of elephants!” Sure enough there were about 15 elephants there. We stood there watching them for a minute when somebody thought to look on the other side of the road - and there’s another elephant in the bush! (The running joke for the weekend when we stopped to look at animals was that you always felt vulnerable “Oh look there’s a giraffe!” as a lion creeps in for the kill.”) Wait, there’s not just one elephants there’s two … three … five … we’re in the middle of an elephant herd! Altogether there were probably 25 elephants in that area! Then, Melody says, “Oh no, there’s babies!” (Seeing baby elephants would be cool except that elephants are known to become violent to protect their young and, as I mentioned, we were in the middle of a heard.) As we start scrambling for our seats this big bull (that was on the side of the road we weren’t originally watching) starts walking towards us through the bush. The truck we’re in stays put for a bit because elephants are known to “mock charge” just to scare you off. The bull keeps moving in as the truck starts to inch away. We pick up speed and so does the elephant! I’m near the driver watching out the back saying, “Go … go … go … go, go, go!” as it starts to chase after us. The bull gave relatively short chase, but he trumpeted after us as we drove away. What an adrenaline rush! (Unfortunately there are no pictures or video footage of the elephant charge because we all had our cameras put away because of the rain. Afterwards we kept saying, “Man! I wish we had that on video!”)

The other big highlight of the weekend was having chili for lunch on Christmas Eve. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s been my family’s tradition to have chili for dinner on Christmas Eve. Brian and I have continued the tradition since being married. Imagine my delight when we show up at Melody’s on Saturday morning and find out that she’s making chili for lunch! She had no idea about our family tradition, just decided that chili would be fun to make. I’ll admit that I was a little teary-eyed when I found out what Mel was making. Seriously, how could she have known? It was such a treat and a fun way to share my family’s tradition.

I took way too many pictures. Sorry for all the collages lately but it’s the easiest way to share a bunch of pictures without having to upload them all individually on our dial-up connection. Photos above are a collection of all the wildlife shots I took this weekend.

We took a detour on our way back from Elephant Sands Camp to catch up with Scott Nguy, or Mbako as he is known locally, in Nkange. His village is located 150 km north of Francistown and about 30 km from the Zimbabwe boarder. Most of the people in that area identify as being Kalanga or Bakalanga and their unique, which has several difference from Setswana culture, is beginning to fade. For example, Kalanga (the language) is spoken in homes in that area, but not in schools or government offices.

I haven't had this much for since Mill Hollow! Instead of our weekly card game we taught Kalone's young relatives how to boondoggle last night. The kids caught on really quickly and seemed to enjoy it. Appearantly, boondoggle is an American craft from the Old West, although the word has taken on new meaning.

• Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time magazine's "Persons of the Year." We are familiar with Bill and Melinda Gates' charitable work through The African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnership (ACHAP) - a collaboration of the Botswana government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Merck. ACHAP does great work in Botswana, especially supporting the government's roll-out of ARV treatment and strengthening the capacity of the district-level response to HIV/AIDS. If anyone has a stolen doctor's office copy (or any other copy) of this issue please send it our way. I’d love to read the full feature.
• I found a new favorite blog It's a must read for anyone addicted to pop culture like me. :)
• Roger Ebert release his Top 10 Movies of the year - I haven't seen any of them. That's depressing.

I went for an evening run yesterday on Lephepe Road out to the cattle gate that marks the northern edge of Molepolole. A rain storm was moving in just as the sun was setting, which created an orange-yellow veil across the horizon. The panoramic photo above doesn't do it justice, but you kind of get the idea.

Every year it seems that the holidays sneak up on us, but especially this year. There is no late November turkey dinner, no snow, no [American] football, no countdown of remaining shopping days, no tacky decorations and certainly no tired recordings of overplayed carols to remind us that it is the holiday season. It is December 19th already, but it could be August 19th for all I know. I will have to say that is actually kind of a relief for a change.

(This is one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs. It went through my head repeatedly last weekend – especially the part Mom says a hippo will eat me up for din, teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian! Came in useful when we finally saw a hippo – at least he wasn’t going to eat us.)

