Sunday morning couldn’t have come earlier. This was my final day in Botswana. My final day in Africa. The end.
It was an early morning drive back to Gabarone. I spent the afternoon at the southern African director of WUSC’s house. I took a shower and cleaned off all of the sand and dirt that I have grown accustom to. Cleaned and fed, the long flights home began: Gabarone to Johannesburg, Johannesburg to London, London to Toronto.
It feels as if I am leaving an entire life behind.
I know that their isn’t a single person back home that will truly understand my experience, but I take solace the fact that I know there will be many people that can appreciate where I am coming from. Botswana has given me the opportunity to look into different parts of myself. It has given me the chance to see my life in a different light and context than ever before.
Quoting one of my favourite musicals: 87 days. 2,088 hours. But most importantly 125,280 minutes. Some minutes better than others, but each one an important piece that has shaped my summer and who I am today. Not quite a year, but more experiences that I could have expected, more lessons that I could have learned, just more. I do not truly appreciate if I have changed, if at all, and if so how, but I know that I wouldn’t have traded these past experiences for anything.
A small part of my heart will always stay in Botswana.
It isn’t about being ‘incomplete’. It is more about spreading my roots, reaching out to other countries, to other cultures to other people.
There is no time that I can remember recently being so close to tears.
There is no time that so little has made sense in my life.
No time that I have had so many questions and never had the answers.
No time I have felt so out of control.
No time like this.
No time.
Home is a bright light at the end of the tunnel; a hopeful and happy place that I have missed and cherished while away. I am looking forward to being back to returning to my home, to my family, to my friends, to the life that I have spent so long working on. This is me. This is who I am and I will make the changes that I need to accommodate for the new me and all of my lessons and experiences of the summer.
No tears.
No regrets.
Only fond memories.
Only new opportunities.
The end of a chapter.
The start of another.
Thank-you.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Blog #58 – San Dance Festival
My time in Maun is finished. It is an odd feeling to have left Maun and instead of heading home, I am here in Gabarone. Gabs is the capital here in Bots, and that definitely has brought about a huge difference between the rural northern village of Maun and this very developed and amenity-based city.
It is as if my trip and Student Without Borders experience is coming full circle. After finishing my field course, I began here in Gabs with my training and in-country orientation. I would be spending my final Thursday back in the WUSC office going through some post-program debriefing and speaking with two other SWB students about their experiences.
The day went by quickly and it was really enjoyable to sit down with some of the local Batswana WUSC staff and the other students to talk about our experience and thoughts on the program, our placements, the people, the culture and the country. What I found most interesting were the similarities and agreements that we had on the unique cultural experiences and observations. Even though we were all placed in different parts of the country, doing very different work, all of us students had experienced similar interactions and relations with the local people.
However, regardless of our agreements, what was most shocking to me was how unique my experience seemed to be. I was the only one that had stayed with a local family (which is apparently quite rare), while the others had stayed in homes by themselves or with other ex-pat volunteers. It also seems that I was one of the few people that have developed some close friendships with the local people outside of my work. Most people enjoyed and were friends with those in their placement, but rarely knew or interacted with people outside of that experience in a meaningful way. It makes me treasure the friendships of Kenny, Alex, Hauona, Warren, Fred, Virginia, Vincent, and Marie all the more. This difference in experience, which may seem minimal, has actually had a profound impact on my interpretation and understanding of Botswana and its people. I have grown really close to my family and friends. It is nice to know that I have made some lasting relationships and if we ever come close to each other’s home (or countries) in the future, we will certainly be making contact!
There were going to be two vehicles and eleven WUSC affiliates attending the Kuru Dance Festival (of the San) in Ghanzi, Botswana. After all of the day’s activities, we purchased groceries and packed for the trip. It was going to be a seven to eight hour drive from Gabs to Ghanzi and an early start tomorrow morning.
At the crack of dawn we got up and loaded our bags into the car. I would be returning directly from Ghanzi to the Gabs airport to start my journey home, but before I got my mind to thinking about that I had the next two days of an amazingly unique cultural experience.
We arrived to Ghanzi just after lunchtime and spent the afternoon meeting Kevin, a long-term WUSC volunteer working with San Arts & Crafts, who showed us his office and explained the work they did. His organization is a member of the Kuru family, which I will talk a little bit more about later, and purchase cultural craft items from many different local San communities and provide wholesale services to the rest of the country and beyond. All of the funds and monies raised go to support the work of Kuru and the improvement of San culture and livelihood.
After picking up Kevin we settled in Ghanzi Trailblazers, a traditional accommodation in the rural bush outside of Ghanzi. I was SO STOKED! Some of my friends had stayed here back in early June and I was really excited to go here. The accommodations are traditional grass huts – made purely of grass and sticks, seriously!
We unpacked and settled in to our places. Next, we jumped into Kevin’s truck and he took us out to a local quarry. One of the prominent businessmen of Ghanzi owned a brick quarry that he used to extract stone and make bricks. He had hit water one day and the quarry had flooded making a very large and rare swimming pool! This was the first time that I had the opportunity to swim since Namibia and there was no way that I was going to be passing that up! The water was definitely cold, but it felt so good to be able to jump off the quarry edges into the refreshing pool – even though it was laced with interesting creatures including dung beetles! After swimming for a little bit and cooling my blood right down we headed back to Trailblazers and packed into our vehicles to go the Festival of the San.
The Festival of the San has been organized and held by the Kuru organization for over a decade. Kuru is a development trust NGO that works to promote and preserve the San culture – an amazingly difficult challenge. ‘San’ actually translates to mean ‘people’, and I still laugh whenever I catch myself saying the San people! The San, which have also been referred to as the Bushmen (due to living in the bush of southern Africa), are one of the oldest indigenous groups on our planet – second oldest if I remember correctly. They are our ancestors and have lived and hunted in the deserts and bush of southern Africa for a very long time. A people of no specific country, with tribes in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and a few other places, they have been at the unfortunate receiving end of government policies and practices that haven’t always been beneficial. They were moved out of their natural homes due to the development of national game reserves. HIV and AIDS have brutally ravaged their population. They are widely misunderstood and poorly respected indigenous people. They represent our past and heritage, yet their future survival is bleaker than you could imagine. Enough talk about that though – you can ask and engage me in a chat about it anytime once I am back :)
The Festival of the San is an annual event that takes place in mid-August during the weekend of the full moon. It is held in a small town called D’kar, just thirty kilometers northwest of Ghanzi. The actual site is a game park and it is quite rural, remote and unpopulated. This year close to 50 different groups traveled from as far as Namibia and South Africa to participate in the festival. No buses, no trains, no planes. These people walked, what must have been weeks, to come to D’kar – simply amazing. This year’s theme was “Proud to be a San” and showcased dances and games from all of the different tribes that came in.
The first night of the festival was as picturesque as it could have been. From what I heard there would be close to a thousand San present and another thousand visitors. Those numbers shocked me, but luckily it never seemed like there was that many people there. The set-up was surprising quite Roman; there was a large firepit in the centre of a sloped circular stadium seating arrangement. Instead of being carved out of stone, the seats were made out of packed sand, wooden logs and corrugated aluminum. The dancing began once it was dark and the San would come in and out of the presentation circle dancing in front and around the fire. Don’t get the picture of them as savages or wild bushmen – they are far from it.
All of the dancing is done to rhythmic clapping and harmonized singing – while I never had a single idea what they were singing about, it was unbelievably moving. The traditional dress includes various undergarments, aprons and beadwork all made out of animal or plant products found in the bush. The women are traditionally topless, but some had added covers, and the men really only wore a pair of animal skin underwear – which was astounding considering it was still quite cold at night. During this first evening there really wasn’t any young children dancing – which was sad because they are my favourite – but that might have been accounted for due to the late hours that they were dancing. It wasn’t particularly easy to see in the sole light of the fire, but it was quite captivating to just sit and watch these people perform.
I sat there for many hours completely enthralled with what I was witnessing and mesmerized by the sheer amazement of what was happening – a culture that goes back tens of thousands of years, of a people that had walked across the Kalahari desert to dance and reunite with other San groups, speaking a language few knew and a culture that was quickly dying in the face of modern development. It was right here, not more than twenty feet from where I sat. Easily in a few decades, this could all be gone, unless something is done to help these people. They are one quite commonly referred to and mentioned over my time in Botswana, but people that are rarely seen or considered important – they are not the focus or worry of the common person. Sadly.
Saturday was quite similar to Friday night, except today is was broad daylight. We got up relatively early and headed back out into the D’kar bush. I couldn’t have been more excited when we arrived as they were just starting for the day and the first group of performers was entering the stage. The first three groups were all children’s groups and it is not only amazing to see them dance because of their skills, but you can see on their faces their enjoyment and attitude toward dancing, their pride in their culture. These kids are the future; they are the only hope for these people. Their success will make or break the fate of the San.
Following the children was a very LONG and formal introduction and speak by the Botswana Minister of Agriculture and something something. Normally I would have remembered, but I was blown away by the situation. There were several government officials that were present all dressed in suits and ties, who standing next to the nearly naked San people just reeked of corporate politics and business. They all sat in high-backed padded chairs in front of the stage, a place of comfort and hierarchical power next to the squatting San in the dust and sand. I couldn’t believe the way that they talked so dispassionately about the cultural preservation and wellbeing of these people. The way that they plugged current government programs and initiatives and the very long prayer that followed which seemed just out of place. It was a perfect reminder of the divide in class and ‘importance’ that is so prevalently sought-after and then reinforced, just like today. That is all sad talk though and there was so much good and happiness in the day!
We sat and walked for nearly four hours straight all kinds of different dances and presentations by the San people. Regardless of the amount of time here, my skin stills burns with that amount of direct sunlight, but it was totally worth it. For one of my final lunches in Bots I was glad to be able to get the traditional meal – papa and seswaa followed by some fresh, sweet and greasy mogunas! I picked up a few different cultural craft items that were on display from different artists and then headed back for some more dancing in the afternoon. Some of the interesting observations that I made throughout the time about the dancing include:
-the role of women varied quite prominently between different tribes sometimes strictly dancing, but most commonly the ones who set the rhythm and sang while being danced to
-the number of women hugely outnumbered the men, with some groups having only a single San man
-the age demographics were quite skewed and almost bimodal, with a much larger proportion of older San and quite young children, but nearly no people of reproductive age (the result of HIV ravaging these communities)
-the different tribes interacted quite nicely, with other tribes’ members often jumping in to join in different dances
-sometimes the women and men also wore traditional undergarments with ‘developed’ underwear (bras, briefs, etc.) It seemed that the crowd would react quite loudly to the women who showed their nipples and breasts, which would often come out with some of the dancing and shaking movements of their presenations.
-the San idea of body image seemed much healthily than anything back home, or even here, but was definitely in the critical spotlight as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘primitive’ by many of the people watching (as was observed through their verbal reactions to different situations)
-there is a huge value for family. The host of the festival, a relatively local elder San women just radiated with pride and love for her tribe, sisters and grandchildren that performed a dance.
-I will cherish and appreciate this experience and all of the observations and
Once the afternoon’s activities had mainly finished we headed back to Trailblazers to spend the rest of the time relaxing by the fireside drinking and snacking. We had some interesting discussions with the other WUSC people about the weekend’s events, their summer experiences and all things foreign aid and politics related. We had our meal prepared at the campsite and spent the night keeping warm by the fire. As people slowly drifted off to bed, saying their final farewells – for we had many different people departing at different time – I crawled into my sleeping bag and quickly tucked all of the edges and open parts under my body. It was a cold night, but I was filled with the warmth of satisfaction reserved only for the rarest of occasions.
It is as if my trip and Student Without Borders experience is coming full circle. After finishing my field course, I began here in Gabs with my training and in-country orientation. I would be spending my final Thursday back in the WUSC office going through some post-program debriefing and speaking with two other SWB students about their experiences.
The day went by quickly and it was really enjoyable to sit down with some of the local Batswana WUSC staff and the other students to talk about our experience and thoughts on the program, our placements, the people, the culture and the country. What I found most interesting were the similarities and agreements that we had on the unique cultural experiences and observations. Even though we were all placed in different parts of the country, doing very different work, all of us students had experienced similar interactions and relations with the local people.
However, regardless of our agreements, what was most shocking to me was how unique my experience seemed to be. I was the only one that had stayed with a local family (which is apparently quite rare), while the others had stayed in homes by themselves or with other ex-pat volunteers. It also seems that I was one of the few people that have developed some close friendships with the local people outside of my work. Most people enjoyed and were friends with those in their placement, but rarely knew or interacted with people outside of that experience in a meaningful way. It makes me treasure the friendships of Kenny, Alex, Hauona, Warren, Fred, Virginia, Vincent, and Marie all the more. This difference in experience, which may seem minimal, has actually had a profound impact on my interpretation and understanding of Botswana and its people. I have grown really close to my family and friends. It is nice to know that I have made some lasting relationships and if we ever come close to each other’s home (or countries) in the future, we will certainly be making contact!
There were going to be two vehicles and eleven WUSC affiliates attending the Kuru Dance Festival (of the San) in Ghanzi, Botswana. After all of the day’s activities, we purchased groceries and packed for the trip. It was going to be a seven to eight hour drive from Gabs to Ghanzi and an early start tomorrow morning.
At the crack of dawn we got up and loaded our bags into the car. I would be returning directly from Ghanzi to the Gabs airport to start my journey home, but before I got my mind to thinking about that I had the next two days of an amazingly unique cultural experience.
We arrived to Ghanzi just after lunchtime and spent the afternoon meeting Kevin, a long-term WUSC volunteer working with San Arts & Crafts, who showed us his office and explained the work they did. His organization is a member of the Kuru family, which I will talk a little bit more about later, and purchase cultural craft items from many different local San communities and provide wholesale services to the rest of the country and beyond. All of the funds and monies raised go to support the work of Kuru and the improvement of San culture and livelihood.
After picking up Kevin we settled in Ghanzi Trailblazers, a traditional accommodation in the rural bush outside of Ghanzi. I was SO STOKED! Some of my friends had stayed here back in early June and I was really excited to go here. The accommodations are traditional grass huts – made purely of grass and sticks, seriously!
We unpacked and settled in to our places. Next, we jumped into Kevin’s truck and he took us out to a local quarry. One of the prominent businessmen of Ghanzi owned a brick quarry that he used to extract stone and make bricks. He had hit water one day and the quarry had flooded making a very large and rare swimming pool! This was the first time that I had the opportunity to swim since Namibia and there was no way that I was going to be passing that up! The water was definitely cold, but it felt so good to be able to jump off the quarry edges into the refreshing pool – even though it was laced with interesting creatures including dung beetles! After swimming for a little bit and cooling my blood right down we headed back to Trailblazers and packed into our vehicles to go the Festival of the San.
The Festival of the San has been organized and held by the Kuru organization for over a decade. Kuru is a development trust NGO that works to promote and preserve the San culture – an amazingly difficult challenge. ‘San’ actually translates to mean ‘people’, and I still laugh whenever I catch myself saying the San people! The San, which have also been referred to as the Bushmen (due to living in the bush of southern Africa), are one of the oldest indigenous groups on our planet – second oldest if I remember correctly. They are our ancestors and have lived and hunted in the deserts and bush of southern Africa for a very long time. A people of no specific country, with tribes in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and a few other places, they have been at the unfortunate receiving end of government policies and practices that haven’t always been beneficial. They were moved out of their natural homes due to the development of national game reserves. HIV and AIDS have brutally ravaged their population. They are widely misunderstood and poorly respected indigenous people. They represent our past and heritage, yet their future survival is bleaker than you could imagine. Enough talk about that though – you can ask and engage me in a chat about it anytime once I am back :)
The Festival of the San is an annual event that takes place in mid-August during the weekend of the full moon. It is held in a small town called D’kar, just thirty kilometers northwest of Ghanzi. The actual site is a game park and it is quite rural, remote and unpopulated. This year close to 50 different groups traveled from as far as Namibia and South Africa to participate in the festival. No buses, no trains, no planes. These people walked, what must have been weeks, to come to D’kar – simply amazing. This year’s theme was “Proud to be a San” and showcased dances and games from all of the different tribes that came in.
The first night of the festival was as picturesque as it could have been. From what I heard there would be close to a thousand San present and another thousand visitors. Those numbers shocked me, but luckily it never seemed like there was that many people there. The set-up was surprising quite Roman; there was a large firepit in the centre of a sloped circular stadium seating arrangement. Instead of being carved out of stone, the seats were made out of packed sand, wooden logs and corrugated aluminum. The dancing began once it was dark and the San would come in and out of the presentation circle dancing in front and around the fire. Don’t get the picture of them as savages or wild bushmen – they are far from it.
All of the dancing is done to rhythmic clapping and harmonized singing – while I never had a single idea what they were singing about, it was unbelievably moving. The traditional dress includes various undergarments, aprons and beadwork all made out of animal or plant products found in the bush. The women are traditionally topless, but some had added covers, and the men really only wore a pair of animal skin underwear – which was astounding considering it was still quite cold at night. During this first evening there really wasn’t any young children dancing – which was sad because they are my favourite – but that might have been accounted for due to the late hours that they were dancing. It wasn’t particularly easy to see in the sole light of the fire, but it was quite captivating to just sit and watch these people perform.
I sat there for many hours completely enthralled with what I was witnessing and mesmerized by the sheer amazement of what was happening – a culture that goes back tens of thousands of years, of a people that had walked across the Kalahari desert to dance and reunite with other San groups, speaking a language few knew and a culture that was quickly dying in the face of modern development. It was right here, not more than twenty feet from where I sat. Easily in a few decades, this could all be gone, unless something is done to help these people. They are one quite commonly referred to and mentioned over my time in Botswana, but people that are rarely seen or considered important – they are not the focus or worry of the common person. Sadly.
Saturday was quite similar to Friday night, except today is was broad daylight. We got up relatively early and headed back out into the D’kar bush. I couldn’t have been more excited when we arrived as they were just starting for the day and the first group of performers was entering the stage. The first three groups were all children’s groups and it is not only amazing to see them dance because of their skills, but you can see on their faces their enjoyment and attitude toward dancing, their pride in their culture. These kids are the future; they are the only hope for these people. Their success will make or break the fate of the San.
