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!

celebrating our first and the moon landing’s 40th anniversary

We had a nice President’s Day Holiday (Monday and Tuesday) starting with our star show trip to Nxai Pan on Friday night. Arriving just in time to see the most spectacular sunset, Paul set up his telescope for star viewing with a grandmother currently residing in Pretoria, South Africa, and her teenage grandson and two of his friends from the Netherlands. They had just finished a week of working at a community project the grandmother founded (painting a clinic, etc.) and were on a two-week trip traveling through Botswana. They were a pleasant and enthusiastic group of star gazers and we endured the high winds on the pan for several hours viewing the stars.

On Saturday, our one-year anniversary, we spent the day driving around Nxai Pan. With the late rain in June, the animal populations have dispersed so we didn’t see too much. We did watch a determined honey badger for some time and saw a good number of springbok and gemsbok. We also had a nice picnic lunch at an elevated point in the park overlooking the pan. The drive back was riddled with cows in the road as usual. I took a picture so you’d see what we have to contend with.

Unfortunately, Paul’s business obligations prevented us from taking the entire long weekend off as he had to spend the next few days working on tax issues and trying to get forms together for his renewal of his “C” license (mobile operator’s license). Botswana is an odd country which is heavily ladened with bureaucracy but doesn’t seem to have the wear with all to keep up with the requirements they actually put in place. For example, in order to get the license a tax clearance certificate must be obtained and it appears that the tax office has misrecorded information for the last several years (recorded 2008 tax records as 2007, etc). Anyway, it is the "irrationality of rationality" at its best and no one seems to know how to fix it. Of course, these were issues present before Paul purchased the company and no one seems to know how the previous owners were able to get their license renewed since this seems to have been going on for several years.

Anyway, we did properly celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the moon landing by inviting a dozen people over for some star gazing on Monday night. Paul set up his telescope and his friend Lee brought his and we had amazing views of Saturn (which is currently tilted in such a way to resemble an olive with a tooth pick through it) and Jupiter with its bans and moons. I made the popcorn with my secrete ingredient, Aromat, that makes it oh so delicious!

The rest of the holiday break I spent reading and hanging out with Taffy, the neighbor’s dog, who has become like a little shadow to me. Every time I get up and move, he follows me. I actually tried walking through the office and down the hall and back to the living room to see if he'd make the loop with me and...he did! I walked around singing “me and my shadow” most of the weekend. He’s very sweet and I’ll be sad to see him go (his owner is suppose to be moving back to Namibia this weekend). Both he and his “sister”, Fudge, seem very happy here.

WAR donations, wet riverbed and our daily routine

I spent the last week washing up all of the clothes my study away students left behind from our spring trip for donations to a local women’s shelter sponsored by WAR – Women Against Rape. http://www.womenagainstrape.co.bw/ I hadn’t realized how much there was until it took me a week to wash and hang out to dry all the clothes (we have a washing machine but no dryer). The organization was very happy to receive all the donations (which also included plenty of sun screen and bug spray!).

The biggest news last week was that a river, the Boranyani, that has been dry for at least the last 20 years was filling with water. That’s right, big news in Maun, a river bed…has water in it! People lined the streets looking at the flood water coming in. Each day when we drive by there are cars pulled off the side of the road to see and people peering over the guard rails.

Our daily lives have fallen into a nice routine. Our morning begins with about 45 minutes of weight lifting. We have three different workouts that we rotate through in our desperate attempt to get in shape. Study away didn’t do much for my fitness level. While we did hike a few times (See the picture of me hiking at Giant’s Castle in South Africa), there were too many ice cream options for dessert and not enough aerobic activity. I’m struggling to get back into shape. I added in jump robbing last week, which I suffer through (not silently). So far the cheese and wine at sundowners are winning!

I’m reading about four books currently, two for school and two for fun. For fun, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is keeping me agitated with American politics and Blinding Light by Paul Theroux is expanding my mind (thanks for the loan Mike!). For school, Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation is for my medical sociology course in the fall and Who Cares about AIDS in Africa for next year’s study away in the Spring.

