Since I leave Botswana today, I figured I'd post a list of the things I will and won't miss mo Botswana. More stories to come about my last few days.... too many adventures and great insights into the workings of the US embassy!
Things I won't miss about Botswana:
Seeing donkeys with their front legs tied together so they can’t walk very fast or go very far
Being honked at by every taxi that passes
Silent TV dinners
Mosquitoes
Throwing my trash on the ground because there’s nowhere else to put it
People who assume I can’t speak Setswana
Foreigners watching the progress of their Batswana construction crew for hours from their air conditioned cars
Slow internet
Not really knowing how to cook anything I’ve eaten here
Kagisong
Food poisioning… Thanks program house leftovers
Being asked where my husband is by every taxi driver. Don’t have one? Then where’s your boyfriend?
Sticking out like a sore thumb
“Sori mma, ga ke je nama.”
Writing papers
Boys peeing everywhere
Passports
Prepaid phone units
Switches where off is up and on is down
Things I’ll miss about Botswana:
Boitumelo, Bonolo, Dimpho, Kabo, Kagiso, Katlhego, Lefika, Lesego, Leungo, Mpho, Naledi, Neo, Tabo
Long good byes outside Bull and Bush with flickering lights and massive audiences
The skies
Letsatsi
Mickey tags
April
Dirt roads
Riding in the back of pickups
Gabs, Kasane, Manyana, Maun, Mochudi
My host families
Maun Homeopathy Project
P10 lunches
Parks
Chibuku cartons everywhere
Dirt roads
Rain storms when the sky seems to rip right open
Rummy 500
Bush breakfasts/lunches/dinners
Brian
My hubby
Department of Wildlife and National Parks
Walking by the State House every morning and afternoon
Wild dogs
Wonderful conversations with strangers
Pap pap
The efficiency of the US embassy
Safari drives
Land Cruisers and Range Rovers
Sunset
Favors
Thunder that booms, crashes and rattles your ribs for thirty seconds
Ame
Diphologolo
Motogo
Sour fruit
Crunchy YumYum
The molapo
Having an MP dad
Random dance parties
Linga Langa
Forked lightening
Football
Thari Daycare Center
Kudu
Liver-looking banana-smelling fruits
Pula
Amarula
Walking by Embassies
LBRs
Weddings
BOFWA
Oranges and peaches right off the tree
Birds
The air-conditioned rock
Quiet picnics under a huge tree
Choppies
Webby
The cool side of Manyana’s river
The Botswana soundtrack
Mokoros
Throwing wine on Lesh
Free internet in the best places; Maun airport, Barcelos, Linga Langa, Equitorial
Trees everywhere
Elephants
My wonderful eating buddy
So many kids
Night time walks
Dinaledi
Mmadua
Monkey Gland Burgers
Backpackers’
Walking
Milky Lane
Being a tourist
Khombis
Bull and Bush
Ditonki, Dikgomo, Dipudi, Dikatsi, Dintsa, Dikoko
Comfy beds
Bucket baths
Booze cruise
Dula
History
Setswana
Backpackers
Beef juice
Amarula
My Birthswana
Namibian women wearing beautiful hats and dresses
Meeting Atlha
My four new families in a beautiful and wonderful country
BOITUMELO, BONOLO, DIMPHO, KABO, KAGISO, KATLEGO, LEFIKA, LESEGO, LEUNGO, MPHO, NALEDI, NEO, TABO
Showing posts with label Maun Homeopathy Project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maun Homeopathy Project. Show all posts
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
End of Maun
The end of Maun was really fun. I ended up finding the Maun Homeopathy Project and spent a few days with them. I learned a whole lot like what exactly homeopathy is and why it's so effective for Maun. And it really is, the MHP goes into rural villages where doctors don't go and does amazing work. They reach people who don't have access to hospitals or treatment. And after talking to the two volunteers from the UK, I think it's better for a lot of people than "modern" or "western" medicine.
So probably the most fun I had was when three of my friends from the program came from where they'd been working to spend a few days with us in Maun. I went back and visited the abandoned hospital with Jesse and we discovered a lot of the office doors were unlocked when they'd previously been shut and there was a wheelchair in the courtyard where there hadn't been one before.
I decided to stay at a wonderful hostel with Jesse called the Old Bridge Backpackers. Where, if anyone ever goes to Maun, they should think about staying there. There's permanent tents (wood floors, twin beds, canvas rooves) and amazing food. Seriously, the food was incredible. After our first night, the septic tank broke and flooded our yard, so we got upgraded at no cost to a tent with a porch and lounge chairs, a bigger room, and a personal outdoor shower and toilet. It was so much fun to live there!
