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!
Monday, June 30, 2008
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!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Blog #32 – The End Of A Line
Sarah joined me at work today. Here help was definitely appreciated and welcome. There have been lots of logistics to arrange for our one-week camp and her experience in writing and public relations was invaluable. Since Sarah was on top of things at the office, I got to spend the day around town. It is amazing how long it takes to get around Maun. This village is ridiculously spread out and to imagine that people walk nearly everywhere is hard to believe. The spread is tens of kilometers easily.
The other most enjoyable factor of traveling around and meeting with different people is that no one makes appointments here. You simply just show up to their office or home. Hopefully they are there and you just wait until they can see you. The other option is just waiting when no one is there hoping they will show up. People will spend entire days just sitting in an office waiting to see someone. If Canadians are none to wait in lines compliantly, then Batswana have been grossly misrepresented. Instead of waiting I would just periodically check-in ever moment I got.
I started the day with a quick trip to the Maun Sports Complex – commonly referred to as the Stadium. This is the only real sports complex in Maun, but I was still qite impressed with it. The field was of good turf that was watered and maintained to compete with fields back home. There were professional running tracks, basketball courts, squash courts and more. I was touring the soccer facilities, planning the layout of the different activities and making sure the infrastructure and services we required were there. We had been able to get the stadium free of charge, however we did have to pay for the use of the lights – 400 pula per hour, which is ridiculously expensive for the cost of living here. It may be part of the reason that the vivacity of this village dies with the sunset.
After that it was all government officials, including transportation, the Rural Authority Council and the Ministry of Education. It is neat to work with all of these people, but they are ridiculously hard to get a hold of and even harder to pin down commitments with. The rest of the day went off with much excitement and Sarah and I spent the evening just relaxing, chatting and debating the simple meanings of our lives.
On Thursday morning Sarah headed off on an Mkoro boat safari, so I was going solo at work again. I was back to visiting schools today too – so that was nice. Today was the last private school – Matswane. This school seemed to be the hybrid between OIS and Leopotswe. It had a good diversity of students, and a healthly atmosphere. I really liked the headmaster at this school too. It was a school that was here to learn and have fun, but didn’t tolerate silliness.
In the evening Sarah and I decided that we would try our luck at cooking once again this time with chili and cookies! Except, once again we were late getting to the kitchen. We were a mad slicing, dicing, mixing, stirring and frying team! We got dinner ready and several batches of cookies in the oven in less than an hour. The Chili was nothing compared to the one that my dad makes – but we couldn’t find a lot of those ingredients – plus we didn’t have all day to stew in on the stove :) It was however quite hearty and went over well with the rest of the family. The cookies were probably the highlight though. Everyone loved them, and who could resist warm, gooey, freshly baked chocolate-covered peanut and pecan cookies! Even Phillipa, who is rather allergic to peanuts had to try them out and carefully eat a few!
Sarah and I spent the rest of the night – her last before leaving – playing cards and chatting over a nice chilled bottle of South African wine. It was a lot of fun and it really made think of all of the good times that I would miss without any of my friends from back home. Sarah represented the end of a line of people from back home that had come to Maun to visit. Once she left, I would be the only one I knew in Southern Africa – besides the locals of course! It couldn’t have ended on a better note.
The other most enjoyable factor of traveling around and meeting with different people is that no one makes appointments here. You simply just show up to their office or home. Hopefully they are there and you just wait until they can see you. The other option is just waiting when no one is there hoping they will show up. People will spend entire days just sitting in an office waiting to see someone. If Canadians are none to wait in lines compliantly, then Batswana have been grossly misrepresented. Instead of waiting I would just periodically check-in ever moment I got.
I started the day with a quick trip to the Maun Sports Complex – commonly referred to as the Stadium. This is the only real sports complex in Maun, but I was still qite impressed with it. The field was of good turf that was watered and maintained to compete with fields back home. There were professional running tracks, basketball courts, squash courts and more. I was touring the soccer facilities, planning the layout of the different activities and making sure the infrastructure and services we required were there. We had been able to get the stadium free of charge, however we did have to pay for the use of the lights – 400 pula per hour, which is ridiculously expensive for the cost of living here. It may be part of the reason that the vivacity of this village dies with the sunset.
After that it was all government officials, including transportation, the Rural Authority Council and the Ministry of Education. It is neat to work with all of these people, but they are ridiculously hard to get a hold of and even harder to pin down commitments with. The rest of the day went off with much excitement and Sarah and I spent the evening just relaxing, chatting and debating the simple meanings of our lives.
On Thursday morning Sarah headed off on an Mkoro boat safari, so I was going solo at work again. I was back to visiting schools today too – so that was nice. Today was the last private school – Matswane. This school seemed to be the hybrid between OIS and Leopotswe. It had a good diversity of students, and a healthly atmosphere. I really liked the headmaster at this school too. It was a school that was here to learn and have fun, but didn’t tolerate silliness.
In the evening Sarah and I decided that we would try our luck at cooking once again this time with chili and cookies! Except, once again we were late getting to the kitchen. We were a mad slicing, dicing, mixing, stirring and frying team! We got dinner ready and several batches of cookies in the oven in less than an hour. The Chili was nothing compared to the one that my dad makes – but we couldn’t find a lot of those ingredients – plus we didn’t have all day to stew in on the stove :) It was however quite hearty and went over well with the rest of the family. The cookies were probably the highlight though. Everyone loved them, and who could resist warm, gooey, freshly baked chocolate-covered peanut and pecan cookies! Even Phillipa, who is rather allergic to peanuts had to try them out and carefully eat a few!
Sarah and I spent the rest of the night – her last before leaving – playing cards and chatting over a nice chilled bottle of South African wine. It was a lot of fun and it really made think of all of the good times that I would miss without any of my friends from back home. Sarah represented the end of a line of people from back home that had come to Maun to visit. Once she left, I would be the only one I knew in Southern Africa – besides the locals of course! It couldn’t have ended on a better note.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Blog #31 – Work Week 3
T-minus less than two weeks until the week-long football camp of our Coaching for Conservation program. It was also oddly only my third full week on the job. It seems like ages that I have been here. There was lots of work to be done and some of it would be easier than others. To help the workload there were two big changes. The first was that we had fully moved into our new office while I was away and now the Internet connection had failed!
Our new office is quite swag compared to the last one even though it is just across the road. It is at Plot 520 Eagle Building on Mopane Rd in the Light Industrial area, Maun, Botswana. That is how you give an actual address here, there is no 911 numbers or house numbers, it really much more based on general regions and local knowledge. There are two building. The first is our big new office with five workstations (from two), and now a boardroom, bathroom, kitchenette, reception area and space TBD. The other building is serving as the new lab that will be processing all of the blood and other animal samples collected in the field. As much as possible will be done here locally instead of shipping it down to South Africa, which is great!
Another exciting development this week has been the addition and integration of our documentary crew. These two ladies went to University of South California and were here to film their own documentary as well as produce some materials and a short documentary film about our programs – including Coaching for Conservation. Ashley is the director and producer – and really running the show. Maura is her cameraperson and audio technician. They have a pretty sweet job if I say so. Getting to travel around and film people. What a way to see the world!
Anyways, today they were going to be filming me as I got right back school visits. There were still five schools to be done, but I could only get two done today. The other was scheduled for Thursday and the other two we couldn’t visit until next week.
The first school today was another primary school – Leopotswe. I haven’t done a private school since my very first school back two weeks ago. However, those kids were very fluent in English, so I was hoping again for that kind of experience. I thought that the private schools all might be similar. How wrong I was.
This private school had a primarily local student population – not the international domination of OIS the other private school. The building was a big two storey building with a huge glass entrance way. It was the same salmon colour of the government schools, but you could tell that it was much better funded. We were greeted by the teacher at the door and led to the library for our presentation. Along the way I couldn’t help but notice the signs painted onto the wall that said, “Be Quite. No Talking. No Laughing.” It was a tad bit disturbing.
My gut feeling that this was going to be a strict school war right. There wasn’t the sound of a single child as we came into the school. We went into the library, which consisted of a few stacks of books and nothing else. I was told that, “we do not allow tape on the walls”, so I had to improvise my presentation. I was also mic’ed up for this presentation and on film, so that just added to the pressure.
The children eventually filed in and sat perfectly in lines on the floor. Regardless of the overtly structured environment, the presentation went well and I think that the message got across. Their grasp of the English language was not nearly the same extent, and I could tell that for the most part they were only forced to use it here at school and not necessarily at home.
Ashley and Maura stayed at the school afterwards to film the children playing soccer and to interview some of the teachers and coaches. Kenny and I headed over to another school – this one a government run one called Shashe. I don’t know whether it was coming from the structure of Leopotswe or not, but the kids here seemed so much more alive. They were active and laughing. They didn’t have fancy classrooms or equipment. A ball that the kids were kicking around was a simple bag of bags with tape all around it. But these kids seemed happy and that there were much more excited to be here. The presentation was a little more challenging as these kids didn’t get English that well, and so I wonder if that is the price that these kids have to pay. Can learning English not be achieved in a more inviting environment?
It was a long day, but it was nice to be back at work and in the schools again. Sarah and I had planned to make dinner – but we didn’t make it home until just after six o’clock. We were going to have a hurried time making everything – luckily Sarah had done all of the grocery shopping while I was working. Unfortunately, not many things on the list are available in Maun and so we were going to improvise. A sweet & sour chicken stir fry with original vanilla cheesecake were on the menu.
