Trip Planning

     One week and counting!! I am getting so excited for my family to come. I was working more on planning today and realized, wow, this is actually happening!! We are still making last minute changes to the itinerary, and keeping things flexible, but I figured I would share some of the plans that we have made so far. We will be rendez-vousing in Johannesburg, South Africa where I’ll let them recover from jet lag a bit, relax and visit Pretoria and the Apartheid Museum. From there, we will head to Capetown to enjoy everything they have to offer there, including Table Mountain, Cape Point, the Wine Valley, and of course the coast, boat ride and shark/penguin viewing. This will probably be the more luxurious part of our trip before we head up to Maun, Botswana, where we will explore the Okavango Delta on a mokoro (traditional canoe boat) trip and camping in the bush. I’m the most worried about this part of the trip cause of the mosquitos and other bugs that come out during rainy season.

     After this we are renting a car and driving up to Kasane! This is where I get to share a little of my life with my fam! We will have a few days prior to Christmas where we will hopefully catch the ‘Christmas by Candlelight’ where we sing carols and read scriptures with the community, Christmas eve dinner with some friends, church, visiting the center, going into the park, and just a bit of relaxing. We don’t really have any plans for Christmas day, but I will be getting a huge Christmas gift when Chip arrives! We’ll let him recover a bit, but head to Victoria Falls the next day, where we will spend one night so we can fit in everything there is to do there! For the last three days of the trip we will hopefully be going out to Savanna Lodge (where I helped with the ad) and Chobe Game Lodge. That will be a bit more of a luxury experience but a great time to explore the park and see a couple beautiful lodges! Well that’s a bit of what we have planned, if you have any suggestions feel free to share! Can’t wait for this awesome adventure with the fam!!

Thanksgiving

    Well I guess I’m making up for lost time by writing three posts in three days (maybe I’ll do a marathon and also write one for Black Friday tomorrow!) Thinking of everyone back home today and dreaming of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and family gatherings around ginormous meals full of fried turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, oh and don’t forget Granny’s Jell-o mold! My stomach is expanding at the thought of it…

   Well, us Americans in Kasane wouldn’t let such an important holiday slip by! Last weekend the Honeys hosted our own version of Thanksgiving, including a special-ordered turkey (crock-pot cooked – yum!), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, sweet potatoes, veggies, deviled eggs, and pecan and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was excellent! We were quite thankful to be able to have such a huge and similar meal to what we would find at home. Other than the Kasane-style heat (probably at least 90 degrees in the kitchen) and Kazungula power outage (candlelight anyone?) you could almost forget that we were halfway around the world from where we would usually be celebrating this holiday!

    After the delicious meal that ‘tryptophan’ turkey hit me and I zonked out completely! While others watched a recorded football game (not really one of our family’s thanksgiving traditions) I had a lovely nap on the couch. Although it was a bit different from the way my family will be celebrating this year, it was still such a wonderful way to thank God for the amazing experiences and people I have encountered so far this year! Happy Thanksgiving all!

The Thanksgiving spread! Keith carving the turkey by candlelight... luckily the power came back on just before we sat down to eat. 

Dreaming of Autumn

Last night, in honor of fall weather back home, I broke out my frozen pumpkin and whipped up some pumpkin soup! Although not the best I’ve ever tasted, it’s not too bad – and very easy! You really don’t need much more in there because the pumpkin is so tasty, but I added onions and carrots to mine, then some nutmeg and a bit of salt and pepper. Yummm! Gotta admit, not quite the same when its 90 degrees out, but I used my imagination. Mom sent me some fall leaves – looks like it was a beautiful autumn! Only the past few days have I really been thinking of fall weather and missing it a bit. Three summers in a row may very well be too much heat for me….

My nice big pot of soup - I'll be eating this for weeks!

Africa Time

Shame on me!! I have been slacking big time at blog posts and there is no excuse! (Other than a lack of things to write about and perhaps the lack of motivation to write at all). But, in light of my recent reception of my Botswana Residence Permit, I figured I would talk about ‘Africa Time’ a little bit (also to justify the delayedness of this post…). I know I have mentioned that things are just slower, more relaxed here, but the other day I was trying to pinpoint the difference and realized something interesting. In the States, you can plan things by the hour, and here you plan things by the day.  For example, on Africa time, one might think, okay today I will get this done, then I will do that tomorrow. Whereas in the states, you would say, today I will do this, this, this, and that in the morning…..

    And as hard as you try, you can’t try to make an American schedule/mindset fit into the ‘African time’ zone. It’s kind of hard to explain how or why, but it just does NOT work. It becomes extremely frustrating at times, but it is something you just have to accept and get used to (obviously hasn’t been that easy for me!) Although I still find it annoying, it is definitely something I have started to get used to. I'm a little worried about going back to the states and having to get back into frenzy mode! 

    On a happy note, I received my residence permit! It is amazing how long it takes to get a sticker in your passport…. After several visits to immigration to make sure I had everything that I needed (picture, copy of passport, letter from employer, letter from father, etc.) I finally turned the application in. They say they will message you when it is ready, but I decided to go check back after about a month. Still no news. After checking back in about every two weeks, it got down to the wire of when my temporary permit would expire. Finally they told me that it had been approved! But…. The machine to make the permit stickers was broken. They were sending the machine to Gabs to get fixed, so she extended my temporary permit a couple months. I went back in the beginning of November and the machine was back! But I went too late in the afternoon and the lady obviously just didn’t feel like helping me. SO, at long last, I went back the following week and they printed my sticker for me and stuck it in my passport. WOOHOO! Basically, it says I am allowed to volunteer in Botswana until July 2017. 

October Skies

You know it’s hot when:

- The hot water heater isn’t necessary at all. Cold showers twice a day are almost necessary

- You can use outside in the sun as a microwave for your lunch

- You are exhausted at the end of the day and you don’t really feel like you did anything

- Carrying an umbrella to block the sun is not abnormal at all

- 85F feels amazingly good and 77…. That’s just chilly

- Your skin turns a shade darker from being outside for 20 mins

- Sweat stains... oh yeah..... 

