My Top 10 for 2010

I don’t know about you but I always enjoy the end of the year lists (does that make me a geek? Probably). “Top 10 News Worthy Stories.” “2010 Year in Medical Breakthroughs.” “10 Great Political Moments in 2010.” So for my annual Christmas letter this year, I decided I would make my own “Top 10 in 2010” (and why they make me thankful): 

1. Eleven Flat Tires on Our Trip to Mozambique - 2010 was another fun filled year of travel, learning and adventure. In January, we ventured off through Zimbabwe with a stop at the Great Zimbabwean ruins on our way to Mozambique for some fun in the sun on the Eastern coast of Africa. Despite the eleven flat tires in our two week trip, we had a great time enjoying our little A-frame chalet overlooking the turquoise blue ocean in Vilanculos. We especially liked the snorkeling near Bazaruta Island and the parrot fish chomping on the coral reef! I include the eleven flat tires in my top ten list because it is evidence of Paul’s never failing patience.
   
   
2. Crossing of the Limpopo River – Our drive back to Botswana from Mozambique included a crossing of the Limpopo River near the Parfue Border Crossing into South Africa. This harrowing crossing, where water came up over the Land Cruiser hood and we floated for a while only to catch traction before we floated down the river, was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
   
   
3. My Laptop Theft in Cape Town - In February I met a group of twenty Furman students to direct, for the second time, Furman’s Study Away trip to Southern Africa. Traveling for nine weeks across South Africa, Namibia and Botswana we faced some challenges when my laptop and several thousand dollars of cash were stolen from my guest house room in Cape Town (we won’t be staying there again this year)! The laptop theft reminded me of the tremendous gap between the rich and the poor in this region of the world. While inconvenient for me (and my record keeping of the budget), I was reminded by a friend that anything that can be replaced by a purchase is really not that important.
   
   
4. Improving Lives at Megameno House - Some of the highlights of the Furman trip included: a visit to Kimberly Diamond Mines in South Africa so the historian on the trip could explore migrant labor issues;  several visits to Megameno orphanage in Namibia to see the progress of the kids and gather data about the effects of poverty on child development for the psychology class; and a day trip to Victoria Falls where, despite my best efforts to safeguard the students’ passports, they all got soaked from the mist of the falls (which can be like a torrential downpour)! Besides that the trip was a great success and we saw lots, learned lots and did lots  --  a great way of being in the world. I’m always thankful to see how well the kids are doing at Megameno House and encouraged by the reality that even small donations can make huge differences.
   
   
5. Visit to New England to Introduce Paul to Family and Friends - In April I returned to the States to finish off the semester and Paul joined me for a quick visit up to New England to attend a conference on Global Health at Yale and visit family and friends (many of whom had never met him before). It was great to have friends (Kathy, Karen and Kevin) and family (from my grandmother down to my nieces) finally meet Paul and get to know him a bit. We even got to celebrate my niece Nikki's 21st birthday and my niece Becca's high school graduation (early) and visit the campus of Bay Path College that she began attending in the fall. Shortly thereafter we returned to Botswana for my summer break (which is “winter” in Botswana – the best time to be there – the heat is tolerable, the bugs fewer and the rains absent!). 
   
   
6. Star Shows at Luxury Lodges - We had lots of opportunities to travel and explore with visitors from the States in June. We camped at some of our favorite locations in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), Moremi and Savute. In July, Paul had the opportunity to do some stars shows with his portable telescope for guests at a luxury lodge, Savute Elephant Camp, Mogotlho, Meno A Kwena and Zarafa (back in January).  It’s fun being an amateur astronomer’s wife!. In August, we led an interesting trans-Kalahari safari and saw lions and cheetahs and had the opportunity to interact with bushman who are currently living in the CKGR.
   
   
7. Teaching the Sociological Imagination - In August I returned for the fall semester where I taught two sections of Introduction to Sociology and one of Sociology of Gender. I always enjoy introducing students to the discipline  in SOC 101 and prompting them to examine the many ways that we “do gender” in our day to day lives in the gender class.
   
   
8. Celebrating Paul's Birthday - Paul came to visit for a month around mid-September and we had a nice trip down to the coast to spend the night on our friends’ boat, another night at a friend’s creek house outside of Edisto and a day at the Shrimp Festival in Buford, SC- delicious!  We also took several trips up to the mountains on Paul’s Honda Goldwing motorcycle. Finally, we celebrated Paul's birthday early before his departure with cake and kids at Old Oaks Farms (where I rent a small cottage).They really liked all the animals - goats, horses, chickens, dogs! Fun!
   
   
9. Music with Friends – My time without Paul in the Fall was filled with friends, food, music and just enjoying being back in the States for a bit. The symphony, chamber music, Emmy Lou Harris, Delbert McClinton – you name it, I listened to it. Great fun with friends. My sister also made a trip down to Greenville for a weekend (something she hasn't done in probably a decade!) and we had some good sister time catching up! I also went to Florida for Thanksgiving to see my parents and we had a nice day trip to Busch Gardens.
   
   
10. My Dog Shelby - Finally, I'm thankful for my dog Shelby, now 13 years old. She is almost completely deaf but still as sweet as ever. She enjoys her time at Old Oaks Farms and I know she’s in good hands (under the careful watch of my dog sitter Jeff and land lords Martha and David) even when I’m out of the country.
    
    Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

alcoholic butterfly, spitting cobra and a laundry frog!

We had a lovely Christmas and hope you did too. We spent two nights at Mogothlo Safari Lodge. On Christmas Eve day we were the only guests in camp and the staff to client ratio was probably about 3:1 so I felt a bit like the queen. The lodge has eight large tents on elevated platforms with beds, showers, flush toilets, etc. It is situated on the Khwai River and has a nice area for self-drive game viewing.

