small plane ride, site visit, my scarf saves the day again!

7:30 AM Saturday morning and we are at the airport waiting to board a tiny plane to fly up to the Khwai Community, north of Moremi, for a site visit of NG18. By 8 AM we’ve boarded the 6 seat-er and we are in the air with great views of the ever expanding flood waters throughout the Ngamiland district of Botswana. Paul has been asked by a wealthy entrepreneur to represent him at a mandatory site visit of a concession area that is up for tender (bid). The short 30-minute flight delivers us to a dirt air strip on the edge of Moremi Game Reserve.

From here we are picked up by an open air safari vehicle and whisked to the kgotla of the Khwai community for the start of what ends up being a full day of touring the concession area. Fifteen bidders are represented at the meeting and my scarf saves the day again, by doubling as a skirt over my jeans so that I can be seated in the kgotla (I had forgotten about this – women are not allowed in this space without their butt and legs covered -- but fortunately I had my trusty scarf on for warmth). You may recall the kgotla is the sacred space of the community where all important decisions and events take place. We got married in the main Maun kgotla last year.

Land in Botswana is not privately owned but rather controlled by a “land board” that “leases” the land out to designated people for a certain amount of time. In this case, the Khwai Community Trust, has control over this concession (parcel of land) called NG18 (NG for Ngamiland – the name of this region of the country). They are requesting “tenders” (bids) from interested parties (mostly safari companies) for an 8-year lease of the land. Currently the land is occupied by a company that has set up 2 hunting camps and 1 photographic camp. Our day is spent touring the area.

It is a bit of an odd set up in that, basically all the people who will be competing with each other, spend the day with each other. There’s lots of whispering behind truck bumpers and speculating on how serious the other bidders might be. Paul, being his quiet shy self, makes no qualms about stating his dislike of the conditions of the tender. Most importantly, the price is 3.5 million pula (7 pula to the dollar) is too high. When he asks the women in charge how they arrived at this figure, she responds that, “they considered various factors.” When I try to prompt for more by asking, “For example?” she simple laughs and says nothing else.

Sadly we see almost no wild life in the 7-8 hours of driving through the area. The roads are in good condition but the mopane brush is quite dense with very few open areas for game viewing or water front drives. We see a maybe a dozen impala, perhaps 3 hippos, a couple ground horn bills but not much else all day. Not a particularly good selling point for the bidders.

We stop for lunch at one of the camps which has a lovely view of a watering hole but there is still no game in sight. The buffet is a meat lover’s dream with – two types of chicken, kudu, meatballs…meat with a side of meat. The only starch offered is rolls with butter and if you were vegetarian, that and the minimal cheese tray with 2 types of cheese would be your only options. No a veggies in sight! The Batswana love their meat!

As with other areas of Botswana this dry season there is lots of water and we go through some pretty wet spots. At one point, the group that has decide to take their mini-van instead of getting in one of the larger safari vehicles gets stuck in the water and has to be towed out. Note to soccer moms: your mini-van is not designed for deep muddy waters!

Sadly only a few weeks left until I return to the states (I fly out August 17). This Friday we head out for a 5 day trans-Kalahari trip. It is a bit out of the ordinary as we are only providing transport and guiding through the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Fourteen clients from Spain along with three of their staff and five of us for transport and guiding. We are meeting them in Khutse (a park just south of the central Kalahari game reserve - CKGR) that I have not been to yet. We are transiting them through the game reserve and delivering them to Rakops (on the northern side of the park). I’ve been trying to resurrect my Spanish language skills in case they don’t know English! Should be interesting!
I’ll tell you about it when we get back.

PS: On a sad note, Taffy and Fudge, my foster dogs for the last two months, have moved back to Namibia with their owners. I was secretly hoping that Taffy would be left behind so that he could stay with us. They reportedly had to come get him from our house when it was time to go. I think he might have been hoping to stay behind too!