Knowing the desert would take the longest we started with it. There was no normal cream cheese so we had to use whipped cream cheese – which completely throws off the recipe…but wait I didn’t have a recipe, I was going by my head, so no worries. There was no graham crackers, so we used arrowroot biscuits instead. I have dreamed about good cheesecake since trying (and giving failing grade) to all of the cheesecakes in this southern continent. But it wasn’t shaping up all that good. However, we eventually got it into the over. All the ingredients were there (with a little extra sugar and flavour to make up for it) and the consistency seemed okay. Now we just had to bake it. Best part was that it was a gas oven, the controls were only 1 through 5, so I compromised with 3. It was going to take over an hour to cook, so I would just watch it and wait. I set my timer for an hour.
In the meantime with started in with the main course. I got the meat cut, breaded and fried successfully and Sarah took care of the vegetables. I had to go off of memory for the sweet and sour sauce – with NONE of the normal ingredients, so that was entertaining as well. Luckily the meal was based around delicious ingredients, so I knew that it would taste good no matter what. The only downside of the cooking produced heaping sinks of dishes. My mum would not be impressed, as she was the queen, and supposedly taught me, all about the clean-as-you-go or one-pot cooking wonders!
We got dinner served up as the cheesecake was still cooking away. Just as we were getting ready to sit down to eat, Sarah smelled something burning. NO WAY! I couldn’t believe it! The elements were off, so the only thing that could be burning was the house or the cake…unfortunately it was the cake :) It had only been thirty-five minutes! The bottom had just begun to blacken and the top was definitely a tad past golden brown. Luckily, it was salvageable and so we pulled it out and left it to cool. We went back to dinner – which was much more successful and went over well with everyone!
I decided to make some white vanilla bean sauce for the cheesecake – partially because I love vanilla, and partially to cover up the slight over cook-ness. The cheesecake ended up being fine, actually, much more that fine, I thought it was delicious. The crust ended up being the only really ‘burnt’ part, but it was just crispy and blackened on the bottom. Regardless, with the sauce it was unbelievably good and by far the best cheesecake that Maun, if not Botswana, has ever seen – haha! (well, as far as my taste buds are concerned, and I promise to not stop looking!)
It was a fun night – and cooking brought back some really nice memories of home. It also got me really excited about my apartment next year, and I cannot wait to cook there once I am back in Guelph. With good food, there just isn’t anything worth complaining about in life!
Our new office is quite swag compared to the last one even though it is just across the road. It is at Plot 520 Eagle Building on Mopane Rd in the Light Industrial area, Maun, Botswana. That is how you give an actual address here, there is no 911 numbers or house numbers, it really much more based on general regions and local knowledge. There are two building. The first is our big new office with five workstations (from two), and now a boardroom, bathroom, kitchenette, reception area and space TBD. The other building is serving as the new lab that will be processing all of the blood and other animal samples collected in the field. As much as possible will be done here locally instead of shipping it down to South Africa, which is great!
Another exciting development this week has been the addition and integration of our documentary crew. These two ladies went to University of South California and were here to film their own documentary as well as produce some materials and a short documentary film about our programs – including Coaching for Conservation. Ashley is the director and producer – and really running the show. Maura is her cameraperson and audio technician. They have a pretty sweet job if I say so. Getting to travel around and film people. What a way to see the world!
Anyways, today they were going to be filming me as I got right back school visits. There were still five schools to be done, but I could only get two done today. The other was scheduled for Thursday and the other two we couldn’t visit until next week.
The first school today was another primary school – Leopotswe. I haven’t done a private school since my very first school back two weeks ago. However, those kids were very fluent in English, so I was hoping again for that kind of experience. I thought that the private schools all might be similar. How wrong I was.
This private school had a primarily local student population – not the international domination of OIS the other private school. The building was a big two storey building with a huge glass entrance way. It was the same salmon colour of the government schools, but you could tell that it was much better funded. We were greeted by the teacher at the door and led to the library for our presentation. Along the way I couldn’t help but notice the signs painted onto the wall that said, “Be Quite. No Talking. No Laughing.” It was a tad bit disturbing.
My gut feeling that this was going to be a strict school war right. There wasn’t the sound of a single child as we came into the school. We went into the library, which consisted of a few stacks of books and nothing else. I was told that, “we do not allow tape on the walls”, so I had to improvise my presentation. I was also mic’ed up for this presentation and on film, so that just added to the pressure.
The children eventually filed in and sat perfectly in lines on the floor. Regardless of the overtly structured environment, the presentation went well and I think that the message got across. Their grasp of the English language was not nearly the same extent, and I could tell that for the most part they were only forced to use it here at school and not necessarily at home.
Ashley and Maura stayed at the school afterwards to film the children playing soccer and to interview some of the teachers and coaches. Kenny and I headed over to another school – this one a government run one called Shashe. I don’t know whether it was coming from the structure of Leopotswe or not, but the kids here seemed so much more alive. They were active and laughing. They didn’t have fancy classrooms or equipment. A ball that the kids were kicking around was a simple bag of bags with tape all around it. But these kids seemed happy and that there were much more excited to be here. The presentation was a little more challenging as these kids didn’t get English that well, and so I wonder if that is the price that these kids have to pay. Can learning English not be achieved in a more inviting environment?
It was a long day, but it was nice to be back at work and in the schools again. Sarah and I had planned to make dinner – but we didn’t make it home until just after six o’clock. We were going to have a hurried time making everything – luckily Sarah had done all of the grocery shopping while I was working. Unfortunately, not many things on the list are available in Maun and so we were going to improvise. A sweet & sour chicken stir fry with original vanilla cheesecake were on the menu.
Knowing the desert would take the longest we started with it. There was no normal cream cheese so we had to use whipped cream cheese – which completely throws off the recipe…but wait I didn’t have a recipe, I was going by my head, so no worries. There was no graham crackers, so we used arrowroot biscuits instead. I have dreamed about good cheesecake since trying (and giving failing grade) to all of the cheesecakes in this southern continent. But it wasn’t shaping up all that good. However, we eventually got it into the over. All the ingredients were there (with a little extra sugar and flavour to make up for it) and the consistency seemed okay. Now we just had to bake it. Best part was that it was a gas oven, the controls were only 1 through 5, so I compromised with 3. It was going to take over an hour to cook, so I would just watch it and wait. I set my timer for an hour.
In the meantime with started in with the main course. I got the meat cut, breaded and fried successfully and Sarah took care of the vegetables. I had to go off of memory for the sweet and sour sauce – with NONE of the normal ingredients, so that was entertaining as well. Luckily the meal was based around delicious ingredients, so I knew that it would taste good no matter what. The only downside of the cooking produced heaping sinks of dishes. My mum would not be impressed, as she was the queen, and supposedly taught me, all about the clean-as-you-go or one-pot cooking wonders!
We got dinner served up as the cheesecake was still cooking away. Just as we were getting ready to sit down to eat, Sarah smelled something burning. NO WAY! I couldn’t believe it! The elements were off, so the only thing that could be burning was the house or the cake…unfortunately it was the cake :) It had only been thirty-five minutes! The bottom had just begun to blacken and the top was definitely a tad past golden brown. Luckily, it was salvageable and so we pulled it out and left it to cool. We went back to dinner – which was much more successful and went over well with everyone!
I decided to make some white vanilla bean sauce for the cheesecake – partially because I love vanilla, and partially to cover up the slight over cook-ness. The cheesecake ended up being fine, actually, much more that fine, I thought it was delicious. The crust ended up being the only really ‘burnt’ part, but it was just crispy and blackened on the bottom. Regardless, with the sauce it was unbelievably good and by far the best cheesecake that Maun, if not Botswana, has ever seen – haha! (well, as far as my taste buds are concerned, and I promise to not stop looking!)
It was a fun night – and cooking brought back some really nice memories of home. It also got me really excited about my apartment next year, and I cannot wait to cook there once I am back in Guelph. With good food, there just isn’t anything worth complaining about in life!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Blog #30 – Farewell Cape Town
Today we depart Cape Town. Sarah is going to come back to Maun for her last few days in Africa before she returns home to Canada on the weekend. Our shuttle was for 7:30AM from the hostel. It would be taking us to the airport and away from Cape Town.
As I crawled out of bed this morning I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed. Cape Town has been amazing and there is still so much to experience. As I finish packing all of my belongings back into the one bag I brought (which barely fit, so I have to off load to Sarah), I can’t help but avoid having this steely resolve that I will come back to Cape Town. I don’t know why, or even when for that matter. But it helps.
It is amazing how quickly the morning flies when you have a plane to catch. By the time we strapped all our belongings to our back we were a tad late for our transport. Our driver in the morning could quite possibly have been the most stressed out man I have ever seen. It was still dark in the city, but our driver was spirited. He drove as if he was possessed, rushing from one stop to another. Dropping passengers here and there, before we could head to the airport. We weren’t in any particular rush, but he seemed to have a whole other idea on his mind. As Sarah and I got tossed around the back of the shuttle, I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. I thought to myself, if my life ends here of all of the more dangerous things I have done this trip, at least it will be in Cape Town, haha!
We made it to the airport in one piece and checked into our flight. It was a domestic flight to Johannesburg, so getting through all of the ‘airport safety’ processes was much easier. We waited at the gate, for our shuttle to take us to the place. We weren’t sitting together – I had lucked out as the check-in lady had booked me for the emergency exit seats, which gave me almost an extra six inches of space – yippee! Not much else exciting about the flight, except I started a new Sudoko book – hundreds of puzzles in this one!
Getting into Johannesburg airport was pretty easy compared to what was ahead of us. If you have ever been to the JBurg International terminal, it is a little crazy on a good day. Today it was packed! There are probably close to a hundred check-in desks. We entered the terminal at the complete wrong end. Air Botswana had two tiny desks at the complete other end of the room. The room was packed full of people, trolleys, bags, lost children, lost passengers and those that would inevitably miss their flights.