Following the children was a very LONG and formal introduction and speak by the Botswana Minister of Agriculture and something something. Normally I would have remembered, but I was blown away by the situation. There were several government officials that were present all dressed in suits and ties, who standing next to the nearly naked San people just reeked of corporate politics and business. They all sat in high-backed padded chairs in front of the stage, a place of comfort and hierarchical power next to the squatting San in the dust and sand. I couldn’t believe the way that they talked so dispassionately about the cultural preservation and wellbeing of these people. The way that they plugged current government programs and initiatives and the very long prayer that followed which seemed just out of place. It was a perfect reminder of the divide in class and ‘importance’ that is so prevalently sought-after and then reinforced, just like today. That is all sad talk though and there was so much good and happiness in the day!
We sat and walked for nearly four hours straight all kinds of different dances and presentations by the San people. Regardless of the amount of time here, my skin stills burns with that amount of direct sunlight, but it was totally worth it. For one of my final lunches in Bots I was glad to be able to get the traditional meal – papa and seswaa followed by some fresh, sweet and greasy mogunas! I picked up a few different cultural craft items that were on display from different artists and then headed back for some more dancing in the afternoon. Some of the interesting observations that I made throughout the time about the dancing include:
-the role of women varied quite prominently between different tribes sometimes strictly dancing, but most commonly the ones who set the rhythm and sang while being danced to
-the number of women hugely outnumbered the men, with some groups having only a single San man
-the age demographics were quite skewed and almost bimodal, with a much larger proportion of older San and quite young children, but nearly no people of reproductive age (the result of HIV ravaging these communities)
-the different tribes interacted quite nicely, with other tribes’ members often jumping in to join in different dances
-sometimes the women and men also wore traditional undergarments with ‘developed’ underwear (bras, briefs, etc.) It seemed that the crowd would react quite loudly to the women who showed their nipples and breasts, which would often come out with some of the dancing and shaking movements of their presenations.
-the San idea of body image seemed much healthily than anything back home, or even here, but was definitely in the critical spotlight as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘primitive’ by many of the people watching (as was observed through their verbal reactions to different situations)
-there is a huge value for family. The host of the festival, a relatively local elder San women just radiated with pride and love for her tribe, sisters and grandchildren that performed a dance.
-I will cherish and appreciate this experience and all of the observations and
Once the afternoon’s activities had mainly finished we headed back to Trailblazers to spend the rest of the time relaxing by the fireside drinking and snacking. We had some interesting discussions with the other WUSC people about the weekend’s events, their summer experiences and all things foreign aid and politics related. We had our meal prepared at the campsite and spent the night keeping warm by the fire. As people slowly drifted off to bed, saying their final farewells – for we had many different people departing at different time – I crawled into my sleeping bag and quickly tucked all of the edges and open parts under my body. It was a cold night, but I was filled with the warmth of satisfaction reserved only for the rarest of occasions.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Blog #57 – Farewell to Maun
My last few days in Maun have passed in a flurry. While I have somehow naively thought that the rest of life here in Maun would slow down to allow me to say farewell, I was quite wrong. The pace even seemed to quicken – more and more I caught myself saying goodbye to people and places and I knew that it would be for the last time. There were no big parties, no big hoopla, all I wanted to was to make sure that I said goodbye to those individuals that I have gotten to know and that have had such an impact on me.
This final day in Maun I spent wrapping up my final work at the office. I made the round around town and said farewell to those people that I knew I most likely wouldn’t see again. However, I knew that I would be back again. Southern Africa has been amazing and there are so many places within it that I haven’t seen. While I originally thought that I wouldn’t be able to live here given all of the differences, as I get to the threshold of my visit, I find that the bottom of my stomach feels heavy and
I seem to be on the threshold of heavy emotion. Maun, of all places, within this region of the world, has taken a piece of my heart.
The only way that I can really say goodbye is to think of all of the things that I will miss about Maun and about my time here:
The Donkeys: grazing everywhere and controlling traffic inadvertently, Maun – the donkey capital of the world!
The weather: even though it is winter here, it feels more like my summer back home, expect with zero humidity and constant sunshine.
The local people: I have met some amazing local people and gained a lot of knowledge and perspective on life. I cannot thank them enough for that and as I have told them all they are welcome at my place in Canada if they ever decide to brave the cold!
My placement: all of the people working with BPCT and at dog camp. They have been a lot of fun and I have witnessed things n the wild that I would never have imagined. Lesley has been unbelievable to work with and I wish everyone the best of luck with all of their projects
The children: it was so much fun working with all of the children in the classroom and on the football field. This was definitely one of the highlights of my time here and I will cherish all of there laughter, their jokes, their smiles, but most importantly the vast amount of hope that they bring to this country
The women from Namibian with their picturesque outfits and headdresses, I can’t believe you wear those every day and in the heat to!
Combis and Taxi and driving in general – it can’t get much more crazy and dangerous to be a pedestrian than here in Maun.
The food: as crazy as it may sound, I have really enjoyed the local food. While almost all the food here is imported, they do an amazing job preparing and making delicious meals. The local seswaa, pap, goat, kudu steaks, impala leg have all been quite the experience! Shout out to some of my favourite restaurants: Raw, French Connection, the Pigmygoose, Buck & Hunter, Bon Arrive, Sports Bar and Audi Camp.
The basket women’s co-op in Matlapana: you women do some amazing work and I am glad to have had the opportunity to purchase a few things. I appreciate all your hard work and hope that your future plans for development go well!
The Bush & Delta: There is nowhere in the world like this – the Delta is such an amazing place with so much to learn about and see. I never would have expected to see all of the animals that I did, and the amazing scenery.
Weekend Picnics at Maun Game Park – enough said.
The Expatriates: The community of over three thousand expatriates here have been amazing warm and welcoming community. Thank you for all of the stories, all of the company and all of the wonderful nights!
The Bomo: One of my favourite places to hang out in Maun – the huge firepit restaurant and bar at Maun Lodge. I will miss hanging out with Vincent and all of his singing. I will miss talking with the Chief. I will miss all of the conversation we had about policy and international aid around that fire. I will miss the warmth that the fire brought each of the rather chilly winter nights. I will miss them all.
All of the local women who work all day with a baby tied onto their back by a blanket. Props to the unbelievable strength and stamina you working mothers display.
Trekkers: There is only one nightclub in Maun and I will remember it fondly. It is definitely not an international attraction, but it is also like nothing else I have ever experienced. Thanks to all of the people that we had all of our dances, competitions and drinks with! There were definitely some highlights of the trip here!
Cattle & Goat: I will miss the way that cattle and goat roam freeing around all of Maun and act very much as if they own the place. I will miss the way that people raise their animals in such a free and open manner and the trust that they have for one another. I will miss the taste of such tasty locally cooked meat, haha!
Manual Transmission: there have been many an experience on manual transmission and I cherish those near and dear to my experience here. There wouldn’t have been a more memorable way to learn how to drive than here in the given circumstances.
My Host family: I could not have asked for a better pairing. My family has been absolutely amazing and will be one of the things that I miss the most. For all thhe sleeping queens, rat-a-tat-cat and tampouline jumping! Thanks to all of girls, Lala, Andrew, Sharon, Antiba, Phillipa and Camelo – you have made me feel welcome and a part of Maun. My experience would not have been nearly as exciting without your help.
I cannot thank everyone and everything enough. I know that some of you will already come and visit me in Canada. For the rest of you I will be back.
I am off to Gabs for some post-placement work with WUSC and then this weekend I am going to the Festival of the San People in Ghanzi and D’kar – should be unbelievable – then I travel home on the 17th and finally set feet on Canadian soil on the afternoon of the 18th!
Good-bye Maun! Good luck and see you soon.
This final day in Maun I spent wrapping up my final work at the office. I made the round around town and said farewell to those people that I knew I most likely wouldn’t see again. However, I knew that I would be back again. Southern Africa has been amazing and there are so many places within it that I haven’t seen. While I originally thought that I wouldn’t be able to live here given all of the differences, as I get to the threshold of my visit, I find that the bottom of my stomach feels heavy and
I seem to be on the threshold of heavy emotion. Maun, of all places, within this region of the world, has taken a piece of my heart.
The only way that I can really say goodbye is to think of all of the things that I will miss about Maun and about my time here:
The Donkeys: grazing everywhere and controlling traffic inadvertently, Maun – the donkey capital of the world!
The weather: even though it is winter here, it feels more like my summer back home, expect with zero humidity and constant sunshine.
The local people: I have met some amazing local people and gained a lot of knowledge and perspective on life. I cannot thank them enough for that and as I have told them all they are welcome at my place in Canada if they ever decide to brave the cold!
My placement: all of the people working with BPCT and at dog camp. They have been a lot of fun and I have witnessed things n the wild that I would never have imagined. Lesley has been unbelievable to work with and I wish everyone the best of luck with all of their projects
The children: it was so much fun working with all of the children in the classroom and on the football field. This was definitely one of the highlights of my time here and I will cherish all of there laughter, their jokes, their smiles, but most importantly the vast amount of hope that they bring to this country
The women from Namibian with their picturesque outfits and headdresses, I can’t believe you wear those every day and in the heat to!
Combis and Taxi and driving in general – it can’t get much more crazy and dangerous to be a pedestrian than here in Maun.
The food: as crazy as it may sound, I have really enjoyed the local food. While almost all the food here is imported, they do an amazing job preparing and making delicious meals. The local seswaa, pap, goat, kudu steaks, impala leg have all been quite the experience! Shout out to some of my favourite restaurants: Raw, French Connection, the Pigmygoose, Buck & Hunter, Bon Arrive, Sports Bar and Audi Camp.
The basket women’s co-op in Matlapana: you women do some amazing work and I am glad to have had the opportunity to purchase a few things. I appreciate all your hard work and hope that your future plans for development go well!
The Bush & Delta: There is nowhere in the world like this – the Delta is such an amazing place with so much to learn about and see. I never would have expected to see all of the animals that I did, and the amazing scenery.
Weekend Picnics at Maun Game Park – enough said.
The Expatriates: The community of over three thousand expatriates here have been amazing warm and welcoming community. Thank you for all of the stories, all of the company and all of the wonderful nights!
The Bomo: One of my favourite places to hang out in Maun – the huge firepit restaurant and bar at Maun Lodge. I will miss hanging out with Vincent and all of his singing. I will miss talking with the Chief. I will miss all of the conversation we had about policy and international aid around that fire. I will miss the warmth that the fire brought each of the rather chilly winter nights. I will miss them all.
All of the local women who work all day with a baby tied onto their back by a blanket. Props to the unbelievable strength and stamina you working mothers display.
Trekkers: There is only one nightclub in Maun and I will remember it fondly. It is definitely not an international attraction, but it is also like nothing else I have ever experienced. Thanks to all of the people that we had all of our dances, competitions and drinks with! There were definitely some highlights of the trip here!
Cattle & Goat: I will miss the way that cattle and goat roam freeing around all of Maun and act very much as if they own the place. I will miss the way that people raise their animals in such a free and open manner and the trust that they have for one another. I will miss the taste of such tasty locally cooked meat, haha!
Manual Transmission: there have been many an experience on manual transmission and I cherish those near and dear to my experience here. There wouldn’t have been a more memorable way to learn how to drive than here in the given circumstances.
My Host family: I could not have asked for a better pairing. My family has been absolutely amazing and will be one of the things that I miss the most. For all thhe sleeping queens, rat-a-tat-cat and tampouline jumping! Thanks to all of girls, Lala, Andrew, Sharon, Antiba, Phillipa and Camelo – you have made me feel welcome and a part of Maun. My experience would not have been nearly as exciting without your help.
I cannot thank everyone and everything enough. I know that some of you will already come and visit me in Canada. For the rest of you I will be back.
I am off to Gabs for some post-placement work with WUSC and then this weekend I am going to the Festival of the San People in Ghanzi and D’kar – should be unbelievable – then I travel home on the 17th and finally set feet on Canadian soil on the afternoon of the 18th!
Good-bye Maun! Good luck and see you soon.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Blog #47 – Wrap-up Wednesday
Regardless of last night’s festivities, Wednesday still had an early start. Today I drafted a few different newsletter updates for the different organizations and people that are integral to supporting and allowing this program to run. There was lots of edits, but in the end they both looked and sounded really good.
The other exciting task I had for the day was designing shirts for the program. One area that we wanted to improve in the program was the visibility of the volunteers, etc, etc. We wanted to help brand them with BPCT, to make them stand out help, but also to pass on an important message. They looked pretty sweet, and I do hope that I end up getting one…though I don’t know when I would be back for one!
This was also the last day that work was going to be done on the Conservation Centre/Campsite. Today they were putting the final touches onto everything and also painting a massive mural on the back wall. I managed to make it out in the afternoon to help a little bit with the final projects as things we wrapped up. Tomorrow we were all leaving for Namibia and therefore we didn’t have much other opportunity to get stuff done.
Mickey, the headmaster at Matswane, held a Braii for us – at the Conservation Centre/Campsite that night. It was a really nice celebration of all of the work that has went into the program and how much further forward it has been brought in the past weeks given all of this extra help.
We had a nice big fire, wine to drink and plenty of food to eat – and we spend a long time just sitting around chatting. It is definitely comparable to campfires back home, but a little more intense. It basically starts as soon as it is getting dark. The fire is started and everyone just chills. After the fire has created some really nice embers they shovel them out and create a little cooking area out of bricks and a metal frame. The meat gets slowly cooked over the embers, infused with the entire aroma of the fire. The whole time people are just drinking and conversing, waiting for the meat!
Once the meat is finished people start lining up – and they each take a few pieces, which they then to do whatever they want with – eat it straight, make a sandwich, or a salad, it doesn’t really matter, but it honestly tastes so good. There were potato salad and other delicious dishes to the spread, and everyone just kept eating until they couldn’t anymore…and there was still lots to eat! Luckily that day was also one of Lesley’s son’s birthday – so she had baked some cakes and we managed to put down some of that too before calling it quits!
Since this was the last night that the students would get to spend in Maun – they would be off to Namibia and then back to go into the bush for a few days before the end of their time here – we decided to spend one last night at Trekkers. Wednesday wasn’t the biggest night at Trekkers so we didn’t have any problem getting there or getting in. The club was relatively empty and we enjoyed the entire dance floor to ourselves. We ran into a few of the local people that we had met, and we had brought out some of the locals that we worked with so we had a pretty strong contingent, haha.
I don’t ever know how these things get started, but we ended up having a dance off with basically everyone in the club – or for you Ukrainians it was much more like a Milanka (spelling?!). It was definitely the highlight of the night as we saw some really interesting local dancing flavour and even though we weren’t particularly amazing – the locals loved all of our North American signature moves. The club closed down by midnight and everyone headed home for some rest before the big day of travel ahead of us. Tomorrow I was going to Namibia and I couldn’t wait!
The other exciting task I had for the day was designing shirts for the program. One area that we wanted to improve in the program was the visibility of the volunteers, etc, etc. We wanted to help brand them with BPCT, to make them stand out help, but also to pass on an important message. They looked pretty sweet, and I do hope that I end up getting one…though I don’t know when I would be back for one!
This was also the last day that work was going to be done on the Conservation Centre/Campsite. Today they were putting the final touches onto everything and also painting a massive mural on the back wall. I managed to make it out in the afternoon to help a little bit with the final projects as things we wrapped up. Tomorrow we were all leaving for Namibia and therefore we didn’t have much other opportunity to get stuff done.
Mickey, the headmaster at Matswane, held a Braii for us – at the Conservation Centre/Campsite that night. It was a really nice celebration of all of the work that has went into the program and how much further forward it has been brought in the past weeks given all of this extra help.
We had a nice big fire, wine to drink and plenty of food to eat – and we spend a long time just sitting around chatting. It is definitely comparable to campfires back home, but a little more intense. It basically starts as soon as it is getting dark. The fire is started and everyone just chills. After the fire has created some really nice embers they shovel them out and create a little cooking area out of bricks and a metal frame. The meat gets slowly cooked over the embers, infused with the entire aroma of the fire. The whole time people are just drinking and conversing, waiting for the meat!
Once the meat is finished people start lining up – and they each take a few pieces, which they then to do whatever they want with – eat it straight, make a sandwich, or a salad, it doesn’t really matter, but it honestly tastes so good. There were potato salad and other delicious dishes to the spread, and everyone just kept eating until they couldn’t anymore…and there was still lots to eat! Luckily that day was also one of Lesley’s son’s birthday – so she had baked some cakes and we managed to put down some of that too before calling it quits!
Since this was the last night that the students would get to spend in Maun – they would be off to Namibia and then back to go into the bush for a few days before the end of their time here – we decided to spend one last night at Trekkers. Wednesday wasn’t the biggest night at Trekkers so we didn’t have any problem getting there or getting in. The club was relatively empty and we enjoyed the entire dance floor to ourselves. We ran into a few of the local people that we had met, and we had brought out some of the locals that we worked with so we had a pretty strong contingent, haha.
I don’t ever know how these things get started, but we ended up having a dance off with basically everyone in the club – or for you Ukrainians it was much more like a Milanka (spelling?!). It was definitely the highlight of the night as we saw some really interesting local dancing flavour and even though we weren’t particularly amazing – the locals loved all of our North American signature moves. The club closed down by midnight and everyone headed home for some rest before the big day of travel ahead of us. Tomorrow I was going to Namibia and I couldn’t wait!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Blog #46 – Media, Police & Beer Pong
Tuesday was a different story. I spent the morning around town and in the office. I was arranging and making sure that the media who had visited and got footage from the camp had everything they needed to get it to press. I was, as would call, a free-lance writer. I actually wrote the article for the local newspaper. I brought it in on a flash drive to the sports journalist and gave it to him telling him that this is what we were thinking and was something he could work off of. I was interested to see what would happen with that. After dealing with the print media, I headed to the TV station to see how things were coming. Calvin was a little frantic trying to put everything together – there were a few shots that he wanted, but wasn’t able to get. I got a load of still pictures to him and provided him wit ha bunch of literature that would hopefully help him get it finished.
