getting my bearings

Within minutes of driving out of the parking lot of the Johannesburg airport we are waved over to the side of the road by a neon-vested police officer. “What is it?” I ask Paul. “Who knows,” he replies. The interchange that follows leaves me baffled. The officer asks Paul what he can give him for Christmas? Continues by inquiring how much he (Paul) will bring Santa for not wearing his seat belt. I wish I wrote down exactly what he said because it made no sense. The pronouns were confused, Santa was involved, and in the end…it was really about a 200 Rand bribe for the police officer. Paul unfazed says he’ll pull over so the officer can write him a citation and the guy waves him off. You see, you can’t really write a citation for an illegal bribe. Welcome to Africa!

The drive back to Botswana is long and hot. About seventeen hours of driving and the temps are comparable to what we were having in Greenville when I left – about 40 degrees except there it was in Fahrenheit and here it is Celsius (or about 104 degrees). I’m pretty tired from the cumulative effect of the end of the term, packing to leave for 3 ½ months and traveling. At one point I’m dozing when Paul slows to avoid something in the road. I open my eyes assuming it is a donkey, cow, goat or horse and catch a fleeting glance of a rather large male ostrich making his way across a very hot tarmac (paved) road. It pays to have hooves in this climate.

On day two of driving we are stopped at a police check point. Guessing that it is a spontaneous veterinary control stop (checking for uncooked red meat to avoid the spread of hoof and mouth disease between districts), I’m surprised when they ask Paul to step out of the car and go into the tent to receive some driver safety information. The sign outside the tent reads “Kill These and Save Lives.” It takes me a while to even make sense of the sign. Kill what? Paul returns with a handful of pamphlets some of them only in Setswana (very helpful to the English speaking driver). I learn that the “these” refers to “over speeding,” “negligence” and “cell phones.” I guess if we “kill” these, driving will be safer…

Botswana has a notoriously high motor vehicle accident rate. In 2007, for example, there were 66.3 accidents/1,000 vehicles (compared to 43.1 accidents/1,000 in the US) and 28.3 fatalities/100,000 population (compared to 13.6 fatalities/100,000 population – don’t you love what you can find on line from the US Census Bureau?). I learned from one of the brochures that Botswana has a Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund to provide compensation for people in motor vehicle accidents. The fund, started in 1986 provides automatic third party coverage through the payment of a fuel tax. It pays for things like loss of income, loss of support to dependents, payment for medical and rehabilitative expenses, etc. All sounds good right? It seems there was some new change to the fund as of this August but what I found most interesting was that you would only get 50% of the benefits if you were found to be drunk or negligent in the accident. That’s right…even if your drunk driving caused a motor vehicle accident, you’d get some sort of compensation from the government for the accident. You’ve got to love Botswana. Of course, the larger issue contributing to motor vehicle accidents is the animals in the road but there doesn’t seem to be any move to solve that problem. Donkey dodging can be hazardous to your health.

PS: There is the most beautiful bird outside my window today at the office. It’s one I’ve not seen before, a paradise fly catcher. It has a chestnut colored body and blackish blue head kind of spiked into a Mohawk of feathers. What is most fascinating is that it has two long tail streamers that are probably double the length of his body and his beak is almost turquoise blue in color as is the ring around his eye. I’ll try to bring my camera in and get a picture of him if I can.