October is known as suicide month. Why, you might ask? Temperatures reach well into the 100's every day and there's not much break. I am extremely thankful that we have air conditioning at work. As long as you are sitting inside you forget how durn hot it is outside. That is until you go out to use the toilet and the heat hits you like a brick wall as you step out the door. Although we do a lot of work outside, you try to keep it to the mornings before it gets too too hot. 

   I haven't actually been bothered by it too much. Again, the aircon makes a ginormous difference. Plus, my house manages to stay at a reasonable temperature if I close it up during the day, another huge blessing. The one thing I am dying for is more rain! The past couple weeks we have seen more cloud cover (whoa, amazing) and a bit of rain. The other night we got massive thunderstorms (felt the ground shake while laying in bed) and that was awesome! I think if it rained every day for a week I would be perfectly happy right now. Can't wait til rain starts to come more often and we get the first 'official' rain (20 mL).

   So as you all enjoy the beautiful, crisp fall days in the U.S., just remember those of us permanently stuck in summer!

Charity Case

     Last week I had an interesting conversation and further realization of the ‘charity case’ mindset adopted by Americans (and others I’m sure) when it comes to Africa. When I say Africa, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? That photo of little children smudged with dirt and tummies swollen from hunger, holding out their hands asking for food or money. Or the older woman with a tired frown on her face as she sits in the dirt, weaving a basket with worn fingers. Probably not too far off?

     And this, my friends, is the broken image of Africa. While these pictures are such reality in so many parts of Africa, I must inform you: this is not how all of Africa is! Especially Botswana, which has done incredibly well for itself through the diamond industry (I think, I don’t know a whole lot about their economy, but I do know that the government is very wealthy). Something I’ve realized from living here is that this is just the way they live. The same way we would live in a neighborhood with a car parked in the driveway, a playground in the nicely fenced back yard with a green lawn. The bus comes to pick the kids up in the morning and parents drive to work to make money to support the family. For Motswana, maybe their neighbors live a little closer, their home is just one room, their ‘oven’ is the fire they make in their dirt yard, the kids play with wheel rims and sticks and any other scraps they can create a toy out of. The kids walk down the street to school and the parents catch a taxi or walk to work so they can make money and at month end, budget out money to buy food for the next month. But it’s all they’ve ever known. It’s their lifestyle.

     Now I guess I shouldn’t be speaking for all Africans or Motswana, but I would venture to say that most are pretty happy with this way of living. I think it is hard for Americans to understand, because we see pictures of such poor conditions and think the people are miserable. But it is something you come to understand and get used to when you live in that place. It’s just different. When Americans try to project their needs and wants into a different lifestyle, it just doesn’t work as well.

    This whole thought process was sparked by a group that is leading an effort in a nearby village to build a school so the children don’t have to walk as far to school. Sounds great, right? Well I watched the promotional video that is online and was amazed at how ‘disadvantaged’ they made this village sound! They managed to turn it in to a charity case when really it is a typical village of Botswana with the lifestyle I described above. Plus, there is already a fully functioning government school there. A friend said she had showed the video to a Motswana friend, and he was offended because of the way they portrayed this seemingly normal village. Americans can be so ignorant sometimes.

     Now, I don’t mean to discourage people from donating to a good cause, because there are still many many places and people in Africa that are suffering. But I do warn you to do your research before giving money to any organization or charity that appears to be helping needy people in Africa. Throwing money at an issue is not always the answer, and I’m afraid that the U.S. has gotten sucked into that mindset. So, in conclusion, just remember that the African lifestyle is simply very different from American lifestyle, and not all parts of Africa are the same – it’s a huge continent! (Yes, continent….not country)

Birds!

On Saturday morning I crashed a Birdlife Botswana trip onto the river. Birdlife Botswana is an organization that has groups throughout the country that conduct events and bird counts to keep track of various bird populations. We have a small group here in Kasane and I’ve participated in several of the events since I’ve been here. On Saturday we met at the jetty at 6am to head out on one of Cornelia’s boats to see what we could see on the river. I will start by saying that I was not wearing the proper clothing and that it was FREEZING! Brrr. But we got to see some awesome birds! Here is a little sample of some birds we got to see that I got photos of:

Black Crake: very elusive bird, not very commonly seen!

Cattle Egret taking a ride on a hippo!

Purple Heron - such neat coloring!

Malachite Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Brown-Hooded Kingfisher

Squacco Heron

White-Backed Night Heron, also apparently very rare

Boipuso

Happy Botswana Independence Day! This is THE holiday here – or just a great excuse to take several days off work. Independence day is technically today, paid holiday Monday, unpaid holiday on Tuesday, and last Friday was kinda a half day/extremely unproductive day. Lots of people travel and there’s also a big party in town with free food today. Apparently fights break out every year over the food so I’m just hanging out at the house that I’m house-sitting at for the evening!

    So there’s not much new stuff going on in my life, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged so need to let everyone know I’m alive! It’s also an important milestone of my year: 4 months! WOW. One-third of the way through my year here. It has gone by so fast, which I’ve been thankful for but it is still amazing as every month passes I say how is it next month already?!?!? The other day I was looking at the calendar and thought, ‘ I can’t wait for October weather!’. Then I came to two realizations: 1) October was next week and 2) I will not be getting any autumn weather here…. Slightly disappointing considering that October is the dreaded, hot month.  We got rain last week though! I walked out of my door on Wednesday to go in to town for bible study and I thought, wow it smells like rain (yes, it is quite a strong smell here, especially when it hasn’t rained in so long!) then I look up in the sky and sure enough, there is a storm rolling in! It was really exciting, but when it rains here, it pours. And it’s usually accompanied by a thunderstorm (yay!). It was an unusually early rain, usually it starts towards the end of October. It was amazing how cool it got afterwards, such a relief from the increasingly hot days we are getting (in the upper 90s - 100s every afternoon). But when it is such a dry heat it doesn’t feel nearly as bad. The sun is extremely hot, hotter than at home. You can be outside for 20 minutes and come back in a shade darker (and feeling 20 degrees warmer).