The best part about the morning was running into an angel. That’s right, an angel! She carried this beautiful red shiny bucket! And inside were the treats of the devil – pure temptation itself…. Nah, I am just kidding. It was this sweet old ma who baked these home made samosas! At first I just bought one and I ate it right away, it was probably the most delicious thing I had eaten all summer! Then as she was about to leave I bought another two to go. I couldn’t help but eat one of them now though. Then one of my friends that was with me said they were too spicy for her, so I ate hers too. All in all, I didn’t even eat lunch I was so full of samosa.
The next excitement of the day was when we were at French Connection, a little café, for a drink. I was having my usual Iced Mint Tea, when a special constable (police) officer came into the restaurant. He looked all business and I was really excited to see what was going to happen! He had a local man with him that ointed directly at our table. I was like, “oh shit! Run! There is no way that I am going to a Botswana prison!” However, I am not that gutsy, so I just sat there – taking solace in the fact that to my knowledge I hadn’t broken the law.
Turns out I was safe. The Motswana was after Maura – the cinematographer – who had apparently filmed him yesterday in the marketplace without his consent. He had given Maura a really big stink of it the day before and was apparently quite rude about it. Maura showed him the filming permit that they had from the Botswana Government explaining that they had the right to shot in any public spaces, she also told him that they wouldn’t use that footage if it bothered him. In the end she just packed up and left – leaving the shot behind as the guy wouldn’t quit.
Apparently he wasn’t satisfied, so he had went to the police and got them to come and “summon” them to the police station. How he found them in French Connection of all places in Maun is ridiculous to me. Ashley, the director got involved and spoke with the officer. In the end the officer told them that they should come to the police station to make a statement. They weren’t under arrest or anything, so it was really odd. We didn’t have the vehicle at the time so we headed back to the office to wait for it there. In the mean time though, we somehow decided that it wasn’t necessary for them to go to the police. They weren’t under arrest, nothing had been filed, this was all unofficial, so why would they go? They also had shooting set-up for a little bit later that they didn’t want to miss as it was during sunset when the lighting was needed to be just right. We were also set to go to Lesley’s for dinner tonight and it was getting late.
That’s when the police rolled up in their car to the office and knocked on the door. I was like, “they found you! How did they find you?!” There was no way that they knew they were with BPCT and have never been to the office before – we had even just moved into the office last month! I was amazed at the effectiveness of the police, or perhaps diligence. However from the moment that I answered the door I could tell that the constable did not want to be there. The Motswana was still with him and immediately started demanding that we all come to the police station now. First off, I had nothing to do with this, so I was staying out. After debating for twenty minutes, Ashley decided to come with the officer to the Police Station out of respect of the request. He did threaten her to say, “they were not under arrest NOW, but if they didn’t come that would be problematic for the future!” haha, whoa!
The best part of this was that the police vehicles here are similar to those at home. There are two seats in the front – but then the back of the vehicle is where the criminals go. That is exactly where Maura and Ashely went. Kate and I were left in the office and we were pissing ourselves laughing as they climbed up into the caged cell on the pack of the police pick-up. We joked that this would be the last time we ever saw there alive – not really a joking matter, but you had to be there – it was so picturesque!
Kate and I chilled at the office for the next three hours while we waited for them to return. They never came. We decided to close up and see where they had gone so we drove to the police station. They were sitting in the main office of the station facing the man who was obviously the constable in-charge. They were talking back and forth and looked drained and exhausted. The Motswana was still going strong with really energetic gestures and talking quite emphatically. I have no idea what he was saying those – as they were talking in Setswana. After the next ten minutes, the constable in charge turned to us and said “please, just go”. The Motswana was not pleased one bit at his decision! He started putting up a fight, but the officer stopped him. He said that he had already caused them so much grief, he should be happy that they are not charging him for all of the time wasted, that he was out of line and had no right to do what he did. That was the last we ever saw or heard from that man.
We made it to Lesley’s two hours late for dinner, but it was a really nice evening. She had prepared Kudu steaks – which were quite meaty and delicious! We also had Painted Wolf Wine – which is an award winning Swiss wine that is the private label for the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust. The vineyard donates money for each bottle to this organization that Lesley runs and that I am volunteering with, so that is super cool! We spent the night recounting our recent adventures and chatting about all things under the moon.
The night was getting late, but I had arranged for one of my friends to pick us up – her name was Kat. However, there was a little bit of a miscommunication. Kat, had come from a braii to pick us up and take us back there…not home :) I was totally cool with that – as I had never been to a braii, but the others were a little bit unimpressed. A braii sort of originates from South Africa – or so we were told – and is basically like a big bbq roasting party. There is a fire that the meat gets cooked over and everyone drinks and has a merry good time! There is a very distinct smell to a braii, the mix of cooked meat, and fire, which is really warm and inviting.
We ended up playing a drinking game called Beer Pong – which I am sure the university students are familiar with. The only reason I am bothering to include it was because it escalated quite quickly into a battle of the continents: Africa vs. North America. It was a very intense battle and we played the best of three rounds. We split the first two rounds and everyone was watching as we played this final round. I am SO proud to say that I represented Canada well and we destroyed them in the final round! It was all I good fun and the night was really enjoyable – and totally unexpected, haha, but all the good things in life are :)
The best part about the morning was running into an angel. That’s right, an angel! She carried this beautiful red shiny bucket! And inside were the treats of the devil – pure temptation itself…. Nah, I am just kidding. It was this sweet old ma who baked these home made samosas! At first I just bought one and I ate it right away, it was probably the most delicious thing I had eaten all summer! Then as she was about to leave I bought another two to go. I couldn’t help but eat one of them now though. Then one of my friends that was with me said they were too spicy for her, so I ate hers too. All in all, I didn’t even eat lunch I was so full of samosa.
The next excitement of the day was when we were at French Connection, a little café, for a drink. I was having my usual Iced Mint Tea, when a special constable (police) officer came into the restaurant. He looked all business and I was really excited to see what was going to happen! He had a local man with him that ointed directly at our table. I was like, “oh shit! Run! There is no way that I am going to a Botswana prison!” However, I am not that gutsy, so I just sat there – taking solace in the fact that to my knowledge I hadn’t broken the law.
Turns out I was safe. The Motswana was after Maura – the cinematographer – who had apparently filmed him yesterday in the marketplace without his consent. He had given Maura a really big stink of it the day before and was apparently quite rude about it. Maura showed him the filming permit that they had from the Botswana Government explaining that they had the right to shot in any public spaces, she also told him that they wouldn’t use that footage if it bothered him. In the end she just packed up and left – leaving the shot behind as the guy wouldn’t quit.
Apparently he wasn’t satisfied, so he had went to the police and got them to come and “summon” them to the police station. How he found them in French Connection of all places in Maun is ridiculous to me. Ashley, the director got involved and spoke with the officer. In the end the officer told them that they should come to the police station to make a statement. They weren’t under arrest or anything, so it was really odd. We didn’t have the vehicle at the time so we headed back to the office to wait for it there. In the mean time though, we somehow decided that it wasn’t necessary for them to go to the police. They weren’t under arrest, nothing had been filed, this was all unofficial, so why would they go? They also had shooting set-up for a little bit later that they didn’t want to miss as it was during sunset when the lighting was needed to be just right. We were also set to go to Lesley’s for dinner tonight and it was getting late.
That’s when the police rolled up in their car to the office and knocked on the door. I was like, “they found you! How did they find you?!” There was no way that they knew they were with BPCT and have never been to the office before – we had even just moved into the office last month! I was amazed at the effectiveness of the police, or perhaps diligence. However from the moment that I answered the door I could tell that the constable did not want to be there. The Motswana was still with him and immediately started demanding that we all come to the police station now. First off, I had nothing to do with this, so I was staying out. After debating for twenty minutes, Ashley decided to come with the officer to the Police Station out of respect of the request. He did threaten her to say, “they were not under arrest NOW, but if they didn’t come that would be problematic for the future!” haha, whoa!
The best part of this was that the police vehicles here are similar to those at home. There are two seats in the front – but then the back of the vehicle is where the criminals go. That is exactly where Maura and Ashely went. Kate and I were left in the office and we were pissing ourselves laughing as they climbed up into the caged cell on the pack of the police pick-up. We joked that this would be the last time we ever saw there alive – not really a joking matter, but you had to be there – it was so picturesque!
Kate and I chilled at the office for the next three hours while we waited for them to return. They never came. We decided to close up and see where they had gone so we drove to the police station. They were sitting in the main office of the station facing the man who was obviously the constable in-charge. They were talking back and forth and looked drained and exhausted. The Motswana was still going strong with really energetic gestures and talking quite emphatically. I have no idea what he was saying those – as they were talking in Setswana. After the next ten minutes, the constable in charge turned to us and said “please, just go”. The Motswana was not pleased one bit at his decision! He started putting up a fight, but the officer stopped him. He said that he had already caused them so much grief, he should be happy that they are not charging him for all of the time wasted, that he was out of line and had no right to do what he did. That was the last we ever saw or heard from that man.
We made it to Lesley’s two hours late for dinner, but it was a really nice evening. She had prepared Kudu steaks – which were quite meaty and delicious! We also had Painted Wolf Wine – which is an award winning Swiss wine that is the private label for the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust. The vineyard donates money for each bottle to this organization that Lesley runs and that I am volunteering with, so that is super cool! We spent the night recounting our recent adventures and chatting about all things under the moon.
The night was getting late, but I had arranged for one of my friends to pick us up – her name was Kat. However, there was a little bit of a miscommunication. Kat, had come from a braii to pick us up and take us back there…not home :) I was totally cool with that – as I had never been to a braii, but the others were a little bit unimpressed. A braii sort of originates from South Africa – or so we were told – and is basically like a big bbq roasting party. There is a fire that the meat gets cooked over and everyone drinks and has a merry good time! There is a very distinct smell to a braii, the mix of cooked meat, and fire, which is really warm and inviting.
We ended up playing a drinking game called Beer Pong – which I am sure the university students are familiar with. The only reason I am bothering to include it was because it escalated quite quickly into a battle of the continents: Africa vs. North America. It was a very intense battle and we played the best of three rounds. We split the first two rounds and everyone was watching as we played this final round. I am SO proud to say that I represented Canada well and we destroyed them in the final round! It was all I good fun and the night was really enjoyable – and totally unexpected, haha, but all the good things in life are :)
Monday, July 14, 2008
Blog #45 – C4C: The Aftermath
Monday morning. It was back to a regular workweek. No more football, no more games, no more children. I have to admit that I was a little put out. However, the nice thing was that I was starting my day at Matswane Primary continuing the work on the conservation centre/camp site. Today we worked on building a fire pit, so some of the girl actually learned how to brick lay from Polo, a local that was supervising and directing us. He was a jack of all trades – welding, construction, bricklayer, you name it.
My job today was a little lack luster. I was the only one that could reach the high centre peak of the ceiling with any ease. So I spent my day on the ladder – definitely would not pass safety standards back home, haha. But it was a lot of work and my shoulders killed by the end of the morning. I had packed the Indian food from last night for lunch, so that was delicious – and yes I shared with everyone else. I felt for them as they just had sandwiches :)
We continued working into the afternoon the main chunks of the building where pretty much done and the next two days would be spent making it look like a more welcoming and functional space.
I spent the end of the day back in the office working out details for a trip to Namibia for the weekend. All of the documentarians and the USC volunteers would be coming – thirteen people in total – and there was promise for a good time. I managed to find accommodation for all of us for ten dollars CND a person per night – pretty wicked! I also had a combi (mini-bus) hired, which we would drive there and back for just $200 for the weekend – plus the cost of petrol obviously, pretty sweet! Everyone was wiped from the full day of work outside so there wasn’t any excitement in the evening as everyone crashed pretty early.
My job today was a little lack luster. I was the only one that could reach the high centre peak of the ceiling with any ease. So I spent my day on the ladder – definitely would not pass safety standards back home, haha. But it was a lot of work and my shoulders killed by the end of the morning. I had packed the Indian food from last night for lunch, so that was delicious – and yes I shared with everyone else. I felt for them as they just had sandwiches :)
We continued working into the afternoon the main chunks of the building where pretty much done and the next two days would be spent making it look like a more welcoming and functional space.
I spent the end of the day back in the office working out details for a trip to Namibia for the weekend. All of the documentarians and the USC volunteers would be coming – thirteen people in total – and there was promise for a good time. I managed to find accommodation for all of us for ten dollars CND a person per night – pretty wicked! I also had a combi (mini-bus) hired, which we would drive there and back for just $200 for the weekend – plus the cost of petrol obviously, pretty sweet! Everyone was wiped from the full day of work outside so there wasn’t any excitement in the evening as everyone crashed pretty early.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Blog #44 – Recuperation, MAWS & My Paws
I spent Saturday in full recover mode. I have a wonderful sleep-in and got up feeling very full of sleep (you know that really comfortable feeling having slept too much and now all you want to do is just lounge around?). We had cinnamon French toast for breakfast – delicious but what I would do for some maple syrop. They eat their French Toast here with ketchup, or tomato sauce?! Crazy, eh?
I spent the late morning and early afternoon doing some baking – therapeutic and delicious! I spent the afternoon reading and catching up on emails and work fomr the week. It was a really nice day with nothing to major, or too exciting, just good old fashion down time.
Sunday was back at it though! We had to get up early and drive out to a program called the Domestic Dog Disease Control Program. It is a partnership between the organization I work for and MAWS – the Maun Animal Welfare Society. The program is offered completely free and is a vaccination and spade/neutering program for the domestic dog and cat population. The goal of this program is to track, but also reduce the spread of disease from domestic to wild animals.
We got to the clinic just past eight in the morning. We walked into the room, right into the middle of a veternarian cutting out the uterus of a small dog. It was really shocking, but also very cool. The facilities were basic, simple, yet clean and the people working their were efficient. Everyone worked on a volunteer basis and the supplies needed were purchased by donations. The program worked generally by having the MAWS people travel out into the villages or areas of Maun to collect dogs and cats. They would bring them back to the clinic and then perform the surgeries and vaccinations. All of it was done free of charge and rather quickly. All the owner’s had to do was agree to the treatment.
We spent the morning talking with the vet and learning about how the program began and has grown. It really is a neat project – and all of the people involved do this on top of the rest of their lives, families and full time jobs. They have performed worked with thousands and thousands of animals and it is crazy to think what the situation would be like without their work. The domestic animal population control is a problem here in Maun. There are so many animals, and owners will just neglect or kick out their animals if they don’t have the time of the money. There is a really big difference here compared to back home. People don’t love their pets as much, they don’t really even see them as pets. They definitely do not put nearly as much effort into raising them as back home – and they never dress them up!
After the MAWS clinic wrapped up, we headed over to Matswane Primary School. This was the site that the construction of a Conservation Classroom/Campsite would begin. The USC students were involved and pumped as this was a major focus of their trip. I was also lucky enough to get to volunteer and help out. Partly because I had the time and partly because the tire blew on the landrover, and we weren’t going anywhere quickly ;)
There was already a basic foundation of cement and metal beams from which the centre would be constructed and we spent the day sanding, cleaning and welding together. Considering that it is winter-time here, it is hard to believe how hot it gets during the day. When I was working in the sun, in the middle of the afternoon it must have easily been close to thirty-five degrees. I cannot imagine what the summertime must be like here!
It was really fun to get some physical labour in and to break a sweat. After all of the curriculum, classroom and teaching – I really enjoyed the opportunity to work on something physical, something that would be visible and would last for many decades. Mickey Vieges, the headmaster as the school, is an absolutely amazing guy. He spent the whole day with us working and chatting about the plans for the space. He bought us flats of soda and beer. One of the tips I got from a local was to drink the beer when you are really thirsty. It is so low in percentage that you won’t get drunk or anything, but it is VERY refreshing. How right he was! By the end of the day, we managed to get some primer coats of paint up and everyone was really impressed with the progress we made – especially Mickey!
I headed home for dinner. Camello had prepared an Indian feast! Complete with homemade naan and everything! It was a delicious meal and I was really happy with the day; I had learned a lot, gotten my hands dirty and now was just socializing with my family at night. Life is good.
I spent the late morning and early afternoon doing some baking – therapeutic and delicious! I spent the afternoon reading and catching up on emails and work fomr the week. It was a really nice day with nothing to major, or too exciting, just good old fashion down time.
Sunday was back at it though! We had to get up early and drive out to a program called the Domestic Dog Disease Control Program. It is a partnership between the organization I work for and MAWS – the Maun Animal Welfare Society. The program is offered completely free and is a vaccination and spade/neutering program for the domestic dog and cat population. The goal of this program is to track, but also reduce the spread of disease from domestic to wild animals.
We got to the clinic just past eight in the morning. We walked into the room, right into the middle of a veternarian cutting out the uterus of a small dog. It was really shocking, but also very cool. The facilities were basic, simple, yet clean and the people working their were efficient. Everyone worked on a volunteer basis and the supplies needed were purchased by donations. The program worked generally by having the MAWS people travel out into the villages or areas of Maun to collect dogs and cats. They would bring them back to the clinic and then perform the surgeries and vaccinations. All of it was done free of charge and rather quickly. All the owner’s had to do was agree to the treatment.
We spent the morning talking with the vet and learning about how the program began and has grown. It really is a neat project – and all of the people involved do this on top of the rest of their lives, families and full time jobs. They have performed worked with thousands and thousands of animals and it is crazy to think what the situation would be like without their work. The domestic animal population control is a problem here in Maun. There are so many animals, and owners will just neglect or kick out their animals if they don’t have the time of the money. There is a really big difference here compared to back home. People don’t love their pets as much, they don’t really even see them as pets. They definitely do not put nearly as much effort into raising them as back home – and they never dress them up!
After the MAWS clinic wrapped up, we headed over to Matswane Primary School. This was the site that the construction of a Conservation Classroom/Campsite would begin. The USC students were involved and pumped as this was a major focus of their trip. I was also lucky enough to get to volunteer and help out. Partly because I had the time and partly because the tire blew on the landrover, and we weren’t going anywhere quickly ;)
There was already a basic foundation of cement and metal beams from which the centre would be constructed and we spent the day sanding, cleaning and welding together. Considering that it is winter-time here, it is hard to believe how hot it gets during the day. When I was working in the sun, in the middle of the afternoon it must have easily been close to thirty-five degrees. I cannot imagine what the summertime must be like here!
