a long way from home

I’m sitting here at Paul’s office watching the stock of stray cats at the office building behind his office block, which has multiple in my four month absence. Two tiny kittens just emerged from a long abandoned pipe lying on the ground joining the half dozen (or more!) adult strays that are out there. They’re running around like squirrels on Furman’s campus. Oh the oddities of Maun…how I’ve missed you so.

I’m freezing because Paul has left the air conditioner on high when he went to climb up a pole to fix someone’s broken internet. A job that was supposed to take an hour has now taken 4 and a quick call to him revealed that he doesn’t know when he’ll be back -  so much for being a silent partner in ngami.net! After the first year of the internet company climbing poles to do installations, he only has to do it now in a pinch. His colleague hurt his foot over the weekend and can’t make the climb himself. So Paul is…up a pole. I couldn’t bear to watch. It makes my hands sweat thinking about the lack of medical care here should someone fall on their head. It is too much for me to take. I could turn the AC down but it would mean climbing up on the desk (the unit is high up on the wall and I am too short to reach it). I guess one shouldn’t complain about AC during that hot African summer. Better not jinx it…there could be a power outage!

So I’m busily writing thank you’s to the dozen or so people I met in Gaborone on Thursday/Friday planning for my proposed May X in Botswana (if we get enough students who can afford to pay for the two week trip). There is an amazing amount of HIV/AIDS programs in the capital. I wonder how much of it actually filters out to the rest of the country. 

Botswana is about the size of Texas and a large percentage of the 2 million people that live here, live on the eastern side of the country near the capital. We live in the north western corner and the long drive back gives you some sense of how quickly you go from city to remote. In fact, I think if you’ve only lived in Gaborone (the capital) you haven’t actually lived in Botswana. They are completely different worlds. To truly live in Botswana I think you need to get off the paved roads. I think you need to get into the dirt.

It is summer here and the rainy season so there are large puddles to navigate (not from floods as in the dry season but from rain) on the drive to and from the ostrich farm. Giant black millipedes motor along the sand, legs moving like a wave (I mean giant – probably 8-10 inches long!). We’ve already chased two red wasps out of the house (these are the evil sons of Satan whose stings hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before. When I say “we” I mean “Paul” – I run in fear whenever I see one. Sometimes I run from mud wasps which are relatively harmless but who has time to distinguish between black and red in a moment of panic). 

Nine soggy ostriches greeted us as we did our morning exercises at 7 AM today (before it gets too hot). Hissing and kicking at each other over the bit of corn we feed them. Poor things were not only skinny but wet  after yesterday’s rain. 

I ran out of slippery water while doing the dishes last night (our water has some sort of something it in that makes it really slippery and leaves you feeling like you’ve never quite gotten the soap out of your hair when showering). We called Twanda (one of the Zimbabweans who runs the farm) to come fill up our tank from the bore hole (he has to divert water from other places on the farm to our tank). After several hours it didn’t overflow (which is unusual) so we turned it off to go to bed and turned it back on in the morning only to see a "fountain of youth" shoot 10 feet in the air from farther down the piping. Someone will have to fix that.

Our DSTV satellite TV  only had one channel coming in last night. Several others were pixelating (like Picasso’s Cubismo era had taken over) and some were just black. We’re not sure if new leaf growth on the trees are blocking our satellite signal or what. That will have to be fixed. 

The headline news from last week’s paper were about crocodiles preventing the recovery of a dead body out of a river. It seems some drunks wandered into the river and one didn’t come out. When the rescuers came to get the body, three larger crocodiles were visible near where they thought the body was. The Wildlife Department was brought in to shoot the crocodiles but they failed. Two days later the body floated and they were able to get it out of the river.

As my study away students say “TIA” meaning “This is Africa.” I am constantly reminded that I am a long way from home.  

Kristy

PS: I’ve got a few half finished blogs from the summer I want to polish up and post soon. Better late than never, right?

Ode to Shelby

I remember the day we got you in August 1997. You were the most timid of your siblings running around in the yard at the Humane Society. We received a call that a pack of border collie puppies had arrived and we dashed down to make our selection. We had been waiting for the notification from a friend who volunteered there for some time. I had your name picked out for at least two years before I convinced that other human we were living with at the time that we should get a puppy. I would call you Shelby, after the road sign off of I85 heading north towards North Carolina. Never expecting to have kids, I liked the name (for humans or animals) and figured I might use it for you. Plus, it had good “Southern twang potential” that I could call out the back door in a suitable Southern way…”Sssshhhhellllbyyyy.” Making a two syllable word into a four syllable word in good Southern style.

You were the shy one of the group. Barely made eye contact when I looked at you. Your siblings ran right up to us, but I resisted their advances and went to you, off on your own, eyes turned down and away toward anything but human eyes. My grandmother, who had worked in a veterinarian’s office for years was so right – “Choose the runt”, she said, “they make the best dogs.” And you have been the best dog.

