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?!

Divided

    Something I have been a bit surprised by here is how incredibly segregated this area seems to be. I think it is simply a result of the different cultures and overall lifestyle differences. I have met a lot of the local white community, who seem closely bonded, and a few from the local black community, but in general, things seem to stay pretty separate. The white people mostly own safari companies or lodges, are peace corp volunteers, or missionaries. Everyone I’ve met has been very nice so far, but it amazes me how we find comfort with people of our own color. I’ll admit that it is nice to know other ‘white-culture’ people, but I would also love to get to know other people in town. Granted, I’m not the most outgoing person, and although everyone is pretty friendly, lots of times white people are viewed as tourists or rich people in town, so you have to break that barrier. Seems to me that just being friendly does the trick! I think it will also become easier as I have more interaction with the kids and hopefully people in town when I get to spend more time there.

    It just so happens that the theme for d365 this week is ‘Divided?’ and I love the verse for today:

      "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

     For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:1

Housing

      I found out yesterday that they have found housing for me at one of the lodges in Kazungula called Kubu (hippo), which is across the street from where I’m living now. I’m really excited about it! It is a little house with a kitchen/living space, a bedroom, and bathroom. It is on the lodge grounds so there is a gate and ‘guard’ there pretty much all the time, and Maria (vet at center) will be my next door neighbor so we can carpool to work. I am able to stay there the whole year so I can settle in, which will be nice so I don’t have to move around. I should have access to internet, at least near the office, and, best of all, there are horses literally right out my door!! That was one thing I was expecting to have to live without for the year, but it turns out I will be able to at least see them and spend time with them (one is lame and one is young and needs some training, but maybe I’ll get to ride him by the time I leave). Sounds perfect, right? Well, the only problem is that it comes with no furnishings. As in none. I will have to scrounge for a fridge, stove, bed, chairs, table…. Pretty much everything. We are hoping to ask around and find most things, but may have to sacrifice some money for comfort. I’ll be sad to leave my awesomeeee roommates (no I didn’t only say that cause I know they’re reading this :-P) because it is really nice to have company at home! But I think it will be a good transition to living on my own once they’re gone. I’m aiming to move at the end of the month as long as we find all the furnishings by then. 

Time Flies....

     After a little prompting from an e-mail from mom, I am finally getting around to write another post so that everyone knows I’m still alive! All I can say is my how time flies! I can’t believe it has already been two weeks. Last week flew by and after an awesome weekend, I have a lot to update on but don’t want to be too boring with just the blow by blow (Lipa, one of my co-volunteers, is critique-ing my blog now so apparently I have to make it funny!). But I’m not really a funny person… so I’ll just hit the highlights of the last week for now!

     On Wednesday we got to go out on the river to do water sampling. We took the Vandewalle’s boat out and collected water and took measurements at certain points on the river. It is a very nice river, not huge, but definitely a good size. Water looks pretty nasty, though, can't see more than a foot below the surface. It is the border between Botswana and Namibia so we stayed on the Botswana side and went up to about where town was then went back – it was great to be on a boat! I don’t think there will be any water skiing…. But good enough just to be out there! We saw some crocs and there were hippos in the distance but I didn’t see them. I learned that you have to be careful of the crocs and hippos because they will go under the water to sneak up on you, but you can usually see the ripples of water where they are moving so you can tell whether they’re coming towards you! 

      Thursday I had my first attempt at making cookies – it went pretty well but needed to use more baking soda cause they flattened out too much. Also got a phone call from Chip in the afternoon and it was a wonderful surprise!  I discovered that it doesn’t cost me anything if people call my phone, but the person calling has to pay whatever the international fees are….

       On Friday evening we went to Senyati, a bar about 20 minutes out of town near a watering hole where elephants gather every evening. They are super close so you can really get a feel for how big they are – HUGE. There were some young ones as well, so they were very adorable. After that I headed home and read my book (on to the third Hunger Games book!)

     Saturday morning I went for a walk with Kristen and Megan to explore the neighborhood. Found that it will be a good place to run – should be safe from wildlife and people during the day. Then we went through town and I explored a bit on my own to get a feeling for where everything is. That night we went to a big house party (it was a braai = bbq or cookout) had fun eating and sitting by the fire! 

     Sunday I got up early and walked over to the Honey’s house (they are a missionary family that lives just down the street) to get a ride to church at 8:30. We went to a small Baptist church where Mr. Honey preached and we had communion. It was very cute, pretty traditional songs, I knew a few of the hymns, but will have to learn a few! After church we went to tea at one of the women’s houses, then we went back to their house for lunch (yumm a home-cooked meal), croquet, and playing Dutch Blitz, a card game that I am amazed they actually knew of! I hung around and watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 days that evening as well. It was a wonderful, relaxing day with some wonderful new friends! I commented in the evening how I suddenly just got the feeling that I had homework I should be doing – I guess I’m still getting used to being out of school!

