mokoros at Marutsa

The sun is shining but winter is coming and evening temperatures are dropping into the teens (Celsius so that’s in the 50s Fahrenheit). Last week I suffered a bit from some stomach ick. Not sure if it was food poisoning or a bug but it didn’t last long and I was back to eating by the time our “tent” guests (as opposed to “house” guests) arrived on Thursday last week. I say “tent” guests because we don’t really have room in our house to accommodate guests so we set up a tent and pit latrine outside for visitors. It’s not luxurious but it works and Rick and Roberta, Paul’s friends visiting from Florida, seem to be managing OK (despite the cool nights).

Yesterday we spent the day out at Marutsa, a village of about 150 people or so where Paul helped establish a polers group for mokoro trips back in the 1990s. We were escorted by a man named “Worm” (not kidding, this is a literal translation from his Setswana name – not sure why you’d name your child “worm”). Paul hasn’t visited in almost a decade and many of the villagers were very happy to see him (including the woman whose Setswana name translated to “fearless”-- I like that one).

We visited to scout out the location as a potential place to come with the Furman group next year. We like to support community tourism if we can but our trip to Seronga (across the delta) was logistically difficult to orchestrate last year so we’re looking for other options. With only one engine on the people transport ferry, what should have been a one hour ride took us three (and it arrived about 2 hours late). Our return trip was no better when the ferry that transports vehicles was “broken” and we waited for three hours in a long line of traffic to cross the delta once it was functioning again.

In any case, we walked around the village, visited with the locals and saw the mokoro boats (which are made of actual wood as opposed to fiberglass – I’m not sure if that is better or worse if approached by a hippo?). The village seems quite removed from the development of “modern” Maun. There is no electricity and water is obtained from the river the runs near it. To walk from the village to the tarmac (paved) road would take a good hour and a half and from there the drive into town is another 40 minutes (assuming you can hitch a ride).

Like most places in the Northwest region of Botswana this season, there is water water everywhere. We made on treacherous “bridge” crossing. I say “bridge” (in quotes) because it was merely pieces of rock, cement, wood logs, that perhaps at some point in its life served as a bridge but currently is all submerged serving mainly as traction in the water crossing process. If the water comes much higher it will be completely impassible by vehicle. They have already moved the road to the village once adding another half hour onto the drive. They may have to move it again.

On the drive back we had a few additional passengers who needed a ride into Maun. What was reported as “two ladies” by Worm when he asked if we could give them a lift, turned into two women, three kids, and several large bundles of stuff (one of which contained a trash bag full of tswi, the bulbs of the water lily which they eat for food, which broke and spilled all over the back of the vehicle by the time we got to Maun). While waiting for her friend to gather up the tswi, the older of the two stood in the middle of the dirt road where we dropped them in Maun and belched three times very loudly while making direct eye contact with me. No apology. No embarrassment. I guess the ride shook her up a bit…