It was really fun to get some physical labour in and to break a sweat. After all of the curriculum, classroom and teaching – I really enjoyed the opportunity to work on something physical, something that would be visible and would last for many decades. Mickey Vieges, the headmaster as the school, is an absolutely amazing guy. He spent the whole day with us working and chatting about the plans for the space. He bought us flats of soda and beer. One of the tips I got from a local was to drink the beer when you are really thirsty. It is so low in percentage that you won’t get drunk or anything, but it is VERY refreshing. How right he was! By the end of the day, we managed to get some primer coats of paint up and everyone was really impressed with the progress we made – especially Mickey!
I headed home for dinner. Camello had prepared an Indian feast! Complete with homemade naan and everything! It was a delicious meal and I was really happy with the day; I had learned a lot, gotten my hands dirty and now was just socializing with my family at night. Life is good.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Blog #43 – C4C: It’s A Wrap!
Today was Tournament Day – we had all nineteen primary schools in Maun coming to the stadium for a nine o’clock kick-off! We had two pools of competitors – and only two school would remain on top at the end of the day. Who would it be?!
To get everything ready and set-up, as few of us got to the Stadium just after seven. I was most nervous about transport. We had finally gotten down doing the nine schools – but today we had to get twice as many there for the same deadline! I had spoken with the drivers yesterday and confirmed our plans for what schools first, etc, etc. Luckily by eight o’clock we already had three schools present.
By nine o’clock you could feel the competition in the air. It was definitely fueled by their coaches and teachers, who at the pre-tournament meeting with them not a joke was cracked or one’s focus broken. It was one, this was for all the marbles – and we did the best we could to remind them that this was for fun and for learning!
We kicked off at 9:00am, the schedule was too tight so delay – with four fields all being used continuously. It was going to be interesting to watch how this progresses. We had a few of the early games defaulted as we waited on three or four more schools, but miraculously it had worked and things were going okay.
I got to spend the day doing all of the scores and the points tallying. There was always a group of kids watching, pointing and whispering to each other. Many a time I found coaches staring at the board and reminded them they had to be with their students…they grudgingly trudged off to find them.
One of the highlights of the day for me was the traditional lunch that was prepared for everyone. This took a lot of coordination and planning. We had four cooks come in from the village of Shorobe on Thursday afternoon. We loaded up close to two hundred pounds of papa (maize meal – sort of like cream of wheat, but with corn not wheat) and 380 pounds of beef (two cattle worth) into the landrover. At two in the morning, we had to get the cooks to Tawana Primary (the closest primary school) where we had arranged a cooking space, five huge black cauldrons for cooking and firewood.
The meal was papa and seswaa – very common and very traditional (notice the lack of vegetables!). Seswaa is really easy to make – it just take time! First you boil all of the meat – bones and everything. Then once it is cooked the bones are removed. The only seasoning that is really used is salt, and once the bones are gone then they start in with the poles. They basically pound the meat until it is soft, stringy and tender (take a few hours). However, once it is done – OH! Is it SOOOoooooo good! The best part of traditional Batswana food is that you don’t use utensils – so you get to eat with your hands. There is nothing like a starchy, salty meal to satisfy your hunger and make you thirsty to drink water and stay hydrated – great for the kids and I like it too!
By mid-afternoon the games were wrapping up and the tournament was almost done. There were two clear winners which was nice – Bonatla and Thamalakane – also coincidently my two favourite schools! (I promise I didn’t do anything funny with the points – there was too many people watching and triple checking it!) We had a huge closing ceremony, handed out all of the equipment that we used through the week to the schools, distributed all of the booklets to the teachers and said our thank-you’s and farewells!
It was a fairly abrupt end to the whole program and I caught myself stunned that it was over as the students headed off the pitch to go home! I had a mixed feeling of relief – knowing that I was going to have a big long sleep tonight, but sad in that a major part of my interaction with the kids was going to be over. I took solace in the fact that everything went well and I saw the week as a big success.
On a side note, I got interviewed by the Botswana Television Channel (the only TV channel) and I am going to be on the national news – cool!
After cleaning up the Stadium and packing up the vehicles with all of the stuff that we had collected people started heading home. The football coaches were off to their safari, the conservation coaches were heading back to their place to eat and crash and I headed home to see my host family, which I had basically neglected all week (leaving before they did and getting home after they did). I felt a little bit bad, but I would also be leaving them tonight.
A group of Canadian students from Nunavut were coming into Maun – they were senior high school students doing a one-month placement with Women Against Rape in Maun or with the Bushmen in Shakawe. However, tonight they were at Maun Lodge and they were getting some orientation and some training. I was invited by WUSC (who also organized their trip) to attend and chat with the students. I talked with them about what I have been doing and how I got involved. I answered some of their questions about Maun and how I liked being here, etc, etc. It was really neat to meet the kids as I don’t really know anyone from Nunavut! I also got to catch up with a friend I made in Gabs who is doing a long-term placement on HIV in Bots and was doing an HIV orientation for the kids tonight too. It was a really nice event after an already mind-blowing week!
After the kids headed home for the night I decided to hang out with the documentarians at the Bomo (also at Maun Lodge). We chilled by the fire and had a few drinks talking about the week and the plans for the future. It was a really nice moment and I felt at peace with the world and myself. This week had been full of so many lessons and so much emotion. I was really happy with myself and with the work I was doing. I felt proud and confident in the future to come – for myself, for the Batswana and for this country.
To get everything ready and set-up, as few of us got to the Stadium just after seven. I was most nervous about transport. We had finally gotten down doing the nine schools – but today we had to get twice as many there for the same deadline! I had spoken with the drivers yesterday and confirmed our plans for what schools first, etc, etc. Luckily by eight o’clock we already had three schools present.
By nine o’clock you could feel the competition in the air. It was definitely fueled by their coaches and teachers, who at the pre-tournament meeting with them not a joke was cracked or one’s focus broken. It was one, this was for all the marbles – and we did the best we could to remind them that this was for fun and for learning!
We kicked off at 9:00am, the schedule was too tight so delay – with four fields all being used continuously. It was going to be interesting to watch how this progresses. We had a few of the early games defaulted as we waited on three or four more schools, but miraculously it had worked and things were going okay.
I got to spend the day doing all of the scores and the points tallying. There was always a group of kids watching, pointing and whispering to each other. Many a time I found coaches staring at the board and reminded them they had to be with their students…they grudgingly trudged off to find them.
One of the highlights of the day for me was the traditional lunch that was prepared for everyone. This took a lot of coordination and planning. We had four cooks come in from the village of Shorobe on Thursday afternoon. We loaded up close to two hundred pounds of papa (maize meal – sort of like cream of wheat, but with corn not wheat) and 380 pounds of beef (two cattle worth) into the landrover. At two in the morning, we had to get the cooks to Tawana Primary (the closest primary school) where we had arranged a cooking space, five huge black cauldrons for cooking and firewood.
The meal was papa and seswaa – very common and very traditional (notice the lack of vegetables!). Seswaa is really easy to make – it just take time! First you boil all of the meat – bones and everything. Then once it is cooked the bones are removed. The only seasoning that is really used is salt, and once the bones are gone then they start in with the poles. They basically pound the meat until it is soft, stringy and tender (take a few hours). However, once it is done – OH! Is it SOOOoooooo good! The best part of traditional Batswana food is that you don’t use utensils – so you get to eat with your hands. There is nothing like a starchy, salty meal to satisfy your hunger and make you thirsty to drink water and stay hydrated – great for the kids and I like it too!
By mid-afternoon the games were wrapping up and the tournament was almost done. There were two clear winners which was nice – Bonatla and Thamalakane – also coincidently my two favourite schools! (I promise I didn’t do anything funny with the points – there was too many people watching and triple checking it!) We had a huge closing ceremony, handed out all of the equipment that we used through the week to the schools, distributed all of the booklets to the teachers and said our thank-you’s and farewells!
It was a fairly abrupt end to the whole program and I caught myself stunned that it was over as the students headed off the pitch to go home! I had a mixed feeling of relief – knowing that I was going to have a big long sleep tonight, but sad in that a major part of my interaction with the kids was going to be over. I took solace in the fact that everything went well and I saw the week as a big success.
On a side note, I got interviewed by the Botswana Television Channel (the only TV channel) and I am going to be on the national news – cool!
After cleaning up the Stadium and packing up the vehicles with all of the stuff that we had collected people started heading home. The football coaches were off to their safari, the conservation coaches were heading back to their place to eat and crash and I headed home to see my host family, which I had basically neglected all week (leaving before they did and getting home after they did). I felt a little bit bad, but I would also be leaving them tonight.
A group of Canadian students from Nunavut were coming into Maun – they were senior high school students doing a one-month placement with Women Against Rape in Maun or with the Bushmen in Shakawe. However, tonight they were at Maun Lodge and they were getting some orientation and some training. I was invited by WUSC (who also organized their trip) to attend and chat with the students. I talked with them about what I have been doing and how I got involved. I answered some of their questions about Maun and how I liked being here, etc, etc. It was really neat to meet the kids as I don’t really know anyone from Nunavut! I also got to catch up with a friend I made in Gabs who is doing a long-term placement on HIV in Bots and was doing an HIV orientation for the kids tonight too. It was a really nice event after an already mind-blowing week!
After the kids headed home for the night I decided to hang out with the documentarians at the Bomo (also at Maun Lodge). We chilled by the fire and had a few drinks talking about the week and the plans for the future. It was a really nice moment and I felt at peace with the world and myself. This week had been full of so many lessons and so much emotion. I was really happy with myself and with the work I was doing. I felt proud and confident in the future to come – for myself, for the Batswana and for this country.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Blog #42 – C4C: Creeping Towards the End
Thursday was the last day of activities for the Coaching for Conservation camp. The logistics were all flowing smoothing now and everything was going really well. I couldn’t be happier with the way things were going. I was able to spend all of my time at my conservation station, playing different games with the children and teaching them different lessons. This would be the last day that I got to work with them like this and it was a little bit sad.
It was really amazing to witness the change in the students. Originally when I had visited the classrooms the scene was stereotypical. The majority of students seemed turned of and disinterested, mind you they were much more polite than youngsters back home nowadays. However, by the end of this week, all of the students in my groups were participating. They would all raise their hand eagerly to name off limited resources in Botswana, the components of a habitat, the definition of conservation, endangered species in the country, what living healthy means, and the list goes on. Of course, some classes were better than others, but there was a definite shift. These students showed an interest in what they were learning – and that interest was even parallel with football now. I couldn’t have been happier and it was probably the proudest I have been all summer. I felt like I could do this my whole entire life – it felt fulfilling!
People were really good spirits by the end of the day. However, this would be the last night of everyone together and the football coaches would be flying out directly after the program on Friday for their safari adventure! We all headed to Sports Bar – a local dining, drinking and socializing establishment. We had all of the football coaches, all of the conservation coaches, Lesley and her family and the documentarians. We literally were a group of over forty people and we took over the entire restaurant portion of the place except for three little tables.
The food was really good – I actually had green chicken mango curry…that’s right in rural Maun of all place, haha! We had a few rounds of drinks while we waited for our food, playing billiards and watching the big screen sports games. The local Batswana football players from the Shorobe Wild Dogs team that volunteered throughout the week joined us and we played and hung out with them. We got everyone together and a huge round of shooters called “Springboks” – made of Amarula liqueur and peppermint liqueur (a layer of green and brown – just like the rugby team in South Africa). It was definitely the start to an exciting evening!
After the adult scene started nodding off, all of the students and young coaches decided to head to the infamous Trekkers – Maun’s one and only dance club. We spent the rest of the evening at Trekkers dancing late into the evening. The music they play is most commonly house or electronica – with some wicked and some not-so-wicked remixes. One of the guys who DJs back in LA got up on stage with the DJs and started infiltrating their scene. He even got to take over for a little bit – it was awesome. Everyone had a really good time and the locals really enjoyed having us out too – we looked great all still dressed in our camp outfits, haha! We were up well into the early morning hours and everyone decided to call it a night as we had a REALLY long day ahead of us tomorrow and we wanted a least a few complete hours of sleep ;)
It was really amazing to witness the change in the students. Originally when I had visited the classrooms the scene was stereotypical. The majority of students seemed turned of and disinterested, mind you they were much more polite than youngsters back home nowadays. However, by the end of this week, all of the students in my groups were participating. They would all raise their hand eagerly to name off limited resources in Botswana, the components of a habitat, the definition of conservation, endangered species in the country, what living healthy means, and the list goes on. Of course, some classes were better than others, but there was a definite shift. These students showed an interest in what they were learning – and that interest was even parallel with football now. I couldn’t have been happier and it was probably the proudest I have been all summer. I felt like I could do this my whole entire life – it felt fulfilling!
People were really good spirits by the end of the day. However, this would be the last night of everyone together and the football coaches would be flying out directly after the program on Friday for their safari adventure! We all headed to Sports Bar – a local dining, drinking and socializing establishment. We had all of the football coaches, all of the conservation coaches, Lesley and her family and the documentarians. We literally were a group of over forty people and we took over the entire restaurant portion of the place except for three little tables.
The food was really good – I actually had green chicken mango curry…that’s right in rural Maun of all place, haha! We had a few rounds of drinks while we waited for our food, playing billiards and watching the big screen sports games. The local Batswana football players from the Shorobe Wild Dogs team that volunteered throughout the week joined us and we played and hung out with them. We got everyone together and a huge round of shooters called “Springboks” – made of Amarula liqueur and peppermint liqueur (a layer of green and brown – just like the rugby team in South Africa). It was definitely the start to an exciting evening!
After the adult scene started nodding off, all of the students and young coaches decided to head to the infamous Trekkers – Maun’s one and only dance club. We spent the rest of the evening at Trekkers dancing late into the evening. The music they play is most commonly house or electronica – with some wicked and some not-so-wicked remixes. One of the guys who DJs back in LA got up on stage with the DJs and started infiltrating their scene. He even got to take over for a little bit – it was awesome. Everyone had a really good time and the locals really enjoyed having us out too – we looked great all still dressed in our camp outfits, haha! We were up well into the early morning hours and everyone decided to call it a night as we had a REALLY long day ahead of us tomorrow and we wanted a least a few complete hours of sleep ;)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Blog #41 – C4C Continues
The last two days flew by – it was a whirlwind of energy, teaching and fun!
Tuesday was a little bit rough after all of the excitement and output on Monday – a lot like the second full day of working at camp. On Tuesday we ended up starting each session only a little bit late, which was great! We introduced the curriculum activity booklets today – which sound like a drag, but were actually really cool. We had designed them to have lots of pictures and only a few concentrated lessons. Also, considering that the cost of textbooks can sometimes be a barrier to education here, and that often times classes end up sharing a few books – providing every kid with a full colour booklet for them self was really well received!
One of my favourite memories of Tuesday was when I was waiting for my afternoon class to finish their activity in the booklet. I was getting impatient after being through this once in the morning and asked them if they wanted to play another game. The responded with a resounding, “No sir, we are not done our work yet!” I was shocked and impressed – it really contributed to my confidence in the future generation of students that would be coming through Botswana in the next decade.
Wednesday went very similar to Tuesday. One of the sadder stories from Wednesday has to do with the divide between the public and the private schools. We had put all of the new schools together in the morning session, and all of the returning schools in the afternoon. As such, we had all of the private schools (3) with the remainder being public schools in the afternoon session. There was apparently a lot of tension between the two groups.
The private school kids had all brought their own water bottles and water to drink, and the public school students were drinking from the bottles and water that we provided. Apparantly during one of the rest sessions a public school kid drank from a private school student’s bottle and the private school kid reacted saying, “He isn’t worth drinking my piss!”. To say the least we were shocked and dismayed. Luckily we managed to turn it into a “teachable” moment, but still the effect of his statement was a little haunting. It showed how much even the children here, value money and wealth – and that the divide isn’t necessarily by race or religion or even tribe, it is by economic class.
From that moment on we started integrating the private schools more concerted in with the public schools. When we did activities together we would pair one public and one private together. I found out later from Lesley that we are one of the only programs in all of Maun that have the public and the private schools interacting and playing together – normally they just stay within each other. On the same note, we are one of the only programs that integrates boys with girls and has both of them playing with each other and against each other. It made me really proud of what we were doing and what we were trying to demonstrate and achieve.
After Wednesday’s activities we decided to head back to Maun Lodge and eat and chill at the Boma Fire Pit & Restaurant. The Boma is a really neat place, all made of lataka and thatching, with palm trees, large carved wooden furniture and a huge fire in the middle of the outdoor restaurant to socialize and keep warm by. It was a really nice meal and we had some good conversation about international development work, intercultural affairs and the role that we play as external members of a community coming in to education and effect change. It was really entertaining, quite stimulating, evidently controversial and as always overly passionate :) There is no better way to wrap up your day!
Tuesday was a little bit rough after all of the excitement and output on Monday – a lot like the second full day of working at camp. On Tuesday we ended up starting each session only a little bit late, which was great! We introduced the curriculum activity booklets today – which sound like a drag, but were actually really cool. We had designed them to have lots of pictures and only a few concentrated lessons. Also, considering that the cost of textbooks can sometimes be a barrier to education here, and that often times classes end up sharing a few books – providing every kid with a full colour booklet for them self was really well received!
One of my favourite memories of Tuesday was when I was waiting for my afternoon class to finish their activity in the booklet. I was getting impatient after being through this once in the morning and asked them if they wanted to play another game. The responded with a resounding, “No sir, we are not done our work yet!” I was shocked and impressed – it really contributed to my confidence in the future generation of students that would be coming through Botswana in the next decade.
Wednesday went very similar to Tuesday. One of the sadder stories from Wednesday has to do with the divide between the public and the private schools. We had put all of the new schools together in the morning session, and all of the returning schools in the afternoon. As such, we had all of the private schools (3) with the remainder being public schools in the afternoon session. There was apparently a lot of tension between the two groups.
The private school kids had all brought their own water bottles and water to drink, and the public school students were drinking from the bottles and water that we provided. Apparantly during one of the rest sessions a public school kid drank from a private school student’s bottle and the private school kid reacted saying, “He isn’t worth drinking my piss!”. To say the least we were shocked and dismayed. Luckily we managed to turn it into a “teachable” moment, but still the effect of his statement was a little haunting. It showed how much even the children here, value money and wealth – and that the divide isn’t necessarily by race or religion or even tribe, it is by economic class.