We also did a horseback safari. It wasn't a real safari where you look for animals, but we rode around for about an hour. Sometimes we were next to an electric fence and other times on the road, but it was green and fun. Our guide let us canter which was wonderful. I forgot how much I missed horseback riding until I was back on a horse.
We also did an overnight mokoro trip that was great. The drive to the starting point was honestly magical. There must have been some sort of butterfly migration because there were hundreds flying from our left to right on the entire 40minute drive. We saw a lot of them over the next two days too. So we hopped into our mokoros and ran into Vince, Katie and Cuz (who were doing a separate trip) on our camping island. We set up our tents and hopped into the swimming pool where we spent a few hours. After a quick lunch and nap, we took a walk where we saw zebras, elephants and one of the most incredible sunsets I've seen yet. There were patches of rain that were colored the way clouds normally are.
The next morning we woke up early and did another 3hour walk. (it was also Murphy's 21st birthday! what a way to spend it!) We saw the same zebras and amazing landscapes. We went back to camp, ate breakfast and went back to the swimming hole. We met some great people from the Netherlands and Canada. We packed up camp and got back in our mokoros. We were running late and I think we took some shortcuts because the paths weren't well worked in and we got hit in the face by a whole lot of reeds. Jesse and I were in the same mokoro and our guide, KP, made us each a neckless out of a lily. I figured out how and made two more.
The next day we missed our 6am bus because there weren't any khombis or taxis and had to take the 7.30 bus. Luckily, I slept all but one hour of the ten hour ride! Got back to Gabs and took a long walk with my sister, Ame, which was wonderful. Tiny's still really preggers.... she'll have the baby on Dec. 20!
pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069203&id=1036350539&l=1771ebeda9
So probably the most fun I had was when three of my friends from the program came from where they'd been working to spend a few days with us in Maun. I went back and visited the abandoned hospital with Jesse and we discovered a lot of the office doors were unlocked when they'd previously been shut and there was a wheelchair in the courtyard where there hadn't been one before.
I decided to stay at a wonderful hostel with Jesse called the Old Bridge Backpackers. Where, if anyone ever goes to Maun, they should think about staying there. There's permanent tents (wood floors, twin beds, canvas rooves) and amazing food. Seriously, the food was incredible. After our first night, the septic tank broke and flooded our yard, so we got upgraded at no cost to a tent with a porch and lounge chairs, a bigger room, and a personal outdoor shower and toilet. It was so much fun to live there!
We also did a horseback safari. It wasn't a real safari where you look for animals, but we rode around for about an hour. Sometimes we were next to an electric fence and other times on the road, but it was green and fun. Our guide let us canter which was wonderful. I forgot how much I missed horseback riding until I was back on a horse.
We also did an overnight mokoro trip that was great. The drive to the starting point was honestly magical. There must have been some sort of butterfly migration because there were hundreds flying from our left to right on the entire 40minute drive. We saw a lot of them over the next two days too. So we hopped into our mokoros and ran into Vince, Katie and Cuz (who were doing a separate trip) on our camping island. We set up our tents and hopped into the swimming pool where we spent a few hours. After a quick lunch and nap, we took a walk where we saw zebras, elephants and one of the most incredible sunsets I've seen yet. There were patches of rain that were colored the way clouds normally are.
The next morning we woke up early and did another 3hour walk. (it was also Murphy's 21st birthday! what a way to spend it!) We saw the same zebras and amazing landscapes. We went back to camp, ate breakfast and went back to the swimming hole. We met some great people from the Netherlands and Canada. We packed up camp and got back in our mokoros. We were running late and I think we took some shortcuts because the paths weren't well worked in and we got hit in the face by a whole lot of reeds. Jesse and I were in the same mokoro and our guide, KP, made us each a neckless out of a lily. I figured out how and made two more.
The next day we missed our 6am bus because there weren't any khombis or taxis and had to take the 7.30 bus. Luckily, I slept all but one hour of the ten hour ride! Got back to Gabs and took a long walk with my sister, Ame, which was wonderful. Tiny's still really preggers.... she'll have the baby on Dec. 20!
pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069203&id=1036350539&l=1771ebeda9
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Maun Adventures
Adventure 1: Remember how I’d originally wanted to work with an organization called the Maun Homeopathy Project? Well after unsuccessfully looking for their sign for the past three weeks, I happened to see one on my drive from town to home. How I hadn’t noticed it before is kind of surprising and upsetting. The sign itself was for a clinic funded and built by the Project. The next day, Katie and I went on an adventure to find the clinic and ask if they’d still take me as an intern so I could write my final paper on something I’m actually interested in and don’t just enjoy doing. We found the sign again after walking about half an hour from our house. We turned off the main road onto a dirt path for cars in the direction of the arrow. We walked and walked but couldn’t find the building. We passed a huge Lutheran church though. We found a few abandoned, official looking buildings and guessed it must have been one of those. I was pretty troubled though, because the sign had looked so new.