I finally made it to a screen and saw that Air Botswana had the Maun flight leaving at 11:50, which was in half an hour, and then one to Gabarone when our flight was supposed to leave. If they had pulled some funny business and messed with my flights again I was going to lose it! I just decided the best thing would be to get to the desk, check-in and get on the earliest flight back to Maun. It took us about fifteen minutes to walk the less than a hundred meter distance to the counter. This is one of those times you are in a huge crowd and just want to scream and push. There was one tiny trickle of single lane traffic and about a few hundred people trying to use it. Looking back it was mildly entertaining :)
We made it to the gate and checked-in. It literally took them over half an hour to check the eight people in front of us – that was after they sent a handful away to the other side of the terminal. There was no way we would make the flight to Maun that was listed on the board. I was gathering my gusto to talk to the counter. However, he just checked me in – no words were exchanged and all was well. Our boarding pass said departing for Maun at 1:30…just all of the signs in the airport were wrong. It is really unnerving and I held onto that ticket like a lifeline.
Getting through customs was no fun either. The line was huge and the line control medians were overfull with capacity! However, now that our flight was back to 1:30pm we had plenty of time. After making it through we stopped at duty free and loaded up with some CHEAP South African wines – I am talking less than five dollars a bottle for pretty decent stuff. They were going to make great gifts back in Maun!
The flight back on Air Botswana was great. We got put in the first class seats – which again gave us lots of legroom. All in all – minus Air Botswana’s terrible organization - the actual process once you are on the plane is pretty good. I am addicted now to these snacks called “Marula sticks”. They are like fruit to go, but in stick form, thicker and made out of this fruit (I think…) that is sort of like a pear. They are delicious and I have yet to find them in Maun.
As I stepped out of the plane in Maun, I felt as if I was arriving home. The sun was bright and shiny, not a cloud in the sky, and the air was warm and not humid one bit. If I could just take this weather to Cape Town I would be set for life, haha!
I had some issues at customs – as you can apparently only bring two litres of wine into Botswana. Like I knew that?! Anyways, after talking with the customs agent, he just let it slide and sent me on my way. Glad I didn’t lose any of that! Some of my work friends were waiting for me at the airport and they drove us back to the office. I checked in with Lesley, my supervisor, and figured out all of the work that had been done and the load that was waiting for me.
Sarah went to go check out the local Nhaba museum in town while I did some catch up work – after being gone for five days, and with less than two weeks until the program started, it tends to accumulate! Once I got through the major stuff and set up some appointments for tomorrow I called it a night. I was tired from traveling and would just get a good early start to it all tomorrow.
We made the trek home by foot – upon Sarah’s persistent request. So while loaded with our luggage and spirits we had a nice walk home through town, over New Bridge and along the Thamalakane River path to my place. The sun was setting behind us and it really felt like I was going home. We unloaded our stuff in my room, did introductions between everyone and spent the evening just relaxing and socializing. It was nice to catch up with everyone and they were quite excited to hear about our adventures in Cape Town!
As I crawled out of bed this morning I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed. Cape Town has been amazing and there is still so much to experience. As I finish packing all of my belongings back into the one bag I brought (which barely fit, so I have to off load to Sarah), I can’t help but avoid having this steely resolve that I will come back to Cape Town. I don’t know why, or even when for that matter. But it helps.
It is amazing how quickly the morning flies when you have a plane to catch. By the time we strapped all our belongings to our back we were a tad late for our transport. Our driver in the morning could quite possibly have been the most stressed out man I have ever seen. It was still dark in the city, but our driver was spirited. He drove as if he was possessed, rushing from one stop to another. Dropping passengers here and there, before we could head to the airport. We weren’t in any particular rush, but he seemed to have a whole other idea on his mind. As Sarah and I got tossed around the back of the shuttle, I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. I thought to myself, if my life ends here of all of the more dangerous things I have done this trip, at least it will be in Cape Town, haha!
We made it to the airport in one piece and checked into our flight. It was a domestic flight to Johannesburg, so getting through all of the ‘airport safety’ processes was much easier. We waited at the gate, for our shuttle to take us to the place. We weren’t sitting together – I had lucked out as the check-in lady had booked me for the emergency exit seats, which gave me almost an extra six inches of space – yippee! Not much else exciting about the flight, except I started a new Sudoko book – hundreds of puzzles in this one!
Getting into Johannesburg airport was pretty easy compared to what was ahead of us. If you have ever been to the JBurg International terminal, it is a little crazy on a good day. Today it was packed! There are probably close to a hundred check-in desks. We entered the terminal at the complete wrong end. Air Botswana had two tiny desks at the complete other end of the room. The room was packed full of people, trolleys, bags, lost children, lost passengers and those that would inevitably miss their flights.
I finally made it to a screen and saw that Air Botswana had the Maun flight leaving at 11:50, which was in half an hour, and then one to Gabarone when our flight was supposed to leave. If they had pulled some funny business and messed with my flights again I was going to lose it! I just decided the best thing would be to get to the desk, check-in and get on the earliest flight back to Maun. It took us about fifteen minutes to walk the less than a hundred meter distance to the counter. This is one of those times you are in a huge crowd and just want to scream and push. There was one tiny trickle of single lane traffic and about a few hundred people trying to use it. Looking back it was mildly entertaining :)
We made it to the gate and checked-in. It literally took them over half an hour to check the eight people in front of us – that was after they sent a handful away to the other side of the terminal. There was no way we would make the flight to Maun that was listed on the board. I was gathering my gusto to talk to the counter. However, he just checked me in – no words were exchanged and all was well. Our boarding pass said departing for Maun at 1:30…just all of the signs in the airport were wrong. It is really unnerving and I held onto that ticket like a lifeline.
Getting through customs was no fun either. The line was huge and the line control medians were overfull with capacity! However, now that our flight was back to 1:30pm we had plenty of time. After making it through we stopped at duty free and loaded up with some CHEAP South African wines – I am talking less than five dollars a bottle for pretty decent stuff. They were going to make great gifts back in Maun!
The flight back on Air Botswana was great. We got put in the first class seats – which again gave us lots of legroom. All in all – minus Air Botswana’s terrible organization - the actual process once you are on the plane is pretty good. I am addicted now to these snacks called “Marula sticks”. They are like fruit to go, but in stick form, thicker and made out of this fruit (I think…) that is sort of like a pear. They are delicious and I have yet to find them in Maun.
As I stepped out of the plane in Maun, I felt as if I was arriving home. The sun was bright and shiny, not a cloud in the sky, and the air was warm and not humid one bit. If I could just take this weather to Cape Town I would be set for life, haha!
I had some issues at customs – as you can apparently only bring two litres of wine into Botswana. Like I knew that?! Anyways, after talking with the customs agent, he just let it slide and sent me on my way. Glad I didn’t lose any of that! Some of my work friends were waiting for me at the airport and they drove us back to the office. I checked in with Lesley, my supervisor, and figured out all of the work that had been done and the load that was waiting for me.
Sarah went to go check out the local Nhaba museum in town while I did some catch up work – after being gone for five days, and with less than two weeks until the program started, it tends to accumulate! Once I got through the major stuff and set up some appointments for tomorrow I called it a night. I was tired from traveling and would just get a good early start to it all tomorrow.
We made the trek home by foot – upon Sarah’s persistent request. So while loaded with our luggage and spirits we had a nice walk home through town, over New Bridge and along the Thamalakane River path to my place. The sun was setting behind us and it really felt like I was going home. We unloaded our stuff in my room, did introductions between everyone and spent the evening just relaxing and socializing. It was nice to catch up with everyone and they were quite excited to hear about our adventures in Cape Town!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Blog #29 – Sun(ny)day Farewell
Today we didn’t quite wake up this morning as early as we had planned. However, it all worked out well as nothing really opens in Cape Town until 9 or 10 in the morning. We went out grabbed some breakfast and then picked up some last minute souvenirs and gifts. After we got back to the hostel we phoned the rental car company and ordered a car for rent. Today we were going to spend the day driving down the coast to the Cape.
As none of us were particularly comfortable driving stick shift, and given we had no idea where we were going, we decided to hire a driving guide for the day. The drive took just over an hour. It was a gorgeous scenic tour with winding roads and beautiful landscape. This was the first really nice day that we had while we were there. The sun was out and cascading down on the large hills with stunning profiles. It was one of those experiences that you get caught up in and would be fine with going on forever like that.
We passed some small villages on the coast – which would be an AMAZING place to live. The waves would be awesome for swimming and surfing – and we saw a few people trying out their luck. There were long stretches of gorgeous sandy beaches and I could just imagine what the summers here must be like (if this was winter!) We continued on our way and passed some ostrich farms, which were neat to see and a little bit bizarre! We also passed some small vineyards, but the big ones – and the ones with world-renowned wines comes from the valley, which wasn’t really on the way. Those tours and experiences would have to wait for another trip.
We made it into the National Park and headed for Cape Point – the most south-westerly point of South Africa. It was stunning. We were on a rock ledge some hundred feet of the water. Hills rose around us, with a lighthouse perched at the top of Cape Point. The ocean crashed audibly against the rock face shifting from a vibrant blue to the dark depths of the ocean. The horizon stretched on until you could see nothing but water and clouds. The soil was a rich red colour and the colour remained on your shoes and hands.
We didn’t have the whole day here, as we had to head back to the airport for Renne and Cait’s flights home, but we did everything we could in the time we were given. We walked on a path along the cliff side heading from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope. This was by far one of the most beautiful places that I have been in my life. The flora and fauna were not particularly special or unique and I have seen ocean and cliffs before, but there was something about this place that just made you happy. That filled you with a spirit that made you content and fulfilled with life. Everything was going to work out and all of your problems shrunk away in the grandness of the imagery before you.
