First, my apologies… when I realize that the last entry I posted is from February and the title is “Let the learning begin”, I’m embarrassed by my lack of blogging. While the learning certainly did begin in February for the Africa Study Away Spring 2011 group, it continued on for another month of travel in Namibia and Botswana in March and then three more weeks on campus in April. I guess being responsible for twenty students around the clock doesn’t leave much time for blogging.
I was in the States for a mere five weeks (including a quick trip to New England to see family and friends). Once the semester ended, I jetted off to Athens, Greece for a paper presentation at an international Sociology conference and then a bit of R & R with Paul and his family in Crete. After a week with family, we went off by ourselves for a few days to Santorini and then back to Athens before we returned to Africa.
It’s nice to be back in Maun for the summer (their winter here) with all its oddities. There’s big happenings in town - new street lights have been added to the main road from town. They are, of course, currently not connected to anything and therefore merely serve as large obstacles that have to be dodged by the many taxi drivers (in addition to the donkeys, cows, horses, and goats already riddling the road). I wonder how long it will take until they actually illuminate the road (or get knocked over by an oncoming car who “failed to negotiate a turn”).
Talks have already started this year about the water levels and the floods. It seems while Paul was in Greece the floods came down and they are already measured to be quite a bit higher than last year at this time. How much water will there be? What will flood this year that didn’t flood last year? Will you be able to drive in Moremi National Park or will all the roads and bridges be under water? There’s certainly a lot of talk about water here…already.
Things at the ostrich farm are buzzing along. We’ve got some new neighbors (the human kind) and lots of new ostriches peeking out over the fence at us as hoping for corn. The other night, while outside looking at the rings of Saturn with the telescope, we could hear the sloshing and munching of a hippo going through water and chewing on grass in the river that has invaded the ostrich farm property when the floods came in. Just another day in Maun.
While in Johannesburg we purchased a new cook book as I find it difficult to find recipes online with measurements or ingredients that are easily accessible here. We made our first dish last night -- a West African dish with chicken, tomato, spinach, baby marrow (like a small zucchini) and peanut butter. It would have been good had Paul not accidentally (?) put in three times the amount of cayenne pepper! A bit hot for my tastes. He loved it.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ll write about our Grecian travels soon and put up some pictures. Just wanted to let you know we are safely back in Maun.