We did see a sign for a hospital though, and went to investigate. Turns out we’d stumbled upon the old hospital that, it turns out, was abandoned in 2008. The only way we knew that was by the deserted memos still posted on the bulletin board. Katie and I spent over an hour looking around the grounds. There were at least twenty if not thirty buildings that had been part of this government hospital. We kept talking about how we expected a crazy old ghost doctor to jump out at us as we wandered in and out of the open rooms. We could have been on the set of a horror movie. We found an operating room that had an X-ray reader, a sink and a poster with instructions for how to make incisions still up on the wall. We found a storage room with a few pairs of shoes. The obviously beautiful landscaping was overgrown and taking over the paths we walked on between the buildings. We found the maternity and pediatrics wards, which were pretty creepy. An office was locked but pairs laid all over the desk and floor, I’m not sure why they were left. A number of rooms had lights on; the government must be losing money on electricity.
We eventually left and walked back to the Maun Homeopathy Project sign and I saved the number listed. We caught a cab into town and I tried calling the number. Somebody picked up! I was surprised, since phone numbers tend to change a lot here. The woman on the other side was incredibly helpful and willing to share information with me after I explained I was a student from the States hoping to do research on her organization. She told me they were going into the field this weekend but would be back in the clinic on Thursday. I tried to ask if I could come before Thursday, hoping she’d ask if I wanted to do outreach, but she didn’t. So Thursday at 8am it is! She asked if I knew where the Lutheran church was? They were located right next to it. So apparently Katie and I had walked right by the clinic and not seen it.
Adventure 2: When I was back in Gaborone, my host family had mentioned they had family in Maun. The husband owned Trekkers, the only night club in Maun and the wife owned a lodge. I should have thought to ask for the number then, but didn’t. So once I was in Maun, I called Tiny back in Gabs and asked for her aunt’s phone number. I called not even knowing her name. Turns out MmaDua is a wonderful lady who said she’d love to have me and friends over for dinner Friday night and then maybe the kids could take us to the club! She called on Friday and said “we’re having dinner at seven, how many friends are you bringing?” So I told her I’d bring one friend, and Katie and I left our house at 6:45, planning on getting there a few minutes after seven. She’d told me just to tell a cab driver to take us to MmaDua’s house and they’d know exactly where it was. We waited unusually long for a cab, and the first one we hailed said MaDua’s was 30kms away and he wouldn’t take us. He agreed to take us into town to find someone who would drive us the whole way. So we paid him the usual p3.50 each (about 40cents) and he helped us find another cab that agreed to take us to MmaDua’s for p20. A total deal. I called MmaDua and she said she was about 7kms outside town. It was already after 7 so I told her we were on our way and apologized for being late. So our taxi drove us to MmaDua’s Lodge. We told him we wanted the house and he agreed if we gave him another p10. We passed so many lodges on our drive – I didn’t realize they were all so far out of town. We drove another kilometer down the road to one of the biggest and most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen.
There was a wall ten feet tall with barbed wire all around the property. The gate was open. The first thing I noticed was the five cars in the driveway. Then I noticed the house itself. It was two stories, something I haven’t seen in awhile with a two car garage. There were three arched steps leading up to the double front door, which was behind a series of pillars. There were two or three balconies on the front of the house. We walked in to see a spiral metal staircase going up to the second floor and a beautifully decorated, modern sitting room on the right. We walked past a modern painting of shapes hanging in the hallway into the most beautiful kitchen. The cabinets were a deep red wood with black granite tops. The fridge was huge and there were a lot of appliances out. On the island was a dinner, complete with seven or eight different dishes… yum! CD, the oldest child and only daughter, had cooked for hours to prepare dinner.
MmaDua ushered us outside where Katie and I sat with her at a little table. Her youngest child, Lesego, a boy of about ten years old, brought us water. We chatted about what we were doing in Botswana and Maun specifically, as well as how she’s related to my host family in Gabs. We grabbed plates from inside and she insisted Katie and I each have a glass of wine. Since CD had finished the box of wine while cooking, we opened a bottle from South Africa (first bottle in awhile!)