As we headed along the cliff we caught a glimpse of a white sand beach tucked away in an inlet of the cliff. It was hard to see from far away and at least a hundred or two hundred feet down from the cliff’s edge. We decided to take the countless set of rickety wooden stairs down to the sand. The beach was no more than a hundred feet long and the waves that came in were still quite powerful. The sand was deep and untouched. We spent some time running around, splashing in the waves. I made a futile attempt to write messages in the sand, which were completely washed away once I was half done from a powerful wave. None of us were wearing bathing suits, but we got soaked and sandy. It was definitely worth it though! We had some fun times and some great pictures to remember it all by too!
Eventually we headed back up the stairs…even though it tooks quite a bit of time and I was wiped by the end of it, I was still so glad we trekked down to Diaz Beach. We made out way back to the car and said goodbye to the Cape. We began our journey back to Cape Town and for Renne and Caitling, this was the end of their trip and they were flying home.
Once we were back in Cape Town, we filled up the car with gas and said our goodbyes. I was finally getting used to all of these goodbyes, and I knew that we would have some wonderful times back in Guelph in the fall with everyone. However, it is still difficult for me to say goodbye to those that I have gotten to know so well on this trip, knowing now that I was just another step to doing this solo. I cannot speak highly enough of all of the people from Guelph – they were awesome to travel with, are amazing people, and I will miss them here very much.
Now it was just Sarah and I. Given the past seventy-two hours were jammed packed of different activities and excitement we decided to have a chill evening. We visited a bookstore and picked up some reading for our flights back the next day. After that, we did some light packing and then headed out for dinner. We ate at this amazing Thai restaurant. Our server was fantastic and really nice. We was willing to bring us things out of the kitchen to show us what they were before we ordered. It was a really nice meal, and probably the last time I will get to taste Thai until I am back in Guelph!
After supper we decided to go see a movie. While, this seems like a terrible thing to do while on vacation in another country it really did make sense. There are no movie theatres in Maun, so I wouldn’t be watching any new Hollywood blockbusters until I got back to North America. We also barely had the energy to do anything else, especially since it was really close to where we ate dinner, so it was so convenient.
We headed back to the hostel and went to sleep. We had to catch an early flight tomorrow, and needed the rest! Cape Town was unbelievable in so many ways. There are still a plethora of things that I would like to see and do here and I know in my heart that I will be back someday. I am really glad that the trip worked out, even after all of the different organizational nightmares! This was one of the most memorable weekends of my life.
As none of us were particularly comfortable driving stick shift, and given we had no idea where we were going, we decided to hire a driving guide for the day. The drive took just over an hour. It was a gorgeous scenic tour with winding roads and beautiful landscape. This was the first really nice day that we had while we were there. The sun was out and cascading down on the large hills with stunning profiles. It was one of those experiences that you get caught up in and would be fine with going on forever like that.
We passed some small villages on the coast – which would be an AMAZING place to live. The waves would be awesome for swimming and surfing – and we saw a few people trying out their luck. There were long stretches of gorgeous sandy beaches and I could just imagine what the summers here must be like (if this was winter!) We continued on our way and passed some ostrich farms, which were neat to see and a little bit bizarre! We also passed some small vineyards, but the big ones – and the ones with world-renowned wines comes from the valley, which wasn’t really on the way. Those tours and experiences would have to wait for another trip.
We made it into the National Park and headed for Cape Point – the most south-westerly point of South Africa. It was stunning. We were on a rock ledge some hundred feet of the water. Hills rose around us, with a lighthouse perched at the top of Cape Point. The ocean crashed audibly against the rock face shifting from a vibrant blue to the dark depths of the ocean. The horizon stretched on until you could see nothing but water and clouds. The soil was a rich red colour and the colour remained on your shoes and hands.
We didn’t have the whole day here, as we had to head back to the airport for Renne and Cait’s flights home, but we did everything we could in the time we were given. We walked on a path along the cliff side heading from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope. This was by far one of the most beautiful places that I have been in my life. The flora and fauna were not particularly special or unique and I have seen ocean and cliffs before, but there was something about this place that just made you happy. That filled you with a spirit that made you content and fulfilled with life. Everything was going to work out and all of your problems shrunk away in the grandness of the imagery before you.
As we headed along the cliff we caught a glimpse of a white sand beach tucked away in an inlet of the cliff. It was hard to see from far away and at least a hundred or two hundred feet down from the cliff’s edge. We decided to take the countless set of rickety wooden stairs down to the sand. The beach was no more than a hundred feet long and the waves that came in were still quite powerful. The sand was deep and untouched. We spent some time running around, splashing in the waves. I made a futile attempt to write messages in the sand, which were completely washed away once I was half done from a powerful wave. None of us were wearing bathing suits, but we got soaked and sandy. It was definitely worth it though! We had some fun times and some great pictures to remember it all by too!
Eventually we headed back up the stairs…even though it tooks quite a bit of time and I was wiped by the end of it, I was still so glad we trekked down to Diaz Beach. We made out way back to the car and said goodbye to the Cape. We began our journey back to Cape Town and for Renne and Caitling, this was the end of their trip and they were flying home.
Once we were back in Cape Town, we filled up the car with gas and said our goodbyes. I was finally getting used to all of these goodbyes, and I knew that we would have some wonderful times back in Guelph in the fall with everyone. However, it is still difficult for me to say goodbye to those that I have gotten to know so well on this trip, knowing now that I was just another step to doing this solo. I cannot speak highly enough of all of the people from Guelph – they were awesome to travel with, are amazing people, and I will miss them here very much.
Now it was just Sarah and I. Given the past seventy-two hours were jammed packed of different activities and excitement we decided to have a chill evening. We visited a bookstore and picked up some reading for our flights back the next day. After that, we did some light packing and then headed out for dinner. We ate at this amazing Thai restaurant. Our server was fantastic and really nice. We was willing to bring us things out of the kitchen to show us what they were before we ordered. It was a really nice meal, and probably the last time I will get to taste Thai until I am back in Guelph!
After supper we decided to go see a movie. While, this seems like a terrible thing to do while on vacation in another country it really did make sense. There are no movie theatres in Maun, so I wouldn’t be watching any new Hollywood blockbusters until I got back to North America. We also barely had the energy to do anything else, especially since it was really close to where we ate dinner, so it was so convenient.
We headed back to the hostel and went to sleep. We had to catch an early flight tomorrow, and needed the rest! Cape Town was unbelievable in so many ways. There are still a plethora of things that I would like to see and do here and I know in my heart that I will be back someday. I am really glad that the trip worked out, even after all of the different organizational nightmares! This was one of the most memorable weekends of my life.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Blog #28 – Full Day Cape Town
This was our second full day in Cape Town and we meant to make the most of it. That included getting up early. I knew that we must have actually been up quite early when the man working at the hostel saw us, looked at us all ready to go for the day and said, “man, you guys get going early?!”
We took a taxi down to the waterfront. The harbour is a beautiful place and it goes on for quite a distance. There are sorts of different attractions to see with places to eat and shop at along the way. This morning we were going to the Two Ocean Aquarium, one of the best in the world! The very first tank that we saw – the acclimatization tank – was stunning. There were all sorts of fish, big and small, normal and odd shaped, colourful and shiny. It was going to be a good morning. We walked through the different exhibits stopping to peer glowingly into the tanks right next to all of the eight year-old children that were there as well. Who said aquariums aren’t for grown-ups? Hey! Who said we were grown-ups?!
My favourite things by far were the jellyfish – those things are wicked! They were in a unlit tank and were just these bright blow glowing globs. You could almost see right through them! Their structure was so different from our own, but they were still very much alive and responsive, so cool! There was so much neat other stuff as well – camouflaging fish, crustaceans of all kinds, seahorses, sharks, sting-rays and more. It really was a fully stocked aquarium.
We spent some time at the touching pool. This was really neat – and they let you touch and play with different seaweeds, anemones and even starfish (but you had to be gentle). It is so neat how much unique life, or just life in general in under the water. Renne was right when she said the ocean was like a rainforest.
We then proceeded upstairs to the second level. Here they had different kinds of birds and penguins! Watching the penguins was fun – they are odd little creatures with very flamboyant personalities. It is so odd to see them waddling around on ground without arms or hands. They were busy making nests and hatching eggs, which is cool. We came back to see them get fed later. They did really eat much of the food given to them, they would just taste it, and then spit it out for later. It is weird how little water space they have to live in considering that is where they are at their best. However, these penguins were born and bed in captivity, so perhaps they just never knew better. Interestingly they didn’t have any instinctual fear of humans, which made them so easy to watch and see.
After that we went to go see the MASSIVE kelp forest. It was a huge tank that was undergoing a lot of different processes to make sure the temperature, gas levels and salinity were optimal for growth and maintenance. They pump in water straight from the ocean to fed the tank, which is pretty cool, and the selection of fish and sharks that lived in there was pretty neat too. There is something captivating about sitting in front of a luminescent tank that is fifteen feet high hand fifteen feet wide.
After that there was only one more exhibit – the sharks! Interestingly none of us were that interested or amazed by it. The sharks we saw yesterday were much larger and more ferocious looking, not to mention in their natural habitat. However, they exhibit also contained a lot of documentation and media around shark awareness; that nine people died from sharks last year, but over three hundred from kite accidents. They aquarium has started this large initiative to help draw attention to the fact that viewing sharks as these massive killers is wrong and that the black market for shark, especially their fins, is cruel and unjustifiable. I would completely agree after seeing in the wild – they truly are magnificent creatures.
All in all I can see why Finding Nemo, Shark Tale and Happy Feat are so popular, clown fish, sharks and penguins are radical!