      But anyways, enough about the weather and back to the four months. I’ve heard that the third and fourth month are the hardest, but I am finding that as I get more and more settled in, I am enjoying it more and more. I am just beginning to build relationships with people and feel like I belong here. It sometimes varies day to day, but overall I’m really happy with life here! Homesickness hasn’t really hit me much yet, but sometimes I will have moments where I miss certain things. The other day I was petting the horses near my house and realized how much I would loveee to get on the back of a horse again! And today I looked at a picture I have of my piano and got the urge to play piano so badly! I think I will have to break down and just play the keyboard at church sometime this week. Hopefully I’m not losing all of my piano skills.

      Last weekend was a pang of missing Corey’s wedding. Amazingly enough, my dad was able to get me skyped in to the wedding so I could catch some of the video and sound. It was awesome, but made me 1) miss Corey and Chelsea sooo badly and 2) make me feel so guilty for not being there!!! For financial and timing reasons, it wasn’t feasible to make the trip back, but it was an absolutely beautiful wedding, and they are going to re-enact it for me when I get back :-P (okay at least the vows and the kiss)

    Well, I am losing my focus so I think I’ll wrap this post up, but Happy Boipuso everyone! Until next time…

Food

Sooo I’ve been slacking on posting about food that I’ve been cooking, but I kind of assume most people aren’t exactly on the edge of their seat waiting for Ellen’s newest crazy creation of a meal. So here’s a few highlights I have happened to take pictures over the past few weeks:

First, the quaint crispy toast, cheese, avocado, and apple slices for lunch:

Pumpkin Banana bread – delicious!!! Pumpkin is extremely cheap here for some reason, so I just keep buying it and freezing it – figure it will come in handy for thanksgiving dinner! Unfortunately I dropped this bread on the floor taking it out of the oven, but was able to shove the insides back in and let it cool together to make it edible. Very good bread though, would highly recommend it.

Baked tomato with mozzarella. One word: yum

Lemon chicken dinner with fresh green beans and rice. Nice meal!

This is making me hungry! Dinner time : )

My Kids!

'Education Coordinator'

    I have neglected to write anything so far about my teaching duties since school started back up in mid-August. My main ‘education’ job here is planning lessons for the Conservation Club, which happens once a week at two schools in Kasane and Kazungula. I am working on coming up with a curriculum that they can use in the future for the club. So far, the clubs have been going great! The first week Lipa and I did an introduction to ourselves, CARACAL, and the Chobe Ecosystem. Throughout  the rest of the year we will be learning about the different parts of the ecosystem, so we started with wildlife and talked about mammals the second week, birds the next week, reptiles and amphibians last week, and ‘real-world encounters’ this week, with a guest speaker Cisko, the CARACAL tracker.  I really enjoyed this lesson because it is so applicable to the kid’s lives. When I asked them who had seen an elephant out in the bush, almost all of them raised their hands, but not many of them know what to do when they actually find themselves in that situation. It was great to have Cisko explain the correct way to handle an encounter with elephant, buffalo, hippo, baboons, then demonstrate some of his tracking skills. (And just in case you were wondering, slowly back away from an elephant, never run away unless they are already chasing you.)

The Kazungula club with their bird feeders made from recycled water bottles!

    On Saturday, the clubs will have a field trip to the Biodiversity Center! The only trouble with planning this has been transportation. With a big group of kids being 10 kms away, it is sometimes difficult to line up transportation. After going through some trouble requesting a bus from the Chobe District Council (basically the local government), I finally learned the correct process, so thank goodness we won’t have to be cramming kids into recruited friend’s vehicles! I have also been working on planning a Game Drive into Chobe National Park for the clubs at the end of the year. This requires writing letters to safari companies and hoping that they will be generous enough to donate time and a vehicle to take the kids into the park.

   Interesting thing here is that you have to write letters for everything. It is rather old fashioned, but it documents any communication you have had with someone. So it’s been kind of fun giving myself the title ‘education coordinator’, sound pretty official right?

     A few new things I have also been working on as the ‘education coordinator’ are communicating with the Principal Education Administrator (basically like the Board of Ed) to arrange visits to all ten schools in the Chobe District. We are only reaching two of the schools with our Conservation Clubs, so it would be a great opportunity to be able to travel to the more distant schools to teach them about the environment. Unfortunately, conservation is such a poorly covered subject in the schools that the children know very little about it in general and even just the Chobe region. We hope to get those visits started this year, but it’s slow goings so far, so we’ll see…..

    Also, I contacted a local Catholic Mission called Bana ba Ditlou that provides a preschool-type program for youngins and an after-school program for older children in the community. They have a conservation component to the program but the woman who runs it doesn’t know much about conservation, so she is happy for me to help. We are still working out details of what this will look like, but currently they are coming to the library on Thursdays for the ‘Library Club’, which I just started back up today after realizing that kids were still actually coming even though there are supposedly mandatory afternoon study sessions at school.

     So, there’s quite a bit going on, and it’s great! This week I have really started to get to know some of the kids and phew! What a relief to finally be getting some of the names down. Between Katlego, Kato, Kagisano, Kagiso, Katsano, Kutlo, oish! It’s been tough. I have asked the majority of these kids their names about ten times, but in the end, I think it will mean more to them if I can actually call them by their names!  Most are starting to open up to me and become more comfortable (which I’m sure will not be fun later…) but it feels so great. After a great afternoon surrounded by kids I often find myself not being able to hold back a smile, and I am so reassured that they are the reason I’m here!

Busylessness

    I have determined that this year, I am learning a lesson in time management. Not the kind of time management required when you have so much to do and not enough time to do it all, though. The kind when you have too much time that you don’t know what to do with it. It’s a pretty pathetic problem, but it’s so completely new to me that I’m finding it really difficult. For the past four years I have been so busy I often didn’t have time to think, but now I have so much time I think I’m thinking too much!

    For the most part I find things to fill my time, but usually I resort to eating, exercising, reading, or sleeping, not necessarily in that order. Sounds great, right?? Ugh. Well I suppose to any normal person it’s the life, and most of the time I don’t really mind, but for someone who thrives on having something  to do or somewhere to be every minute of the day, it can get pretty frustrating. It’s not really too vacation-y, because I’m still doing work at work, but it’s just outside of work that there’s not much to do! Not having transportation certainly doesn’t help the situation because I can't stay anywhere past 6 without having to pay a bunch for a taxi or bum a ride off someone.

