So for the second two weeks of DISP, we were placed with the Fisheries Division of the Wildlife Department. We left Thursday with a man named MN to do sampling close to the village of Samochima, which is on the northwestern part of the Okavango Delta. It was about a five hour drive and it rained or drizzled for a good portion of that drive. There were beautiful lightening storms on the horizon. I also read the New Yorker and slept for awhile. We had a ton of stuff in that truck. Again, we were riding in the bed of a pickup. There were three large, backpacking backpacks with all of our clothes plus four regular backpacks with other stuff. Katie and I had bought three plastic bags worth of food for our six day trip. The other three had bought about six bags worth of food. We also had MD’s stuff and pots to cook with. There were two huge tents at the bottom of the pile, which was covered by our five mats. It was actually quite a comfortable ride since we had the sleeping pads to stretch out on.
The campsite was a nice one. We were borrowing space from a local fisherman’s co-op that was started by the government as a development project. The girls had one tent and the boys took another. There was a great fire pit where we would cook all of our meals. All breakfasts consisted of peanut butter and a grain (granola, bread or crackers). Lunch was typically more peanut butter on bread. And then dinner was typically veggies and chickpeas. For snack: a tomato eaten like an apple. yum.
Vince got up early Friday morning (6.30am) to take out the nets everyone had placed the day before. At 8 we were all woken up to start counting fish. Six nets were put out each day, although ideally there would have been eleven. The other five were destroyed past the point of use by crocodiles. So we pulled fish out of nets for over an hour. I am now an official vegetarian. I won’t eat sea food anymore. Watching the fish try to breathe and get manhandled. There was one species that could literally live for hours out of water. Some had spiky fins that the men just broke to make it easier to get out of the nets. They had to be sliced open to see if they were male and female and most of the fish were still alive when they were sliced.
So we weighed each fish and measured how long it was. We also had to identify each species and whether it was juvenile or adult. If it was adult, it was cut open to check for male female and reproductive stage.
That afternoon MD drove us around Samochima and the other villages. It was obvious we were in a different and less wealthy part of the country. All of the houses were traditional, made of cans covered by mud with reed roves. Almost every house had a beautiful fence made out of reeds that you couldn’t see through. The kids still yelled and waved as we drove by.
That afternoon Ian and I went out to set the nets for the next morning. We drove for about ten minutes before we got to the correct location. I was in front and ended up doing all the work. I had to put the bottom end of the net out as the boat was backed away from shore, where the edge was tied to a few reeds. It was a lot tougher than I thought it’d be. Sometimes the driver went fast and I couldn’t keep up and I’d have to ask him to slow down. Sometimes the net got caught on edges of the boat and we had to stop to take it off and sometimes the net would be tangled and we’d have to untangle it before continuing. Once the entire net was out, we drove in an arc back toward the bank, dragging the net through the water and secured it to other reeds. I think we were catching all fish between a ninety degree angle to the shore and the shore itself.
We asked if we could drive further down the river to see more. We drove by some gorgeous luxury lodges but the driver suddenly turned around. The guy I was next to simply said “hippos” and we headed back to camp. Guess our boat was too small to take on any hippos.
Saturday morning was pretty similar. We took fish out of the nets and recorded their information again. As soon as the first net was done I started to measure and weigh. I really wasn’t into pulling them out of the nets again.
We relaxed for most of the day, playing more cards, napping and reading. Back in Maun, Katie and I had tried a delicious fruit that was both sour and sweet at the same time, and Mma, the one lady who we were working with knew there was a tree nearby. We decided to try to find it. We saw a group of kids walking out of the trees with a bag full of the fruit and asked for directions. They pointed us down the right path. One girl said it wasn’t far at all and another said it was quite a walk. We followed the trail of pits the children had left behind to try to find the tree. After forty-five minutes of walking, Mma decided we should turn back because she was scared of elephants and warthogs. About ten minutes later, my flipflop broke and I had to walk the rest of the way back with only one shoe on. I only had to stop a few times to pull thorns and burs out of the bottom of my foot.
Katie noticed that there was no longer a trail of pits along the path we were on and we realized we hadn’t come the way we were walking. So we decided to just keep walking since we were probably heading in the right direction. Eventually we ran into two men and asked them for directions. They pointed us down the road in the opposite direction we were walking. We came to a fork in the road and luckily saw a group of kids walking toward us. It happened to be the same kids we’d asked for directions to the fruit. They told us how to get back to camp and agreed to take us to the fruit tomorrow, if they could leave the village. We got back to camp just fine and had delicious catfish (caught that morning) for dinner.
Sunday was another low key day. I didn’t go out in the boat again. But we did play a lot more cards and the kids came through on their promise to take us to find the fruit. So a group of about eight kids led us through the trees the exact way we’d gone the day before. This time, Mma, Katie, Ian, Vince, Ches and I all went. We brought a plastic bag too, so that we’d be able to bring a lot of fruits back for the rest of the fisheries team. We made it to where we’d turned around the day before and there was the tree. It was literally right to the left of the path we’d stopped on. The tree was huge! It had a massive trunk and the diameter of the branches was probably thirty feet. We collected fruit off the ground because they’d picked all of the low hanging ones the day before. And it was so delicious. They were about the size cherry but had really big pits. The kids picked the skin off but we ate them whole. A young boy climbed about fifteen feet in the air to shake a huge branch and literally made it rain fruit.
After we’d picked our share and the kids had filled a plastic bag to the top, they asked if we wanted to see a croc’s nest. We of course said yes. So we headed toward the river and came to a huge sand pit in the ground. We walked along the croc path to the water where we found a man fishing with a pole and hook. I was slightly freaked out that we were so close to the water with crocs and hippos, but the kids were totally comfortable and I realized we were safe. Or at least I was, standing behind a row of children. We sat down for awhile and Vince and Cuz saw a huge croc swimming close by. The kids got excited and we waited to see it again. After about twenty minutes, we decided to leave even though they didn’t get to see it.
We walked along a different path back to camp, this time with the kids leading so we knew we wouldn’t get lost. We came back to the river at one point and the kids drank the water. They ran to the river, scooped up a few gulps as quickly as they could and ran away again. There, they almost seemed scared.
That night we had more fresh fish for dinner.
Monday was an early day for me. Since the fisheries employees were moving to a new camp, they wanted to get started early. They woke me up at 6, thirty minutes before we’d agreed to go collect the last net. This net had been set a little farther, but I loved watching the sunrise over the river. I missed the initial colors so I saw the light reflect from behind clouds onto the still water. We saw a few crocs on our ride and I got really excited to see my first hippo of the day. Turns out it was right next to our net, and I’d already learned that the men liked to avoid hippos in our small boat. So we tried to chase it away. We would rev the engine and ride toward it, then turn away about thirty feet away and circle back to scare it again. We did this at least ten times. Slowly, the hippo moved away from our net. But then we lost track of where it was and the men got more and more nervous. We drove another few minutes down the river to a nearby lodge and asked two men to come watch out for the hippo as we collected our net.
So two hotel employees hopped into their boat and followed us to the site. I watched the men pull in the net as the other boat was between us and the middle of the river. Once we were finished, we thanked them and they drove off. We rode back to camp and saw the hippo around the first bend. Luckily, he’d swam away when he disappeared and we’d been safe the whole time.
We’d collected the smallest catch so far. Twelve fish. Before, we’d had a few hundred each day. It did make the morning go fast though. The four fisheries employees packed up their tents and gear, we said good bye and they took off for their next site.
MD had brought another man, Rocks, to take us on a boat tour. We couldn’t have been happier. Originally we’d been told we’d do a boat tour during our first full day but it hadn’t worked out. Then we were told we couldn’t all fit on the boat together so we’d have to go out in two shifts. But Rocks decided the six of us would be fine.
Jeez, was the boat cruise incredible. It took a total of three hours, from 11am to 2. There were phenomenal birds everywhere. We drove up to huge flocks of beautiful egrets perched in trees or on the white sand, saw a number of kingfishers and quite a few hawks and African Fish Eagles. We saw our first hippo within the first forty five minutes and saw a pod of about four hippos toward the end of the trip. We saw quite a few crocs, one just across the river from where we got out for a leg stretching break. And where we stopped was gorgeous. We stood in the water as Rocks smoked a cigarette (the real reason for our break). We waded into a little pond covered with lilies and watched the birds hunt for fish and bugs.
On our drive back, we essentially chased a flock of small birds down the bank. There were probably forty or fifty really small birds sitting in trees along the water’s edge. They flew further down the bank as we got closer and landed in the reeds. They were perched for less than five seconds before we got too close and they flew again. We followed them for at least five minutes before they figured out that flying away from the water would put more distance between themselves and the boat than continually flying further down the river.
After we got back, MD drove Rocks back into town. We really wanted to walk to Samochima to look around a take a few pictures, so Katie agreed to stay back to watch our stuff while the four of us walked into Samochima. Instead of taking pictures, we found a group of boys holding soccer. In Setswana, I asked if we could play with them. They agreed but didn’t walk toward the field. So I said “let’s go!” and started off toward the goal posts we’d seen on our walk from camp. The clouds were dark and it looked like the rain and lightening was getting closer to us. Perfect soccer weather.