Compared to my past visits I’m being relatively “super brave” when it comes to making my way around town. With our little Subaru Forrester (her name is “Zwu Zwu”) I zip around to the grocery store, to get phone time, etc. Groceries are surprisingly expensive here (comparable to Greenville) and you have to be particularly careful not to accidently buy your favorite product from home, without checking the price. Today when I was in Spar I saw Campbell’s soup and thought yum Campbell’s Tomato Soup, until I did the pula to dollar conversion and realized it was over $4 for the can! Crazy! Also, you may not know that all cell phones here are “pay as you go.” So we are constantly shooting out to buy time on “Orange” (the cell network) so we have cell minutes. Also, noteworthy is that if someone calls your cell it does not eat up your minutes. Only the caller uses minutes. Interesting, huh?

I know many of you will be surprised to learn that I am trying to build my repertoire of edible meals that I can cook. As many of you know, somehow I have managed to make it to this ripe old age without cooking much. That is possible when you live with people that cook (thanks Karen!) or have friends that feed you occasionally (thanks Kathy and Martha!) or live near easily accessible yummy takeout food (I miss Thai Coon lots!). But here in Botswana, as Paul says I have to become a “generalist” not just a “specialist” (Paul has a theory that Americans are specialists, while Africans are generalists. I think he might be right). One of my best efforts so far has been chicken Florentine (we were given fresh spinach from a friend’s garden) and last night was chicken Masala with spices we got from our trip to Zanzibar. Yummy! Here’s a picture of me shopping for spices in Zanzibar. Today for lunch I've made a rice salad with chicken, pineapple, peaches, mayo, chutney and curry powder. It's pretty good. I’m still slightly shocked when I make something that is edible.

Monday nights are my favorite nights for TV as I do a multi-hour marathon beginning with “Lost” (although we’re pretty lost because we missed a few episodes), “House” (surly sleuthing doctor, who could resist), and “Sopranos” (Kelley - all I can think of is our multi-day Christmas marathon several years back!). It’s pretty decadent as I sit there curled up on our couch, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, neighbor’s dog (Taffy) at my side…for hours! Given I watch almost no TV in the States, I guess being a Monday night couch potato won’t kill me.

Paul is doing well but is crazy busy at work. Perhaps juggling three companies is a bit too much (safari, mapping, and internet companies)?! He is desperately trying to find a book keeper. Started someone a couple of weeks ago that lasted one week, then a new one last week, who hasn’t been back since Thursday (claims to be in tomorrow). If I was a better person I would just learn Quickbooks and do it for him but since I’m only here 3-4 months of the year, he would be stuck doing it most of the time anyway. For those of you who have asked, his jaw, which was strained from his root canal in April, is finally back to normal and he has moved beyond his “flat food” diet to normal size food.

Friday we head off to Nxai Pan for a Star Show. Saturday is our anniversary! Can’t believe a year has gone by since our kgotla experience. Time flies when you’re having fun!

weird, creepy and just not right

OK, so I know I already posted this week but I couldn’t resist posting a photo of the “blunt-tailed worm lizard” that was in our yard yesterday morning. That’s right “worm lizard”! He looked like a big piece of stretched out pink gum. I took a picture next to my sneaker so that you could see how big he really is. Ick! What the heck is a “worm lizard” anyway?

I’m also trying my hand at the video feature on the blog. Here is a clip of our nightly “dog smack-down” entertainment. It ends badly. The dog in the back is the girl. That’s just not right! Unfortunately, I don't know how to edit the footage. Sorry about that!

road cutting, spontaneous smorgasbord and mamba!

Happy belated 4th of July! Hope you enjoyed the day. Paul and I did eat hotdogs and baked beans in celebration but I was really missing buns for the hotdogs (bread selection is seriously limited here), watermelon and good corn on the cob (and of course family and friends to celebrate with!). No fireworks either, but I think I did hear a car backfire…that will have to do.

Last week we spent three days in Savute cutting a new road for the mobile safari sector. Paul mapped it using Google Earth and data on an old road that used to exist there and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the elephants had maintained it quite well. There is still a lot of standing water around from that unusual early June rain we had. The typical way we get up to Savute is not passable due to the mud and water. As such, the only way into the park is a rickety bridge over a river. I usually hold my breath as we go over these.