     So, it is something that is taking getting used to, and is getting more and more difficult as time goes on and I get more and more stir-crazy! Below is an example of the result of a lazy hazy Sunday afternoon…. Painted toes and nails! Decided to go hokie spirit on the toenails (thanks Carrie for the artwork) in honor of our successful football season so far! And the fingernails just ended up horribly tacky…. Oh well, it was fun to experiment!

Tourist for a Day

      On Thursday I had the opportunity to be a model for a promotion they are filming for seven lodges in Chobe and the Okavango Delta. Rob is friends with James, the marketing coordinator for Chobe Game Lodge and Savanna Lodge, five star lodges in the Chobe that are a part of Delta and Desert Safaris. He hooked me up to be a model at Chobe Savanna Lodge, so on Thursday morning I was picked up in a boat from immigration, got stamped out of the country, then took a boat ride to get checked into Namibian immigration (consisting of one grumpy man that sits a shack and you hope is actually there when you pull up).  Afterward we headed to the lodge, where we got filmed coming into the dock, grabbed some muffins for breakfast really quick, then headed back out on the boat to make a village visit. We went to Kasenu (sp?) a village just down the river where they will often take tourists to learn about local village life. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I guess it was part of the job…. Unfortunately I wasn’t wearing the right clothes, I wish I was wearing a skirt or something longer. It was just a bit weird being a tourist in the village, when I’ve been living here. I started to put on my ‘Africa’ accent, then realized I guess that wasn’t very tourist-y. So we got the ‘tour’ of the village, then pulled out some footballs (soccer balls) and James played with them while I drew with some of the ladies and kids with pens and paper we took. They seemed appreciative but at the same time I hate fulfilling the role of the white American tourist that throws stuff or money at people and thinks of it as helping to fix all their problems. But either way, I think they will enjoy the footballs! It’s a very small village right on the river, and they rely mostly on fishing for their food. Unfortunately overfishing is a big problem in this area because it is their food source and livelihood, but it doesn’t give the fish a chance to recover.

Me with the kids from the village

       After our village visit, we headed back to the lodge and did a few shots of room orientation, then had a little break and had lunch by the pool. Oh, I forgot to mention that we had the entire lodge to ourselves, there were no other guests, and it only hosts a maximum of 24 guests. It is probably the most secluded lodge you will find in Chobe, and is situated just across the river from the park, and is west facing. So in the evening there is a 270 degree view of the river, sunset, and park. Best view from these parts, I promise you. I had my own little chalet room for the night, and it was absolutely beautiful. So after lunch we headed out onto the boat for some river/wildlife shots. There were heaps of giraffe down at the river getting water, then we found some elephants that were just about to cross the river. We drifted in soo close to them on the bank of the river, it was just amazing. Then we backed off and waited for them to start their journey across.

     They stood on the bank making sure they had everyone, then they start to go into the water in a line, making sure to keep the little guys sandwiched among the bigger ones. WOW. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the largest land mammal swim. I was truly amazed that they could even stay afloat, but they kind of bobbed, using their trunks as a sort of snorkel when they went down. I took some video I will try to post on facebook. We were sitting in our boat on the bank right next to where they climbed out and began to start grazing again. It is just such a humbling experience to stand next to these ginormous elephants. In the words of Walter, the marketing director for Delta & Desert, how can you live in a place without elephants?

    After our boat journey we went back to the lodge and I got changed for sunset cocktails shots in front of the beautiful sunset. The herd of elephants crossed right in front of the lodge at sunset, making it even more breathtaking! After some drinks, we sat down for a delicious dinner of bruschetta appetizer, a chicken dish and yogurt mousse for dessert. Yum. Did I also mention that this was all free…. Phew. Anyways, we hung around for a bit and looked at the footage of the day then I retired to my room to get some sleep. I decided to take a shower just cause the shower was cool.

Relaxing on the bottom level of the lodge

     I woke up the next morning, had a cup of coffee and read my book, then packed up and headed up to the lodge for breakfast while the guys finished up some filming. Then we all had breakfast (yogurt/fruit, croissants, omelet) and headed back to Botswana! They dropped me off at work on their way to the airport to catch a plane to head to the next lodge they are filming. It was a bit tough to get back into work mode after all that relaxation so removed from the ‘real world’, but back to reality and teaching in the afternoon!

    The promotion is just going to be used online, so when they finish and post it up I will definitely share the link!

Rain!

The center with the rain/thunder cloud behind, moving in!

Soooo I was going to write this blog yesterday morning about it actually being cloudy in Kasane, but I’m glad I held off cause sure enough, the clouds ended up turning into rain!!! There have only been clouds in the sky two days since I’ve been here so far, so it was pretty exciting to even have clouds, then they started building and looking more like rain clouds. Apparently this is how it usually occurs in rainy season, but according to some long-time residents it has NEVER rained in August before. Usually the rains don’t come until the end of October or November, with maybe a random early rain in September. It didn’t come down too hard in Kasane, but apparently there were pretty heavy downpours in Kazungula. It was quite exciting but just a teaser for the rainy season!  Not sure why, but it made it feel more home-y, guess it just reminded me of the humid summers back home. The air feels so much thicker now, I’m sure it’s nothing, but compared to the dryness I’ve become accustomed too, this humidity is suffocating! Even the plants have been fooled, this morning all the trees and bushes had a hopeful green glint and I smelled something blooming. Hopefully it doesn’t throw them off too much, cause I can see how it might be a problem to make everything think that the rainy season is starting when there are really two more months of dry dry heat. We’ll see! Weather everywhere seems to be going crazy….. but needless to say, I’m sure it will dry back up soon enough and we will be back to our hot hot summer!