    Okay, to shorten up, I made brownies last night that were a success – yay!! Finally I’ve found a way to satiate my chocolate sweet tooth. I finally found a store that sold baking pans so I got a 9x13ish pan and cookie sheet for future use. Will have to update more later on work and living! I will try to start to make these less journal-y and more interesting!

Crocs

    We made a stop by the Croc Farm in Kazungula today because they had a dead crocodile that they needed help pulling out of one of the ponds. We went after they had already gotten it out, but Maria was going to attempt to collect its kidney’s for one of the experiments going on at the center. After several attempts to get into the stomach area, they gave up because they didn’t have the right tools to get through the ribs to the kidneys. Meanwhile, we explored the farm and got a look at the largest crocodile there – big Mike, I think was his name. He was HUGE!!! Picture below with him in the background. It was amazing looking at all of the crocodiles – there were tons at this place. They were all so lazy, though. Only saw a couple moving the entire time we were there. A man who works there took us up close to a couple and other than the huge one groaning at us a few times, it seemed like we could definitely dodge out of the way before they got to us! However, I have a feeling that these thoughts may be misguided because I’ve never actually seen one strike in real life. I think they can probably move quite fast when they want to. Our theory is that they store up all their energy for those few short bursts to get food (and attack people).

     There was one in the water that was entertaining us, going under then appearing five feet closer to us without any warning. It was fun to predict where he would come up next but amazing to realize that it really is nearly impossible to see them when they are moving underneath the algae-y surface of the water! This definitely reinforced my hesitancy of swimming in the Chobe River, which is croc and hippo infested. Apparently they can jump up into boats to snatch people as well…. Oh the wildlife dangers you encounter here! I’m just glad they were behind concrete walls today….

Water

      Oh how much we take advantage of water! Brushing your teeth, washing your face, having a sip of water out of the tap, flushing the toilet, washing the dishes, taking a shower. All things that you learn how valuable they are once you don’t have water! Here in Kazungula, we seem to be the first ones to loose water and the last ones to get it back. We have had water maybe four out of the seven nights that we’ve been here. It will come on for either a short period of time or sometimes, if we’re lucky, continue through the morning! It is quite difficult to keep things clean (dishes, hands) without water! We are mostly buying water from the store to drink, and sometimes boiling water from the tap for ten minutes, but that doesn’t tend to taste as good. Another one I didn’t think about yet was washing clothes. Will have to do that soon as I am running low!

Weekend in the Bush

      This weekend I went on a camping trip into Chobe National Park. It was organized by Birdlife (groups camping in the park can’t be just individual, they must be part of an organization), and was meant to be a bird count. There were about twenty of us that went out into the ‘bush’, driving almost four hours on Saturday to reach our campsite. It was near a water hole that was having water pumped into it to attract animals during the dry season, but the animals must have missed the memo! We saw barely any wildlife on the way out, but got to see some pretty neat birds. There were a lot of Red-Billed Hornbills (Zazu’s!), and we learned many of the common birds around here. It’s pretty funny (kind of sad…) how I started to relate everything back to Lion King! A bird made the same sound as a zebra and I was like that sounds like a zebra! Then realized that was entirely based off of Lion King. Made me want to watch that movie!

     Me, Kristen, Megan, and Nikki stayed in a heavy canvas tent that was loaned to us. It kept most of our body heat in for the night, which was good because it got pretty cold. Thanks to my sleeping bag (and Laura for giving it to me!) I stayed very cozy the whole night. I was mostly afraid I would have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It is quite dangerous to walk to a tree in the middle of the night just because of all of the various animals that could be passing through and hiding behind the nearest bush! But, luckily I made it through the whole night without getting eaten by a lion (but I did hear some roaring in the distance).

    The next morning I woke up in time to see the sunrise. Sunsets and sunrises are the one thing my old camera did better than the new one, or I just haven’t figured out the right settings yet. But they are simply beautiful rising over the flat horizon. We had tea and toast then packed up and drove for a few hours into the bush to a hideout where we made egg and bacon sandwiches. The people we were with were very experienced campers and knew all the ins and outs and had all the right equipment. On the way in and out we saw a lone giraffe in the distance, some zebras, and lots of elephants. My favorite landscape was towards the end when it was grasslands with older, bigger trees interspersed throughout.

     Everything is extremely dry right now, it is winter here so it gets into 30/40’s at night and I’d say the 70’s during the day. It’s a bit strange because I keep expecting it to get warmer, but it’s not! It is just beautiful spring weather during the day, and very dry. I think my nose may finally be starting to adjust, it isn’t quite as painful as the first couple days we were here. Otherwise, everything is going wonderfully, we should be getting to work today and meeting to sort out what I need to start working on for the school program.