We passed the ball around in a circle for a few minutes, the four of us and four boys who were probably around thirteen years old. They divided us into teams of four on four (with one goalie each) and we started. Our goal was probably six or seven years old and super small. But he was incredible. He dove like a pro and stopped almost every goal. Once the lightening got closer and the rain got a little harder, we decided to stop playing and head back to camp. We didn’t want to be the only tall things in an open field and a real soccer practice was starting soon at the field next to ours. My team ended up winning (!!!) and I think the final score was 4-2.
That night we cooked dinner over a huge fire. We could see a huge lightening storm a few miles away and decided to go watch. So we grabbed our jackets and sat about forty feet from the river to watch the huge bolts. Most of the lightening was behind clouds and instead of seeing the individual bolts, the entire sky would light up. Some bolts were really clear though, and it was beautiful to watch them stretch from really high up to the ground. After we heard a lot of hippo noises, I headed back to camp and the rest of the group followed in a few minutes.
We left Samochima on Tuesday. We visited our friend Amy, who’s on our program and doing basket weaving for her DISP. She’s staying in a village called Etsha 6. There’s a series of Etsha villages that are numbered in ascending order. We met her host family and saw her room and the basket she’s finished. I honestly expected a single colored, lopsided basket with visible mistakes, considering she’d finished it in two weeks, which seemed really fast to me. Instead, Amy showed us a beautiful basket that was a light tan color with a dark tan spiral coming out of the bottom. Although she said it wasn’t even, I honestly couldn’t find a mistake. She’d worked from 8-5, five days a week for two weeks to finish it. That morning she’d started her second basket, which will be much smaller but will have a flower pattern, be closed, and have a matching top. I really can’t wait to see it when it’s done. We finished our five hour drive home without a single rain drop! Again, we were comfortably laid out on our sleeping pads on top of our mountain of stuff.
pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071713&id=1036350539&l=9a11acb4be
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Maun... week 1
So now I’m in Maun! Maun’s a huge tourist destination in the northern part of the country. On my first day, I walked to the airport with a few friends and recognized a bright orange shop that I’d seen with my family when we came here in 2007! Although I was in the same spot, I’m here for very, very different reasons!
So this part of my program is called DISP, or Directed Independent Study Project. Originally, I’d wanted to work with the Maun Homeopathy Project, an NGO based in England that provides homeopathic care to those living with HIV. But, I instead ended up interning with the Wildlife Department with four friends. Ian, Katie and Vince are all on the Pitzer program with me. Vince’s cousin, Cuz, has been doing research in Ghana for the past few months and came to Botswana when she finished. So now she’s working with us for Wildlife.
We were going to take a 6am bus from Gaborone to Maun on Sunday, the 7th. I’d called a taxi to pick me up at 5 and was woken up at 5:05 by my mom pounding on my locked door. I’d slept through my alarm and the driver’s honking. Luckily, she’d woken up and asked him to wait as I scrambled to finish packing and brush my teeth. I got to the bus rank in plenty of time and got lucky getting seats. The five of us had the first row with plenty of leg room and no standers next to us. We stopped for lunch around 1 and finally arrived at 4. Then my new host dad picked Katie and I up, since we’ll be staying together in Maun. We met the rest of the family, which is huge. Mom and Dad have 7 kids (aging from mid40s to 24), many of which still live with them. Katie and I are sharing a room and bed in the main house. We were given our own kitchen (one of three on the property) where we could keep our own food and cook if we wanted.
Monday, we reported to work at promptly 7:30am. Ian and I were supposed to work together with the Outreach Section and Katie, Vince and Cuz were going to work with Problem Animal Control. After we realized they didn’t really have plans for us, we walked around to all the departments and asked if anyone was heading out into the field. Although we met a lot of people, we couldn’t arrange a trip out for us. We were then told all of our bosses would be in a meeting for the next two days, we asked for the afternoon and Tuesday off. So the five of us walked to the airport (where I saw the orange shop!) to be real tourists and arrange a scenic flight and mokoro (traditional canoe) trip! We decided to take the 5pm hour long airplane trip that afternoon and mokoro trip the next day. Ian and I got lunch at Spar and visited his homestay, where conditions are less than ideal. Their home hasn’t had running water for weeks, so they have to drive to a reserve tank daily to get enough water to drink, wash and cook with. I’m so excited to have running water, a bath, and a washing machine!
So a few hours later we headed back to the airport (with computers, since there’s free wireless there!) for our scenic flight. It was incredible. Our pilot was a South African man who “spent a shitload of money and time” on his training. We saw beautiful clouds and so many animals from the sky: elephants wading in the water, zebras grazing with wildebeest, giraffes foraging in trees, and two HUGE herds of buffalo, one running all together and one ambling along in a single file line (which our pilot flew by twice so we could see it well). The fingers of the delta stretching out in front of us were breathtaking. The hour long flight seemed like ten minutes, and before we knew it we were back in Maun, landing at the airport.
Tuesday was our mokoro trip. The five of us hired three boats and three polers, men or women who stand at the back of the boat with a really long stick, pushing the boat along. Katie and I shared a mokoro and had the most awkward poler. He kept talking to us in Setswana but using words we hadn’t learned yet. The other two gave wonderful facts and conversation. We poled through the reeds for a few hours before we stopped for lunch. The reeds were three times as high as we were sitting in the low boat so we couldn’t see any of the surrounding landscape. But the reeds, lilies and birds were enough to look at.
We stopped for lunch and then took a walking safari. I’ve never been so close to zebras on foot before. We walked between two herds and stood in awe as one herd stampeded toward the other. The dominant male of the running herd corralled his females together and made them stop by kicking and biting them; he didn’t want them mixing at all.
After walking, we jumped into a swimming hole. Who knew you could go swimming in a body of water filled with crocodiles and hippos?? We made loud animal noises and took pictures making animal faces. When a group of over twenty tourists pulled up we just laughed and made hippo noises. They identified us correctly! After drying off (took less than 5 minutes in the sun) we poled back to where we’d started. There the five of us got to practice poling ourselves, and it is not easy…. although we all discovered poling backwards is.
Wednesday we had to go back to work. It was tough, tourists live a pretty sweet life. After sitting in an office for awhile and being told Ian and I would leave for the field on Friday, we were called into an office and told we were actually leaving in four hours. Surprise! So Katie and I headed home to pack all our stuff. We made a stop at Choppies, the supermarket on our way out, to buy food for the next seven days. Except we didn’t know how much food we’d eat and had to guess. We loaded up on chickpeas, pasta and a ton of veggies. Then we had the 2 hour drive to the park and 1 hour drive to our station. We would be staying with Nyex at North Gate. We were all in the back of a pickup and it was going to be great. Until we stopped at a bar and picked up a third Wildlife employee. I think his name was William. William liked to talk to us a lot, even though we ignored him pretty consistently. He tried to get boxed wine into a water bottle and spilled it all over me and our stuff. He kept grabbing our legs to get our attention when we didn’t answer his questions. Eventually Nyex came back and told him he wasn’t allowed to talk to us. So then he tried to light a cigarette and ended up breaking it, but it kept him busy for about half an hour. We all stood up and got rocked by the truck. I’ve got a ring of bruises around my stomach/back from getting thrown into the safety bars so many times. But it was worth it, the scenery was incredible and the wildlife (mainly birds, since we were driving fast and scared most other animals away) was awesome.
We watched the sunset from the back of the truck. By then William had decided it was okay to talk again. He also tried to stand up with us at the front of the pickup bed and we had him stand at the back. We dropped him off at south gate and admired the sunset for awhile before starting off on the hour drive to north gate, where we’d be staying. There was a lightning storm in front of us, past our camp, but it was beautiful to watch. The sky lit up each time a bolt formed, followed by a huge booming thunder. Thunder doesn’t clap like it does at home, it really does boom.
So then we arrived at our house, a townhouse paid for by the Botswana government and the EU. It normally homes two men who fix the roofs and was a complete pigsty. So by the light of a single candle and one headlamp, we moved all of their stuff into the bedrooms, swept the house, took out the trash and drained the bathtubs and sinks of disgusting yellow water (who leaves water in the tub?!?). We laid our mats and sleeping bags in the living room and crawled into bed, exhausted.
We started our day at 7:30 on Thursday. Nyex had to catch up on some paperwork, so we sat in the office. Plenty of tourists came in to pay their entrance fee and get directions; they were all decked out in khaki gear. Amos gave us a tour of the campsite, which was gorgeous. There was one site, number 4, that was on the river and had a massive tree great for both climbing and shade right in the middle. We had a quick talk with Nyex about park management before heading into Khwai village with Colin, another employee. We met the kgosi (chief). Since girls have to wear skirts when entering the kgotla, Katie, Cuz and I tied towels around our waists. I was pretty embarrassed when mine fell off and revealed my shorts underneath. Then we went to the Khwai Community Trust, which works a lot with the Moremi staff. The government gave them land to rent to lodges. They use the income to develop the village; in the past they’ve built houses for the elderly and a new office for themselves. They’re currently modifying an old lodge to generate more money. Apparently there’s also been a lot of corruption with trust leaders using funds to go to the States and South Africa for vacations.