From that moment on we started integrating the private schools more concerted in with the public schools. When we did activities together we would pair one public and one private together. I found out later from Lesley that we are one of the only programs in all of Maun that have the public and the private schools interacting and playing together – normally they just stay within each other. On the same note, we are one of the only programs that integrates boys with girls and has both of them playing with each other and against each other. It made me really proud of what we were doing and what we were trying to demonstrate and achieve.
After Wednesday’s activities we decided to head back to Maun Lodge and eat and chill at the Boma Fire Pit & Restaurant. The Boma is a really neat place, all made of lataka and thatching, with palm trees, large carved wooden furniture and a huge fire in the middle of the outdoor restaurant to socialize and keep warm by. It was a really nice meal and we had some good conversation about international development work, intercultural affairs and the role that we play as external members of a community coming in to education and effect change. It was really entertaining, quite stimulating, evidently controversial and as always overly passionate :) There is no better way to wrap up your day!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Blog #40 – C4C Take-Off! Day 1
It began today.
The Coaching for Convervation program started five years ago with just two coaches and a handful of kids from one remote village. Today we had all nineteen schools and over four hundred and fifty schoolchildren. This was the very first year that a concerted emphasis and environmental education curriculum has been developed and implemented into the program. It didn’t come easily, and today was a testament to that.
As there was a lot of running around to do, errands to complete and things to triple check, it was a bright early start for a Monday. It began with a quick visit to the Ministry of Education to make sure that transportation was arranged and all good to go for the day. My hopes and faith in the system could not have been crushed more. The two ministry officials I had been working with (who I had invited to the program last week) had picked up and left Maun – “not to be expected back this week”, I was told. It was like starting from scratch.
We needed to get two hundred and fifty students from all over Maun (some schools as far as forty-five minutes away) to the Stadium in just over two hours. I went to speak with the three staff that were left in the education office. They were chatting socially with each other drinking coffee around the “water cooler”. When I asked about the busing and the transportation the answer I got was, “oh! We have a paper about that somewhere…hold on.” As they shuffled around the office, with all three of them looking, one of the ladies finally pulled out the letter with all of the school and transportation logistics times from under a pile of stuff on her desk. “Here we go!” she said happily. I was not impressed. They had done nothing – and they would have done nothing until god knows when!
I had to sit down with them and work through every single detail of the transportation. How many buses did they have? Two. “Ah, but one they say she is broken”. Okay, one bus. One bus to transport all of these kids from all of these schools was just not going to cut it! Then they added, “but the working bus is not here now, it is still coming back from Shakawe (and was still two hours away!)”. I was fitting to not blow it on these people and to keep my patience. “What else do you have to transport these students with?” A big flatbed truck – with no seats, no side bars – but that is Maun and that is what we work with.
Over the next thirty minutes I worked out a schedule of what schools they would start with when with what vehicle and how all the pick-up and drop-off times would work. I had to do this after living here for less than two months, and visiting most of these schools only once. By the time we finished, I had them call the truck to begin its route – what a nightmare! And to think I wasn’t even going to stop and check in on transportation.
On the bright side of life, the day only got better from there :) I ran the remainder of my errands and got everything else we needed to the Stadium with half an hour to spare before start time. Considering that there was no way transportation was going to allow us to start on-time, we were golden. In the end the first school that arrived actually walked there by foot. Made me feel great about all the pre-planning I had done. But it was still a school and it was that much closer to running the program.
We ended up starting the program an hour late. I was the master of ceremonies for the week and I got to do the welcome and the energizer and then introduce all of the different people that were helping out. It was a lot of fun! This is what I had been waiting for! This is why I was here. The morning activities had been squished down so we had been trying to do what we had planned in less time. Luckily, I was already familiar with the language barrier, the kids level of knowledge, and the kids all knew and remember me (which was really touching, but then again how many other 6’5” white lanky people did they interact with in their lifetime?!) I managed to get through all of my activities – the only one of the three conservation facilitators. It made me really happy!
Today, we learned about different animals through what we called animal forms – teaching them stretches and stances to prepare for, play offense and play defense in – it was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time with it. After that we plaed a game called, “oh! Impala”, which was a little more challenging to get across but with enough time, actions, examples and exaggerations it worked. We were teaching kids about limited natural resources and competition between and within species. Nothing like an intro to ecology to get conservation lessons kicking!
By the end of the morning I was wiped! It was 1:30pm – the hottest part of the day – and I was sweating and my voice was going. Luckily we had an hour break before we would get the second load of kids.
In the afternoon we managed to get started only half an hour, which was awesome – and may also have been contributed to by the fact that I had erroneously told these schools that the start time was 2pm instead of 2:30pm. It was the same routine of activities and games in the afternoon and as the other conservation coaches I had worked with in the morning had seen it all before I started handing over the reigns to them and allowing them take the lead – it was a beautiful experience!
The day couldn’t have ended up better. From a major low in the morning to one super high by the end of the afternoon, I was loving life! We decided to all go for dinner together at the Buck & Hunter to celebrate day one! By the time we had everyone and had managed to sit down for dinner, it was already past sunset. We had a marvelous dinner and had attracted the attention of some Ex-Patriots (or expats) – people who live and work in Botswana but aren’t from there. The Buck & Hunter is a notorious hang out place for a lot of the expats in Maun, especially the pilots who run trips into the Delta.
Needless to say, there isn’t often a lot of “fresh meat” for these people to socialize with – and being university students from North America – we were probably the coolest and most interesting people there ;) just kidding! We ended up making friends with another large group of them and pushing our tables together. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with this lot over drinks, music and some dancing. It was a lot of fun and the owner of Buck & Hunter came over and hung with us too for a while. It was a great day and a great night of fun!
That was Day 1, and what a first day it was!
The Coaching for Convervation program started five years ago with just two coaches and a handful of kids from one remote village. Today we had all nineteen schools and over four hundred and fifty schoolchildren. This was the very first year that a concerted emphasis and environmental education curriculum has been developed and implemented into the program. It didn’t come easily, and today was a testament to that.
As there was a lot of running around to do, errands to complete and things to triple check, it was a bright early start for a Monday. It began with a quick visit to the Ministry of Education to make sure that transportation was arranged and all good to go for the day. My hopes and faith in the system could not have been crushed more. The two ministry officials I had been working with (who I had invited to the program last week) had picked up and left Maun – “not to be expected back this week”, I was told. It was like starting from scratch.
We needed to get two hundred and fifty students from all over Maun (some schools as far as forty-five minutes away) to the Stadium in just over two hours. I went to speak with the three staff that were left in the education office. They were chatting socially with each other drinking coffee around the “water cooler”. When I asked about the busing and the transportation the answer I got was, “oh! We have a paper about that somewhere…hold on.” As they shuffled around the office, with all three of them looking, one of the ladies finally pulled out the letter with all of the school and transportation logistics times from under a pile of stuff on her desk. “Here we go!” she said happily. I was not impressed. They had done nothing – and they would have done nothing until god knows when!
I had to sit down with them and work through every single detail of the transportation. How many buses did they have? Two. “Ah, but one they say she is broken”. Okay, one bus. One bus to transport all of these kids from all of these schools was just not going to cut it! Then they added, “but the working bus is not here now, it is still coming back from Shakawe (and was still two hours away!)”. I was fitting to not blow it on these people and to keep my patience. “What else do you have to transport these students with?” A big flatbed truck – with no seats, no side bars – but that is Maun and that is what we work with.
Over the next thirty minutes I worked out a schedule of what schools they would start with when with what vehicle and how all the pick-up and drop-off times would work. I had to do this after living here for less than two months, and visiting most of these schools only once. By the time we finished, I had them call the truck to begin its route – what a nightmare! And to think I wasn’t even going to stop and check in on transportation.
On the bright side of life, the day only got better from there :) I ran the remainder of my errands and got everything else we needed to the Stadium with half an hour to spare before start time. Considering that there was no way transportation was going to allow us to start on-time, we were golden. In the end the first school that arrived actually walked there by foot. Made me feel great about all the pre-planning I had done. But it was still a school and it was that much closer to running the program.
We ended up starting the program an hour late. I was the master of ceremonies for the week and I got to do the welcome and the energizer and then introduce all of the different people that were helping out. It was a lot of fun! This is what I had been waiting for! This is why I was here. The morning activities had been squished down so we had been trying to do what we had planned in less time. Luckily, I was already familiar with the language barrier, the kids level of knowledge, and the kids all knew and remember me (which was really touching, but then again how many other 6’5” white lanky people did they interact with in their lifetime?!) I managed to get through all of my activities – the only one of the three conservation facilitators. It made me really happy!
Today, we learned about different animals through what we called animal forms – teaching them stretches and stances to prepare for, play offense and play defense in – it was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time with it. After that we plaed a game called, “oh! Impala”, which was a little more challenging to get across but with enough time, actions, examples and exaggerations it worked. We were teaching kids about limited natural resources and competition between and within species. Nothing like an intro to ecology to get conservation lessons kicking!
By the end of the morning I was wiped! It was 1:30pm – the hottest part of the day – and I was sweating and my voice was going. Luckily we had an hour break before we would get the second load of kids.
In the afternoon we managed to get started only half an hour, which was awesome – and may also have been contributed to by the fact that I had erroneously told these schools that the start time was 2pm instead of 2:30pm. It was the same routine of activities and games in the afternoon and as the other conservation coaches I had worked with in the morning had seen it all before I started handing over the reigns to them and allowing them take the lead – it was a beautiful experience!
The day couldn’t have ended up better. From a major low in the morning to one super high by the end of the afternoon, I was loving life! We decided to all go for dinner together at the Buck & Hunter to celebrate day one! By the time we had everyone and had managed to sit down for dinner, it was already past sunset. We had a marvelous dinner and had attracted the attention of some Ex-Patriots (or expats) – people who live and work in Botswana but aren’t from there. The Buck & Hunter is a notorious hang out place for a lot of the expats in Maun, especially the pilots who run trips into the Delta.
Needless to say, there isn’t often a lot of “fresh meat” for these people to socialize with – and being university students from North America – we were probably the coolest and most interesting people there ;) just kidding! We ended up making friends with another large group of them and pushing our tables together. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with this lot over drinks, music and some dancing. It was a lot of fun and the owner of Buck & Hunter came over and hung with us too for a while. It was a great day and a great night of fun!
That was Day 1, and what a first day it was!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Blog #39 – Calm Before the Storm
After yesterday’s adventures, I decided it might be best for me to walk into work. It was an early start to the day, considering Sunday was normally the day I slept in. We were doing some last minutes preparation and organizing for the training of the Conservation Coaches – the USC volunteer students. Keith was going to be doing the bulk of the training, but the rest of us had our parts and also had arranged different resources for them to read and learn from. I was happy with myself as I had finished all my work previously and was just putting everything together and helping out the others.
The students rolled in around 11 o’clock and we got right into the training. I got to finally hear the official talk of the BPCT – the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust – and all of the amazingly cool things that they are doing. It was really cool hearing Tico talk about all of the different projects and the way that things have changed since he first started here in the bush twenty years ago. One of the coolest projects to me is the BioBoundary project, which is a long term project looking at using semiochemicals (the natural communication chemicals of animals) to control where they go and where they don’t go – basically chemical scent fences. This would drastically reduce the amount of conflict between wildlife and livestock (but most importantly between wildlife and the gun of the livestock’s owner).
After I did my presentation and handed out my resources I was pretty much free for the day. I stepped in and out to hear a little more of what was going on and answer questions when they had them. It was really exciting to have other students my age here and involved with the program. It was really easy to connect with them and understand where they were coming from. It definitely was building my excitement for the program – which kicked off tomorrow!
Ash, of Ashley’s Soccer Camp USA, arrived at midday. He has been helping with the program since it’s beginning – and has been providing professional soccer coaches from the USA and UK to run the skills development aspect of the program since then. It was nice to meet all of the football coaches and the rest of his family that he had brought along for the experience. For the first time since we moved offices, there was a LOT of activity going on. We had close to three dozen people in the office and it was really REALLY energizing!
After eating lunch and then wrapping up the training shortly afterwards, we made a plan to have everyone meet at the Stadium. It gave a little bit of time off for the USC students and some time for the coaches to unpack and settle into their accommodations. We spent from late afternoon up until the sunset learning and practicing all of the different activities that we had planned for the week as well as getting to know everyone a bit better. It was invigorating to get onto the soccer field and I was getting giddy with excitement. This was what my summer was all about, this is what all of my school visits and logistics planning was for – it was so close and I couldn’t wait!
For the week’s program there would be three conservation facilitators – Keith, Carley and me. We would be the one’s responsible for all of the conservation curriculum and activities – with each of us working with 6 schools per day. To try and get on the same page and develop a strategy for the week, now that we knew more about the people we had with us, we decided to have dinner together.
Lesley had us over to her house – the first time I have ever been there. She lives surprisingly close to the stadium in a house that Tico and her had built themselves four or five years ago. Tico had made dinner for everyone while we had stayed late at the Stadium. It was very family-isque, sitting down together for a meal and conversation. After dinner we talked all about the program, assigned the coaches to school and planned out the seemingly never-end list of logistical to-dos for tomorrow morning. It took a good chunk of time, and we were going to have a early morning, but everything seemed to be well planned for and taken care of, so we got to enjoy the final sets of the Wimbledon tennis men’s final – it was funny to be watching the sporting event here in Maun, Botswana of all places. Oh, but by far my favourite part of the evening was that Lesley’s baked fresh delicious peanut butter brownies – nothing like chocolate and peanut butter to end an amazing day!
I can’t wait for tomorrow – it feels like Christmas Eve as a child. Hey, who I am I kidding - It just feels like Christmas Eve.
The students rolled in around 11 o’clock and we got right into the training. I got to finally hear the official talk of the BPCT – the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust – and all of the amazingly cool things that they are doing. It was really cool hearing Tico talk about all of the different projects and the way that things have changed since he first started here in the bush twenty years ago. One of the coolest projects to me is the BioBoundary project, which is a long term project looking at using semiochemicals (the natural communication chemicals of animals) to control where they go and where they don’t go – basically chemical scent fences. This would drastically reduce the amount of conflict between wildlife and livestock (but most importantly between wildlife and the gun of the livestock’s owner).
After I did my presentation and handed out my resources I was pretty much free for the day. I stepped in and out to hear a little more of what was going on and answer questions when they had them. It was really exciting to have other students my age here and involved with the program. It was really easy to connect with them and understand where they were coming from. It definitely was building my excitement for the program – which kicked off tomorrow!
Ash, of Ashley’s Soccer Camp USA, arrived at midday. He has been helping with the program since it’s beginning – and has been providing professional soccer coaches from the USA and UK to run the skills development aspect of the program since then. It was nice to meet all of the football coaches and the rest of his family that he had brought along for the experience. For the first time since we moved offices, there was a LOT of activity going on. We had close to three dozen people in the office and it was really REALLY energizing!
After eating lunch and then wrapping up the training shortly afterwards, we made a plan to have everyone meet at the Stadium. It gave a little bit of time off for the USC students and some time for the coaches to unpack and settle into their accommodations. We spent from late afternoon up until the sunset learning and practicing all of the different activities that we had planned for the week as well as getting to know everyone a bit better. It was invigorating to get onto the soccer field and I was getting giddy with excitement. This was what my summer was all about, this is what all of my school visits and logistics planning was for – it was so close and I couldn’t wait!
For the week’s program there would be three conservation facilitators – Keith, Carley and me. We would be the one’s responsible for all of the conservation curriculum and activities – with each of us working with 6 schools per day. To try and get on the same page and develop a strategy for the week, now that we knew more about the people we had with us, we decided to have dinner together.
Lesley had us over to her house – the first time I have ever been there. She lives surprisingly close to the stadium in a house that Tico and her had built themselves four or five years ago. Tico had made dinner for everyone while we had stayed late at the Stadium. It was very family-isque, sitting down together for a meal and conversation. After dinner we talked all about the program, assigned the coaches to school and planned out the seemingly never-end list of logistical to-dos for tomorrow morning. It took a good chunk of time, and we were going to have a early morning, but everything seemed to be well planned for and taken care of, so we got to enjoy the final sets of the Wimbledon tennis men’s final – it was funny to be watching the sporting event here in Maun, Botswana of all places. Oh, but by far my favourite part of the evening was that Lesley’s baked fresh delicious peanut butter brownies – nothing like chocolate and peanut butter to end an amazing day!
I can’t wait for tomorrow – it feels like Christmas Eve as a child. Hey, who I am I kidding - It just feels like Christmas Eve.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Blog #38 – Singing, Dancing & Drunk Driving
Today was the last day off I would have before we got fully into the program. I was going to tag along with the film crew, who was attending a local song and dance competition. I woke up relatively early, but not too early, knowing that it wouldn’t likely get started on time. We started out for the competition and realized that it was nowhere that we expected it to be. There was no one and no sign of anyone coming to the place that we expected! It was a little bit odd and I was slightly pissed off because I had really been looking forward to seeing some of the local culture!
After making a few calls we found out where everything had been moved to and were back on track. We made it to Sedia Junior School just around ten o’clock. There were a few schools there already and some other spectators. Considering the start time had been nine o’clock it wasn’t looking too good.
By twelve thirty the show finally got on the road… yes, three and a half hours behind schedule. I was really excited however, and was looking forward to all of the dancing and singing (but mostly the dancing, haha!)
The first school to perform was Shorobe, a small village forty minutes out of Maun. The group of choir students filed into the room – all dressed up in white collared shirts and dress pants/skirts – it was all way more formal than I had thought it would be. The children sang a song that was in English (though had to discern) and about something religious – it was hard to understand, however, it was definitely very much like a “white Christian hymn”. I felt a little odd seeing all of these local Batswana children performing this piece. The second piece was a little more lively, but still hugely lacking in local culture, flavour and language. I should note though, that their singing talent, for junior school students, was really quiet good, especially considering their choir was over thirty people.
There was around a fifteen-minute break after Shorobe while the judges wrote notes and marked their performance. The next school after Shorobe was a little larger, probably forty or so kids, and they sang the same songs. Of course, they didn’t sound the same, and you can definitely see a difference in skill level, but already had a bad feeling of what the next few hours would be.