After the aquarium we headed out to this warehouse flea market for different kinds of traditional artwork and souvenirs. We didn’t spend too long here, just enough time for me to pick up some ostrich bone engraved salt and pepper shakers – which are pretty cool – and to try some ginger fudge, which was also delicious. After grabbing a quick lunch we grabbed a taxi and headed to District 6.
We had just over an hour at the District Six museum, but we could have spent a little bit more. District 6 was one of the largest sites where the local coloured inhabitants were forced to pack up and leave their homes. They were relocated from this fairly central part of the city into outlying communities. The museum was a testament to all of the families that were relocated. We are talking about many city blocks and ten, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. All moved because of the colour of their skin, to make way for development and homes and neighbourhoods of white people.
It was a very emotional place that balanced well between factual history and documentation and then a lot of personal stories and collections. It was able to capture the incident in both a large context of the culture and politics, but also on the level of individual children and families. Interestingly the museum does a lot of work in the community to educate people (and government) about justice, fairness and the atrocities that occurred. But it was also as much about rebuilding the community and giving tutelage to all of the families and rebuilding what was lost.
Then we had to boot it back to the hostel. We had arranged for a group shuttle from the hostel to the stadium. We were going to watch a rugby game between the defending world champions, the South African Springboks, versus Italy. Everyone knew going in that the game was going to be one-sided, but we were excited nonetheless.
This was definitely an important sporting event for the community. The traffic on the way there came to a standstill while we were still a good ten minutes away. Once we got out of the car we started the trek into the stadium with hordes of people. There were people selling all forms of Springbok paraphernalia and the inevitable street meat vendors. There must have been thousands of people coming to see the game. We were sitting in pretty good seats, that were a few rows up just off of centre field. The weather was a little bit funky and it would sporadically start to shower and then stop, so we retreated up a few more rows to sit just under the protection of the cover. It definitely was no sky dome, but it sat a lot of excited passionate fans on both sides of the game.
The rugby game was pretty exciting and I think I finally fully understand the game now too. There was some beautiful plays, mostly by the South Africans, and they ended up winning by at least thirty points. We also some one major hit that probably came close to paralyzing the player. It is amazing at how little protection these players have compared to hockey and football. Good news is, everyone recovered and it was a super fun game to watch.
We took our shuttle back to the hostel and cleaned up for dinner. We were going to a seafood restaurant on the waterfront that came on high recommend from a local Cape Town resident that Renne and Cait flew with. It was a delicious meal, and I ate enough for two people, haha, but there is definitely nowhere in Maun that you can get anything remotely similar to all of the fresh seafood they had – so I had to take advantage of it now. The other really nice thing about eating out at this fancy restaurant, was that given the exchange rate of South African Rand, which is 8 ZAR: 1 CAD, everything was ridiculously well priced and affordable.
This was the last dinner that I would have with Renne and Caitlin – and the last time that I ate with any Guelphites. It was odd that I had been here for a month already and had still been able to be in close contact with U of G students, but also, that after a month here with all these people, I still had two left without them. We had a nice long dinner, with great service, food and company. We sampled some delicious South African wines, We spent the early part of the evening just chatting it away. Finally we ordered some desserts – and decided to split them all between us. We had the courage to try, for the fourth or fifth time, cheesecake (which here in Africa is NOT like it is at home!) and after that I made up my mind that I would make my own cheesecake once I got back to Botswana!
We eventually headed back to the hostel. We got back and the place was a buzz! It was as if everyone that was staying there was down in the lounge area or by the bar. The troop of everyone was heading out to the bars right then – along with all of the staff. We convinced them to give us ten minutes to change and get ready and then we joined back up.
Our group was about a dozen large and we hit the town with high energy and expectations of a fun evening. We were heading to Zulu, which wasn’t too far away. A modern punk rock band called the Rag Dolls was playing – their stamp took days to come off! – the place was a little full with people just dancing, swaying and hanging out. We had some G&Ts here and sat for a while listening. We decided we were looking for less punk and more dance and headed up into the streets looking for another place.
After walking around for a while we quickly decided to try Fiction out. Yes, that was the name of the bar, haha. It wasn’t a huge bar, but it had some live music. The dance floor was packed full, so we danced on the outskirts for a little bit. The one thing that really bothered me about the bars here were that people would just light up a cigarette while they were standing right next to you. It smelled awful, tasted worse and gave this ominous haze to the place. We sat there for a while chatting about stuff, the trying to dance and finally just ordering some drinks. Once those were done we decided to find a place with less smoke and more fun :)
There were only three of us left by this point – Sarah, Cait and myself. We decided to take a bit of a walk again and ended up trying out a place called The Bronx – which I promise you was not nearly as dangerous as NYC…not that I know, haha! Anyways, it was packed full of people as well. However, we did manage to find a considerable amount of space to dance up on the dance floor off to the side. The key is just using my height and other people’s elbows ;) We spent the rest of the night here as they were playing way better music and the atmosphere was much more fun. It seems like third time is a charm!
It was a good night of dancing and partying! By the time we made it back to the hostel we jumped into bed! It was both chilly and late – and as tomorrow was our last day we were going to get a good start on it bright and early!
We took a taxi down to the waterfront. The harbour is a beautiful place and it goes on for quite a distance. There are sorts of different attractions to see with places to eat and shop at along the way. This morning we were going to the Two Ocean Aquarium, one of the best in the world! The very first tank that we saw – the acclimatization tank – was stunning. There were all sorts of fish, big and small, normal and odd shaped, colourful and shiny. It was going to be a good morning. We walked through the different exhibits stopping to peer glowingly into the tanks right next to all of the eight year-old children that were there as well. Who said aquariums aren’t for grown-ups? Hey! Who said we were grown-ups?!
My favourite things by far were the jellyfish – those things are wicked! They were in a unlit tank and were just these bright blow glowing globs. You could almost see right through them! Their structure was so different from our own, but they were still very much alive and responsive, so cool! There was so much neat other stuff as well – camouflaging fish, crustaceans of all kinds, seahorses, sharks, sting-rays and more. It really was a fully stocked aquarium.
We spent some time at the touching pool. This was really neat – and they let you touch and play with different seaweeds, anemones and even starfish (but you had to be gentle). It is so neat how much unique life, or just life in general in under the water. Renne was right when she said the ocean was like a rainforest.
We then proceeded upstairs to the second level. Here they had different kinds of birds and penguins! Watching the penguins was fun – they are odd little creatures with very flamboyant personalities. It is so odd to see them waddling around on ground without arms or hands. They were busy making nests and hatching eggs, which is cool. We came back to see them get fed later. They did really eat much of the food given to them, they would just taste it, and then spit it out for later. It is weird how little water space they have to live in considering that is where they are at their best. However, these penguins were born and bed in captivity, so perhaps they just never knew better. Interestingly they didn’t have any instinctual fear of humans, which made them so easy to watch and see.
After that we went to go see the MASSIVE kelp forest. It was a huge tank that was undergoing a lot of different processes to make sure the temperature, gas levels and salinity were optimal for growth and maintenance. They pump in water straight from the ocean to fed the tank, which is pretty cool, and the selection of fish and sharks that lived in there was pretty neat too. There is something captivating about sitting in front of a luminescent tank that is fifteen feet high hand fifteen feet wide.
After that there was only one more exhibit – the sharks! Interestingly none of us were that interested or amazed by it. The sharks we saw yesterday were much larger and more ferocious looking, not to mention in their natural habitat. However, they exhibit also contained a lot of documentation and media around shark awareness; that nine people died from sharks last year, but over three hundred from kite accidents. They aquarium has started this large initiative to help draw attention to the fact that viewing sharks as these massive killers is wrong and that the black market for shark, especially their fins, is cruel and unjustifiable. I would completely agree after seeing in the wild – they truly are magnificent creatures.
All in all I can see why Finding Nemo, Shark Tale and Happy Feat are so popular, clown fish, sharks and penguins are radical!
After the aquarium we headed out to this warehouse flea market for different kinds of traditional artwork and souvenirs. We didn’t spend too long here, just enough time for me to pick up some ostrich bone engraved salt and pepper shakers – which are pretty cool – and to try some ginger fudge, which was also delicious. After grabbing a quick lunch we grabbed a taxi and headed to District 6.
We had just over an hour at the District Six museum, but we could have spent a little bit more. District 6 was one of the largest sites where the local coloured inhabitants were forced to pack up and leave their homes. They were relocated from this fairly central part of the city into outlying communities. The museum was a testament to all of the families that were relocated. We are talking about many city blocks and ten, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. All moved because of the colour of their skin, to make way for development and homes and neighbourhoods of white people.
It was a very emotional place that balanced well between factual history and documentation and then a lot of personal stories and collections. It was able to capture the incident in both a large context of the culture and politics, but also on the level of individual children and families. Interestingly the museum does a lot of work in the community to educate people (and government) about justice, fairness and the atrocities that occurred. But it was also as much about rebuilding the community and giving tutelage to all of the families and rebuilding what was lost.
Then we had to boot it back to the hostel. We had arranged for a group shuttle from the hostel to the stadium. We were going to watch a rugby game between the defending world champions, the South African Springboks, versus Italy. Everyone knew going in that the game was going to be one-sided, but we were excited nonetheless.
This was definitely an important sporting event for the community. The traffic on the way there came to a standstill while we were still a good ten minutes away. Once we got out of the car we started the trek into the stadium with hordes of people. There were people selling all forms of Springbok paraphernalia and the inevitable street meat vendors. There must have been thousands of people coming to see the game. We were sitting in pretty good seats, that were a few rows up just off of centre field. The weather was a little bit funky and it would sporadically start to shower and then stop, so we retreated up a few more rows to sit just under the protection of the cover. It definitely was no sky dome, but it sat a lot of excited passionate fans on both sides of the game.