We went back to our house, cooked dinner over a camp fire and watched the sunset from the bridge. With hippos in the river in front of us and impalas grazing a few hundred meters away, the view was breathtaking. I’ve seen sunsets that cover their side of the sky and the opposite horizon, but I’ve never seen one that covers the entire sky – and that’s just what this one did. All four horizons plus every inch in between was brilliant.
We walked back to our house and were told we had to move all of our stuff into the bedrooms. Way to ruin a night. The met who normally lived in the house had showed up; they were going to camp outside but wanted to be able to walk through the living room to the kitchen. So they moved all of their things out of the bedrooms as we laid on our sleeping bags, just wanting to sleep. Then I swept both bedrooms because there was nasty stuff everywhere. We moved all our stuff and then I fell asleep instantly.
Friday was an early morning: 5:30am. We were up at 5, washing up and eating a quick breakfast. Nyex came to fetch us right on time, Botswana time, at 6. We hung out at the office while he did his morning routine and went back home at 7:30 for breakfast and a quick nap. We met up with the Wildlife vet, Dr. John, who had to get a skin and blood sample from an elephant…. Epic trip in the making! So a rifle was loaded into the cab and we loaded into the back of another pickup with Dr. John (who carried the tranq gun) and another guy. We had one goal: to find an elephant.
Epic fail. Five hours later, Dr. John was frustraged and mad that we hadn’t seen a single elephant. He loaded a smaller dart and aimed at an impala. He missed. So he loaded another as we drove up to a herd of females. This time, he hit one. We jumped out of the car and tried to follow the hit impala although they were scattering in all directions. We lost it. After a few minutes of searching for the impala with the red dart, the doctor decided it was a lost cause and we loaded back into the truck. So we left an impala to pass out within 10-15minutes. Hopefully it won’t get eaten since it’s now easy bait, but chances are it became someone’s lunch.
So onto find elephants. An hour later, we found some! A herd of five. After circling around for a better angle, Dr. John aimed at the matriarch and connected. We all jumped out and followed the herd on foot, they were trotting away from the sound of the shot, but not running too fast. I stayed close to the guy with the rifle. We ducked behind trees so they wouldn’t see us. We could hear a low groan as the tranq started to affect her. About ten minutes later, we heard her hit the ground. We called the truck over and all hopped in. We circled around and were about fifteen feet from the matriarch, who was laying on the ground, and the other four elephants who were all standing around her. The rifle was shot into the air as a warning. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been warned and we all went deaf in one ear for a few minutes. The rest of the herd wouldn’t leave their fallen leader until another shot was fired and all of the men yelled loudly. After they were chased away, the guy with the rifle ran after them to make sure they didn’t return. A human on foot versus an angry elephant is not a good situation. So the vet ran over to the elephant and quickly covered her eyes and shoved cotton into her ears to reduce outside stimulation. We asked if we could leave the truck to get closer but the driver said to stay in the car.
Dr. John took his blood and skin samples from the inside of the elephant’s ear. In about three minutes, he and his assistant ran back to the car. Then the guy with the rifle came running back too. We asked if we could get close because it was obvious we were starting to leave. Dr. John said he’d already given it the revival shot, but that it was okay for us to get out. So we jumped out, cameras in hand, and crept close to the sleeping giant. I was super nervous and the farthest one back, although I was still about seven feet away. When she started to move her legs, we all turned on our heels and sprinted back to the truck. She made the really low grumbling noises again that were agonizing to listen to. It took her another two minutes to start to roll back and forth to get the momentum needed to stand up but she eventually did.
We drove away, past the rest of her herd that would find her soon. The five of us were in euphoria after that. We’d watched an elephant get tranqued and gotten so close to her! We drove about two hours to get back home, where Nyex told us we were moving to South Gate to live with a man named Bunny. So we bathed and ate and packed up. Then we made the hour drive to South Gate. Bunny had arranged two houses for us to live in, but we convinced him it was a good idea for us all to stay with him. Although it was fun, he may have been slightly annoyed with the mess we made with all of our stuff. But he never complained and was a great sport.
Saturday was phenomenal. Since Bunny is a Seventh Day Adventist, he normally doesn’t work on Saturdays. So we drove to third bridge to check out how its construction was going. I was super tired that day, so I was the only one sitting in the bed of the truck. When Vince crouched down and whispered “Wild dogs. Get up!” I sprang to my feet with my camera, except I couldn’t take pictures. Wild dogs were the one animal I wanted to see on our trip. They took my breath away. There was a pack of fourteen dogs, including three pups, lounging in the middle of the road. They calmly looked at us but decided we weren’t a threat and didn’t run. We stood still for a minute as I started to take pictures. Looking through the lens was incredible because I could see each dog so clearly. They were beautiful. Their markings are exquisite and seeing them was so much more exciting than I’d thought. They were so playful and their ears were huge. We started to creep forward and they stood up and trotted down the road in front of us.
Seeing wild dogs is incredibly rare and really special. I was thrilled. They had made a kill the night before and a few of the dogs still had blood on their faces and necks. One was carrying a piece of meat around. They periodically stopped to drink water from where it had collected in tire tracks. Bunny kept asking the driver to stop, but he was antsy and we left after only a few minutes. Had we been on a real safari, we would have stayed for quite awhile because you just don’t see dogs. About two minutes down the road, we passed a researcher with the conservation trust. They focus on predators and she was excited to find the pack and really glad we’d seen one collared dog.
So we checked out the bridge which is almost finished. Then Bunny arranged for us to take a boat cruise. He’s the greatest. So the five of us, Bunny, and three other park employees hopped into a boat normally used for patrols and rode around the delta. The delta was beautiful. Since we were in a pretty wide boat, we went through wider channels but I could see the really small ones meant for mokoros everywhere.
About twenty minutes into the ride, we turned a corner and found ourselves face to face with an elephant, shoulder deep in the water. Our driver got closer and then backed away fast. The elephant was walking toward us but along the far bank. He trumpeted and shook his ears and head at us. Our driver revved the engine and sped by on the left side. The elephant splashed water in our direction and we got a little splashed. Our wake got him pretty bad though.
We were out for a total of about two/three hours. At one point, we stopped at a flat field and got out to walk around. On our way back, I saw a HUGE croc sunbathing. By the time we’d reversed to look closer he was gone.
That night, Ian and I were sitting outside in the cool air because the house was hot from our cooking. We didn’t really notice that it had gotten dark, and we probably should have gone back inside. All of a sudden there was movement in front of us and we could make out a silhouette of an animal. We decided to sit still and not move. I was petrified with freight. I lasted for about eight seconds before I slowly started to stand up and Ian did the same. I tried not to make any sudden movements but I was also super scared. Once we reached our full standing height, the animal ran away. I think it was a hyena, judging by its size, shape and the way it ran. We sprinted inside laughing. Won’t do that again!
Sunday was super low key. We didn’t have any transport so we stayed in Bunny’s house all day. He spent a lot of time at the office doing paper work. We played a lot of cards (all 500 Rummy) and watched Zombieland on Vince’s computer.
We drove into Maun on Monday for lunch and a stop at the internet café. The drive was beautiful and we stood up the whole way. Or at least until we got into town and had to sit so the police wouldn’t stop us. It was weird to be back in a city again. We had lunch at Barcelos a pseudo-Italian restaurant with free wireless internet. We made a quick stop at Choppies, the grocery store, and headed back to Moremi.
Tuesday was a day of delays. We were supposed to leave the park to go home to Maun at 6am. At 7.15 we’re picked up so that we can drive over an hour into the park. Our driver has a meeting next to the airstrip, so we nap for a few hours in the back of the truck. The new plan is to leave at noon. At 1pm we get back to Bunny’s house. Since we’re already packed we just wait until 3 when we actually leave for Maun.
It was great to go back home and take a real bath and sleep in a real bed with blankets instead of the sleeping bag liner and camping mat I’d been using for the past week. But I wouldn’t have traded it. Also, my house has a washing machine which is AMAZING!
pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071710&id=1036350539&l=31b0c4b273
So this part of my program is called DISP, or Directed Independent Study Project. Originally, I’d wanted to work with the Maun Homeopathy Project, an NGO based in England that provides homeopathic care to those living with HIV. But, I instead ended up interning with the Wildlife Department with four friends. Ian, Katie and Vince are all on the Pitzer program with me. Vince’s cousin, Cuz, has been doing research in Ghana for the past few months and came to Botswana when she finished. So now she’s working with us for Wildlife.