We learned that CD had attended university in Cape Town and was back at school for accounting. She just wrote her exams last week and will hear in December how she did. It was interesting to listen to her talk because she spoke quickly and mumbled a lot. Plus she swore a ton, which has different meanings throughout Setswana culture. The middle child, a guy, is currently in university in Joburg and loves it there. Lesego raved about Six Flags in New Jersey when we asked him about it, after we learned that MmaDua travels to NY about four times every year (WHAT?!?!?). CD had two friends over who were also really interesting to talk to. One was named Chris and one was Shawn, although I never learned who was who. One was from Zimbabwe and was currently working as a lab doctor at the private hospital in Maun. He plans on moving to Australia next year to get his surgery degree and stay there to practice. The other man was from Jamaica and had moved to Botswana with his family about ten years ago. He comfortably used Setswana during our conversations, which were all in English.
We talked about random things while sitting outside. It was just like hanging out with friends back home and joking. Lesego, the youngest boy, was an easy part of the conversation. He loved to give his sister’s friends a hard time and initiated hilarious conversations about whether or not a cheetah was a cat.
At one point I went inside to use the bathroom and poked my head into a few rooms. First of all, to get to the bathroom, you had to go through the room with a bar. It was a fully stocked bar, with stools all around. There were also couches facing a big TV. The bathroom was really cute and clean. There was incense that smelled delicious – vanilla flavored, my favorite! Across from the bar room was another sitting room, this one had a Christmas tree decorated with lights and cards set out on the table.
After Katie and I had finished our glasses of wine, MmaDua said that was the last glass and that CD would take us out. We helped take in all the dishes and put the leftovers into the fridge. So we hopped into the car. We drove back into town so CD could get some money from her brother who had gone to the ATM. Then we drove back out of town, past CD’s house to the River Lodge, not Trekkers like we’d expected. It was absolutely packed, mostly with white people. There were two men on their cell phones standing far from the bar; obvious tourists. CD, Shawn and Chris tried to convince Katie and I that the rest of the people there were locals, but I wasn’t convinced. We ordered a round of beers and found a table a little ways away from the bar and sat down to chat and hang out. It was really nice to have such a low key night. After about an hour, we decided it was time to head home. Either Shawn or Chris (the Zimbabwean) gave us a ride home. That’s when I got to talk to him and hear about why he came to Botswana and his plans for the future.
Saturday, MmaDua texted me again to ask how we’d slept and if we’d had fun. I thanked her many times and told her what a great time we’d had. When I said we hoped to see her again before we left Maun, she responded “of course, my dear!”
We did see a sign for a hospital though, and went to investigate. Turns out we’d stumbled upon the old hospital that, it turns out, was abandoned in 2008. The only way we knew that was by the deserted memos still posted on the bulletin board. Katie and I spent over an hour looking around the grounds. There were at least twenty if not thirty buildings that had been part of this government hospital. We kept talking about how we expected a crazy old ghost doctor to jump out at us as we wandered in and out of the open rooms. We could have been on the set of a horror movie. We found an operating room that had an X-ray reader, a sink and a poster with instructions for how to make incisions still up on the wall. We found a storage room with a few pairs of shoes. The obviously beautiful landscaping was overgrown and taking over the paths we walked on between the buildings. We found the maternity and pediatrics wards, which were pretty creepy. An office was locked but pairs laid all over the desk and floor, I’m not sure why they were left. A number of rooms had lights on; the government must be losing money on electricity.
We eventually left and walked back to the Maun Homeopathy Project sign and I saved the number listed. We caught a cab into town and I tried calling the number. Somebody picked up! I was surprised, since phone numbers tend to change a lot here. The woman on the other side was incredibly helpful and willing to share information with me after I explained I was a student from the States hoping to do research on her organization. She told me they were going into the field this weekend but would be back in the clinic on Thursday. I tried to ask if I could come before Thursday, hoping she’d ask if I wanted to do outreach, but she didn’t. So Thursday at 8am it is! She asked if I knew where the Lutheran church was? They were located right next to it. So apparently Katie and I had walked right by the clinic and not seen it.