Halloween parade - Shelby as "dog at work"

At a mere six weeks old you were simply a fuzz ball with bad breath and incredibly sharp puppy teeth. I took you to puppy school and soon learned that you had great potential and were pretty smart. I also learned that I was not destined to be the best dog trainer as I couldn’t bear the thought of you fearing me. I wanted us to be friends resulting in my never achieving “alpha” status and you pulling on your leash on walks for most of your life. But we worked most of the rest of it out. You came when I called developing a rather large vocabulary. At your peak you were capable of getting the exact toy I requested, “Go get ‘Bite the Man’” and you would specifically retrieve that toy. “Go get W” and you come trotting back with a plastic George W. Bush head in your mouth. “Last call” was your signal to go out one last time before turning in for the night.

You managed through “joint custody” for a time during what was one of the most difficult times in my life. You seemed to understand the pain I was in and would lay for hours by my side occasionally even licking away my tears. I’m not sure I would have made it without you.

Shelby and her friend Jerry

You loved walks, rides in the car and treats (what we called your dog biscuits). You had a weakness for squirrels and practically dislocated my shoulder on numerous occasions in hot pursuit. You had a love, hate, love relationship with cats  (and I, along with Jerry – my landlords’ cat, are happy you’ve ended on a positive note with that one). You like turkey and peanut butter (although not together). You can catch popcorn pieces tossed in the air. Your unfailing loyalty greets me whenever I return from travels to far off lands. You seem to have forgiven me for my long absences, almost instantly.

We have lived in four different homes, you and I, but have landed in dog paradise here on OldOaks Farms. For the last four and half years we have both been surrounded by goats, dogs, cats, horses, chickens and the most amazing landlords that have made us feel “at home” and loved (so much so that I really have little desire to move in to the house that I actually own!).

But now at 14 you are aging. The changes since I left in May seem dramatic. You can’t see very well nor can you hear much but very loud voices (the advantage is that you are no longer terrified of thunder or gunshot rounds!). Your gait is strained – short quick steps with the front legs and longer slower ones in back. You can no longer jump to lie on the bed and look out the window and you struggle to make it into your favorite chair to sleep (but you’re still managing that).

Shelby with her summer hair cut

It is a horrible burden and great responsibility to choose when it is time to relieve you from your pain. It is hard not to be selfish and keep you for as long as you’ll stay. Last night you wandered around the cottage endlessly in the dark as if you were lost. Doggy dementia? This morning when I brought the trash can to the curb you escorted me back to the house with a bouncy trot (at least for a brief moment). So…today is not the day. But it will come soon, a matter of months? weeks? days? And I will miss you like the desert misses the rain.

Things that go bump in the night

Lion Spoor

 The darkness is blinding. If I were to put my hand in front of my face I would see nothing. I can hear Paul’s breathing as he lies next to me on our bedroll in our tent somewhere in the middle of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Even if I try, I cannot for the life of me see him. I hear rustling outside the tent. It sounds like footsteps. Inching closer and closer to the side of the tent. Now sniffing. I can’t see a thing but I can hear my heart beating. What is it out there in the darkness? I try not to move. 

It goes on like this for what seems like hours and when I wake in the morning the darkness and wind are gone and there’s not a trace of a thing having passed outside our tent except my wild imagination…

I love the noises you hear sleeping in the bush. On the above night, however, it was nothing but the wind. On other nights you can hear the call of lions, the cry of jackals, the whooping of hyenas, the barking of geckos or the “HO0-hooing” of owls. Some nights the silence is deafening. On a recent trip to the Kalahari we woke to find footprints of a lion coming down the road leading to our campsite, passing right outside the front of our tent, doing a careful inspection of the entire site, then retreating back out the road. We heard nothing. 

Senyati Watering Hole

Sometimes you get so spoiled being in the bush that when you re-enter “civilization” you’re almost annoyed by the presence of other humans. We had an especially rude reintroduction to human society at a recent stay outside of Chobe National Park. A normally quiet campsite, called Senyati, with an amazing watering hole that draws in tons of elephants was taken over and corrupted by a band of fifteen marauding Afrikaaners drinking and making a racket until the wee hours of the night. 

Sadly they conformed to all the negative stereotypes that anyone could ever dream up about this segment of society. They were loud, rude, drunk and belligerent. At one point I felt like going over to them and saying, “Hey, there are other people here you know!” which made me think this was probably a common sentiment of the vast majority of the population of South Africa during the days of Apartheid. When we went to talk to the management about trying to get them to quiet down a bit, they threatened him with violence if he came back again.

Not getting much sleep that night we were woken before dawn cracked by the same gang yelling in Afrikaans at full volume to each other from across their campsites. Paul sprang to his feet, quickly dressed and confronted them in hopes that our clients might get some much needed sleep (which they were inevitably unable to get the night before). When he went over and said, “Come on guys, really…do you need to yell at each other in the early morning hours?” One of them responded, “We’re farmers.” 

