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!