Punkin

     So I found some pumpkin at Spar (grocery store) last week and since it was so cheap I decided to give it a whirl. I found an idea online of cooking it with tomatoes, onions, and garlic, then adding pasta to make a type of pasta salad. I decided to put a bit of my own spin on it with what I had… figuring out that you really have to work with what you have here because the grocery store will get in shipments of things then run out of it and you never know when there will be more! I realized that I couldn’t even cut into the huge quarter of a pumpkin I had (pretty much the same idea as from home, but green on the outside) so had to boil it down in a huge pot of water. While that was going I decided to cook the tomatoes, broccoli, and chicken in a dish in the oven. I used what little spices I have (garlic, parsley, oregano, salt, pepper…) but it still tasted like something was missing. I cooked some spaghetti (unfortunately the only pasta I had) and finally added the pumpkin. That probably would have tasted better if it had been cooked in the spices as well, but the final product turned out alright, not very pretty, but tasted decent. And now I have heaps of pumpkin mush to use….. I’m thinking pumpkin cookies later this week!

P.S. Puppy had to find another home - apparently rules at Kubu are a bit more strict than I thought! In the end, I think it's for the better, seeing as dogs 1) Cost money I'd rather not spend 2) Bring dirt into my tiny carpeted home without a vacuum and 3) make traveling by bicycle difficult. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Puppy....

   Well it happened. I’ve been saying this whole time how impossible it is to not have a dog here, and one kind of fell into my lap last night. Matt phoned and said he found a puppy in a gutter/drainage ditch in front of the restaurant he works at. He brought it to bible study and I figured that I would bring it to the center so we could get it fixed up. She is an absolute flea-bag, crawling with fleas even after I gave her a bath in special shampoo. Just a mess. But pretty durn cute….

Not sure what will happen yet, I think I will hold on to her for a couple days to get her cleaned up, but I am technically not allowed to have dogs at my home in Kubu. It should be fine while she’s little, but another lady that lives on the property is very protective of the many bushbuck that we have around the lodge, and doesn’t want any other dogs around (it’s especially difficult without a fenced in yard…). So we will see how things turn out. At the very least I have a little puppy to look after for a few days!

Laundry Day

     Today was laundry day. Seeing as I don’t have a washing machine, this means I get to do it by hand! It would be possible for me to pay someone to do it, but I figure I usually have time and I might as well just do it myself. This might change after a little while, but for now, it’s not too bad! The worst part is how dried out my hands get afterwards.

     So, for those not familiar with the process, you put your ‘load’ of clothes into a wash bucket with soap, let them soak for a little while, then scrub them together and dunk them in the rinse bucket, wring them out really well, then hang them on the line. That whole process generally takes two-ish hours depending on much there is. They don’t take long to dry these days because of how dry it is outside, but during the rainy season it will be much harder to get them to dry. Today I had a problem with ants climbing on my line. They are attracted to water during the dry season so proceeded to climb all over my clothes while they were drying. Had to be extra careful to shake them out so I wouldn’t end up with ants in my pants next time I wore them!

    Maybe tmi, but hand washing still reminds me of our trip to Ghana when we had to do laundry by hand while up in the north. Chip helped me since I hadn’t done it before, so he washed and I rinsed. We had combined the small amounts of laundry we both had to do, which happened to include some of my undies. I can’t help but think that someone who is willing to hand-wash your underwear is a keeper! :-P

Stir Fry

   On Monday night (sorry for the late posting...), Carrie came over and we cooked dinner together. There was leftover oriental chicken from Sunday so we warmed that up and stir-fried some veggies and cooked some rice. Luckily very simple, but very delicious!! I’m counting it as a ‘real’ meal. After we ate we watched The Guardian on my makeshift couch/bed I’ve managed to pull together on the floor. Great movie, I highly recommend it. Great food, too! 

Spring is in the Air!

                Well, I think my blog posts are getting fewer as I get into a routine with work (and busier) and get used to life here. Things become slightly less novel, or seem less worth-sharing the longer I’m here, so feel free to ask me to talk about something if you’re interested. Last week I was able to bike in every morning and home almost every afternoon. It is so nice to have a little more independence with transportation, but it also means that people taking me home at night have to haul my bike everywhere too! It gets really frustrating having to be a burden on people with cars, but it is also a good way to get a feel for the challenges that most people that live here face every day, and most don’t even have friends with cars. 

                On Saturday I had the opportunity to house sit for a couple that has a beautiful home on the river. It is by far my favorite house here and I got to spend the afternoon and night there enjoying the beautiful view, internet, and a bit of the Olympics on the cable tv. Oh, and don’t forget the five dogs! It was a nice evening but I’m still debating whether it was worth being woke up every two hours during the night by the dogs. I think I prefer the comfort of my own home, but it was nice to be able to have a video Skype with the better internet connection. Apparently there have also been some break-ins along the river recently and this morning at the center we are dealing with a break-in. Luckily not too much was stolen but it is still quite frustrating as we can’t touch anything until the police can finish the report. It's holding up the ever-growing amounts of lab work we have to get finished before Dr. Alexander and the kids leave on Friday. It will be sad to see them go, I think the center will get much quieter (perhaps boring) in their absence. 

                The weather is turning slightly warmer. Reminds me of spring, although the mornings can still be quite chilly, it gets pretty warm during the day and it is reaching May/June-ish temps from home. I think winter is pretty much over with! These warmer, pretty days just lift your mood so much! Although at the back of my mind, I’m still very excited for the rainy season…..

          Last week we said bye to the sable that had been raised here at the center for the past year and a half or so. The wildlife department came to transport him into the park to be released. Below is a picture of Kennedy with Sabie just before he left. Kennedy is one of the workers that helps to take care of the animals and is responsible for feeding them every day, so he was especially sad to see his friend go. Good luck in the real world, Sabie!

Butternut Squash

    Well this week was a bit pressed for time to make something very fancy for my ‘cooking’ challenge, but I did get to experiment with a butternut squash on Thursday evening! Also known as ‘pumpkin’, it’s a gourd (reminds me of a sweet potato) with pumpkin-looking seeds inside.  I cut it in half, stuck it in the microwave for about ten minutes (?) until it was soft, then I stirred up the squash part and added some veggies, topped it with cheese, then stuck it in the oven for another ten-ish minutes to melt the cheese. I also found some leftover meat from my party last weekend, so I heated that up and put it on top like ground beef. No recipe for this one, but I got the idea from Elise after she brought one to a braai and stuck it on the fire to cook. Turned out great, although it doesn't look very appetizing, but very yummy and filling; would definitely make it again!