We saw lots of hippos (a couple of them fighting), a large male elephant giving himself a mud bath and Paul enjoyed taking some time to photograph all things great and small(including some baby jacanas). 

   

 

Christmas morning Paul opened his presents. My present came early this year with the help of my landlords who managed to coordinate with Paul to get me a new camera – a Canon Powershot SX210. It is pretty slick and I’m enjoying the 14X zoom capabilities (my previous camera had only 3X) – most of the recent pictures you’ve seen are from me. Paul has already had a couple of workouts with his new TRX exercise system which looks much like he’s suspending himself from straps from the door and is liable to fall flat on his face at any moment (perhaps I should use the video feature on my new camera for that!). 

We spent Christmas dinner with a family up visiting from South Africa. The couple living in Botswana run a local camp ground and they were joined by her mother, sister and brother-in-law and a half dozen kids. We had a lovely dinner of gammon (ham) and a variety of side dishes. After dinner we were even joined by an alcoholic butterfly who shared some champagne with us. 

We returned to Maun on Sunday to be greeted by the largest snake I’ve ever seen in my life. We were putting things away and happen to look out the living room window and to see a six-foot long, two inch in diameter snake coming right toward the house. Upon seeing us, he retreated quickly and Paul got a photo of the tail end of him on his way back into the grass. We’ve identified him as a Mozambique Spitting Cobra. Considered probably the most dangerous snake second to the Mamba, his spit can blind you as he rears up 2/3rds of his body length to hit you in the eyes! Since then I’ve prohibited leaving the front door of the house open (for fear he could make his way into the house). Yikes!

The good news is that Happiness, our Zimbabwean house cleaner, killed a scorpion in the house when she came to clean on Sunday (I’m hoping it’s the same one I saw earlier). On a cuter note, on our daily ride to work we’re greeted by a brand new baby donkey and his mom (super cute) and yesterday, while hanging the laundry, I found a tiny frog in a clothes pin (or clothes “peg”, as they say here). I have no idea how he got up there on the clothes line but I’m sure glad I didn’t squish him while hanging our clothes!

 

For New Year’s Eve we head off to Meno A Kwena (“teeth of the crocodile”) for Paul to do a star show. Hope the skies are clear! I’ll write more when we return.

skulking hyena, jumping snakes and petrol shortage

African Hoopoe

I can barely see the faint shadow of what I know is a large hyena skulking in the darkness as we set up the telescope for an evening of star gazing at Moremi Game Reserve. We’ve seen it walking up the dirt path for camp earlier as we were eating dinner. In our rush to get out to of Maun we have forgotten our large torch (flashlight) and the illumination from my headlamp only gives me about five feet of visibility (too close for comfort for a hyena sighting). As my eyes adjust to the light of the full moon, I’m able to see better only to notice another, larger, hyena coming from the other direction. I feel like we’re surrounded but I know I’m just a little panicky as I re-adjust to my life, or the part of my life, where I have to worry about things that can…eat me!

Leopard Tortoise

As always the journey between my lives is a long and slow process that gives me a bit of time to adjust to the change. Complicated by back pain, the eighteen hour flight seems longer than usual and I am very glad to be on solid ground and able to soak in a luxurious tub that looks like half an egg at our friends’ luxury hotel in Johannesburg (http://www.africanrockhotels.com/). We spend two nights in Joburg, making a mistake of going to Sandton mall a week before Christmas (Western materialism is alive and well in Sandton!) and the rest of the time I basically take back medicine, relax and sleep for two days. 

On Sunday we start the fourteen hour drive back stopping halfway at Kalahari Rest Camp for the night. Continuing on Monday, we arrive in Maun about lunch time. I am a bad traveling companion as I sleep most of the time and certainly can’t be trusted to drive in the condition I’m in. A sighting of ostrich on the side of the road could be mistaken for pain reliever delirium. 

Impala Babies

After a day at home we head off to Moremi to do a star show for friends (actually the ones that own African Rock Hotel in Johannesburg). It is nice to be back in the bush seeing giraffe, impala, kudo, zebra, and water buck (with their tell tale white ring around their butt that looks like a toilet seat ring).  Oh Africa, how I’ve missed you so. Many impala babies have been born and they are so tiny and fragile it is amazing that they make it to adulthood. We also come across a leopard tortoise and I get the opportunity to try out my new camera. 

Water bucks

One of our most interesting sightings is two starlings (iridescent black birds a bit smaller than crows) frantically harassing something we initially can’t see. They are flying and diving and squawking over the grassy ground when we see a thin black snake lift up about three feet off the ground striking at the birds as they dive bomb it. Whatever type of snake it is, it moves fast as we watch the birds “chase” it thirty feet off into the trees in a matter of seconds.

Other adjustments to life in Botswana are required by the scorpion I spotted in our house yesterday. He was kind of flat so I assumed he was squished and perhaps dead, and if he wasn’t, since I don’t know how to properly remove a scorpion from the house (yet) I go to get Paul and when I return…it’s gone. Now I worry about him being somewhere in our house waiting to sting me from some dark corner. Ugh!

The other adjustment problem is a lack of petrol (unleaded gas) in Maun. We drove around to all the petrol stations yesterday before finding one with petrol left to refuel our Subaru but when we went to refuel the Pajero after dinner, the only station that had fuel had a line of about twenty cars deep and we didn’t feel like waiting in it at 11:30 PM at night. So now we are trying to decide if it is worth going back into town to see if any petrol was delivered over night or if we should simply take one of the safari vehicles to the tented camp for our Christmas adventure. Never a dull moment in Botswana! Hope you have a fabulous Christmas! I’ll send our annual Christmas letter when we return.