Now that I’ve had more time to process last weekend, I still really don’t know where to start. We had a great time. Good friends, fun and wildlife, just as predicted. I thought of a bunch of witty things to highlight about the weekend, but of course that was during the 11-hour bus ride home on Monday when I couldn’t write them down and now the ideas are gone. Here’s what I can still come up with:

I just finished reading Gil Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and felt compelled to write a brief review. The book is a love story set against the 1994 Rwanda genocide and I believe it became the basis for the movie Hotel Rwanda. I have not seen the movie yet, although it came out before we left for Botswana, but I understand the characters and plot are much different than the book.

Sorry the picture clip doesn't look that inviting, but here's video I took at the hippo pool on our mokoro trip. The mokoro polers know exactly where the hippos stay and take you to the pool to watch them. Did you know that when hippos go under water they close their ears? The "blow hole" sound they make when surfacing is from opening their ears. Pretty cool. Watch for a couple of hippos surfacing and going under the water.

One of our activities last weekend was a mokoro trip on Sunday morning. Traditionally a mokoro is a canoe made from a tree that has been dug out. Mokoros made from trees, however, only last 3-5 years so the species of tree are being wiped out. Our mokoros looked like wood but were really made of fiberglass. Much more eco-friendly. Hope you enjoy the clip! Just click on the image to watch.

. . . Except that it’s all wrong! The weather that is. There is something innate in me that believe Christmas needs to be celebrated when it’s cold – and it is nowhere near cold here. The malls in Gabs are decorated for Christmas – garlands, giant trees with sparkling lights, even Santa in full North Pole attire. (Let’s get real, there’s no way Santa wears that to deliver presents to boys and girls in Africa. He probably dresses more like the Santa on tropical vacation you see after Christmas.) There are all the “traditional” signs of Christmas except the cold weather.

There have been a few things that set off this rant. First was a few weeks ago seeing sun dresses in the same display with Christmas trees at the Woolworths in Moleps. Sun dresses!? Why would you buy someone a sun dress for Christmas? Oh, that’s right because it’s hotter than Hades here! Then, there were the Christmas decorations on the same row as pool cleaning supplies at the Pick-N-Pay in Gabs. Pool supplies!? There is just something totally wrong with that picture. The final straw was listening to Christmas music at Swamp Stop in Sepopa over the weekend. We’re hot and sweaty from the bus ride, drinking Coke trying to cool down and listening to Christmas music. Again, there is just something wrong with that.

I’ve made the independent decision that Christmas needs to be celebrated when it’s cold outside - whenever that happens to be. At least if we celebrate Christmas in July here there’d at least be the possibility of frost outside. I have no sentimentality over December, I’ve celebrate a few “non-White Christmas’” in my lifetime but there at least needs to be a POSSIBILITY of snow. You know, weather near 40 degrees Fahrenheit and not 40 degrees Celsius.

Rant over. Tomorrow I promise to post all the good details of this weekend, I just had to get this off my chest.

After a 10 hour bus ride yesterday we are back - totally exhausted - from our trip. What a great weekend. I have a meeting all day today but I wanted to at least post this photo collage so you can get a glimpse of our adventure. More details and pictures to come, possibly including video clip of our wildlife viewing!

Images going clockwise: Us in a mokoro, swimming in the Delta, Brian's foot with a hippo footprint on the island where we camped, safety information for Umvuvu Camp - do not swim in the delta!, hippos (yes they really exist!), the boat ride to Seronga, a water lily, me and Kate Woolley, boat ride from Seronga to Umvuvu Camp at sunset.

We are off this weekend for a big camping trip on the Okavango Delta! I've been looking forward to this since we started planning in August, it is going to be so much fun. The itinerary for the weekend is to take the night train from Gaborone to Francistown tonight and then the bus to Maun Thursday morning. Friday we leave for Seronga where we'll camp Friday and Saturday nights. Camping activities will include a mokoro (canoe) trip on the Delta. Back to Maun on Sunday and then back to Moleps on Monday. Should be a whirlwind weekend of wild animals, friends and fun!

NOTE: I'm not fully convinced that wild animals really live in Botswana. I've seen some baboons in Gabs, kudu, monkeys and ostriches at the Gaborone Game Reserve. But elephants, hippos, crocodiles, giraffe, zebra? I don't think they really exist. Here's hoping that I can uncover the "truth" to this very popular myth!

December 1st is recognized as World AIDS Day. The new world AIDS theme for the next five years is Stop AIDS--Keep the Promise. The message is to remind governments and stakeholders around the world to strengthen their resolve to prevent new HIV infections, scale up treatment and support for those with AIDS, and get rid of AIDS stigma and discrimination.