Date Night

     Last Sunday, Chip and I had a ‘date night.’ I thought I would share a bit because I’m sure everyone is curious how a halfway-around-the-world distance relationship is working out. Well, it’s certainly not easy, but it is working out pretty well so far. We were able to talk before I left about how we would keep our relationship afloat while living so far away from each other. We agreed that it would be best if we could talk as often as possible, but accepted that this might be less than we wanted due to lack of internet on my end and busy schedules. So far, the majority of our talking has been through typing on Skype around my lunch time (bad internet connection at work prevents quality calls most of the time) and afternoon phone calls. 

     We also came up with the idea of reading a book and talking about it. Last semester we read Boys are Waffles, Girls are Spaghetti and the Five Love Languages together and found that it was really helpful to spark conversation and get a better understanding of each other. Right now we are working on Girl Meets God in our spare time, and talking about it when possible.

     Last Sunday we tried something new: a date night where we designate a night/afternoon to watch the same movie at the same time. Okay, I realize this may sound pretty cheesy, but it was great! He called me at 7pm my time and we started the movie while eating (theoretically) the same food – I ended up eating some leftovers. He called every thirty minutes or so and we would catch up on what was happening and how we liked it so far. It was great to feel like we could almost be together even if not physically in the same room. Unfortunately, this meant that I couldn’t fall asleep halfway through and wake up ten minutes from the end…. My usual movie-watching method. Oh well, worth it, I suppose!

      We are also learning new things every day about ourselves… such as: 

1) Chip should not talk on the phone when sitting down, distracted by something, or attempting to multi-task

2)   Ellen should not talk on the phone after 10pm or while lying in bed or else the conversation may turn to snoring very quickly

3)  We are both much better at expressing feelings by writing it down via e-mails rather than over the phone. 

All-in-all, things are going very well! Thank goodness for technology that allows us to stay in touch so easily. 

Brrrthday

      Well I must say that this has probably been my coldest birthday yet! Although it did warm up quite a bit during the day, this morning was probably at most 40 degrees F…. brrrrr it is winter! But anyways, I had a good day, Megan made a zucchini bread cake that was delicious and I turned zero according to the candle. Went to lunch at Chobe Safari Lodge, a beautiful and reasonably priced lodge right down the street from the center, with Carrie and Bronwen. I had a good old cheeseburger (I watched Supersize Me the other night and it seemed to have the opposite effect of really making me want a burger!) and it was ginormous. I have eaten sooo much over the past weekend!

      The highlight of my day so far has definitely been the package I received from mom and dad! I hadn’t gotten a slip in the mail telling me the package was there, so I decided to go check and make sure and sure enough, it was there! My mother seemed to know everything I wanted: a new sweatshirt (add a little variety to the two I brought), sunglasses (yayyyyyyyyyyy I’ve been complaining quite a bit about the poor selection here after I lost my other pair), a watch (fancier than any other watches I’ve had, still have to figure out how to work it), sticky notes, gum (I’ve been going through withdrawal), and of course sanitizing wipes….. not sure where that came from, but I can definitely use them. Complete with little Styrofoam squares with messages from the fam. Great job mom!

        Then we had a call to help capture a croc out of the sewage ponds at the wastewater treatment plant. Turns out we were just putting the cage out today and they will probably catch it tomorrow, but it was still interesting to see the wastewater treatment plant…. Quite the stench! Pretty reflection of the sunset off the water though…. Just ate a yummy dinner at Maria’s house with Claire and her friend Benjamin that is here visiting/working.  I came down to reception to get the internet to post this and treated myself to buying a new wallet that will actually fit poula and my passport in it (your passport is basically your ID for any foreigner here, must carry it at all times). It’s been a wonderful day, many thanks to all!

Housewarming

Last night I had a housewarming/birthday party to break in the new living establishment! I invited several of the wonderful people I have met here so far and we had a bring-and-braai. This basically means that I’ll provide the fire and everyone will bring their own food to cook and drinks. I made brownies (for some reason they flopped this time, I think too much cocoa powder – really need to get those measuring cups!!), oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies, crackers and cheese, and a pasta salad and several other people also brought food to share. It turned out great! The best part was that I figured out that I can make a fire right in my own front yard – about fifteen feet from the house. And you know what that means…. S’mores anytime I want!! I made this American delicacy for a few last night but on the whole everyone seemed too stuffed from the food to try one. Unfortunately graham crackers don’t really exist here but there is a very plain cookie called a Digestive (sounds appetizing, huh?) that is pretty similar and definitely a good substitute. I got a couple lovely housewarming/birthday gifts – people obviously know me well already because I got cupcakes, cookies, and chocolates!! In addition to some awesome lotion, a shoulder bag with a giraffe on it, a basket thing, a couple plates, and some spices to start me off.  It was a wonderful party and I truly enjoyed the company, food, and playing Catch Phrase with all of the friends I have met here so far!

Christmas in July!

Yesterday was my Christmas in July! The Honey’s had taken a trip down to Gaborone, the capital about ten hours south of here. They also happen to have a much better shopping selection, so they kindly asked if I needed anything. Yes!! There is a refurbished bike shop that they had gotten bikes from before, so I called the owner up and asked if he could send a bike home with the Honeys for me. On Friday I got a call that they were there picking it out and he seemed to have a good idea of one that would work for me – I didn’t turn it down! It ended up costing about 200 dollars (1,630 pula). I would say that is worth it for a year of transportation and exercise!

Also brought back for me was a small oven with three burner plates on top – will be perfect for my new cooking endeavors! They also got me a water filter which will be a lovely alternative to boiling all of my water. Yay! Thank you Santa Keith!

Cooking

    One of my new goals while I am here is to cook something new each week. I’ve always been a ‘simple’ cook and actually followed in the footsteps of my mom in being more inclined towards baking. But, with a bit more time on my hands and luckily a pretty well-stocked grocery store, I’m hoping to experiment with my culinary side a bit more and start a collection of some good recipes. On that note, if you have any suggestions, shoot me an e-mail with your favorite meals!

    First up: apple turnovers! Okay, I know this may be considered a dessert, but I made them for the special occasion of breakfast in the park on yet another Monday holiday off from work. This time I went in with Rob, Elise, and Maria bright and early this morning around 6am before the sun was even up. Unfortunately we didn’t see many animals, but the apple things were great!