The rugby game was pretty exciting and I think I finally fully understand the game now too. There was some beautiful plays, mostly by the South Africans, and they ended up winning by at least thirty points. We also some one major hit that probably came close to paralyzing the player. It is amazing at how little protection these players have compared to hockey and football. Good news is, everyone recovered and it was a super fun game to watch.
We took our shuttle back to the hostel and cleaned up for dinner. We were going to a seafood restaurant on the waterfront that came on high recommend from a local Cape Town resident that Renne and Cait flew with. It was a delicious meal, and I ate enough for two people, haha, but there is definitely nowhere in Maun that you can get anything remotely similar to all of the fresh seafood they had – so I had to take advantage of it now. The other really nice thing about eating out at this fancy restaurant, was that given the exchange rate of South African Rand, which is 8 ZAR: 1 CAD, everything was ridiculously well priced and affordable.
This was the last dinner that I would have with Renne and Caitlin – and the last time that I ate with any Guelphites. It was odd that I had been here for a month already and had still been able to be in close contact with U of G students, but also, that after a month here with all these people, I still had two left without them. We had a nice long dinner, with great service, food and company. We sampled some delicious South African wines, We spent the early part of the evening just chatting it away. Finally we ordered some desserts – and decided to split them all between us. We had the courage to try, for the fourth or fifth time, cheesecake (which here in Africa is NOT like it is at home!) and after that I made up my mind that I would make my own cheesecake once I got back to Botswana!
We eventually headed back to the hostel. We got back and the place was a buzz! It was as if everyone that was staying there was down in the lounge area or by the bar. The troop of everyone was heading out to the bars right then – along with all of the staff. We convinced them to give us ten minutes to change and get ready and then we joined back up.
Our group was about a dozen large and we hit the town with high energy and expectations of a fun evening. We were heading to Zulu, which wasn’t too far away. A modern punk rock band called the Rag Dolls was playing – their stamp took days to come off! – the place was a little full with people just dancing, swaying and hanging out. We had some G&Ts here and sat for a while listening. We decided we were looking for less punk and more dance and headed up into the streets looking for another place.
After walking around for a while we quickly decided to try Fiction out. Yes, that was the name of the bar, haha. It wasn’t a huge bar, but it had some live music. The dance floor was packed full, so we danced on the outskirts for a little bit. The one thing that really bothered me about the bars here were that people would just light up a cigarette while they were standing right next to you. It smelled awful, tasted worse and gave this ominous haze to the place. We sat there for a while chatting about stuff, the trying to dance and finally just ordering some drinks. Once those were done we decided to find a place with less smoke and more fun :)
There were only three of us left by this point – Sarah, Cait and myself. We decided to take a bit of a walk again and ended up trying out a place called The Bronx – which I promise you was not nearly as dangerous as NYC…not that I know, haha! Anyways, it was packed full of people as well. However, we did manage to find a considerable amount of space to dance up on the dance floor off to the side. The key is just using my height and other people’s elbows ;) We spent the rest of the night here as they were playing way better music and the atmosphere was much more fun. It seems like third time is a charm!
It was a good night of dancing and partying! By the time we made it back to the hostel we jumped into bed! It was both chilly and late – and as tomorrow was our last day we were going to get a good start on it bright and early!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Blog #27 – Shark Cage Diving
I had a good sleep last night, but it was short. The cold snap at night, that I was so used to in Maun never came and the light poured in the windows as soon as the sun rose. I was awake since just past five, but stayed dozing in bed until seven. Sarah and I decided to get-up and go for a walk. It was a nice walk and I was amazed at how wet it was. Considering Maun hasn’t seen rain in nearly two months, to see everything here covered in water was a little shocking.
The streets had quite a few “safety officials” on them, which was comforting, but also a little odd. We passed through some different shops and underground routes (quite similar to the PATH actually) and then through a small market-place. We grabbed some breakfast from Spar, a grocery store – which was really cheap and deliciously fresh! Then we had to book it back to the hostel. Our shuttle was coming to the hostel at 8:45am and we didn’t want to miss it.
Today we were spending the day on the ocean going Shark Cage Diving. It was going to be AMAZING! We spent a good part of the morning driving west out of Cape Town and to an inlet on the southern coast. It was a gorgeous drive with the mist, the trees and the hills. It was so odd to see so much green and so much life. The deserts of Botswana definitely carry a different kind of beauty.
At one point on the drive we stopped right along the coast in a little town. The scenery was breath taking. There was something about the rocks, the cliffs and the water that was so powerful. Apparently on a good day you can see whales just off the coast, which is pretty cool – but today was about sharks!
We pulled into a small ‘fisherman’s’ town right on the ocean and parked. We spent about an hour inside in the morning for pre-departure business. However, this was much better than before a plane ride. We had a buffet breakfast, complete with anti-seasick pills, some liability form signatures (don’t worry Mom and Dad I put you guys down as the people to contact just in case…) and then some general safety and cage diving orientation.
It was overcast and a little bit rainy, so they gave us a ride down to the boat. The boat was pretty big, with three outboard motors (I think 200 horsepower each), and two levels for sitting. They slowly lowered the boat into the water and we were off. Being back in a boat was great! It was the little piece of my summer cottage that I could hold onto. The weather could have been better, but we were just so excited to see sharks that it really didn’t matter!
After a short ride out into the insides, the boat anchored behind the protection of two small islands, in what they call ‘Shark Alley’, which sounded like an appropriate name to me. They dumped some fish (guts, bones, blood and all) into the water. On average it was between 5 minutes and 5 hours before we would see a shark….
In the meantime we decided to suit up. It would help in case it started raining and also with the nippy wind. The suits were full body wet suits, which are both entertaining to try and put on, but also entertaining to just see people in. It was definitely a little awkward and freezing having to be just in a bathing suit before putting on the suit. However, that cold would be nothing compared to the ocean water we were going to spend an appreciable time in. There is nothing like a full body wet suit to bring people closer together.
They also set up the cage during this time. The cage was about fifteen feet long, three feet wide and eight feet deep. It was dropped into the water and then tied onto the boat with string, I mean rope, haha. I would have been better if there was chains and locks…but I guess they are professionals?... Basically the cage held up to seven people and you just had to jump in and hold on. However, it was just like a rollercoaster ride; no hands, feet or heads out of the cage at any time (and probably for good reason)
The first shark showed up in less then fifteen minutes. We could all see it from the boat. They tied a huge piece of fish ribs onto a rope on the end of a long ten foot pole and then cast it out. Then they would ‘chum’ the shark and tempt it with it, but the goal was not to feed them, only to keep them interested…interested in staying around, or interested in the fish and not the people in the cage?...
There were fourteen of us that went diving today and don’t worry they all made it back in one piece! The first group went into the cage as soon as they were equipped with their masks. I can’t lie, it was a bit entertaining to watch these seven eager people jump right off the boat into the cage with a shark swimming right round it. Anyways, it was really cool to watch the shark come and attack the fish and then swim away and then from out of nowhere reappear completely where it had not gone away. The guides were amazing at spotting it coming and gave great warnings for where they were.
I decided to wait. To let some other people test the system and its limits before I went diving in headfirst. The first shark eventually got bored and so I got ready and jumped into the cage for the second one. I was SO EXCITED to do this…I mean swimming just feet away from a great white shark, how ridiculously awesome!
I was not prepared however for the cold water. The shock to my body and the fact I was shark cage diving definitely tripped the adrenaline. It was amazing at how HUGE the sharks were. They were easily the length of our cage (15 feet), yet they were oddly graceful. What I found the eeriest was how quiet it all was. You couldn’t hear anything except for us under water. That is what the disconcerting and uncomfortable part of sharks is in my opinion. I kept of diving down and watching as this mammoth of an animal would swim close to five feet from the cage.
One of the times that I was up at the surface giddily sharing how sweet this all was with Sarah, when Cait grabbed me, pulled me under and spun me around. I was at the very end of the cage and the shark literally brushed up against the side of the cage. I had no idea it was even there let alone that close! That was the highlight of it all for me. I was so close and really appreciate what an amazing creature these sharks were. They were massive hunters; the kinds of the ocean – comparable to the lions on our safaris. Being this close and witnessing all this was a privilege!
We were probably in the water for close to an hour…who knows? All I know is that once I got out I realized just how cold I actually was! When I got out, I had originally planned to just warm up a bit and then hop back in. How wrong I was. Once I got my booties off, I could tell there was no way I was getting back in the water. One of toes – that’s right only one – has went completely white, while the rest filled with colour. I was wet everywhere, it was windy and my dry clothes seemed to far away.
We stripped down quite quickly and peeled off our wet suits and clothes and quickly put on what dry clothes we had left and wrapped our selves in towels. We huddled inside the boat and I put down a few bags of chips and caramel popcorn. It was one of those moments where you are like I was crazy for doing that and I can’t believe the state I am in right now, but it was SO WORTH IT! Haha!
Anyways, we wrapped up the shark diving a short while later and once everyone was changed and settled we started out boat ride home. However, this time we stopped at a seal colony and witnessed the horrific scent and ridiculously overpopulated island that these hundreds, if not thousands, of seals occupied…future meals for the five sharks we saw today!
The drive back wasn’t quite as smooth as before. The swells had increased to nearly ten feet, and we have quite a wavy, splashy time getting back. It was an entertaining drive back and by the time we hit shore, everyone piled out of the boat and headed straight for the house. We drank out weight in bush tea and were finally beginning to feel warm again.