Originally I had though we would have a morning full of singing and dancing of the local culture. When I got a hold of the schedule, I saw that there were ten schools that would be singing – and it took over half an hour to get through just two of them – and after that the dancing would start. The saddest part of all, was that all of the songs were going to be the same – maybe four different songs all day – and NONE of them were in Setswana or that entertaining.
While I sat patiently and calmly for the next three hours, I did appreciate all of the preparation and work that had went into these performances. Some of the choirs got up to over a hundred students – and I can only imagine what that must be like to try and teach. Then add the challenge of learning songs that aren’t natural to the students’ culture and in English (a second langauge or maybe not even known) and there are some big hurdles to overcome.
Our driver had headed out after the first few schools to go and pick up some other students that were just arriving. Then he was going to bring those that were interested here to see the singing and dancing. We were lucky enough to get to stay for the whole thing. And let me tell you, after listening to songs for close to four hours, I was VERY ready for some dancing!
Once the singing was over the air in the room changed. The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky and air was beginning to cool. The crowd that had been dispersed and lightly focused before now quickly filled ever chair in the audience and everyone pushed forward to try and get the best seat in the house! I knew this was going to be good!
I could tell the first students to go were nervous. They shuffled into the room with their traditional dress – small outfits of animal leather, beads and feathers. It seemed like they were waiting for music to begin for them to start, but it would never come. They danced to their own rhythm and song. The group began slapping their feet and clapping their hands. With around twenty-five dancers, they got quite an amazing musical rhythm going. Then one tiny little girl – the smallest in the group – took a tiny step forward and began leading a call and answer song. The sound is impossible to describe and the experience is breath-taking.
After the rhythm has built up and the singing is getting going they break into dance. It began with four boys, each doing a set routine of stepping, spin and rhythm making step – all of them doing the same thing, but with such evident personality and uniqueness. After the boys came the girls. They stepped out and did their own part. After that it was like a regimented and very proper flirtatious dance with a lot of partner steps and group choreography. It was really, really cool to watch and I loved ever minute of it. The crowd did to – and many of the women would join in the rhythms or add in their own cat cries and verbal flourishes!
When the group ended everyone burst into a very healthy applause. You could tell that this was the moment that everyone had waited all day for and this was what people had really cared for. I definitely felt much more at ease seeing the support and evident love for the local cultural performance – and not so much for the hugely colonial and religiously impacted vocal performances.
After a few more dances it was time to call it a day. I was pleased and content and glad for the experience. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were starving, but there was also still quite the agenda for the evening. A service group from the University of Southern California had arrived in the afternoon and was settling into their accommodations. These nine students would be helping with the program next week and also doing some other conservation work after that.
Our driver was waiting in the car for us as we packed up and left the competition. As soon as I saw him I knew something was wrong. He was sitting in the driver’s seat and his eye’s were bloodshot and it smelled of alcohol. I had no idea how much he had been drinking, but it was clear that he had slipped away in the afternoon to have a few. The saddest part for me was not the fact that he had been drinking, it was that he had just gotten a pay advance and that was immediately what he went to spend his money on.
Regardless, back to the issue at hand, was that we had to get home and we had no idea if our driver was in the right mindset or not. I decided to test him and see what sort of state he was in. I went to pass him the keys for the car and dropped them into his hands, he didn’t even come close to catching them and the drop was only a few inches. He also then broke down into a fit of laughter. I was sold - there was no way that he was driving. The problem was that none of us had a license and none of us knew how to drive standard.
Of all of the visions that I had of me learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle, this most certainly was not it. The sun was setting and it was getting dark. We had a beat-up old landrover that was coming close to being on its last legs. There was no one else who could possibly drive except for me. Today was the day I begin learning how to drive standard…with only myself as the teacher…at least it wasn’t my car, haha! Only to complicate the matter further, the hundred of children were milling about and totally cool with walking right in front of or behind the vehicle.
My task seemed challenging, but not insurmountable. I had to reverse the car through a parking lot full of people for nearly fifty meters, then I would have the space to turn it around and take it out of the school grounds. After that all I would need to manage is driving home with everyone…
I stalled the car five times before I finally figured out how to get it properly into reverse. The issue was letting go of the clutch too early. I didn’t even need the gas (but little did I realize that at the start). The result was some mad jerking of the wheels and some very frightened passengers, not to mention bystanders. The looks I got definitely had people pegging me as the drunk driver, how shameful. This was also the moment that my other passengers decided that it would be best to just scream at the children to get the hell out of the way or else they are going to die – quite encouraging and also really helping me stay calm about this all. Finally, I managed to get the car rolling backwards and it was just a matter of steering, controlling speed and braking until we got to the open end of the parking lot.
Turning around was an adventure as well. There were a few other cars that we also trying to get out – and a few arriving. Adding other cars to the list of things to hit wasn’t any more encouraging. Luckily I got this part on the second try – total stall count 6. We rolled out of the school and it was so good to get onto open road! I feel as this may have been one of my best accomplishments to date :)
However, that whole time I had managed to drive under five kilometers and hour and now I would be getting onto the road that expected eighty. It was going to be some quick learning. I told everyone to buckle up, which was irrelevant as they had already done so the moment I said I would drive. We started off and I decided that I could just stay in first gear all the way to the paved road. What I should have realized was that I was missing prime learning time on a dirt road with no other traffic.
As I got to the junction of the dirt road and the tar road I took a deep breath. So did everyone else. I started off and began picking up speed on the gravel side of the road. I wait until it was clear on both sides of the road until I merged in. I got up to forty km/h and made the gear change into second…I took about ten seconds to get it into the second. The gearshift was brutal and it was one of those “you have to have the special touch” kind of things. I got a few horn honks, but it was all okay. Then I was building up some speed again and made it into third – this time a piece of cake!
I had decided to head away from town and take the country roads all the way home – that way avoiding the bulk of traffic, but also a few stop signs. I would inevitably have to use a traffic circle and make a few stops. The first stop was to get our driver home and this was entertaining because gearing down was about ten times harder than gearing up. The first attempt was shitty because I couldn’t get it back into second – so the engine just revved like a banshee and the car jerked and slowed right down (this was the moment I braced to be rear-ended). Luckily the person just passed us and no doubt cursed at us. I pulled the car off the road onto the gravel and got it back into first.
After letting our driver out, I needed a few breaths to steady myself and make thanks for us not being killed already. The rest of the drive was quite eventful –the traffic was thinning, which made it better and I practiced gearing up and down – I am great with gearing up, but still need some work on gearing down. Learning on a landrover was probably the worst vehicle choice – as the gear shifting is ridiculously challenging and hard to do, but its not like we had much choice. I got the car all the way down the road, around the traffic circle, past the stop sign (with a classic rolling stop), into Maun lodge parking lot and out front of the documentarian’s chalet. I was amazed with myself. I pried my hands off the wheel turned the car off and caught my breath. What an experience!
I was spent, but the evening wasn’t over yet. We were meeting up with the USC volunteers at Bon Arrive for dinner at eight. The girls cleaned up and got ready in their chalet while I just waited and chatted. I was racing inside and just needed some chill time. We headed over to the Boma (the Maun Lodge firepit) to hang out for a bit before we had to leave. We sat around the fire for a little bit had to leave for dinner. We convinced Robery, a guy at the Boma to give us a ride as he was also a taxi driver. The most ironic part of this was that he brought his beer with him and drank it during the entire drive to dinner.
We had a really nice dinner and I got to meet and chat with some of the students. There are nine in total all from USC but from different years and backgrounds. They are on a service trip as part of the ALIVE group – Always Living in View of the Environment – and they were going to be the conservation coaches this coming week. They wanted to hear all about Maun and Botswana and my experiences so far. I wanted to hear all about their school and their ideas and impressions. It made for some great conversation. After some long chats over good food and drink, we found a sober friendly cab driver to drive us all home. I hit the bed, exhausted from a long day.
After making a few calls we found out where everything had been moved to and were back on track. We made it to Sedia Junior School just around ten o’clock. There were a few schools there already and some other spectators. Considering the start time had been nine o’clock it wasn’t looking too good.
By twelve thirty the show finally got on the road… yes, three and a half hours behind schedule. I was really excited however, and was looking forward to all of the dancing and singing (but mostly the dancing, haha!)
The first school to perform was Shorobe, a small village forty minutes out of Maun. The group of choir students filed into the room – all dressed up in white collared shirts and dress pants/skirts – it was all way more formal than I had thought it would be. The children sang a song that was in English (though had to discern) and about something religious – it was hard to understand, however, it was definitely very much like a “white Christian hymn”. I felt a little odd seeing all of these local Batswana children performing this piece. The second piece was a little more lively, but still hugely lacking in local culture, flavour and language. I should note though, that their singing talent, for junior school students, was really quiet good, especially considering their choir was over thirty people.
There was around a fifteen-minute break after Shorobe while the judges wrote notes and marked their performance. The next school after Shorobe was a little larger, probably forty or so kids, and they sang the same songs. Of course, they didn’t sound the same, and you can definitely see a difference in skill level, but already had a bad feeling of what the next few hours would be.
Originally I had though we would have a morning full of singing and dancing of the local culture. When I got a hold of the schedule, I saw that there were ten schools that would be singing – and it took over half an hour to get through just two of them – and after that the dancing would start. The saddest part of all, was that all of the songs were going to be the same – maybe four different songs all day – and NONE of them were in Setswana or that entertaining.
While I sat patiently and calmly for the next three hours, I did appreciate all of the preparation and work that had went into these performances. Some of the choirs got up to over a hundred students – and I can only imagine what that must be like to try and teach. Then add the challenge of learning songs that aren’t natural to the students’ culture and in English (a second langauge or maybe not even known) and there are some big hurdles to overcome.
Our driver had headed out after the first few schools to go and pick up some other students that were just arriving. Then he was going to bring those that were interested here to see the singing and dancing. We were lucky enough to get to stay for the whole thing. And let me tell you, after listening to songs for close to four hours, I was VERY ready for some dancing!
Once the singing was over the air in the room changed. The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky and air was beginning to cool. The crowd that had been dispersed and lightly focused before now quickly filled ever chair in the audience and everyone pushed forward to try and get the best seat in the house! I knew this was going to be good!
I could tell the first students to go were nervous. They shuffled into the room with their traditional dress – small outfits of animal leather, beads and feathers. It seemed like they were waiting for music to begin for them to start, but it would never come. They danced to their own rhythm and song. The group began slapping their feet and clapping their hands. With around twenty-five dancers, they got quite an amazing musical rhythm going. Then one tiny little girl – the smallest in the group – took a tiny step forward and began leading a call and answer song. The sound is impossible to describe and the experience is breath-taking.
After the rhythm has built up and the singing is getting going they break into dance. It began with four boys, each doing a set routine of stepping, spin and rhythm making step – all of them doing the same thing, but with such evident personality and uniqueness. After the boys came the girls. They stepped out and did their own part. After that it was like a regimented and very proper flirtatious dance with a lot of partner steps and group choreography. It was really, really cool to watch and I loved ever minute of it. The crowd did to – and many of the women would join in the rhythms or add in their own cat cries and verbal flourishes!
When the group ended everyone burst into a very healthy applause. You could tell that this was the moment that everyone had waited all day for and this was what people had really cared for. I definitely felt much more at ease seeing the support and evident love for the local cultural performance – and not so much for the hugely colonial and religiously impacted vocal performances.
After a few more dances it was time to call it a day. I was pleased and content and glad for the experience. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were starving, but there was also still quite the agenda for the evening. A service group from the University of Southern California had arrived in the afternoon and was settling into their accommodations. These nine students would be helping with the program next week and also doing some other conservation work after that.
Our driver was waiting in the car for us as we packed up and left the competition. As soon as I saw him I knew something was wrong. He was sitting in the driver’s seat and his eye’s were bloodshot and it smelled of alcohol. I had no idea how much he had been drinking, but it was clear that he had slipped away in the afternoon to have a few. The saddest part for me was not the fact that he had been drinking, it was that he had just gotten a pay advance and that was immediately what he went to spend his money on.
Regardless, back to the issue at hand, was that we had to get home and we had no idea if our driver was in the right mindset or not. I decided to test him and see what sort of state he was in. I went to pass him the keys for the car and dropped them into his hands, he didn’t even come close to catching them and the drop was only a few inches. He also then broke down into a fit of laughter. I was sold - there was no way that he was driving. The problem was that none of us had a license and none of us knew how to drive standard.
Of all of the visions that I had of me learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle, this most certainly was not it. The sun was setting and it was getting dark. We had a beat-up old landrover that was coming close to being on its last legs. There was no one else who could possibly drive except for me. Today was the day I begin learning how to drive standard…with only myself as the teacher…at least it wasn’t my car, haha! Only to complicate the matter further, the hundred of children were milling about and totally cool with walking right in front of or behind the vehicle.
My task seemed challenging, but not insurmountable. I had to reverse the car through a parking lot full of people for nearly fifty meters, then I would have the space to turn it around and take it out of the school grounds. After that all I would need to manage is driving home with everyone…
I stalled the car five times before I finally figured out how to get it properly into reverse. The issue was letting go of the clutch too early. I didn’t even need the gas (but little did I realize that at the start). The result was some mad jerking of the wheels and some very frightened passengers, not to mention bystanders. The looks I got definitely had people pegging me as the drunk driver, how shameful. This was also the moment that my other passengers decided that it would be best to just scream at the children to get the hell out of the way or else they are going to die – quite encouraging and also really helping me stay calm about this all. Finally, I managed to get the car rolling backwards and it was just a matter of steering, controlling speed and braking until we got to the open end of the parking lot.
Turning around was an adventure as well. There were a few other cars that we also trying to get out – and a few arriving. Adding other cars to the list of things to hit wasn’t any more encouraging. Luckily I got this part on the second try – total stall count 6. We rolled out of the school and it was so good to get onto open road! I feel as this may have been one of my best accomplishments to date :)
However, that whole time I had managed to drive under five kilometers and hour and now I would be getting onto the road that expected eighty. It was going to be some quick learning. I told everyone to buckle up, which was irrelevant as they had already done so the moment I said I would drive. We started off and I decided that I could just stay in first gear all the way to the paved road. What I should have realized was that I was missing prime learning time on a dirt road with no other traffic.
As I got to the junction of the dirt road and the tar road I took a deep breath. So did everyone else. I started off and began picking up speed on the gravel side of the road. I wait until it was clear on both sides of the road until I merged in. I got up to forty km/h and made the gear change into second…I took about ten seconds to get it into the second. The gearshift was brutal and it was one of those “you have to have the special touch” kind of things. I got a few horn honks, but it was all okay. Then I was building up some speed again and made it into third – this time a piece of cake!
I had decided to head away from town and take the country roads all the way home – that way avoiding the bulk of traffic, but also a few stop signs. I would inevitably have to use a traffic circle and make a few stops. The first stop was to get our driver home and this was entertaining because gearing down was about ten times harder than gearing up. The first attempt was shitty because I couldn’t get it back into second – so the engine just revved like a banshee and the car jerked and slowed right down (this was the moment I braced to be rear-ended). Luckily the person just passed us and no doubt cursed at us. I pulled the car off the road onto the gravel and got it back into first.
After letting our driver out, I needed a few breaths to steady myself and make thanks for us not being killed already. The rest of the drive was quite eventful –the traffic was thinning, which made it better and I practiced gearing up and down – I am great with gearing up, but still need some work on gearing down. Learning on a landrover was probably the worst vehicle choice – as the gear shifting is ridiculously challenging and hard to do, but its not like we had much choice. I got the car all the way down the road, around the traffic circle, past the stop sign (with a classic rolling stop), into Maun lodge parking lot and out front of the documentarian’s chalet. I was amazed with myself. I pried my hands off the wheel turned the car off and caught my breath. What an experience!
I was spent, but the evening wasn’t over yet. We were meeting up with the USC volunteers at Bon Arrive for dinner at eight. The girls cleaned up and got ready in their chalet while I just waited and chatted. I was racing inside and just needed some chill time. We headed over to the Boma (the Maun Lodge firepit) to hang out for a bit before we had to leave. We sat around the fire for a little bit had to leave for dinner. We convinced Robery, a guy at the Boma to give us a ride as he was also a taxi driver. The most ironic part of this was that he brought his beer with him and drank it during the entire drive to dinner.
We had a really nice dinner and I got to meet and chat with some of the students. There are nine in total all from USC but from different years and backgrounds. They are on a service trip as part of the ALIVE group – Always Living in View of the Environment – and they were going to be the conservation coaches this coming week. They wanted to hear all about Maun and Botswana and my experiences so far. I wanted to hear all about their school and their ideas and impressions. It made for some great conversation. After some long chats over good food and drink, we found a sober friendly cab driver to drive us all home. I hit the bed, exhausted from a long day.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Blog #37 – Tying Up Loose Ends
With only three working days left until our big Week-long Football (Soccer) Camp – there was still lots to finalize, confirm and complete. The end of the week flew by. It was filled with people as the different groups of volunteers started to arrive. Keith arrived first, who was the main visionary of the curriculum for the week. He spent some time in Botswana five years ago, but then left for the States to start up his own company that focuses on environmental education called: ConserveNation (get it…Con-serve-Na-tion…Con-serve-a-tion) There was lots to do with Keith, getting him ready and settled and preparing all of the briefing for the rest of the individuals to come.
On Wednesday I had my very last two schools to visit to do the conservation education presentation with. Both of these schools were a good distance out of town and both were of small remote village – Matsaudi and Shorobe. The schools visits went surprisingly well, and both groups of kids understood what was going on and could participate in the presentation just as well as their town counterparts. It was encouraging to see that these students were not being left behind just because of their lack of proximity to Maun. There was however a discrepancy with age, it seemed that these students were generally older and that they had either delayed or decelerated school experiences.
The rest of the week was spent getting small jobs done for the camp week. I had to go and invite the important people all around Maun to the program next week. I also had to reconfirm for what seemed like the billion-ith time all of the details with the ministry and transportation. One of the last remaining tasks was sorting out all of the details regarding food and water for the coming week. We had to arrange water containers to be borrow, dispensing jugs, how to fill the containers, etc. etc. With the food we were going to be having a traditional meal on the last day of the camp so we had to arrange for cooks (from Shorobe), cooking pots, a cooking location, firewood, cooking utensils, the food itself, etc, etc.