We were going to take a 6am bus from Gaborone to Maun on Sunday, the 7th. I’d called a taxi to pick me up at 5 and was woken up at 5:05 by my mom pounding on my locked door. I’d slept through my alarm and the driver’s honking. Luckily, she’d woken up and asked him to wait as I scrambled to finish packing and brush my teeth. I got to the bus rank in plenty of time and got lucky getting seats. The five of us had the first row with plenty of leg room and no standers next to us. We stopped for lunch around 1 and finally arrived at 4. Then my new host dad picked Katie and I up, since we’ll be staying together in Maun. We met the rest of the family, which is huge. Mom and Dad have 7 kids (aging from mid40s to 24), many of which still live with them. Katie and I are sharing a room and bed in the main house. We were given our own kitchen (one of three on the property) where we could keep our own food and cook if we wanted.
Monday, we reported to work at promptly 7:30am. Ian and I were supposed to work together with the Outreach Section and Katie, Vince and Cuz were going to work with Problem Animal Control. After we realized they didn’t really have plans for us, we walked around to all the departments and asked if anyone was heading out into the field. Although we met a lot of people, we couldn’t arrange a trip out for us. We were then told all of our bosses would be in a meeting for the next two days, we asked for the afternoon and Tuesday off. So the five of us walked to the airport (where I saw the orange shop!) to be real tourists and arrange a scenic flight and mokoro (traditional canoe) trip! We decided to take the 5pm hour long airplane trip that afternoon and mokoro trip the next day. Ian and I got lunch at Spar and visited his homestay, where conditions are less than ideal. Their home hasn’t had running water for weeks, so they have to drive to a reserve tank daily to get enough water to drink, wash and cook with. I’m so excited to have running water, a bath, and a washing machine!
So a few hours later we headed back to the airport (with computers, since there’s free wireless there!) for our scenic flight. It was incredible. Our pilot was a South African man who “spent a shitload of money and time” on his training. We saw beautiful clouds and so many animals from the sky: elephants wading in the water, zebras grazing with wildebeest, giraffes foraging in trees, and two HUGE herds of buffalo, one running all together and one ambling along in a single file line (which our pilot flew by twice so we could see it well). The fingers of the delta stretching out in front of us were breathtaking. The hour long flight seemed like ten minutes, and before we knew it we were back in Maun, landing at the airport.
Tuesday was our mokoro trip. The five of us hired three boats and three polers, men or women who stand at the back of the boat with a really long stick, pushing the boat along. Katie and I shared a mokoro and had the most awkward poler. He kept talking to us in Setswana but using words we hadn’t learned yet. The other two gave wonderful facts and conversation. We poled through the reeds for a few hours before we stopped for lunch. The reeds were three times as high as we were sitting in the low boat so we couldn’t see any of the surrounding landscape. But the reeds, lilies and birds were enough to look at.
We stopped for lunch and then took a walking safari. I’ve never been so close to zebras on foot before. We walked between two herds and stood in awe as one herd stampeded toward the other. The dominant male of the running herd corralled his females together and made them stop by kicking and biting them; he didn’t want them mixing at all.
After walking, we jumped into a swimming hole. Who knew you could go swimming in a body of water filled with crocodiles and hippos?? We made loud animal noises and took pictures making animal faces. When a group of over twenty tourists pulled up we just laughed and made hippo noises. They identified us correctly! After drying off (took less than 5 minutes in the sun) we poled back to where we’d started. There the five of us got to practice poling ourselves, and it is not easy…. although we all discovered poling backwards is.
Wednesday we had to go back to work. It was tough, tourists live a pretty sweet life. After sitting in an office for awhile and being told Ian and I would leave for the field on Friday, we were called into an office and told we were actually leaving in four hours. Surprise! So Katie and I headed home to pack all our stuff. We made a stop at Choppies, the supermarket on our way out, to buy food for the next seven days. Except we didn’t know how much food we’d eat and had to guess. We loaded up on chickpeas, pasta and a ton of veggies. Then we had the 2 hour drive to the park and 1 hour drive to our station. We would be staying with Nyex at North Gate. We were all in the back of a pickup and it was going to be great. Until we stopped at a bar and picked up a third Wildlife employee. I think his name was William. William liked to talk to us a lot, even though we ignored him pretty consistently. He tried to get boxed wine into a water bottle and spilled it all over me and our stuff. He kept grabbing our legs to get our attention when we didn’t answer his questions. Eventually Nyex came back and told him he wasn’t allowed to talk to us. So then he tried to light a cigarette and ended up breaking it, but it kept him busy for about half an hour. We all stood up and got rocked by the truck. I’ve got a ring of bruises around my stomach/back from getting thrown into the safety bars so many times. But it was worth it, the scenery was incredible and the wildlife (mainly birds, since we were driving fast and scared most other animals away) was awesome.
We watched the sunset from the back of the truck. By then William had decided it was okay to talk again. He also tried to stand up with us at the front of the pickup bed and we had him stand at the back. We dropped him off at south gate and admired the sunset for awhile before starting off on the hour drive to north gate, where we’d be staying. There was a lightning storm in front of us, past our camp, but it was beautiful to watch. The sky lit up each time a bolt formed, followed by a huge booming thunder. Thunder doesn’t clap like it does at home, it really does boom.
So then we arrived at our house, a townhouse paid for by the Botswana government and the EU. It normally homes two men who fix the roofs and was a complete pigsty. So by the light of a single candle and one headlamp, we moved all of their stuff into the bedrooms, swept the house, took out the trash and drained the bathtubs and sinks of disgusting yellow water (who leaves water in the tub?!?). We laid our mats and sleeping bags in the living room and crawled into bed, exhausted.
We started our day at 7:30 on Thursday. Nyex had to catch up on some paperwork, so we sat in the office. Plenty of tourists came in to pay their entrance fee and get directions; they were all decked out in khaki gear. Amos gave us a tour of the campsite, which was gorgeous. There was one site, number 4, that was on the river and had a massive tree great for both climbing and shade right in the middle. We had a quick talk with Nyex about park management before heading into Khwai village with Colin, another employee. We met the kgosi (chief). Since girls have to wear skirts when entering the kgotla, Katie, Cuz and I tied towels around our waists. I was pretty embarrassed when mine fell off and revealed my shorts underneath. Then we went to the Khwai Community Trust, which works a lot with the Moremi staff. The government gave them land to rent to lodges. They use the income to develop the village; in the past they’ve built houses for the elderly and a new office for themselves. They’re currently modifying an old lodge to generate more money. Apparently there’s also been a lot of corruption with trust leaders using funds to go to the States and South Africa for vacations.
We went back to our house, cooked dinner over a camp fire and watched the sunset from the bridge. With hippos in the river in front of us and impalas grazing a few hundred meters away, the view was breathtaking. I’ve seen sunsets that cover their side of the sky and the opposite horizon, but I’ve never seen one that covers the entire sky – and that’s just what this one did. All four horizons plus every inch in between was brilliant.
We walked back to our house and were told we had to move all of our stuff into the bedrooms. Way to ruin a night. The met who normally lived in the house had showed up; they were going to camp outside but wanted to be able to walk through the living room to the kitchen. So they moved all of their things out of the bedrooms as we laid on our sleeping bags, just wanting to sleep. Then I swept both bedrooms because there was nasty stuff everywhere. We moved all our stuff and then I fell asleep instantly.
Friday was an early morning: 5:30am. We were up at 5, washing up and eating a quick breakfast. Nyex came to fetch us right on time, Botswana time, at 6. We hung out at the office while he did his morning routine and went back home at 7:30 for breakfast and a quick nap. We met up with the Wildlife vet, Dr. John, who had to get a skin and blood sample from an elephant…. Epic trip in the making! So a rifle was loaded into the cab and we loaded into the back of another pickup with Dr. John (who carried the tranq gun) and another guy. We had one goal: to find an elephant.
Epic fail. Five hours later, Dr. John was frustraged and mad that we hadn’t seen a single elephant. He loaded a smaller dart and aimed at an impala. He missed. So he loaded another as we drove up to a herd of females. This time, he hit one. We jumped out of the car and tried to follow the hit impala although they were scattering in all directions. We lost it. After a few minutes of searching for the impala with the red dart, the doctor decided it was a lost cause and we loaded back into the truck. So we left an impala to pass out within 10-15minutes. Hopefully it won’t get eaten since it’s now easy bait, but chances are it became someone’s lunch.
So onto find elephants. An hour later, we found some! A herd of five. After circling around for a better angle, Dr. John aimed at the matriarch and connected. We all jumped out and followed the herd on foot, they were trotting away from the sound of the shot, but not running too fast. I stayed close to the guy with the rifle. We ducked behind trees so they wouldn’t see us. We could hear a low groan as the tranq started to affect her. About ten minutes later, we heard her hit the ground. We called the truck over and all hopped in. We circled around and were about fifteen feet from the matriarch, who was laying on the ground, and the other four elephants who were all standing around her. The rifle was shot into the air as a warning. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been warned and we all went deaf in one ear for a few minutes. The rest of the herd wouldn’t leave their fallen leader until another shot was fired and all of the men yelled loudly. After they were chased away, the guy with the rifle ran after them to make sure they didn’t return. A human on foot versus an angry elephant is not a good situation. So the vet ran over to the elephant and quickly covered her eyes and shoved cotton into her ears to reduce outside stimulation. We asked if we could leave the truck to get closer but the driver said to stay in the car.