Once we arrived we easily located the start of the old road which was now being used as an elephant thoroughfare. As such, with some bush bashing and chain sawing some small Mopani trees we were able to clear a good section of it on the first day. My job, along with another safari company owner’s 11 year old son, was to watch out for elephants and other beasts that might be lurking in the bush. Perched up on the wheel well we shouted at the top of our lungs when we heard some angry elephants trumpeting nearby. The work crew (Paul, Stuart and Rian) came running! Later that same afternoon we spotted a herd of Cape buffalo, notoriously some of the meanest and most dangerous creatures out there. We were delayed a bit as we waited for the herd to get to a safe distance from our new road.


The next day we managed to clear the roughly 7 mile road by mid-day so we decide to go find some of the remote Zwei zwei camp sites that are often assigned to the mobile safari companies when the ones closer in are booked. The new road we put in will actually get mobile companies out to these sites much quicker. Zwei zwei was the area where I survived the elephant charge last year and there were plenty of elephants this year as well (but fortunately no charges).

The campsites were much farther out than we expected and we had to break for lunch and eat whatever “tin food” (a.k.a. canned food) was in our vehicles. We had an interesting spontaneous smorgasbord of butter beans, sweet corn, spaghetti in a can and this nasty meat stuff that resembles SPAM and actually lists “beef hearts” as one of the ingredients on the side of the can. I did not partake in that, but Paul loved it. Ick!

We camped for two nights and headed back to Maun on the third day. We were toasty warm at night this time as I brought the heaviest duvet we own and that seemed to do the trick. While the animal populations were quite thin, because of the abundance of water, we did see some beautiful kudu and on the way back another black mamba in the road. I say “another” because we saw one about a year and a half ago in the Transfrontier Park (between Botswana and South Africa) and I was really hoping that I would be able to say (to myself, students, anyone who worries about me over here), “I’ve only seen one black mamba in ten years.” But after this second sighting, I’ve now seen two in two years.

Noted as the deadliest snake in Africa, the mamba is an elegant snake who looks much like a mole snake or black rat snake (both completely harmless). This particular one was about 9 feet long and about half way across the road when it spotted us, lifted up the first half of his body, effortlessly reversed its direction so that one half was elevated about ten inches above the other half while it quickly retreated to the brush on the side of the road. It is hard to explain in words how this snake seems “different” from others. While others are slow and slithery, this one is powerful, lightening fast and elegant. He is noted for his ability to go from flat on the ground to straight up so that the two of you are looking eye to eye in seconds. We thought we might get to see that but no such luck. Still it was impressive and terrifying all at the same time.

PS: Also saw a honey badger running across the road in the park. These are pretty rare to see too and super vicious!

range rehabilitation, star gazing in Moremi and a parrot in my hair

First, thanks to all of you that sent along birthday wishes. I had a nice birthday on the 18th. Paul spoiled me all day beginning with an attempt at coffee in bed (until the parrot in the living room started squawking because she wanted Paul to come out there…she’s quite social…and demanding). At the office I was given a package of assorted “biscuits” (a.k.a. cookies) to eat with my mid-morning tea. At lunch, I announced that I really would like a piece of cake for my birthday to which Paul promptly left the office to retrieve a chocolate mousse cake from his neighbor’s fridge (he had purchased it the day before and was hiding it in there for dinner that night). He said I made a “pre-emptive cake strike” by requesting it for lunch (instead of the plan for dinner). Also received some nice gifts throughout the day including a nice beaded giraffe for the house in Greenville (that we don’t live in yet but are buying things for on a regular basis) and a fuzzy pink bathrobe (very “bush worthy” for my walks to the outdoor shower – although I’m not sure I’ll be using that too much until I recover from the story our friend Mike told me of his sighting of a boom slang in there the other day – that snake has 3 red dots on the snake chart in the living room meaning “super venomous”).