We started the two-hour drive back home as the sun was beginning to descend in the sky. The landscape here is beautiful and it would be amazing to live here for a while, or at least visit for a long period. We got the driver to drop us off at the V&A habourfront, by the mall. This was no normal mall. This was one of the nicest malls that I have seen in the world. It was full of shops and then the outside all along the water and habour were places to eat: ranging from Subway and a food court, to some very fancy dining establishments. Renne was looking for a place that she had eaten at nearly a decade ago called St. Elmo’s Pizza. We found it and had a great meal there, not quite what she remembered from way back, but still satisfying after a long day of diving. I am not sure whether we were the best sight at the restaurant…we smelled like fish oil and seawater and our hair was matted, wet and dirty. Our cloths were damp, but we were happy!
Sarah and I decided that we wanted to go out tonight – we only had two evenings and it was a Friday. There were no clubs back in Maun and how many times would we be in Cape Town? We didn’t really come to Africa ready for that kind of action though and so we did a super quick shop before the stores closed at nine o’clock.
We got back to the hostel and started getting ready. Today was the first day I have shaved since I left Canada. It was just under one month and I was SO READY to have a clean face again! It took me about half an hour with the razor to shave…the longest and most tedious experience of my life. I had a great shower and cleaned off all of the fish guts and salt from the day. After I dressed for the night, I felt as if this was the cleanest I had ever been. My face was so soft and it felt as if I hadn’t touched my skin in forever!
After we were all cleaned up we hung out in the hostel downstairs for a while. They had tables, couches and chairs and a little bar. We met Tom and Natalie, two travelers from the UK that were planning on coming to the Rugby game tomorrow, and were mildly interested in coming out. Fifi, the wicked lady who helps run the hostel was also a lot of fun to talk to. It was a really nice evening and it was good just to chat and chill after a long day.
However, that wasn’t the end of it for Sarah and I – we wanted to go dancing! We walked downtown and went looking for a suitable location. We were looking for somewhere to dance, but there wasn’t too much activity tonight from what we heard and saw. We decided upon a bar called The Loft. It was a trendy-ish club with different levels. We sat and chilled on their open outdoor patio and talked about life, politics and policy. It wasn’t the wildest night, but it was fun. We headed home after a little while deciding to save some for tomorrow and to try and get some decent sleep for all of our adventures yet remaining. Day two in Cape Town was done.
The streets had quite a few “safety officials” on them, which was comforting, but also a little odd. We passed through some different shops and underground routes (quite similar to the PATH actually) and then through a small market-place. We grabbed some breakfast from Spar, a grocery store – which was really cheap and deliciously fresh! Then we had to book it back to the hostel. Our shuttle was coming to the hostel at 8:45am and we didn’t want to miss it.
Today we were spending the day on the ocean going Shark Cage Diving. It was going to be AMAZING! We spent a good part of the morning driving west out of Cape Town and to an inlet on the southern coast. It was a gorgeous drive with the mist, the trees and the hills. It was so odd to see so much green and so much life. The deserts of Botswana definitely carry a different kind of beauty.
At one point on the drive we stopped right along the coast in a little town. The scenery was breath taking. There was something about the rocks, the cliffs and the water that was so powerful. Apparently on a good day you can see whales just off the coast, which is pretty cool – but today was about sharks!
We pulled into a small ‘fisherman’s’ town right on the ocean and parked. We spent about an hour inside in the morning for pre-departure business. However, this was much better than before a plane ride. We had a buffet breakfast, complete with anti-seasick pills, some liability form signatures (don’t worry Mom and Dad I put you guys down as the people to contact just in case…) and then some general safety and cage diving orientation.
It was overcast and a little bit rainy, so they gave us a ride down to the boat. The boat was pretty big, with three outboard motors (I think 200 horsepower each), and two levels for sitting. They slowly lowered the boat into the water and we were off. Being back in a boat was great! It was the little piece of my summer cottage that I could hold onto. The weather could have been better, but we were just so excited to see sharks that it really didn’t matter!
After a short ride out into the insides, the boat anchored behind the protection of two small islands, in what they call ‘Shark Alley’, which sounded like an appropriate name to me. They dumped some fish (guts, bones, blood and all) into the water. On average it was between 5 minutes and 5 hours before we would see a shark….
In the meantime we decided to suit up. It would help in case it started raining and also with the nippy wind. The suits were full body wet suits, which are both entertaining to try and put on, but also entertaining to just see people in. It was definitely a little awkward and freezing having to be just in a bathing suit before putting on the suit. However, that cold would be nothing compared to the ocean water we were going to spend an appreciable time in. There is nothing like a full body wet suit to bring people closer together.
They also set up the cage during this time. The cage was about fifteen feet long, three feet wide and eight feet deep. It was dropped into the water and then tied onto the boat with string, I mean rope, haha. I would have been better if there was chains and locks…but I guess they are professionals?... Basically the cage held up to seven people and you just had to jump in and hold on. However, it was just like a rollercoaster ride; no hands, feet or heads out of the cage at any time (and probably for good reason)
The first shark showed up in less then fifteen minutes. We could all see it from the boat. They tied a huge piece of fish ribs onto a rope on the end of a long ten foot pole and then cast it out. Then they would ‘chum’ the shark and tempt it with it, but the goal was not to feed them, only to keep them interested…interested in staying around, or interested in the fish and not the people in the cage?...
There were fourteen of us that went diving today and don’t worry they all made it back in one piece! The first group went into the cage as soon as they were equipped with their masks. I can’t lie, it was a bit entertaining to watch these seven eager people jump right off the boat into the cage with a shark swimming right round it. Anyways, it was really cool to watch the shark come and attack the fish and then swim away and then from out of nowhere reappear completely where it had not gone away. The guides were amazing at spotting it coming and gave great warnings for where they were.
I decided to wait. To let some other people test the system and its limits before I went diving in headfirst. The first shark eventually got bored and so I got ready and jumped into the cage for the second one. I was SO EXCITED to do this…I mean swimming just feet away from a great white shark, how ridiculously awesome!
I was not prepared however for the cold water. The shock to my body and the fact I was shark cage diving definitely tripped the adrenaline. It was amazing at how HUGE the sharks were. They were easily the length of our cage (15 feet), yet they were oddly graceful. What I found the eeriest was how quiet it all was. You couldn’t hear anything except for us under water. That is what the disconcerting and uncomfortable part of sharks is in my opinion. I kept of diving down and watching as this mammoth of an animal would swim close to five feet from the cage.
One of the times that I was up at the surface giddily sharing how sweet this all was with Sarah, when Cait grabbed me, pulled me under and spun me around. I was at the very end of the cage and the shark literally brushed up against the side of the cage. I had no idea it was even there let alone that close! That was the highlight of it all for me. I was so close and really appreciate what an amazing creature these sharks were. They were massive hunters; the kinds of the ocean – comparable to the lions on our safaris. Being this close and witnessing all this was a privilege!
We were probably in the water for close to an hour…who knows? All I know is that once I got out I realized just how cold I actually was! When I got out, I had originally planned to just warm up a bit and then hop back in. How wrong I was. Once I got my booties off, I could tell there was no way I was getting back in the water. One of toes – that’s right only one – has went completely white, while the rest filled with colour. I was wet everywhere, it was windy and my dry clothes seemed to far away.
We stripped down quite quickly and peeled off our wet suits and clothes and quickly put on what dry clothes we had left and wrapped our selves in towels. We huddled inside the boat and I put down a few bags of chips and caramel popcorn. It was one of those moments where you are like I was crazy for doing that and I can’t believe the state I am in right now, but it was SO WORTH IT! Haha!
Anyways, we wrapped up the shark diving a short while later and once everyone was changed and settled we started out boat ride home. However, this time we stopped at a seal colony and witnessed the horrific scent and ridiculously overpopulated island that these hundreds, if not thousands, of seals occupied…future meals for the five sharks we saw today!
The drive back wasn’t quite as smooth as before. The swells had increased to nearly ten feet, and we have quite a wavy, splashy time getting back. It was an entertaining drive back and by the time we hit shore, everyone piled out of the boat and headed straight for the house. We drank out weight in bush tea and were finally beginning to feel warm again.
We started the two-hour drive back home as the sun was beginning to descend in the sky. The landscape here is beautiful and it would be amazing to live here for a while, or at least visit for a long period. We got the driver to drop us off at the V&A habourfront, by the mall. This was no normal mall. This was one of the nicest malls that I have seen in the world. It was full of shops and then the outside all along the water and habour were places to eat: ranging from Subway and a food court, to some very fancy dining establishments. Renne was looking for a place that she had eaten at nearly a decade ago called St. Elmo’s Pizza. We found it and had a great meal there, not quite what she remembered from way back, but still satisfying after a long day of diving. I am not sure whether we were the best sight at the restaurant…we smelled like fish oil and seawater and our hair was matted, wet and dirty. Our cloths were damp, but we were happy!
Sarah and I decided that we wanted to go out tonight – we only had two evenings and it was a Friday. There were no clubs back in Maun and how many times would we be in Cape Town? We didn’t really come to Africa ready for that kind of action though and so we did a super quick shop before the stores closed at nine o’clock.
We got back to the hostel and started getting ready. Today was the first day I have shaved since I left Canada. It was just under one month and I was SO READY to have a clean face again! It took me about half an hour with the razor to shave…the longest and most tedious experience of my life. I had a great shower and cleaned off all of the fish guts and salt from the day. After I dressed for the night, I felt as if this was the cleanest I had ever been. My face was so soft and it felt as if I hadn’t touched my skin in forever!
After we were all cleaned up we hung out in the hostel downstairs for a while. They had tables, couches and chairs and a little bar. We met Tom and Natalie, two travelers from the UK that were planning on coming to the Rugby game tomorrow, and were mildly interested in coming out. Fifi, the wicked lady who helps run the hostel was also a lot of fun to talk to. It was a really nice evening and it was good just to chat and chill after a long day.