Dr. John took his blood and skin samples from the inside of the elephant’s ear. In about three minutes, he and his assistant ran back to the car. Then the guy with the rifle came running back too. We asked if we could get close because it was obvious we were starting to leave. Dr. John said he’d already given it the revival shot, but that it was okay for us to get out. So we jumped out, cameras in hand, and crept close to the sleeping giant. I was super nervous and the farthest one back, although I was still about seven feet away. When she started to move her legs, we all turned on our heels and sprinted back to the truck. She made the really low grumbling noises again that were agonizing to listen to. It took her another two minutes to start to roll back and forth to get the momentum needed to stand up but she eventually did.
We drove away, past the rest of her herd that would find her soon. The five of us were in euphoria after that. We’d watched an elephant get tranqued and gotten so close to her! We drove about two hours to get back home, where Nyex told us we were moving to South Gate to live with a man named Bunny. So we bathed and ate and packed up. Then we made the hour drive to South Gate. Bunny had arranged two houses for us to live in, but we convinced him it was a good idea for us all to stay with him. Although it was fun, he may have been slightly annoyed with the mess we made with all of our stuff. But he never complained and was a great sport.
Saturday was phenomenal. Since Bunny is a Seventh Day Adventist, he normally doesn’t work on Saturdays. So we drove to third bridge to check out how its construction was going. I was super tired that day, so I was the only one sitting in the bed of the truck. When Vince crouched down and whispered “Wild dogs. Get up!” I sprang to my feet with my camera, except I couldn’t take pictures. Wild dogs were the one animal I wanted to see on our trip. They took my breath away. There was a pack of fourteen dogs, including three pups, lounging in the middle of the road. They calmly looked at us but decided we weren’t a threat and didn’t run. We stood still for a minute as I started to take pictures. Looking through the lens was incredible because I could see each dog so clearly. They were beautiful. Their markings are exquisite and seeing them was so much more exciting than I’d thought. They were so playful and their ears were huge. We started to creep forward and they stood up and trotted down the road in front of us.
Seeing wild dogs is incredibly rare and really special. I was thrilled. They had made a kill the night before and a few of the dogs still had blood on their faces and necks. One was carrying a piece of meat around. They periodically stopped to drink water from where it had collected in tire tracks. Bunny kept asking the driver to stop, but he was antsy and we left after only a few minutes. Had we been on a real safari, we would have stayed for quite awhile because you just don’t see dogs. About two minutes down the road, we passed a researcher with the conservation trust. They focus on predators and she was excited to find the pack and really glad we’d seen one collared dog.
So we checked out the bridge which is almost finished. Then Bunny arranged for us to take a boat cruise. He’s the greatest. So the five of us, Bunny, and three other park employees hopped into a boat normally used for patrols and rode around the delta. The delta was beautiful. Since we were in a pretty wide boat, we went through wider channels but I could see the really small ones meant for mokoros everywhere.
About twenty minutes into the ride, we turned a corner and found ourselves face to face with an elephant, shoulder deep in the water. Our driver got closer and then backed away fast. The elephant was walking toward us but along the far bank. He trumpeted and shook his ears and head at us. Our driver revved the engine and sped by on the left side. The elephant splashed water in our direction and we got a little splashed. Our wake got him pretty bad though.
We were out for a total of about two/three hours. At one point, we stopped at a flat field and got out to walk around. On our way back, I saw a HUGE croc sunbathing. By the time we’d reversed to look closer he was gone.
That night, Ian and I were sitting outside in the cool air because the house was hot from our cooking. We didn’t really notice that it had gotten dark, and we probably should have gone back inside. All of a sudden there was movement in front of us and we could make out a silhouette of an animal. We decided to sit still and not move. I was petrified with freight. I lasted for about eight seconds before I slowly started to stand up and Ian did the same. I tried not to make any sudden movements but I was also super scared. Once we reached our full standing height, the animal ran away. I think it was a hyena, judging by its size, shape and the way it ran. We sprinted inside laughing. Won’t do that again!
Sunday was super low key. We didn’t have any transport so we stayed in Bunny’s house all day. He spent a lot of time at the office doing paper work. We played a lot of cards (all 500 Rummy) and watched Zombieland on Vince’s computer.
We drove into Maun on Monday for lunch and a stop at the internet café. The drive was beautiful and we stood up the whole way. Or at least until we got into town and had to sit so the police wouldn’t stop us. It was weird to be back in a city again. We had lunch at Barcelos a pseudo-Italian restaurant with free wireless internet. We made a quick stop at Choppies, the grocery store, and headed back to Moremi.
Tuesday was a day of delays. We were supposed to leave the park to go home to Maun at 6am. At 7.15 we’re picked up so that we can drive over an hour into the park. Our driver has a meeting next to the airstrip, so we nap for a few hours in the back of the truck. The new plan is to leave at noon. At 1pm we get back to Bunny’s house. Since we’re already packed we just wait until 3 when we actually leave for Maun.
It was great to go back home and take a real bath and sleep in a real bed with blankets instead of the sleeping bag liner and camping mat I’d been using for the past week. But I wouldn’t have traded it. Also, my house has a washing machine which is AMAZING!
pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071710&id=1036350539&l=31b0c4b273
Monday, November 15, 2010
Gaborone
After leaving Mochudi, we spent two weeks in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. I moved in with my favorite family yet. My mom’s name is Tiny and she gave us a lecture on Youth Culture in Botswana a few weeks ago. She used to work for the Botswana Youth Council and now works for the military as a librarian. She’s also six months pregnant. The baby’s supposed to be due January 6, but since it’s her second child, her doctor told her it might come as early as December 15 (my birthday!) and a date when I’ll still be staying with her. She wants a Christmas baby and might wait to induce labor on Dec. 25. But her major dilemma is that her birthday, as well as her husband’s and daughter’s are all in January and it’d be fun to all celebrate the same month. She gets huge cravings for watermelons every day and will eat up to half a watermelon during any one sitting.
My dad’s name is John. He’s a newly elected MP (Member of Parliament) for the main opposition party, Botswana National Front. He brought home a paper for me every day and told me to read it so I’d know what was going on. He left both weekends I spent there to visit his constituents in Serowe, where he’s from and was elected.
My sister’s name is Ame (pronounced – ah-may). She’s 15years old and in Secondary School. She walked me to school the first day I had class and we talked the whole 45minute walk. She’s really fun. I think she feels a little over protected by her parents and wishes she could do more extracurricular activities but her parents really want her to focus on school work and not much else. When her dad was elected to office earlier this year, they moved into government housing and away from most of her friends. She says she doesn’t really see her friends outside of school anymore.
My house was really cute. It was an apartment in a gated and guarded area. I had to convince the guards that I was living there my first day because they hadn’t been warned my family had just acquired a new child. Once I talked to them a few minutes in Setswana, they were comfortable letting me through the gate. Our house was two stories! You walked in through the front door that was on a hinge so that it swiveled and didn’t open as ours do in the States, into the sitting room. There were modern black couches, a few huge mirrors, and lots of family pictures. Past there was the dining room with a table and display case. The kitchen was just the right size for the four of us to closely but comfortably cook breakfast each morning. Tiny had converted the garage into another room, where there were more couches and a TV. Upstairs were the bedrooms. I had my own bedroom with a balcony! There was even a shower!!, which I took full advantage of every morning.
Everyday I was in Gabs, we had class at our program house. Each morning, I walked the 45minutes to get there alone and had a great time. Each afternoon I walked back as well. I passed the State House two times a day, which is where the President lives. He had an enormous white house with beautiful landscaping, from what I could gather through the thickly barred fence I walked by. There were always four armed guards standing outside who I greeted and waved to. I passed a number of embassies during my walk since I lived in a government housing section of the city. My personal favorite was the Swedish embassy because they had a really cheesy sign out front that looked like one you’d find outside a burger joint in the States. It was a white sign with blue writing that read: Sweden House. The second ‘v’ in the w of Sweden was yellow, so you pretty much had to say Sveden when you read the sign out loud.