Fishing!

     On Sunday I got to go fishing on the river with Rodney, Carrie, Elise, and Rob. Rodney is starting a fishing safari business in Kasane and offered to take us out on his boat Sunday afternoon. We had a great time just relaxing, cruising on the river, and fishing. Amazingly enough, this is the first time I have ever fished! It’s not quite as complicated as I thought it would be but unfortunately I didn’t catch anything. Carrie, however, caught a 15 lbs-ish catfish as the sun was setting! Apparently the catfish is not very tasty here (maybe they just don’t know how to prepare it correctly….), but it reminded me of the awesome catfish Uncle Tommy used to make. Luckily I’m not a huge seafood person, because that is one thing you don’t find a lot of here. The fish from the river are generally not the safest fish to eat because of the poor water quality. Not too huge of a loss for me as I’ve never been a huge seafood person except crabs. Anyways, I’ve always said I could never fish because I don’t have enough patience, and I think that’s pretty true. I went at it for probably 20-30 minutes, but after not catching anything, it gets pretty discouraging. Maybe I’ll give it another go eventually, but I’m content for now! 

House Pets

     Moving into a new house also means acquiring some new ‘pets’. First, we have the hundreds of adorable little tiny ants that seem to be particularly interested in my toilet and bowls of water sitting on the counter….

     Next we have the salamander/gecko (I should probably know exactly what he is but I’ve never been the herpetology expert) that lives in my bathroom. I named him Johnny and decided to keep him around after he refused to go into the lovely Tupperware container I was going to use to put him outside….

These next guys almost got evicted last night because around 4am there was an extremely loud and annoying chirping noise coming from the window by my bed that they have been chilling in for the past few days. Upon opening the window to kick them out, however, I realized it was coming from outside so I left them alone, turned out the light, put my earplugs in and went back to sleep. 

     Finally, we have Arnold the wall spider that keeps me company in the kitchen/living room. He likes the corner under the window and will gladly eat any mosquitos that roam his way, so I keep him around in addition to the many other spiders that seem to enjoy the miscellaneous corners of every room. I decided that I definitely preferred spiders to mosquitos so I’m hoping they will hold up their end of the deal!

     This house came with significantly more mosquitos because it is closer to the river, so I hung my mosquito net and have found it fairly malfunctional, especially when they get trapped under the net with you at night! That little buzzing in your ear while you try to go to sleep is not pleasant. I need to work on rigging up a bit better of one before the rainy season hits. But overall, who needs a dog when you’ve got all these lovely critters to keep you company?!  :-P  Welcome to Africa, my friends. 

Wildlife Weekend

     First off, happy Independence day, Americans! Not too much going on here, but I believe there will be a celebration this weekend with some fellow local United States-ians. On the other hand, July 1^st was a public holiday here apparently the equivalent of President’s day, so we had Monday off work. We took this opportunity to spend the day in the park. Claire’s mom is visiting so she came with Claire, Kristen, Megan, and I to see what we could see! We went early in the morning and got to see two male juvenile lions within the first hour or so. Also saw tons of impala, giraffe, elephants, buffalo, hippos, crocs, and the usual variety of birds! We came out and made lunch at the guest house where Claire’s mom is staying, then went back in the afternoon to catch the sunset. It was beautiful! Unfortunately my camera died halfway through the day, so I didn’t get to take a ton of pictures, but I did get some pretty good ones!

    Rewind to Saturday. We went to a nearby farming village called Pandamatenga for an Agricultural show they were having there. There were lots of tractors, food, and a craft tent geared towards the local farmers. I bought a new ‘mobile’ with colorful beads that reflect sunlight to decorate my new home! (Okay, it might be a little eclectic, but it was one of those things I just had to buy) We stayed for a while and ended up driving home in the dark, leading us to many more animal encounters!! We saw lots of dikers (sp?), and other types of antelope I can’t remember, a hyena, side-striped jackal, cervil, and best of all, a leopard ran across our path!! It was really neat and unexpected so unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures, but it was still great! So that was my very wildlife-filled weekend! Check facebook for more pictures from the park. 

New Abode!

     It’s official! I moved in to my new ‘cottage’ today at Kubu lodge thanks to some amazing and generous people. Heather is a deacon in the church that offered me anything I needed out of a guest room that she isn’t using – including a fridge, nightstand with mirror, laundry basket, microwave, some cutlery, bowls, cooking dishes, comfy chairs that fold out into beds, and a recliner chair. Oh and this awesome electric mixer/blender/chopper thing that will be very useful for cooking! The Honeys helped me load all of this into their huge F-350 truck and take it to the new place. I was truly blessed today by people that have been more than willing to give me time and stuff even though they have only known me for a month! I was overwhelmed with their hospitality. So excited to get everything unpacked and settled in the new place, will post inside pictures soon.  : )  

An extra plus: a short, safe walk to free wireless internet!!!

Potjie

Mark keeping watch over our potjie on the coals

     On Saturday we had a potjie competition (pronounced poy-key). A potjie is basically a crock pot meal cooked over a fire in a short three-legged pot. You can put anything you want in it but it generally has meat, potatoes, and vegetables in some sort of sauce-y broth. There is an annual competition in honor of someone’s birthday and this year there were seven teams competing to win based on the taste of the food and the theme and decorations of your potjie station. It was kind of like a tailgate with the cars in a type of circle and set up in the same area on the Seep, an open park-like area along the river. The CARACAL team procrastinated big time in figuring out details and finally decided on Friday evening to go with a ‘Biohazard’ theme. We wore masks, gloves, and labeled everything with biohazard signs. It turned out to be a bit weak, and we spent most of our time that night at other peoples stations, taking a nursery rhyme quiz, getting married in Las Vegas (including traditional-style weddings…with two wives), and jamming out in the Mexican cantina. They were all pretty good themes!

Our lovely CARACAL team!

     Our potjie was a curry and you make something called pap to go with it. Pap is a sort of flour thing that you just add to water and it turns into a tasteless side to go with the food. It ended up tasting like mashed potatoes and gravy to me, but was really good! It is an interesting idea because you just throw everything in the pot and let it cook for hours then add some seasoning and it’s good to go! We ended up taking away fourth place in the competition and first place on the nursery rhyme quiz (apparently we have some nursery rhyme enthusiasts on our team!). It was lots of fun for a Saturday night!

