Blog #7 – The Amazing HOORC!

Today we traveled to the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre. Our day started with a brief introduction to the University of Botswana (HOORC is a big research facility of UB) and the HOORC. After that we had four lectures on different topics that we currently being studied in the region: tourism/ecotourism, the San people (the oldest hunting and gathering society in Africa and the second largest indigenous people in Africa, whom are mainly found in and around Botswana), soil geochemistry work regarding changing land and water dynamics and wildlife conservation. The talks were really interesting and covered a huge array of disciplines. We got to have some got question-answer periods and discussions with the different faculty as well, which was cool! What struck me the most about the morning was the fact that they had faculty from all over the world and that they spoke and worked in almost identical manner to any other professor I have come across. It was shocking how universal it seems that university education has become.

We also had a quick tour of the entire facility. The most interesting part of the tour was the library. While it wasn’t huge, resources could be ordered from the main campus of the University of Botswana. However, the library did have very special historical and cultural special selections of the region. They had some amazing media and documents regarding the San (bushmen) as well as the discovery and development of the Okavango Delta. I am definitely going to try and come back here in the summer to do some more work and reading!

Later in the afternoon we traveled to a local restaurant to meet with Leslie and Tico, the leaders of the Predator Centre – the organization I will be doing my placement at. Tico heads up the research component, which focuses on the large carnivore species – specifically the African Wild Dog, while Leslie spends the majority of her time working on community outreach and education. I will be working with Leslie to help launch and organize a large expansion to her ‘Coaching for Conservation’ program. The program uses sports, mainly soccer, to educate all of the local elementary students about self-esteem and self-respect. The idea is that if we can teach these children to love themselves, each other and Botswana is that those foundational tenants are the beginning of addressing issues like HIV/AIDS, conversation and self-care.

We had an interesting discussion with these two about our work here and our aspirations as a group and individuals, but also about their work and their story of getting to work here in Botswana. After this we basically cruised the town – did some money exchange and also purchased a soccer ball. It was amazing that while we walked around with the soccer ball, either kicking it around or just holding it, how many people would come up to us. We met Brown, Killer Brown, and many others. Some people just wanted to say hello, others kept challenging us to a game. Knowing our limited skills we weren’t ready to put our new ball on the line against these local players, haha!

People are really friendly in general. We had some interesting discussions while we were walking around about our North American beliefs and stereotypes about Africa. They give so little consideration that Africa has over fifty countries and that everyone comes in with these huge generalized guards about interacting with other people. While I know that they are there for a reason, meant to avoid trouble, it is a huge barrier to overcome when you meet someone. I think people need to be smart travelers and work on not putting themselves in dangerous situations, but work on preventative strategies not restrictive strategies…anyways, just some of my ramblings about tourism and intercultural interactions.
I am really beginning to like Maun, and am looking forward to doing my placement here. It is a quaint size town, with everything you need, but not too many luxuries and definitely a sense of a community. The challenge will be to become part of that community and to try and integrate myself in.

Our day wrapped up with a nice group dinner and then some social drinks. We had some interesting conversations about the trip so far: peoples expectations, and how they have been meet or not; questions and insights that people had made; and some sharing of funny stories and encounters. Our group is a really stellar bunch of kids and I cannot believe that we have only been gone for five days! It seems like we have known each other for so long. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day of bush plane rides over the Okavango and natural safari tours in Moremi National Park. We finished our drinks, wrapped up our stories and headed off to bed… after our drinks we definitely had a very peaceful sleep!