Class included a number of lectures and field trips, some of which were incredibly interesting and some seemed pretty pointless, the latter included topics like unions of Botswana and drawing in foreign investments, which are both incredibly interesting but were presenting in an amazingly dull way. Amazing and informative lectures included human rights in Botswana by representatives from an organization called Ditschwanelo (translates directly to rights) and HIV/AIDS in Botswana by an incredibly active Canadian who has been here for a number of years and currently works with the government. Great field trips included a few hours at the BMC, or Botswana Meat Commission. Beef is Botswana’s second biggest industry after diamond mining. We were given a tour of the facilities. It was fascinating to see the carcasses hanging from hooks and being sliced with such precision. In addition to being my first visit to a slaughter house, I realized I’d never seen a large scale factory line before. I was struck by the monotony of the workers’ jobs. They cut the same piece of meat from the bones of a cow 1600 times a day. After seeing the butchering, we saw the actual slaughter house. The cows were loaded into a small compartment where a man placed an air gun to its head very nonchalantly. The cow went into shock but didn’t die. It was hung up by a back leg and then died when its throat was slit by someone from the Muslim faith so that the meat was Hallele. It was tough to watch the cow continue to move after it had been shot, and then watch the blood gush out from the neck. I’ve never seen anything die in front of me before. But I think the most disgusting part of the entire production was watching the skin get peeled off. A man on a forklift grabbed the skin at the legs and lowered the forklift as he held on. It peeled off so easily and in one piece. We also took a field trip to the Gaborone Dam, although something had broken and we couldn’t get a tour.
We ended class before noon most days. We’d been given a lunch stipend for the two weeks, but I mostly stayed at the program house and ate peanut butter on bread as I used the free internet. I did check out a very sketchy Chinese restaurant on our first day and luckily didn’t get sick after trying the veggie chowmein. A few other times we ventured to a mall called River Walk to eat at Linga Langa, a great ex-pat restaurant with amazing burgers and pizza (and free wireless) or a yummy Indian restaurant called Embassy. On our last day we went to lunch at a wonderful restaurant with amazing food (paid for by Pitzer!). The main course was good, but the desserts were to die for. Jesse and I (excellent eating buddies, as always!) went halfsies on an order of Chocolate Waffles and Amaroula Ice Cream. Holy Cow.
On Sunday, I hopped on a 6am bus with Ian, Katie, Vince, and Vince’s cousin Francesca (aka. Cuz) to Maun to start my five week internship with the Wildlife Department.
pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069203&id=1036350539&l=1771ebeda9
My dad’s name is John. He’s a newly elected MP (Member of Parliament) for the main opposition party, Botswana National Front. He brought home a paper for me every day and told me to read it so I’d know what was going on. He left both weekends I spent there to visit his constituents in Serowe, where he’s from and was elected.
My sister’s name is Ame (pronounced – ah-may). She’s 15years old and in Secondary School. She walked me to school the first day I had class and we talked the whole 45minute walk. She’s really fun. I think she feels a little over protected by her parents and wishes she could do more extracurricular activities but her parents really want her to focus on school work and not much else. When her dad was elected to office earlier this year, they moved into government housing and away from most of her friends. She says she doesn’t really see her friends outside of school anymore.
My house was really cute. It was an apartment in a gated and guarded area. I had to convince the guards that I was living there my first day because they hadn’t been warned my family had just acquired a new child. Once I talked to them a few minutes in Setswana, they were comfortable letting me through the gate. Our house was two stories! You walked in through the front door that was on a hinge so that it swiveled and didn’t open as ours do in the States, into the sitting room. There were modern black couches, a few huge mirrors, and lots of family pictures. Past there was the dining room with a table and display case. The kitchen was just the right size for the four of us to closely but comfortably cook breakfast each morning. Tiny had converted the garage into another room, where there were more couches and a TV. Upstairs were the bedrooms. I had my own bedroom with a balcony! There was even a shower!!, which I took full advantage of every morning.
Everyday I was in Gabs, we had class at our program house. Each morning, I walked the 45minutes to get there alone and had a great time. Each afternoon I walked back as well. I passed the State House two times a day, which is where the President lives. He had an enormous white house with beautiful landscaping, from what I could gather through the thickly barred fence I walked by. There were always four armed guards standing outside who I greeted and waved to. I passed a number of embassies during my walk since I lived in a government housing section of the city. My personal favorite was the Swedish embassy because they had a really cheesy sign out front that looked like one you’d find outside a burger joint in the States. It was a white sign with blue writing that read: Sweden House. The second ‘v’ in the w of Sweden was yellow, so you pretty much had to say Sveden when you read the sign out loud.
Class included a number of lectures and field trips, some of which were incredibly interesting and some seemed pretty pointless, the latter included topics like unions of Botswana and drawing in foreign investments, which are both incredibly interesting but were presenting in an amazingly dull way. Amazing and informative lectures included human rights in Botswana by representatives from an organization called Ditschwanelo (translates directly to rights) and HIV/AIDS in Botswana by an incredibly active Canadian who has been here for a number of years and currently works with the government. Great field trips included a few hours at the BMC, or Botswana Meat Commission. Beef is Botswana’s second biggest industry after diamond mining. We were given a tour of the facilities. It was fascinating to see the carcasses hanging from hooks and being sliced with such precision. In addition to being my first visit to a slaughter house, I realized I’d never seen a large scale factory line before. I was struck by the monotony of the workers’ jobs. They cut the same piece of meat from the bones of a cow 1600 times a day. After seeing the butchering, we saw the actual slaughter house. The cows were loaded into a small compartment where a man placed an air gun to its head very nonchalantly. The cow went into shock but didn’t die. It was hung up by a back leg and then died when its throat was slit by someone from the Muslim faith so that the meat was Hallele. It was tough to watch the cow continue to move after it had been shot, and then watch the blood gush out from the neck. I’ve never seen anything die in front of me before. But I think the most disgusting part of the entire production was watching the skin get peeled off. A man on a forklift grabbed the skin at the legs and lowered the forklift as he held on. It peeled off so easily and in one piece. We also took a field trip to the Gaborone Dam, although something had broken and we couldn’t get a tour.
We ended class before noon most days. We’d been given a lunch stipend for the two weeks, but I mostly stayed at the program house and ate peanut butter on bread as I used the free internet. I did check out a very sketchy Chinese restaurant on our first day and luckily didn’t get sick after trying the veggie chowmein. A few other times we ventured to a mall called River Walk to eat at Linga Langa, a great ex-pat restaurant with amazing burgers and pizza (and free wireless) or a yummy Indian restaurant called Embassy. On our last day we went to lunch at a wonderful restaurant with amazing food (paid for by Pitzer!). The main course was good, but the desserts were to die for. Jesse and I (excellent eating buddies, as always!) went halfsies on an order of Chocolate Waffles and Amaroula Ice Cream. Holy Cow.
On Sunday, I hopped on a 6am bus with Ian, Katie, Vince, and Vince’s cousin Francesca (aka. Cuz) to Maun to start my five week internship with the Wildlife Department.
pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069203&id=1036350539&l=1771ebeda9
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Balelapa La Me Mo Mochudi
...or... My Family in Mochudi
I don't even know where to start. Maybe my host mom. Her name is Andile and she's 35. She has three kids who I'll talk about later. She has a boyfriend in Mochudi who I've met one. And I think the kids' father is working in South Africa, or that's what the kids told me. Andile is a councilman. I'm not sure exactly what that means, and we've never really talked so I haven't asked. She likes to drink and smoke a lot though. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday she goes out to bars. And like I mentioned, we don't really talk. She normally gets home around dinner time and is really tired. So she'll lay down either on the porch or in the sitting room. After Generations, a TV show that comes on at 8 that everyone watches, I go to bed and she stays up. Lately we've been sharing a room so we'll chat in the morning sometimes.
Andile's sister is Zowie. She was really nice for the first two days and helped me out around the house, letting me know where thigns were and how I can help out. Now there's never anything for me to do. Zowie doesn't work but does most of the house work. She cooks every meal, cleans and looks after Andile's kids during the day. She tends to walk around in leggings and a towel. This weekend I was doing my laundry in teh yard. I washed all my clothes and then hung them on the line to dry. Zowie walked by and asked if I did my laundry like that at home. When I said no, she said "I can tell by the way you hang them" and walked back inside. She was laughing and I did too, but I was overlapping the clothes because there hadn't been enough clothes pins out and I hadn't asked for more. It's just a little awkward.
I don't even know Andile's brother's name. He goes to bars on the weekends too and I don't think he works. He lives in a one room building in front of the house and I hardly ever see him, although he did watch me do my laundry one day while eating breakfast. awkward.
Andile's mom is super sweet. We don't really talk but we tend to laugh when we see each other. One day she asked me if I knew how to iron. When I said yet, she just laughed and walked away.
Tlotlo is Andile's 6year old son. He's super cute but also likes to push the rules. He's in Form 3 (3rd grade) likes to talk to me in English. Sometimes I have to make him and his younger brother leave my room when they start to fight.
Legae is Andile's 3 year old son. He's adorable but wants to be just like his brother so he'll sometimes see how far he can go too. His favorite thing to do is make faces at me that I return. He's also found it really fun to try to balance on my out stretched leg as we watch TV. By far Legae's biggest fault is the fact that he's not a morning person at all. He cries every morning. His mom bathes and dresses him most mornings.
Peo is Legae's twin sister. She might just be the cutest thing I've ever seen. She has a smile that lights up a room. Her English isn't as good as Legae's so I try to talk to her in Setswana, and while we can talk a lot of the time, she doesn't understand that I can only understand her when she speaks slowly. Peo really likes to play with my hair and sit on my lap while I try to eat.