Completing all of the different errand work definitely got me excited for the week – everything was coming together and it seemed like it was all going to go over really well! The last thing I made was different promotional and information publications: brochures, letters and bulletin board to be displayed and available to participants and guests to the program next week. It seemed like we had everything under control. Now we had the conservation coaches and the football coaches to arrive on the weekend. Friday was the last night I had for good sleep before we would be in full action for next week!
On Wednesday I had my very last two schools to visit to do the conservation education presentation with. Both of these schools were a good distance out of town and both were of small remote village – Matsaudi and Shorobe. The schools visits went surprisingly well, and both groups of kids understood what was going on and could participate in the presentation just as well as their town counterparts. It was encouraging to see that these students were not being left behind just because of their lack of proximity to Maun. There was however a discrepancy with age, it seemed that these students were generally older and that they had either delayed or decelerated school experiences.
The rest of the week was spent getting small jobs done for the camp week. I had to go and invite the important people all around Maun to the program next week. I also had to reconfirm for what seemed like the billion-ith time all of the details with the ministry and transportation. One of the last remaining tasks was sorting out all of the details regarding food and water for the coming week. We had to arrange water containers to be borrow, dispensing jugs, how to fill the containers, etc. etc. With the food we were going to be having a traditional meal on the last day of the camp so we had to arrange for cooks (from Shorobe), cooking pots, a cooking location, firewood, cooking utensils, the food itself, etc, etc.
Completing all of the different errand work definitely got me excited for the week – everything was coming together and it seemed like it was all going to go over really well! The last thing I made was different promotional and information publications: brochures, letters and bulletin board to be displayed and available to participants and guests to the program next week. It seemed like we had everything under control. Now we had the conservation coaches and the football coaches to arrive on the weekend. Friday was the last night I had for good sleep before we would be in full action for next week!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Blog #36 – National Holiday(s)
Today is a double celebration. It is Canada Day (back home), but it is also a national holiday here in Botswana. Today is Sir Seretse Kahama Day – a day celebrating the independence and work of Botswana’s first President.
I spent the morning sleeping in – what a great feeling waking up to the warmth and bright light of the sunshine. For the remainder of the morning I cleaned and organized my room. As some of you know, I have a slight obsession with rearranging my furniture and decorations – and this was one of those days ☺ I guess is followed me all the way here to Africa. It is amazing how much dust collects in absolutely everything. After sweeping my room, I must have collected at least two pounds of sand! I also knocked out all of my blankets and rugs, which was slightly irritating on the eyes and may have reduced their weight by half, haha!
The rest of the morning was spent preparing and packing a big picnic lunch! We were going to spend the afternoon having a family picnic in the Maun Game Park. It was a delicious mix of homemade foods – some traditional and some I was more familiar with. We packed up the van with the food and all of the family and drove over to the park. We found a nice little shaded opening in the trees overlooking the Thamalakane River.
Unbeknownst to me, we were meeting up with some different families in the area. I met Ruth and her son – which is the family that owns the local Rollerhockey rink (which now I am definitely going to need to check out before I leave!) Michelle, an old family friend of Ruth’s was also here visiting. She is on her vacation time from being a full time tenured Faculty at a university in Indiana. She is an anthropologist who has looked mainly at gender within society. She spent a few years here back in Maun for her dissertation looking at the impact of gender of HIV/AIDS rates, which was fascinating to talk with here about.
The most impactful thing that she told me was that she remembered one weekend when thirty people all died in the community. Everyone just went about it as if just one person had died, going consecutively to the next person’s service. They did not connect the deaths together – they thought it was merely the way it was, a coincidence. They would not face, or acknowledge that all of these deaths with because of AIDS. These feelings were not isolated, but could be seen and experienced everywhere and all the time. Crazy! We enjoyed our food over good conversation to say the least.
Another family eventually came as well – this time bearing a big cooler…I was wondering what they had brought, just when the mother whips out this massive piece of meat. It was an impala leg, that she had shot on her plot the day before. The lady was a fair-skinned local Motswana, who had grown up learning about the traditional medicines in a small village. She knew all about the different customs and practices and it was a lot of fun talking with her about Botswana culture. Plus, the impala leg was delicious. She had cooked the entire thing – which was huge, but had stuffed it with garlic and other spices. We just ate the meat with little bit of mustard – delicious! First goat, now impala – I am loving the local meat scene! Why do we only have chicken, pork and beef back home?!
After lunch I had to head into the office to get some work done. There was a package for the new lab arriving on private courier into the Maun airport today. Little did I know how difficult it would be to pick this up! First I went into the airport and NO ONE had any idea what I was talking about. I had to eventually get a temporary permit to be let into the airport. After that I was taken to the lost baggage room, which was completely useless. But the lady would have let me take any of the hundred bags that were there – I feel sorry for all those travelers! Eventually I just gave up and decided to find the office on my own. I started wandering around the office looking for the customs office. Eventually I found it and asked the lady working at the desk whether a package had arrived for us – nothing. As I kept her in conversation about it I started looking around the room for different boxes. I eventually spotted one that looked like ours and it had some printed off emails with our names on it. This was it.
The problem was that the shipment was a bunch of drugs used to dart the large predators, I think…haha! Anyways, it was supposed to be kept refrigerated and it was just sitting out on the desk in plain sight and in the hot midday Maun heat. The lady had no sense of urgency when I explained to her that I needed them quickly to get them in the fridge – or if she could keep them cold for me, while we ‘processed’ the package. She gave me a really hard time getting the package. First, I only had a photocopy of the permit to pick them up and she wanted the original. Next she wanted to know what was in the box, stupidly in haste I said “drugs”…that was evidently the wrong answer. I tried backtracking and explaining what kind of drugs and what they were used for. It was received with a high eyebrow. Now she wanted a list of what the contents were and the cost of them, etc. – which I did not have. It basically looked like I had come to pick up a unmarked box of drugs with no official paperwork trail…great. Funny thing was after hastling each other back and forth for twenty minutes she gave up and decided to give them to me. I don’t know whether it was that I convinced her, had persuaded her, or she was just bored of it all. All that mattered was that I had them.
I ran them back to the office and quickly tossed them into our snack refrigerator, as the lab was all locked up and I didn’t have keys to it. After the escapade of successfully smuggling drugs into Maun from South Africa, I spent the rest of the afternoon doing light work and then spent the evening just relaxing at home with the family. An interesting day to say the least!
I spent the morning sleeping in – what a great feeling waking up to the warmth and bright light of the sunshine. For the remainder of the morning I cleaned and organized my room. As some of you know, I have a slight obsession with rearranging my furniture and decorations – and this was one of those days ☺ I guess is followed me all the way here to Africa. It is amazing how much dust collects in absolutely everything. After sweeping my room, I must have collected at least two pounds of sand! I also knocked out all of my blankets and rugs, which was slightly irritating on the eyes and may have reduced their weight by half, haha!
The rest of the morning was spent preparing and packing a big picnic lunch! We were going to spend the afternoon having a family picnic in the Maun Game Park. It was a delicious mix of homemade foods – some traditional and some I was more familiar with. We packed up the van with the food and all of the family and drove over to the park. We found a nice little shaded opening in the trees overlooking the Thamalakane River.
Unbeknownst to me, we were meeting up with some different families in the area. I met Ruth and her son – which is the family that owns the local Rollerhockey rink (which now I am definitely going to need to check out before I leave!) Michelle, an old family friend of Ruth’s was also here visiting. She is on her vacation time from being a full time tenured Faculty at a university in Indiana. She is an anthropologist who has looked mainly at gender within society. She spent a few years here back in Maun for her dissertation looking at the impact of gender of HIV/AIDS rates, which was fascinating to talk with here about.
The most impactful thing that she told me was that she remembered one weekend when thirty people all died in the community. Everyone just went about it as if just one person had died, going consecutively to the next person’s service. They did not connect the deaths together – they thought it was merely the way it was, a coincidence. They would not face, or acknowledge that all of these deaths with because of AIDS. These feelings were not isolated, but could be seen and experienced everywhere and all the time. Crazy! We enjoyed our food over good conversation to say the least.
Another family eventually came as well – this time bearing a big cooler…I was wondering what they had brought, just when the mother whips out this massive piece of meat. It was an impala leg, that she had shot on her plot the day before. The lady was a fair-skinned local Motswana, who had grown up learning about the traditional medicines in a small village. She knew all about the different customs and practices and it was a lot of fun talking with her about Botswana culture. Plus, the impala leg was delicious. She had cooked the entire thing – which was huge, but had stuffed it with garlic and other spices. We just ate the meat with little bit of mustard – delicious! First goat, now impala – I am loving the local meat scene! Why do we only have chicken, pork and beef back home?!
After lunch I had to head into the office to get some work done. There was a package for the new lab arriving on private courier into the Maun airport today. Little did I know how difficult it would be to pick this up! First I went into the airport and NO ONE had any idea what I was talking about. I had to eventually get a temporary permit to be let into the airport. After that I was taken to the lost baggage room, which was completely useless. But the lady would have let me take any of the hundred bags that were there – I feel sorry for all those travelers! Eventually I just gave up and decided to find the office on my own. I started wandering around the office looking for the customs office. Eventually I found it and asked the lady working at the desk whether a package had arrived for us – nothing. As I kept her in conversation about it I started looking around the room for different boxes. I eventually spotted one that looked like ours and it had some printed off emails with our names on it. This was it.
The problem was that the shipment was a bunch of drugs used to dart the large predators, I think…haha! Anyways, it was supposed to be kept refrigerated and it was just sitting out on the desk in plain sight and in the hot midday Maun heat. The lady had no sense of urgency when I explained to her that I needed them quickly to get them in the fridge – or if she could keep them cold for me, while we ‘processed’ the package. She gave me a really hard time getting the package. First, I only had a photocopy of the permit to pick them up and she wanted the original. Next she wanted to know what was in the box, stupidly in haste I said “drugs”…that was evidently the wrong answer. I tried backtracking and explaining what kind of drugs and what they were used for. It was received with a high eyebrow. Now she wanted a list of what the contents were and the cost of them, etc. – which I did not have. It basically looked like I had come to pick up a unmarked box of drugs with no official paperwork trail…great. Funny thing was after hastling each other back and forth for twenty minutes she gave up and decided to give them to me. I don’t know whether it was that I convinced her, had persuaded her, or she was just bored of it all. All that mattered was that I had them.
I ran them back to the office and quickly tossed them into our snack refrigerator, as the lab was all locked up and I didn’t have keys to it. After the escapade of successfully smuggling drugs into Maun from South Africa, I spent the rest of the afternoon doing light work and then spent the evening just relaxing at home with the family. An interesting day to say the least!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Blog #35 – Bella the Goat
Today I was flying solo and feeling lonely, haha! I was the only one that would be in office today and got to spend the whole day just working by myself. The lack of noise and excitement was definitely conducive to getting things done. It was a little odd not having anyone else to talk with, bounce ideas off of or get permission from ;)
I spent the majority of the day preparing media release packages for all of the different groups in town: the one radio station, the one TV station and the plethora of different newsprint companies. It was interesting going around and visiting the different outlets. The majority of them were in the same ‘communications’ block, so it didn’t take too much walking. When I visited the television station, Botswana Television (BTV), there were two guys that worked there that both were pretty avoidant of adding any more work to their plate. One of them was literally controlling what was going on air and the other was just chilling at the desk doing nothing. The radio station guy was really cool and really into the project, which is good and I can’t determine which media reaches more people. The different newspapers went well, a range of private and independent papers with different focuses and publishing times.
After dealing with the media I spent the afternoon visiting all of our different Education Ministers and government bureaucrats who were helping organize the program (when I say that I really mean do nothing, but give us permission and take a lot of credit for it). It was good talking to them now as a lot of them were heading out of town for the rest of the week – tomorrow is a national holiday.
All in all the day went really well and I got a lot of important things nailed down. However, I did realize and decide that I would never be totally cool with just working by myself alone. There is just so much more that can be done within group, team and pair settings. And it is just way more fun and enjoyable to have people around :)
The end of the day was even better than the beginning. Camello, a local Motswana, was cooking us a tradition meal. This wasn’t just traditional food though; this was the whole package! We sat out by the campfire and just chatted and relaxed while he cooked over the fire. It was fascinating to watch him cook three rather complicated dishes over one small campfire. He had these three huge black pots that he just continually added spices and water to and slowly cooked everything over the entire evening.
I can definitely see why the culture here is so relaxed. It takes so much time to cook the food and you can’t really do anything else while it’s cooking. Sitting around a campfire is obviously not a high-strung activity and once the sun goes down it is the only real source of heat and light.
On the menu tonight was a dear friend of the family named Bella – don’t worry she wasn’t a human. She was a deliciously tender and tasty goat. She had lived a good life and had the privilege of roaming all over the village of Maun. It was one of those times where you realize that the meat producing ways back home are so much colder and impersonal than here. In Botswana, people get to go and pick what animal they would like to kill. The animals aren’t force fed any chemical concoctions and they aren’t injected with anything unnatural. You get to know their name, who owned them, etc. Here, you can also be a part of the butchering process and can get the animal prepared anyway you would like. It really is a fascinating difference – and a little disturbing at how greedily people pick up food back home and devour it without knowing where it have come from and what its life was. Regardless, the meat here definitely tastes delicious and I totally think we should start eating goat back home!
I spent the majority of the day preparing media release packages for all of the different groups in town: the one radio station, the one TV station and the plethora of different newsprint companies. It was interesting going around and visiting the different outlets. The majority of them were in the same ‘communications’ block, so it didn’t take too much walking. When I visited the television station, Botswana Television (BTV), there were two guys that worked there that both were pretty avoidant of adding any more work to their plate. One of them was literally controlling what was going on air and the other was just chilling at the desk doing nothing. The radio station guy was really cool and really into the project, which is good and I can’t determine which media reaches more people. The different newspapers went well, a range of private and independent papers with different focuses and publishing times.
After dealing with the media I spent the afternoon visiting all of our different Education Ministers and government bureaucrats who were helping organize the program (when I say that I really mean do nothing, but give us permission and take a lot of credit for it). It was good talking to them now as a lot of them were heading out of town for the rest of the week – tomorrow is a national holiday.
All in all the day went really well and I got a lot of important things nailed down. However, I did realize and decide that I would never be totally cool with just working by myself alone. There is just so much more that can be done within group, team and pair settings. And it is just way more fun and enjoyable to have people around :)
The end of the day was even better than the beginning. Camello, a local Motswana, was cooking us a tradition meal. This wasn’t just traditional food though; this was the whole package! We sat out by the campfire and just chatted and relaxed while he cooked over the fire. It was fascinating to watch him cook three rather complicated dishes over one small campfire. He had these three huge black pots that he just continually added spices and water to and slowly cooked everything over the entire evening.
I can definitely see why the culture here is so relaxed. It takes so much time to cook the food and you can’t really do anything else while it’s cooking. Sitting around a campfire is obviously not a high-strung activity and once the sun goes down it is the only real source of heat and light.
On the menu tonight was a dear friend of the family named Bella – don’t worry she wasn’t a human. She was a deliciously tender and tasty goat. She had lived a good life and had the privilege of roaming all over the village of Maun. It was one of those times where you realize that the meat producing ways back home are so much colder and impersonal than here. In Botswana, people get to go and pick what animal they would like to kill. The animals aren’t force fed any chemical concoctions and they aren’t injected with anything unnatural. You get to know their name, who owned them, etc. Here, you can also be a part of the butchering process and can get the animal prepared anyway you would like. It really is a fascinating difference – and a little disturbing at how greedily people pick up food back home and devour it without knowing where it have come from and what its life was. Regardless, the meat here definitely tastes delicious and I totally think we should start eating goat back home!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Blog #34 – Going On A Lion Hunt
I slept in this morning – apparently 8:30AM counts as sleeping-in here in the bush! That wasn’t the most shocking part of the morning though. I always knew that I was a deep sleeper, but apparently I missed some great excitement. There were some jackals that had come right through camp, and therefore right by my tent! In addition, there was also a pack of hyenas that made quite the racquet at six in the morning – yelping and howling just outside of camp!
Regardless of all of the commotion last night –which is classified by the people who stay here year round as ‘normal’ – we had an exciting day ahead of us! Some hunters had killed an elephant yesterday and we were going to see the carcus. In case you didn’t know hunting them here can be legal is you get a permit and permission. The hunters here generally take the head, trunk, tusks, feet and skin and leave the rest for the animals. While that sounds gruesome, they are using as much as they can – and the rest is eaten by the animals, so it isn’t ‘just going to waste’. The sight of the carcus is not as horrific as it might sound – after a day you can’t even discern the parts of the body – just flesh and the huge rib cage. But the smell makes up for – we could smell the carcus before we even came close to seeing it.
We weren’t really coming to see the carcus so much as what was feeding off of it! There had been two lions feeding on the elephant yesterday and that is who we wanted to see! Tracking them was more difficult and peculiar that expected though. The researchers have collared different animals over time – each with a VHF and a GPS (more recently) tag. Then each morning they ‘spin the mast’, which is a tall receiving tower. This lets them know what animals are within up to ten kilometers of the research camp and in what general direction. The more recent GPS are obviously far superior to the VHF, but the availability of them has only become feasible recently.
We headed out in a truck – we were four, just sitting in the open back of the pick-up with some welded on bar frame to hold onto. With us we had a little radio that contained all of the tracking info and frequencies of all of the animals. It could be connected to a small antenna to give a range of what animals were within two kilometers of us. However, when we were tracking the lions they weren’t anywhere close to the carcass – we couldn’t even find them at all. It was off that they would have left –as there was still so much to eat, this wasn’t normal. The researchers were all up in arms about what was going on – and had no idea. They did a general scan of the area for all of the animals. Two brother lions were close within 50 meters! Yesterday they weren’t even close to here. The idea was that they must have come and fought off the other lions during the night, or really early this morning.