Adventure 2: When I was back in Gaborone, my host family had mentioned they had family in Maun. The husband owned Trekkers, the only night club in Maun and the wife owned a lodge. I should have thought to ask for the number then, but didn’t. So once I was in Maun, I called Tiny back in Gabs and asked for her aunt’s phone number. I called not even knowing her name. Turns out MmaDua is a wonderful lady who said she’d love to have me and friends over for dinner Friday night and then maybe the kids could take us to the club! She called on Friday and said “we’re having dinner at seven, how many friends are you bringing?” So I told her I’d bring one friend, and Katie and I left our house at 6:45, planning on getting there a few minutes after seven. She’d told me just to tell a cab driver to take us to MmaDua’s house and they’d know exactly where it was. We waited unusually long for a cab, and the first one we hailed said MaDua’s was 30kms away and he wouldn’t take us. He agreed to take us into town to find someone who would drive us the whole way. So we paid him the usual p3.50 each (about 40cents) and he helped us find another cab that agreed to take us to MmaDua’s for p20. A total deal. I called MmaDua and she said she was about 7kms outside town. It was already after 7 so I told her we were on our way and apologized for being late. So our taxi drove us to MmaDua’s Lodge. We told him we wanted the house and he agreed if we gave him another p10. We passed so many lodges on our drive – I didn’t realize they were all so far out of town. We drove another kilometer down the road to one of the biggest and most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen.
There was a wall ten feet tall with barbed wire all around the property. The gate was open. The first thing I noticed was the five cars in the driveway. Then I noticed the house itself. It was two stories, something I haven’t seen in awhile with a two car garage. There were three arched steps leading up to the double front door, which was behind a series of pillars. There were two or three balconies on the front of the house. We walked in to see a spiral metal staircase going up to the second floor and a beautifully decorated, modern sitting room on the right. We walked past a modern painting of shapes hanging in the hallway into the most beautiful kitchen. The cabinets were a deep red wood with black granite tops. The fridge was huge and there were a lot of appliances out. On the island was a dinner, complete with seven or eight different dishes… yum! CD, the oldest child and only daughter, had cooked for hours to prepare dinner.
MmaDua ushered us outside where Katie and I sat with her at a little table. Her youngest child, Lesego, a boy of about ten years old, brought us water. We chatted about what we were doing in Botswana and Maun specifically, as well as how she’s related to my host family in Gabs. We grabbed plates from inside and she insisted Katie and I each have a glass of wine. Since CD had finished the box of wine while cooking, we opened a bottle from South Africa (first bottle in awhile!)
We learned that CD had attended university in Cape Town and was back at school for accounting. She just wrote her exams last week and will hear in December how she did. It was interesting to listen to her talk because she spoke quickly and mumbled a lot. Plus she swore a ton, which has different meanings throughout Setswana culture. The middle child, a guy, is currently in university in Joburg and loves it there. Lesego raved about Six Flags in New Jersey when we asked him about it, after we learned that MmaDua travels to NY about four times every year (WHAT?!?!?). CD had two friends over who were also really interesting to talk to. One was named Chris and one was Shawn, although I never learned who was who. One was from Zimbabwe and was currently working as a lab doctor at the private hospital in Maun. He plans on moving to Australia next year to get his surgery degree and stay there to practice. The other man was from Jamaica and had moved to Botswana with his family about ten years ago. He comfortably used Setswana during our conversations, which were all in English.
We talked about random things while sitting outside. It was just like hanging out with friends back home and joking. Lesego, the youngest boy, was an easy part of the conversation. He loved to give his sister’s friends a hard time and initiated hilarious conversations about whether or not a cheetah was a cat.
At one point I went inside to use the bathroom and poked my head into a few rooms. First of all, to get to the bathroom, you had to go through the room with a bar. It was a fully stocked bar, with stools all around. There were also couches facing a big TV. The bathroom was really cute and clean. There was incense that smelled delicious – vanilla flavored, my favorite! Across from the bar room was another sitting room, this one had a Christmas tree decorated with lights and cards set out on the table.
After Katie and I had finished our glasses of wine, MmaDua said that was the last glass and that CD would take us out. We helped take in all the dishes and put the leftovers into the fridge. So we hopped into the car. We drove back into town so CD could get some money from her brother who had gone to the ATM. Then we drove back out of town, past CD’s house to the River Lodge, not Trekkers like we’d expected. It was absolutely packed, mostly with white people. There were two men on their cell phones standing far from the bar; obvious tourists. CD, Shawn and Chris tried to convince Katie and I that the rest of the people there were locals, but I wasn’t convinced. We ordered a round of beers and found a table a little ways away from the bar and sat down to chat and hang out. It was really nice to have such a low key night. After about an hour, we decided it was time to head home. Either Shawn or Chris (the Zimbabwean) gave us a ride home. That’s when I got to talk to him and hear about why he came to Botswana and his plans for the future.
Saturday, MmaDua texted me again to ask how we’d slept and if we’d had fun. I thanked her many times and told her what a great time we’d had. When I said we hoped to see her again before we left Maun, she responded “of course, my dear!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