So that's the fam in Mochudi. I'm trying to upload pictures of them to facebook, and hopefully it'll work but my connection's a little slow today.
Looking into the future: I'm finishing up my last week interning wtih BOFWA. On Saturday we take a bus back to Gabs where we meet our next families and move right in! Talk about no down time!
pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2068401&id=1036350539&l=81a6b82d33
I don't even know where to start. Maybe my host mom. Her name is Andile and she's 35. She has three kids who I'll talk about later. She has a boyfriend in Mochudi who I've met one. And I think the kids' father is working in South Africa, or that's what the kids told me. Andile is a councilman. I'm not sure exactly what that means, and we've never really talked so I haven't asked. She likes to drink and smoke a lot though. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday she goes out to bars. And like I mentioned, we don't really talk. She normally gets home around dinner time and is really tired. So she'll lay down either on the porch or in the sitting room. After Generations, a TV show that comes on at 8 that everyone watches, I go to bed and she stays up. Lately we've been sharing a room so we'll chat in the morning sometimes.
Andile's sister is Zowie. She was really nice for the first two days and helped me out around the house, letting me know where thigns were and how I can help out. Now there's never anything for me to do. Zowie doesn't work but does most of the house work. She cooks every meal, cleans and looks after Andile's kids during the day. She tends to walk around in leggings and a towel. This weekend I was doing my laundry in teh yard. I washed all my clothes and then hung them on the line to dry. Zowie walked by and asked if I did my laundry like that at home. When I said no, she said "I can tell by the way you hang them" and walked back inside. She was laughing and I did too, but I was overlapping the clothes because there hadn't been enough clothes pins out and I hadn't asked for more. It's just a little awkward.
I don't even know Andile's brother's name. He goes to bars on the weekends too and I don't think he works. He lives in a one room building in front of the house and I hardly ever see him, although he did watch me do my laundry one day while eating breakfast. awkward.
Andile's mom is super sweet. We don't really talk but we tend to laugh when we see each other. One day she asked me if I knew how to iron. When I said yet, she just laughed and walked away.
Tlotlo is Andile's 6year old son. He's super cute but also likes to push the rules. He's in Form 3 (3rd grade) likes to talk to me in English. Sometimes I have to make him and his younger brother leave my room when they start to fight.
Legae is Andile's 3 year old son. He's adorable but wants to be just like his brother so he'll sometimes see how far he can go too. His favorite thing to do is make faces at me that I return. He's also found it really fun to try to balance on my out stretched leg as we watch TV. By far Legae's biggest fault is the fact that he's not a morning person at all. He cries every morning. His mom bathes and dresses him most mornings.
Peo is Legae's twin sister. She might just be the cutest thing I've ever seen. She has a smile that lights up a room. Her English isn't as good as Legae's so I try to talk to her in Setswana, and while we can talk a lot of the time, she doesn't understand that I can only understand her when she speaks slowly. Peo really likes to play with my hair and sit on my lap while I try to eat.
So that's the fam in Mochudi. I'm trying to upload pictures of them to facebook, and hopefully it'll work but my connection's a little slow today.
Looking into the future: I'm finishing up my last week interning wtih BOFWA. On Saturday we take a bus back to Gabs where we meet our next families and move right in! Talk about no down time!
pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2068401&id=1036350539&l=81a6b82d33
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Update Time!
here's what's happened in the last week:
presented at a primary school on the negative effects of drug/alcohol abuse. the students said they couldn't understand my english so my boss reviewed what i said. i'd been told presenting in english would be fine, but the kids certainly didn't think so. it was pretty embarrassing to be told to continue talking even after they said they couldn't understand me.
i finally learned the names of my three younger siblings: Tlotlo (boy. i think translates to pride) is 6. Peo (girl. translates to seed) is twins with Legae (boy. not sure of the translation) who are both 4.
my shoe broke at work yesterday so i stapled it 8 times and it held up the rest of the day.
i can successfully hail any combi or taxi going in my direction.
i visited Mochudi's museum with Ian, Katie and their students from a school for the visually impaired. it was super interesting to see all of the really old pictures and artifacts. there was one pot, probably a foot and a half deep with an opening about a foot wide that was used to bury people. someone was telling me there was little respect for the body of a dead person, so they were shoved into these pots and buried. after the museum, two students taught me to play mhele, a traditional game that's kind of like tic-tac-toe on steroids.
while i absolutely love the work BOFWA does, they don't really have anything for me to do. i sometimes read, sometimes talk to other volunteers, and sometimes do homework. or sometimes i leave early.
i've gone twice to Motswedi Rehabilitation Center with NT, the BOFWA employee I wrote about last time. It's super fun to play games with the kids. we do things similar to Simon Says and Duck-Duck-Goose. i have also sat in on physical therapy for young kids. that was super tough to watch because the kids were getting stretched out and screaming so loud. at the same time, there were older people (70s or 80s) who were from an org that works with people living with HIV. they were doing exercises to strengthen their muscles. they couldn't walk without a lot of support. their motivation to walk even just five feet was inspirational.
i went to a club friday night with Nt and Ian where live music was being played. we were interviewed for BTV (botswana tv). i also went to a party the police department was throwing because someone was retiring. a little weird to see police partying.
we discovered the Mochudi library, a cute little two room air conditioned building with books we can't check out and computers we can't use because we won't be here for two years. but they do have ethernet cables we can use and apparently it's the fastest connection around (i have yet to use it).
i've had a few more setswana lessons, so i keep trying to talk to people in the village and they laugh every time i do. but they're always impressed with how much we all know and how well we can get around town.
watched the first half of Home Alone 2 at cameron's house.
considering how long it's been since i last posted, not too much has happened. a lot of down time and relaxing. i finished a book: Cyclops. i never though i'd enjoy a scifi book, but i did!!
presented at a primary school on the negative effects of drug/alcohol abuse. the students said they couldn't understand my english so my boss reviewed what i said. i'd been told presenting in english would be fine, but the kids certainly didn't think so. it was pretty embarrassing to be told to continue talking even after they said they couldn't understand me.
i finally learned the names of my three younger siblings: Tlotlo (boy. i think translates to pride) is 6. Peo (girl. translates to seed) is twins with Legae (boy. not sure of the translation) who are both 4.
my shoe broke at work yesterday so i stapled it 8 times and it held up the rest of the day.
i can successfully hail any combi or taxi going in my direction.
i visited Mochudi's museum with Ian, Katie and their students from a school for the visually impaired. it was super interesting to see all of the really old pictures and artifacts. there was one pot, probably a foot and a half deep with an opening about a foot wide that was used to bury people. someone was telling me there was little respect for the body of a dead person, so they were shoved into these pots and buried. after the museum, two students taught me to play mhele, a traditional game that's kind of like tic-tac-toe on steroids.
while i absolutely love the work BOFWA does, they don't really have anything for me to do. i sometimes read, sometimes talk to other volunteers, and sometimes do homework. or sometimes i leave early.
i've gone twice to Motswedi Rehabilitation Center with NT, the BOFWA employee I wrote about last time. It's super fun to play games with the kids. we do things similar to Simon Says and Duck-Duck-Goose. i have also sat in on physical therapy for young kids. that was super tough to watch because the kids were getting stretched out and screaming so loud. at the same time, there were older people (70s or 80s) who were from an org that works with people living with HIV. they were doing exercises to strengthen their muscles. they couldn't walk without a lot of support. their motivation to walk even just five feet was inspirational.
i went to a club friday night with Nt and Ian where live music was being played. we were interviewed for BTV (botswana tv). i also went to a party the police department was throwing because someone was retiring. a little weird to see police partying.
we discovered the Mochudi library, a cute little two room air conditioned building with books we can't check out and computers we can't use because we won't be here for two years. but they do have ethernet cables we can use and apparently it's the fastest connection around (i have yet to use it).
i've had a few more setswana lessons, so i keep trying to talk to people in the village and they laugh every time i do. but they're always impressed with how much we all know and how well we can get around town.
watched the first half of Home Alone 2 at cameron's house.
considering how long it's been since i last posted, not too much has happened. a lot of down time and relaxing. i finished a book: Cyclops. i never though i'd enjoy a scifi book, but i did!!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
BOFWA
with constant access to super cheat internet, i'll hopefully be updating every few days. (it's less than fifty cents per 30 minutes!!) and it's fast. :)
i started my internship at BOFWA (Botswana Family Welfare Association) yesterday (the link is in this post somewhere). it's an NGO and i work in the Mochudi branch. it's been super low key so far. yesterday, i got dropped off around 10. my initial impression was confusion. the building is bright orange with purple trim. there's three buildings with a tennis/netball court in front and a huge tree for shade over a cement picnic table.