Regardless of what happened, I was more concerned with the present. We were in the middle of the bush and couldn’t see them, but they were REALLY close to us. A male adult lion could easily destroy us if they wanted – and there was two! We drove around and used the radio antenna to get closer. Eventually we spotted one of them. What a gorgeous creature – male lions are just so picturesque! They are huge and their mane only makes them look larger. This one had a bloody mouth and we knew immediately that it was FULL of elephant. It was so lazy and tired looking – it didn’t even get up when we got close (probably 15 meters away), it barely managed to raise its head to look at us. We were of no concern to it! We spent some time watching him lounge in the sun, though we never spotted his brother. It was really cool and I had never seen a male lion in nature before, so it was another first for me!
We came back to camp for lunch and had another delicious meal. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on a hammock and reading my book while everyone got ready to leave. We packed up the car and drove back to Maun for the evening. It was a great one-night stay at the dog camp and I am looking forward to going there again! Tonight at home we also had the home reunited. Camello, Phillipa’s husband, had returned over the weekend from his Masters degree at University of Cape Town. It was nice to meet him – and we had a fabulous dinner, as he is also an amazing cook! There is definitely some amazing meals to come for sure – and as he was born and bread in Botswana, we are going to get a nice mixture between local and foreign foods!
Regardless of all of the commotion last night –which is classified by the people who stay here year round as ‘normal’ – we had an exciting day ahead of us! Some hunters had killed an elephant yesterday and we were going to see the carcus. In case you didn’t know hunting them here can be legal is you get a permit and permission. The hunters here generally take the head, trunk, tusks, feet and skin and leave the rest for the animals. While that sounds gruesome, they are using as much as they can – and the rest is eaten by the animals, so it isn’t ‘just going to waste’. The sight of the carcus is not as horrific as it might sound – after a day you can’t even discern the parts of the body – just flesh and the huge rib cage. But the smell makes up for – we could smell the carcus before we even came close to seeing it.
We weren’t really coming to see the carcus so much as what was feeding off of it! There had been two lions feeding on the elephant yesterday and that is who we wanted to see! Tracking them was more difficult and peculiar that expected though. The researchers have collared different animals over time – each with a VHF and a GPS (more recently) tag. Then each morning they ‘spin the mast’, which is a tall receiving tower. This lets them know what animals are within up to ten kilometers of the research camp and in what general direction. The more recent GPS are obviously far superior to the VHF, but the availability of them has only become feasible recently.
We headed out in a truck – we were four, just sitting in the open back of the pick-up with some welded on bar frame to hold onto. With us we had a little radio that contained all of the tracking info and frequencies of all of the animals. It could be connected to a small antenna to give a range of what animals were within two kilometers of us. However, when we were tracking the lions they weren’t anywhere close to the carcass – we couldn’t even find them at all. It was off that they would have left –as there was still so much to eat, this wasn’t normal. The researchers were all up in arms about what was going on – and had no idea. They did a general scan of the area for all of the animals. Two brother lions were close within 50 meters! Yesterday they weren’t even close to here. The idea was that they must have come and fought off the other lions during the night, or really early this morning.
Regardless of what happened, I was more concerned with the present. We were in the middle of the bush and couldn’t see them, but they were REALLY close to us. A male adult lion could easily destroy us if they wanted – and there was two! We drove around and used the radio antenna to get closer. Eventually we spotted one of them. What a gorgeous creature – male lions are just so picturesque! They are huge and their mane only makes them look larger. This one had a bloody mouth and we knew immediately that it was FULL of elephant. It was so lazy and tired looking – it didn’t even get up when we got close (probably 15 meters away), it barely managed to raise its head to look at us. We were of no concern to it! We spent some time watching him lounge in the sun, though we never spotted his brother. It was really cool and I had never seen a male lion in nature before, so it was another first for me!
We came back to camp for lunch and had another delicious meal. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on a hammock and reading my book while everyone got ready to leave. We packed up the car and drove back to Maun for the evening. It was a great one-night stay at the dog camp and I am looking forward to going there again! Tonight at home we also had the home reunited. Camello, Phillipa’s husband, had returned over the weekend from his Masters degree at University of Cape Town. It was nice to meet him – and we had a fabulous dinner, as he is also an amazing cook! There is definitely some amazing meals to come for sure – and as he was born and bread in Botswana, we are going to get a nice mixture between local and foreign foods!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Blog #33 – WAR & Dog Camp
This past weekend was the most entertaining one that I have spent in Maun thus far.
It all started out with an early Saturday morning. I decided to tag along with Ashley and Maura (the documentarians) and their adventures for the day. Today they were heading to a local school debate tournament, hosted by WAR – WoMen Against Rape. It was held at a local school relatively close to my house and I couldn’t believe that the more than sixty students would give up their Saturdays to be here bright and early to debate against some very hot and politically loaded topics. It was a very inspiring sight!
The students ranged from junior to senior secondary level (ages 12 -18) and were arranged in teams of four. Each debate saw one school pitted against another either for or against a given motion. Given some of the work I am doing back in Guelph regarding sexual scripts, some of this was really entertaining.
The first motion was that, “men should always initiate sex.” This is one of the most basic questions when discussing sexual scripts. It was interesting to see these students debate on the topic. My first observation was that the one team against the motion was coincidentally all female. In fact overall about two-thirds of the debaters were female. The arguments that were used and focused on here most likely would not have even stood up back home, but somehow here were said with a note of finality. If men are the only ones who initiate sex then it will lead to marital rape. Or that, ‘men should initiative sex’ because that is a part of our culture and (as was quite interestingly put), “a country who has lost its culture, is no country at all”.
The second motion was that, “abortion should be legalized”. I was quite interested to see how this debate would go. Back home the pro-life and pro-choice are always going. Here the arguments were not so much based on the idea of choice, they were based on the fact that Botswana was losing lives, and fertile women to the current back alley options that were being taken. On the pro-life side there was no lack of religious argument and potency. “Abortion is an immoral choice and you are killing a living being.” Interestingly the most swaying statement against legalizing abortion for the people present was that if we allow abortion it would contribute to a lack of reason to use contraceptives, particularly condoms, and therefore completely contribute to the spread of STIs and more importantly HIV/AIDS. It is an interesting perspective to consider, given that the situation is very different here than back home.
To me, it seemed to come down to the decision between the freedoms of choice for one individual against fighting a pandemic that has claimed the lives of so many people already. Every Motswana knows someone who has died from AIDS, while it is still a stigmatized disease; it is something that has been forced into the faces and lives of these people. Unlike at home, it is impossible to be here and pretend HIV/AIDS is not a problem. Everyone knows it, even though they won’t always talk about it, but there seems to be general feeling of we should do all that we can to fight this disease – maybe even if it trumps a person’s individual rights and luxuries.
The last round of debating that we got to watch was on the motion, “HIV positive individuals should not be allowed to have children”. This was interesting, as it seems that the answer would be obvious. People have free will and free choice. Everyone has the right to a family. Here though, there are several other issues to be considered – and those freedoms are again weighed against the price that they come to for the country and the people.
Those in favour of the motion spoke of rights to live and the right to raise a family. They also talked about fighting the stigmatization that follows HIV, and if this motion were supported it just continues down the road of pigeon-holing HIV+ individuals. There final argument was of PMTCT – a program in Botswana to prevent mother-to-child transmission. It is fully funded and available to all mothers for free. It is an educational program but also gives them a regiment of drugs to knock their viral load down during pregnancy and afterwards during breastfeeding (even though they are not encouraged to breastfeed) helping to prevent HIV transmission to the child.
On the flip side, the students argued about the lack of effectiveness of the PMTCT program, which then began an argument based on statistics. How effective was it? Where do you draw the line of sustainable or useful as a program? Is it worth the funding? This seems to be the arguments that often consume people here – how much this treatment costs and whether it is even worth it. If they didn’t have to spend money on HIV/AIDS this country would look very different. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. This side also argued about the economic impact of having HIV+ children – both on the medical system, but also due to the government support and orphanages that these children most often ended up in. Their main premise was that Botswana cannot afford to support the practice of having HIV+ babies – that the rights of those individuals were lost with their becoming positive. It sounds cruel and these students took a hard stance in the face of the most important social, economic and health problem that this country has ever faced.
All-in-all it was an amazing morning. It was great to see the proficiency of the arguments and thoughts brought forward. It was truly enlightening to see these arguments carried out in a completely different culture form my own – and how those difference can set apart the results and resolutions. To me, Botswana seems torn. They want to respect and give their people the individual freedoms and rights that we are privileged to have back home. However, they are faced with confronting massive economic drain and attrition of life. Which would you choose?
Anyways, the debate was definitely food for though and it was really quite emotional when you think about what these people have went through – and still are every day.
This afternoon we packed up and got the car ready to head out to the bush. We were going to spend the rest of the weekend at the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust’s research camp. The drive is about an hour and a half. The first leg of the journey is getting out of Maun and passing through the many villages on the way out, lastly being Shorobe. Shorobe is also where the pavement ends. After that is it dusty road for another twenty minutes. Following that we pull off the road and wind our way into the bush on sandy poorly maintained paths. As always we have to stop at the veterinary check-points and make sure that our tires and feet are sanitized for foot & mouth disease. Then we continue on our way. We get to camp about an hour before sunset.
Camp is an amazing place! It is an intricate network tents and small hut-like buildings. There are around a dozen people who work and conduct research at camp. Each of them has their own tent. These aren’t little tents. They are almost like one room houses, with furniture, beds, lanterns and whatever other luxuries they have brought out. At first I thought this was quite lavished. Then I realized that these people live out here for the majority of two or three years while they are doing their projects (maybe more). I think they are definitely permitted a little comfort.
There are some really nice common areas as well – with strings, gymnastics rings, hammocks and day beds. This would be a really cool place to hang out for a while at, even though I was only spending one night, I knew that it was going to be fun! I spent the remaining hours of the day (and the sunset) reading on a little deck that opened up onto the flood plains. It was a beautiful spot and just like relaxing at the cottage – but instead of having a lake, there were antelope, elephants and god only knows what else! Haha!
Dinner was really good: pasta and sauce, sausages and a vegetable salad. I think it was also so good as it was a combination of being really hungry from the drive and day, but also that this food would have compared to anything served back in Maun – except that is was out here in the bush! It definitely blew my expectations out of the water and this was when I knew that I would be okay doing field research if it was like this – comfortable living and good food – this was definitely not the norm for accomodations, but I wasn’t complaining while I was staying there.
After dinner we hung out around the campfire. It was a nice picturesque evening and we decided that heading out to the small deck to look at the stars would be a good idea. We got out there and brought some logs to start a fire. After being out there for only five minutes, one of the researchers came out and told us this might not be the best idea. There were leopards that prowled this area as well as hyenas – so we didn’t need to put ourselves in unnecessary danger. We were all a little shocked and shaken and decided instead to call it a night. We headed back to our tents and crashed for the evening.
I didn’t have any problem falling asleep. It was comfortable and cozy under the weight of my blankets. I was staying in a guest tent by myself, so it was a little quiet. My tent was a little way into the bush, and there were no other distractions, so I could hear everything perfectly. I eventually drifted into a light sleep, only to be awaken shortly. There was a definite rusting right around my door. Was it some animals trying to nose its way in? Hyena’s are quite curious – Crap! After hitting the side of my tent and spending some time to listen if it came back, it did! I grabbed my flashlight and saw that it was a little mouse that was stuck between the mesh and the outside tent canvas, haha! After that it was much better and I had a great sleep!
It all started out with an early Saturday morning. I decided to tag along with Ashley and Maura (the documentarians) and their adventures for the day. Today they were heading to a local school debate tournament, hosted by WAR – WoMen Against Rape. It was held at a local school relatively close to my house and I couldn’t believe that the more than sixty students would give up their Saturdays to be here bright and early to debate against some very hot and politically loaded topics. It was a very inspiring sight!
The students ranged from junior to senior secondary level (ages 12 -18) and were arranged in teams of four. Each debate saw one school pitted against another either for or against a given motion. Given some of the work I am doing back in Guelph regarding sexual scripts, some of this was really entertaining.
The first motion was that, “men should always initiate sex.” This is one of the most basic questions when discussing sexual scripts. It was interesting to see these students debate on the topic. My first observation was that the one team against the motion was coincidentally all female. In fact overall about two-thirds of the debaters were female. The arguments that were used and focused on here most likely would not have even stood up back home, but somehow here were said with a note of finality. If men are the only ones who initiate sex then it will lead to marital rape. Or that, ‘men should initiative sex’ because that is a part of our culture and (as was quite interestingly put), “a country who has lost its culture, is no country at all”.
The second motion was that, “abortion should be legalized”. I was quite interested to see how this debate would go. Back home the pro-life and pro-choice are always going. Here the arguments were not so much based on the idea of choice, they were based on the fact that Botswana was losing lives, and fertile women to the current back alley options that were being taken. On the pro-life side there was no lack of religious argument and potency. “Abortion is an immoral choice and you are killing a living being.” Interestingly the most swaying statement against legalizing abortion for the people present was that if we allow abortion it would contribute to a lack of reason to use contraceptives, particularly condoms, and therefore completely contribute to the spread of STIs and more importantly HIV/AIDS. It is an interesting perspective to consider, given that the situation is very different here than back home.
To me, it seemed to come down to the decision between the freedoms of choice for one individual against fighting a pandemic that has claimed the lives of so many people already. Every Motswana knows someone who has died from AIDS, while it is still a stigmatized disease; it is something that has been forced into the faces and lives of these people. Unlike at home, it is impossible to be here and pretend HIV/AIDS is not a problem. Everyone knows it, even though they won’t always talk about it, but there seems to be general feeling of we should do all that we can to fight this disease – maybe even if it trumps a person’s individual rights and luxuries.
The last round of debating that we got to watch was on the motion, “HIV positive individuals should not be allowed to have children”. This was interesting, as it seems that the answer would be obvious. People have free will and free choice. Everyone has the right to a family. Here though, there are several other issues to be considered – and those freedoms are again weighed against the price that they come to for the country and the people.
Those in favour of the motion spoke of rights to live and the right to raise a family. They also talked about fighting the stigmatization that follows HIV, and if this motion were supported it just continues down the road of pigeon-holing HIV+ individuals. There final argument was of PMTCT – a program in Botswana to prevent mother-to-child transmission. It is fully funded and available to all mothers for free. It is an educational program but also gives them a regiment of drugs to knock their viral load down during pregnancy and afterwards during breastfeeding (even though they are not encouraged to breastfeed) helping to prevent HIV transmission to the child.
On the flip side, the students argued about the lack of effectiveness of the PMTCT program, which then began an argument based on statistics. How effective was it? Where do you draw the line of sustainable or useful as a program? Is it worth the funding? This seems to be the arguments that often consume people here – how much this treatment costs and whether it is even worth it. If they didn’t have to spend money on HIV/AIDS this country would look very different. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. This side also argued about the economic impact of having HIV+ children – both on the medical system, but also due to the government support and orphanages that these children most often ended up in. Their main premise was that Botswana cannot afford to support the practice of having HIV+ babies – that the rights of those individuals were lost with their becoming positive. It sounds cruel and these students took a hard stance in the face of the most important social, economic and health problem that this country has ever faced.
All-in-all it was an amazing morning. It was great to see the proficiency of the arguments and thoughts brought forward. It was truly enlightening to see these arguments carried out in a completely different culture form my own – and how those difference can set apart the results and resolutions. To me, Botswana seems torn. They want to respect and give their people the individual freedoms and rights that we are privileged to have back home. However, they are faced with confronting massive economic drain and attrition of life. Which would you choose?
Anyways, the debate was definitely food for though and it was really quite emotional when you think about what these people have went through – and still are every day.
This afternoon we packed up and got the car ready to head out to the bush. We were going to spend the rest of the weekend at the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust’s research camp. The drive is about an hour and a half. The first leg of the journey is getting out of Maun and passing through the many villages on the way out, lastly being Shorobe. Shorobe is also where the pavement ends. After that is it dusty road for another twenty minutes. Following that we pull off the road and wind our way into the bush on sandy poorly maintained paths. As always we have to stop at the veterinary check-points and make sure that our tires and feet are sanitized for foot & mouth disease. Then we continue on our way. We get to camp about an hour before sunset.
Camp is an amazing place! It is an intricate network tents and small hut-like buildings. There are around a dozen people who work and conduct research at camp. Each of them has their own tent. These aren’t little tents. They are almost like one room houses, with furniture, beds, lanterns and whatever other luxuries they have brought out. At first I thought this was quite lavished. Then I realized that these people live out here for the majority of two or three years while they are doing their projects (maybe more). I think they are definitely permitted a little comfort.
There are some really nice common areas as well – with strings, gymnastics rings, hammocks and day beds. This would be a really cool place to hang out for a while at, even though I was only spending one night, I knew that it was going to be fun! I spent the remaining hours of the day (and the sunset) reading on a little deck that opened up onto the flood plains. It was a beautiful spot and just like relaxing at the cottage – but instead of having a lake, there were antelope, elephants and god only knows what else! Haha!
Dinner was really good: pasta and sauce, sausages and a vegetable salad. I think it was also so good as it was a combination of being really hungry from the drive and day, but also that this food would have compared to anything served back in Maun – except that is was out here in the bush! It definitely blew my expectations out of the water and this was when I knew that I would be okay doing field research if it was like this – comfortable living and good food – this was definitely not the norm for accomodations, but I wasn’t complaining while I was staying there.
After dinner we hung out around the campfire. It was a nice picturesque evening and we decided that heading out to the small deck to look at the stars would be a good idea. We got out there and brought some logs to start a fire. After being out there for only five minutes, one of the researchers came out and told us this might not be the best idea. There were leopards that prowled this area as well as hyenas – so we didn’t need to put ourselves in unnecessary danger. We were all a little shocked and shaken and decided instead to call it a night. We headed back to our tents and crashed for the evening.
I didn’t have any problem falling asleep. It was comfortable and cozy under the weight of my blankets. I was staying in a guest tent by myself, so it was a little quiet. My tent was a little way into the bush, and there were no other distractions, so I could hear everything perfectly. I eventually drifted into a light sleep, only to be awaken shortly. There was a definite rusting right around my door. Was it some animals trying to nose its way in? Hyena’s are quite curious – Crap! After hitting the side of my tent and spending some time to listen if it came back, it did! I grabbed my flashlight and saw that it was a little mouse that was stuck between the mesh and the outside tent canvas, haha! After that it was much better and I had a great sleep!
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