Last weekend we went down to Ghanzi, a big cattle farming area, about a 2-3 hour drive from Maun to visit a friend of Paul’s Kevin and his wife Merle. Paul had worked with Kevin several years ago when he started the range rehabilitation project with funding from Tiso Kalahari. Botswana is a big cattle raising country (hence the cows in the road) and there is a lot of “over grazing” of farm areas, meaning there is no grass left to eat. Paul worked with Kevin on some “controlled burns” in areas to clear out the under-brush that gets so thick there is no room for grass to grow. We spend the weekend bashing around the farm in a giant tank like tractor mapping the farm with the help of Paul’s GPS so that long range comparisons can be made between burn and non-burn areas. We stayed in an elevated reed chalet on a watering hole and heard howling jackal at night and enjoyed the bird life during the day. In addition to cattle, the farm also had plenty of kudu and ostrich roaming around.

This weekend we went up to Moremi Game Reserve to give a star show for a safari. The group was a very nice family of fifteen from grandparents to grandkids from California. We came in on Saturday night just in time to celebrate one of the granddaughter’s 16^th birthdays with a traditional elephant dung cake (a classic of safari companies, there’s always great laughter when they figure out it is filled with poop!). The real cake delivered, champagne poured, and the evening was off to a good start as the sun set over the pan. It was a beautiful sunset.

With pre-dinner sundowners Paul told them a bit about the galaxy, astronomy and bushman folklore regarding the constellations of the southern hemisphere. As he was talking, with the sky only partially illuminated by a quarter moon, we notice movement about 20 feet away as a huge hippo made his way to the pan. With a flash of a torch (a.k.a. flash light) he backed up a bit but eventually worked up the courage to make a mad run to the watering hole sending water flying everywhere like a tank driving full speed into the water. He signaled his triumph with a signature set of grunts as we cautiously looked on.

We continued the evening with a fabulous steak dinner and after the meal Paul entertained them for hours with his telescope viewing Saturn (which at this point is tilted in such a way that it looks like an olive with a tooth pick stuck through it), Jupiter, the moon, and many fascinating stars and nebular clusters. I enjoyed observing the family dynamics of what must have been a very wealthy family. This was just one evening of a two week trip which involved multiple chartered flights from one scenic location to the next. A quick Google search on return to Maun revealed that one of the sons was a TV producer from LA who had directed several episodes of Lost! One of my favorite shows.

One of the advantages of money like that is that you don’t have to endure the actual drive to these unspoiled areas. Since they were jet setting to their next destination there was an extra vehicle that needed to be driven back to Maun so while Paul drove the safari vehicle back, I drove our Mitsubishi through mud, sand and slippery calcrete roads (which felt like driving on corrugated ice, bumpy and slippery at the same time!). There is still a lot of water up in Moremi, unusual for this time of year (which is supposed to be the dry season). On several occasions Paul had to wade into the icy cold mud water to see if it was passable. Better him than me.

Fortunately, no elephant encounters while driving in the bush this time (unlike my first time driving in the bush). We did see some ellies but they were calm. We also saw giraffe, kudu, impala, lechwee, zebra, baboons, vervet monkeys, etc. The coolest sighting of the weekend was a small pack of wild dogs. While I had seen some before in captivity…never in the wild. They were not fussed at all by us and walked right by the car. Two of them were collared for research purposes but the others were not. We were very excited about our good luck in seeing them and I was surprised how much they looked like skinny lanky domestic dogs!

It was a very nice weekend. In a couple of days, we head off to Savute to help cut a new road for the mobile safari companies. It has been very cold at night (close to freezing) so I’ll have to pack everything warm that I own. It was a long cold night in Moremi listening to the hippos, lions and hyenas and freezing my butt off!

PS: Well the parrot finally worked up the courage the other morning to try to land on me again. There I was innocently drinking my morning coffee and the bird launches itself off its cage, flapping erratically, and lands…square on my head. Paul insists it’s because my shoulders are too small to suffice as landing strips. So there I was in my pink fuzzy bathrobe, coffee cup in hand, with a bird in my hair. With nothing to grip on to, his talons are digging into my skull and the more Paul tries to get him off the more he digs in. At some point I start to cry in a complete fizzle as he backs up towards my face. Finally, our friend Mike walks in and the bird calmly walks off my head and onto his arm. It was quite a start to the day. Fortunately, he didn’t poop on my head (especially since we had no water that morning for a shower!).