Well...I guess that explains it. Sometimes you have no control over things that go bump in the night (or in the early morning hours).

out and about around town

It certainly has been a busy winter with fairly regular safaris and lots of time out in the bush. And while I’ve managed to find some time to prepare for my fall classes, it never seems like enough. When you add to this the ever rising flood waters and the extended power outages, it has been a wild winter here in Maun. As my study away students say “TIA” – This is Africa! We’ve just got to “make a plan” in order to deal with what we have in front of us.

Our road home, now a lake.

First, the flood waters. You may recall that last year there was a lot of buzz in town about the rising flood waters when rivers, that had not had water in them for decades, filled. But this year, fascination has turned into frustration as the water has continued to spread and cover roads and wreak havoc on our everyday travels. At first we were simply re-routed from one sand track to another as the water spread but when we returned from our most recent overnight trip to Savuti, the road we had come out on the day before was now a lake when we returned! Yikes – how to get home? At this point I can honestly say I’m not sure I could find my way from the tarmac road to our house. Troubling. 

We have had at least three meetings of other residents living out in the Boro area (a group now calling themselves “BEG – Boro Emergency Group”). At each meeting, around 20-30 people have shown up to debate the best course of action. In the middle of all this is a school run by a church called “Love Botswana” – which was, unfortunately built in a flood plain during a dry period. In their attempts to save their school they first dug a trench around their compound (and I do mean “compound” it is fenced and then ringed with razor wire – as I jokingly say, “if you can trust in God, trust in razor wire”???). The trench caused the waters that were over our main road to be diverted around the school to now block our secondary road (thanks for that!). They have now built a road over that trench which they are threatening to charge each vehicle 1,000 Pula (~$150 USD) to get a sticker in order to use the bridge should they put a gate and guard on each end. Nice!

And if the flood water challenge is not enough, last week we had a multi-day power outage (unrelated to the water) which really put a crimp in our productivity. It seems some sort of transformer blew and it took several days to repair it so we were literally, in the dark. All of northern Botswana was without power for several days. I did get a lot of reading done and fortunately, we are pretty well “kitted out” for camping so we had enough camp lights, etc. to allow us to function at night.

Yard Birds

The slow starvation of the ostriches on the farm continues and we are resisting the best we can by buying large bags of poultry feed (over 100 pound bags) to try to save them. Our landlords, who live in Gabarone, for some reason have these ostriches (not for food or breeding) but they fail to provide the Zimbabwean workers on the farm with enough food to sustain them. There were approximately 30 at the start of the year and now we are down to 10 (although I only saw 8 this morning). The Zimbabweans in an attempt to save them have let them out from behind the fenced area (which they have grazed to nothingness) to our side. This means we regularly have “yard birds” out in front of the house. We have one favorite one we call Olivia, which seems to have a bit of a crush on Paul, and she was even supervising his work out the other morning.

Paul's workout coach, Olivia.

Me on top of the vehicle, getting a better view.

Last weekend was a holiday weekend (President’s Day) so we took the opportunity to go up to Savuti for one night of camping to celebrate our anniversary. At the campsite there was a bit of drama when a large bull male elephant attacked a vehicle looking for some food. It seems the owners had left the back window cracked a bit and the elephant could smell some peppers and onions and pulled out the window to try to get them. They were pretty shook up but no one was hurt and the camp managers successfully chased him off (although I admit that I slept with one ear open that night listening for his return!).

Savuti is a beautiful area that has also been affected by the rising flood waters. It is very popular with tourists and the volume of people was a bit striking in contrast to our more recent safaris in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (which is more remote and less populated). For example, we had a nice look (and disgusting smell) of a leopard on a kudu kill along with about a half dozen other tourist vehicles. We arrived after the kill but had the opportunity to watch him with the spoils of his hunt. It was quite shocking to imagine how he might have killed such a large male kudu (which is probably four times his size!).

Large Male Kudu (not the actual victim)

 In addition to dramatic events like kudu kills, rising flood waters and power outages, we experience the more mundane things of living in Maun, like trying to find things at the local hardware store and coming across some unidentifiable items. What the heck is this anyway?

What is this?

 We also enjoyed a rare treat of smores when we camped as my sweet friend Kathy sent along Hershey chocolate bars, graham crackers and marshmallows among the many other treats in my birthday care package. Thanks Kathy!

Care Package for My Birthday from Kathy

 Well, I’d write more but we are heading off to pack the vehicles this morning for two back-to-back safaris. One a group of Americans who read my article in Furman Magazine and the second a group of Spaniards for a trans-Kalahari safari. By the time we return on August 10, it will almost be time for me to head back to the States (on the 15^th).

Will write more when I return.

Kristy

PS: You'll be happy to know that the street lights that have been installed since I returned in May, still do not work. Tragically a couple of them have already been hit and are lying on the ground like tipped over giraffes. Their lives were cut short before they even had light. Sad. Perhaps they'll be working when I return at Christmas!