Staring

    On Saturday I was able to hitch a ride into town and go to choir practice at the church. Afterwards I got to play on the keyboard a bit with the one book I brought with me just in case there was a piano! Unfortunately, there was no pedal to be found and the book I brought really kind of requires a pedal, but it was great to play around anyways! Afterwards I walked around town a bit more to look for a nice-ish jacket and some closed toed shoes for church. Although I didn’t get either of those, I bought a watch from one of the street vendors. My watch (may it rest in peace) died that morning and I can’t live without a watch! They’re a bit difficult to find, but I managed to get one that’s functional for now, but isn’t exactly the most aesthetically pleasing.

   I met up with Lipa in town and we took a combi (a bus type thing, essentially a van, that travels between the towns. I keep wanting to call it a tro tro because that’s what they are in Ghana!) back to Kazungula so that he would have transportation to the poitjie competition that evening (more on that later). As we were walking from the combi stop to the house, Lipa exclaimed ‘Everyone’s staring at us!’ He then decided that he was never going to walk anywhere with me again! Well, I guess it’s just become the norm for me. As one of not-too-many white people walking around here, it’s not uncommon to be stared at, called to, or hear choruses of ‘lakgua!’ (white person) shouted by the children. Lipa isn’t quite as used to sticking out in the crowd so much! Hopefully as people around here get used to seeing me around, the stares will be less frequent, but I hardly notice anymore. My favorite interaction so far was while I was running up a hill in the neighborhood one afternoon, a van drove up from behind me and a man leans out and yells ‘keep it up!’ What a nice little encouragement from a neighbor : ) 

Work... ?

   I really haven’t written much about work here, and I suppose it’s as good a time as any. Even though it doesn’t always feel like ‘work’, I suppose that’s what it is! So far I have been mostly helping with two of the projects that students are working on, and preparing lessons for the school program on the side.

    In July I will be re-starting up the Library Club, an outreach where Lipa and I will go to the Kasane Library and meet with Primary School-age children to teach them how to use the books, computers, and just to read with them. The schools have a vacation for all of July, so that is why I haven’t been working at the schools since I’ve been here (they had exams during June). But it is the perfect time to hold this ‘club’ because usually the kids are busy almost every afternoon of the week! I am looking forward to starting to interact with the kids as it will help me to plan a bit better for when the ‘Conservation Club’ starts up in August at the schools.

    In the meantime, I have helped with various things around the center. I’d say the largest project right now (one that we have the NSF grant for) is studying the water quality of the Chobe River. This is a huge project studying the effect of waste on the river and the further incidence of diarrhea outbreaks as a result of the water quality. The hospital has been helping to collect data from the diarrhea patients, so we have been attempting to resolve some issues that arose from those surveys and process that data (much more time consuming than it may seem…..) to see if the source of people’s water is correlated with incidences of diarrhea. We also go out on the river once every two weeks to collect water samples at certain transects along a large portion of the river. They do fecal counts on the banks of the river along these same transects to look at the amount of feces from animals and humans that may be flowing into the river. Megan is working on mapping the river using ArcGIS right now. I have been helping with processing the water samples to culture E.Coli, which is used as an indicator of the amount of bacteria in the water. There are hundreds of samples so it takes a lot of time to keep up with them! Rob does a great job of knowing when and what has to be done at all times.

     The other main project going on is with the Banded Mongoose. This is an ongoing study that Claire has now taken over for her Post-Doc project. They are looking at the incidence of Tuberculosis in banded mongoose and the impact of aggression on the spread of TB among the mongooses. She goes every morning to observe one of the many troops of mongoose in the area, and takes notes on their behaviors. This is something I will be helping with in the future, especially once she returns to the states around August. TB is a very mysterious disease and not much research has been done on it, especially of its prevalence among mongoose.

     One part of a different study requires us to collect kidneys from any animal possible (yes, it is acceptable to pick up roadkill) to test for Leptospirosis. We have performed several necropsy’s (dissections) to collect the organs and test them. It is really interesting to watch these and learn the anatomy of different animals. Well that’s a bit of an idea of what goes on around the center, along with lots of other things I won’t go into now! It’s been a lot of fun so far, and should only get better as I start working with the kids more. 

On the Border

Standing in two countries at the same time! Botswana and Zimbabwe border.

Sunsets and Stars

Two things I will never ever get tired of here: the sunsets and the stars. AMAZING. Every time you see them you just have to stop and appreciate the amazing beauty of the Earth (boy, I feel like I’m getting a little too poetic…). ‘Winter’ in Botswana has turned out to be basically perfect weather all the time! And there’s 0% chance of rain so you don’t have to worry about camping trips, fires, or stargazing getting  rained or clouded out. It gets a bit chilly at night, I think the coldest night so far was 4 C, prob 40ish F, so it definitely calls for wool socks or an extra blanket. I am realizing that I definitely did NOT pack correctly for African winters… the general thought process is that Africa is warm everywhere all the time. False. It gets cold! Living off of three sweatshirts, two pairs of jeans, and tennis shoes is definitely doable, but I’m having trouble coming up with church clothes because I only brought skirts and flip flops! Poor planning Ellen…..

    Anyways. Saturday night a group of us went to Lesoma Valley, an area about 30 minutes away with a bit of open space right on the Zimbabwe border where we could play Frisbee, soccer (football), croquet (had to dodge all the elephant poo) and best of all, fly a kite! We had a great time with our games, then as the sun set we built a fire to cook dinner, marshmallows (unfortunately haven’t gotten to do s’mores yet… no graham crackers here, really) and then the best part…. STARS!!! I have never seen this many stars in my life. It was amazing, you could see the milky way and I think just about every single star possible, including all the current southern hemisphere constellations (although they were kind of hard to make out with so many in the background). There’s something about looking up at the sky full of so many stars that just makes you feel so small in the big scheme of things. It is something I would say that everyone has to experience at least once in their life!  No better place than Africa…. Now who’s planning a visit?!