i anticipated BOFWA as being an ngo that worked only on HIV/AIDS, since that's how it had been presented to me. turns out the mochudi facility has a full clinic that treats anyone who comes, and a lot of people come since it's not a government clinic and has shorter lines. they also do hiv testing and peer education/counseling. but in addition, it's a youth center. kids come after school to hang out and play games. Kex teaches karate everyday, which is something i told him i'd try a few times!
i got a tour of the facility from the man who runs it, Ke a leboga (translates to thank you) or Kex. he didn't have anything for me to do, so after asking questions and chatting for an hour, he drove me half way to a cultural fair outside town. i say half way because we ended up driving behind the van of an organization we partner with, Stepping Stones. so they pulled over, i hopped in their car and Kex headed back to BOFWA. i couldn't understand much of what happened at the culture day because most of it was in setswana. but the botswana police's full band was there (about 20 people in it) so it was fun to hear them play. a school for the blind also performed on the marimbas which was cool. in the audience was Miss World, 2008 (she's from botswana), the UN Ambassador to Botswana and the Paramount Chief. In order to get a ride home, i hitched with Daniel, who's from my program and his supervisor at RADP, the org. he's working with in Mochudi. Once i got back into town, i met up with a few friends. we went to where they work for what we thought would be just a few minutes to finalize their schedules. instead it turned into more than an hour of meeting everyone they'll be working with.
today was a little crazy too. i showed up half an hour early because i thought the combi (public transport) would take longer than it did. i met two new people who had actually been at the culture fair but didn't know who i was so didn't say hi. Nt remembered me and knew i'd been wearing a blue dress though. i walked with Nt to her house because she had to take her ARVs at 8am sharp. we talked for awhile about her status. it was incredibly interesting because i've never had a conversation with a person living positive before. she told me she's known for 6 years, she had tests done this week and her doctors now want to change her meds, that her parents initially abandoned her when they found out but that her boyfriend was very supportive. now her parents have accepted her back, although she can't forget the hurt they caused. i was so touched she was so open and i'd literally met her 20 minutes before.
once we got the keys to go in, there wasn't much to do, again. we're meeting with teachers tomorrow about a spelling bee. the words are all relating to medical issues, so the point is to teach kids their definitions. three of us copied all of the words and definitions (more than 7 handwritten pages) before i was told there was a copier. efficiency isn't always a priority. also, there's a computer and printer. i would have been happy to have typed everything up and printed out four copies. that way, they also would've had the words on file. after that, i hung out with the other local volunteers.
my internet time's almost up so i'll sum up the rest of my day: walked to lunch with Nt and another girl where we had the traditional lunch of phaleche, name, le morogo (phaleche, meat and greens). went back to bowfa and hung out. took a 40 minute power nap on a couch. hung out outside with the local volunteers again. then took a combi to town where i shopped at Choppies and came to the internet cafe.
that's it for time. hopefully next time i'll get to my family.
until then, i love and miss you all!!!
Lorato
i started my internship at BOFWA (Botswana Family Welfare Association) yesterday (the link is in this post somewhere). it's an NGO and i work in the Mochudi branch. it's been super low key so far. yesterday, i got dropped off around 10. my initial impression was confusion. the building is bright orange with purple trim. there's three buildings with a tennis/netball court in front and a huge tree for shade over a cement picnic table.
i anticipated BOFWA as being an ngo that worked only on HIV/AIDS, since that's how it had been presented to me. turns out the mochudi facility has a full clinic that treats anyone who comes, and a lot of people come since it's not a government clinic and has shorter lines. they also do hiv testing and peer education/counseling. but in addition, it's a youth center. kids come after school to hang out and play games. Kex teaches karate everyday, which is something i told him i'd try a few times!
i got a tour of the facility from the man who runs it, Ke a leboga (translates to thank you) or Kex. he didn't have anything for me to do, so after asking questions and chatting for an hour, he drove me half way to a cultural fair outside town. i say half way because we ended up driving behind the van of an organization we partner with, Stepping Stones. so they pulled over, i hopped in their car and Kex headed back to BOFWA. i couldn't understand much of what happened at the culture day because most of it was in setswana. but the botswana police's full band was there (about 20 people in it) so it was fun to hear them play. a school for the blind also performed on the marimbas which was cool. in the audience was Miss World, 2008 (she's from botswana), the UN Ambassador to Botswana and the Paramount Chief. In order to get a ride home, i hitched with Daniel, who's from my program and his supervisor at RADP, the org. he's working with in Mochudi. Once i got back into town, i met up with a few friends. we went to where they work for what we thought would be just a few minutes to finalize their schedules. instead it turned into more than an hour of meeting everyone they'll be working with.
today was a little crazy too. i showed up half an hour early because i thought the combi (public transport) would take longer than it did. i met two new people who had actually been at the culture fair but didn't know who i was so didn't say hi. Nt remembered me and knew i'd been wearing a blue dress though. i walked with Nt to her house because she had to take her ARVs at 8am sharp. we talked for awhile about her status. it was incredibly interesting because i've never had a conversation with a person living positive before. she told me she's known for 6 years, she had tests done this week and her doctors now want to change her meds, that her parents initially abandoned her when they found out but that her boyfriend was very supportive. now her parents have accepted her back, although she can't forget the hurt they caused. i was so touched she was so open and i'd literally met her 20 minutes before.
once we got the keys to go in, there wasn't much to do, again. we're meeting with teachers tomorrow about a spelling bee. the words are all relating to medical issues, so the point is to teach kids their definitions. three of us copied all of the words and definitions (more than 7 handwritten pages) before i was told there was a copier. efficiency isn't always a priority. also, there's a computer and printer. i would have been happy to have typed everything up and printed out four copies. that way, they also would've had the words on file. after that, i hung out with the other local volunteers.
my internet time's almost up so i'll sum up the rest of my day: walked to lunch with Nt and another girl where we had the traditional lunch of phaleche, name, le morogo (phaleche, meat and greens). went back to bowfa and hung out. took a 40 minute power nap on a couch. hung out outside with the local volunteers again. then took a combi to town where i shopped at Choppies and came to the internet cafe.
that's it for time. hopefully next time i'll get to my family.
until then, i love and miss you all!!!
Lorato
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Dumela, from Mochudi!
I found a great internet cafe in Mochudi, where we're doing our second homestay. I only have a few minutes left, so I thought I'd try to give a quick update on life here, although I've barely started to explore the village.
My family is fun. My host mom is more like my sister, she's just a few years older than me. She has three kids: a 6year old boy, and twin 4year olds, a boy and a girl. i think i have 4 other siblings (all in their late 20s and early 30s) but i'm not quite sure who's related to me and who's not. my grandma and grandpa also live at home. my grandma's adorable. she's really sweet. my first morning, as i was washing dishes (and we go through a ton of dishes with so many people and visitors!), she pulled me over to the fire where she was cooking traditional beer in a HUGE pot. she told me all about how she cooks it to sell.
i've been keeping busy by getting out of the house. my first full day in mochudi was spent at a wedding and hanging out with some friends from the program. yesterday, i walked all around the village. murphy, casey and i walked to the top of a hill and looked out over the whole village. it was beautiful, but also shocking because mochudi is SO MUCH bigger than manyana! the houses spread out farther than we could see. i can't wait to explore more.
today i walked into town by myself (about 40 minutes) and found the internet cafe i'm current at. i bought crackers and cheese at the store and had lunch outside with ian, jesse and cameron. we'll see what the rest of today holds!!
on monday, i start working with BOFWA, an organization that focuses on HIV/AIDS issues, especially those surrounding Mochudi's youth. i'm not sure exactly what work i'll be doing, but hopefully it'll be interesting and worthwhile.
email when you can! i want to hear from everyone and look forward to updates!!!!
love,
karen
My family is fun. My host mom is more like my sister, she's just a few years older than me. She has three kids: a 6year old boy, and twin 4year olds, a boy and a girl. i think i have 4 other siblings (all in their late 20s and early 30s) but i'm not quite sure who's related to me and who's not. my grandma and grandpa also live at home. my grandma's adorable. she's really sweet. my first morning, as i was washing dishes (and we go through a ton of dishes with so many people and visitors!), she pulled me over to the fire where she was cooking traditional beer in a HUGE pot. she told me all about how she cooks it to sell.
i've been keeping busy by getting out of the house. my first full day in mochudi was spent at a wedding and hanging out with some friends from the program. yesterday, i walked all around the village. murphy, casey and i walked to the top of a hill and looked out over the whole village. it was beautiful, but also shocking because mochudi is SO MUCH bigger than manyana! the houses spread out farther than we could see. i can't wait to explore more.
today i walked into town by myself (about 40 minutes) and found the internet cafe i'm current at. i bought crackers and cheese at the store and had lunch outside with ian, jesse and cameron. we'll see what the rest of today holds!!
on monday, i start working with BOFWA, an organization that focuses on HIV/AIDS issues, especially those surrounding Mochudi's youth. i'm not sure exactly what work i'll be doing, but hopefully it'll be interesting and worthwhile.
email when you can! i want to hear from everyone and look forward to updates!!!!
love,
karen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