However, that wasn’t the end of it for Sarah and I – we wanted to go dancing! We walked downtown and went looking for a suitable location. We were looking for somewhere to dance, but there wasn’t too much activity tonight from what we heard and saw. We decided upon a bar called The Loft. It was a trendy-ish club with different levels. We sat and chilled on their open outdoor patio and talked about life, politics and policy. It wasn’t the wildest night, but it was fun. We headed home after a little while deciding to save some for tomorrow and to try and get some decent sleep for all of our adventures yet remaining. Day two in Cape Town was done.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Blog #26 – Getting to ZA!
Today I was going to Cape Town. I couldn’t be more excited!
I was going to meet up with my friend from back home Sarah as well as continue and finish my travel with Renne & Caitlin from Guelph. Even though I wouldn’t be taking the flight I had wanted, I knew it was going to be good. I wanted to head into work early to cover the things I had to finish and make sure that I was good to be gone for the next five days.
I only got a fraction of the work done and arranged before I had to head to the airport to check-in for my flight. It was an international flight, so I figured I would give it forty-five minutes. Turns out that was too much, haha!
Once I got to the airport I went to the check-in desk and they told me that I wasn’t on the morning flight. Immediately I was ecstatic; hopefully I was back on the afternoon 3pm flight! Then I was like, wait…no way…what if I am not on either?!
They took into their office in the airport, which literally was the size of a coat closet. After sitting there for fifteen minutes, with the flight leaving in half an hour, I got this ragged printout on a piece of ripped paper with my new itinerary. It wasn’t glamorous, but hey at least I knew that I was booked to make it to Johannesburg for my connection to Cape Town, I couldn’t be that upset!
It ended up that I would be flying with Renne and Cait (after thinking all this time I wouldn’t be) to Gabs and then onto to J’Burg from there. Just as we finally made the walk from the airport out onto the tarmac and to our plane someone yelled out my name! It was Lesley my placement supervisor. She had just flown in on their plane from Dog Camp. We had a brief chat and updated each other on the work side of things. The security and air personal looked inquiringly at us, but couldn’t be bothered to ask us anything, let alone tell us to do something. With that is was a quick farewell, a hug good-bye and a “enjoy yourself in Cape Town!” I felt ready and prepped to leave Maun now.
Once in Gabs Air Botswana provided me with a complimentary sandwich to offset my inconvenience of having to leave six hours earlier and take twice as many flights. I guess that is the way it goes! However, Gabs was gorgeous and it was in the middle of the day, so I spent some time just lying in the sun and waiting for my next flight.
I checked into my flight to J’Burg with thirty minutes left and made it through customs and security in five minutes; small airports rock! This was the finals moments that my cell phone would work in Botswana, my temporary goodbye to my home for the summer. This was when the anticipation of Cape Town really hit! There was so much adventure and excitement waiting for us – we were going to cram the weekend full of as much stuff as we possibly could!
The flight to J’Burg was short and sweet. I had just recently started a really good book call “The Three Letter Plague”, recounting a narrative of a South African’s discovery and experience of the HI-virus and pandemic. It was really nice to be reading again, though a little disconcerting as I was reading about the toll that HIV has taken on South Africa while I was flying right into the country?!
I got to spend my afternoon in the Johannesburg International Airport. There wasn’t much to do, so I just bought some magazines, and alternated walking around, reading my book and flipping through rags. I spent some time just watching the different people in the airport… the inevitable business person just missing their boarding gate…the carefree children enthralled by moving sidewalks…the nervous parent desperately trying to keep track of their kids. We travel so much and spend so much time getting to and from different destinations. It made me really think of appreciating home, the place in life that will always be there for you no matter what side of the world you are on. It isn’t even necessarily materialistic, it is just the one place is the world where you can plant your two feet on the ground and feel rooted in comfort.
After my long layover, I eventually board my flight to Cape Town courtesy of 1Time Airlines. While I laughed the first time I heard it (and have been laughed at many times after that when telling people) the airline was great. Yes, it was a little ominous to think that this was their first time flying…or their last…but the planes were brand-new and the seats were big – so I just read and slept the whole way.
We finally flew over the city. Cape Town was lit up quite brightly, with a slight fog or shimmer. We did a massive loop over the city, out on top of the Atlantic and then back to the landing strip. I was so PUMPED for this weekend! It was going to be awesome! By the time we landed, took our shuttle to the terminal and got out of arrivals – Renne and Cait were already waiting for me. We were staying at Cape Town Backpackers and they had arranged for a shuttle to pick the lot of us up. It was a really nice welcome to the city to have someone there ready for you and to take you to the hostel. I barely looked out the window on the drive as we talked and discussed about all of the different things that we wanted to do. It wouldn’t have been that useful as it was already past nine o’clock at night.
Cape Town was almost like Vancouver; it was hilly, lots of vegetation and enough development to be a full-serve city without the loss of personality. The hostel was very quaint (in a good way, haha!) It was a nice building that mixed old architecture with model facilities and a flare for fun! Sarah was there as soon as we arrived, so we checked into the rooms and went to get settled. We spent the rest of the night catching up on the past months and planning with everyone the next three full days in Cape Town. It was going to be packed full and VERY exciting!
Tomorrow we were going to see the Great White Sharks and not those at the aquarium.
I was going to meet up with my friend from back home Sarah as well as continue and finish my travel with Renne & Caitlin from Guelph. Even though I wouldn’t be taking the flight I had wanted, I knew it was going to be good. I wanted to head into work early to cover the things I had to finish and make sure that I was good to be gone for the next five days.
I only got a fraction of the work done and arranged before I had to head to the airport to check-in for my flight. It was an international flight, so I figured I would give it forty-five minutes. Turns out that was too much, haha!
Once I got to the airport I went to the check-in desk and they told me that I wasn’t on the morning flight. Immediately I was ecstatic; hopefully I was back on the afternoon 3pm flight! Then I was like, wait…no way…what if I am not on either?!
They took into their office in the airport, which literally was the size of a coat closet. After sitting there for fifteen minutes, with the flight leaving in half an hour, I got this ragged printout on a piece of ripped paper with my new itinerary. It wasn’t glamorous, but hey at least I knew that I was booked to make it to Johannesburg for my connection to Cape Town, I couldn’t be that upset!
It ended up that I would be flying with Renne and Cait (after thinking all this time I wouldn’t be) to Gabs and then onto to J’Burg from there. Just as we finally made the walk from the airport out onto the tarmac and to our plane someone yelled out my name! It was Lesley my placement supervisor. She had just flown in on their plane from Dog Camp. We had a brief chat and updated each other on the work side of things. The security and air personal looked inquiringly at us, but couldn’t be bothered to ask us anything, let alone tell us to do something. With that is was a quick farewell, a hug good-bye and a “enjoy yourself in Cape Town!” I felt ready and prepped to leave Maun now.
Once in Gabs Air Botswana provided me with a complimentary sandwich to offset my inconvenience of having to leave six hours earlier and take twice as many flights. I guess that is the way it goes! However, Gabs was gorgeous and it was in the middle of the day, so I spent some time just lying in the sun and waiting for my next flight.
I checked into my flight to J’Burg with thirty minutes left and made it through customs and security in five minutes; small airports rock! This was the finals moments that my cell phone would work in Botswana, my temporary goodbye to my home for the summer. This was when the anticipation of Cape Town really hit! There was so much adventure and excitement waiting for us – we were going to cram the weekend full of as much stuff as we possibly could!
The flight to J’Burg was short and sweet. I had just recently started a really good book call “The Three Letter Plague”, recounting a narrative of a South African’s discovery and experience of the HI-virus and pandemic. It was really nice to be reading again, though a little disconcerting as I was reading about the toll that HIV has taken on South Africa while I was flying right into the country?!
I got to spend my afternoon in the Johannesburg International Airport. There wasn’t much to do, so I just bought some magazines, and alternated walking around, reading my book and flipping through rags. I spent some time just watching the different people in the airport… the inevitable business person just missing their boarding gate…the carefree children enthralled by moving sidewalks…the nervous parent desperately trying to keep track of their kids. We travel so much and spend so much time getting to and from different destinations. It made me really think of appreciating home, the place in life that will always be there for you no matter what side of the world you are on. It isn’t even necessarily materialistic, it is just the one place is the world where you can plant your two feet on the ground and feel rooted in comfort.
After my long layover, I eventually board my flight to Cape Town courtesy of 1Time Airlines. While I laughed the first time I heard it (and have been laughed at many times after that when telling people) the airline was great. Yes, it was a little ominous to think that this was their first time flying…or their last…but the planes were brand-new and the seats were big – so I just read and slept the whole way.
We finally flew over the city. Cape Town was lit up quite brightly, with a slight fog or shimmer. We did a massive loop over the city, out on top of the Atlantic and then back to the landing strip. I was so PUMPED for this weekend! It was going to be awesome! By the time we landed, took our shuttle to the terminal and got out of arrivals – Renne and Cait were already waiting for me. We were staying at Cape Town Backpackers and they had arranged for a shuttle to pick the lot of us up. It was a really nice welcome to the city to have someone there ready for you and to take you to the hostel. I barely looked out the window on the drive as we talked and discussed about all of the different things that we wanted to do. It wouldn’t have been that useful as it was already past nine o’clock at night.
Cape Town was almost like Vancouver; it was hilly, lots of vegetation and enough development to be a full-serve city without the loss of personality. The hostel was very quaint (in a good way, haha!) It was a nice building that mixed old architecture with model facilities and a flare for fun! Sarah was there as soon as we arrived, so we checked into the rooms and went to get settled. We spent the rest of the night catching up on the past months and planning with everyone the next three full days in Cape Town. It was going to be packed full and VERY exciting!
Tomorrow we were going to see the Great White Sharks and not those at the aquarium.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Blog #25 – Why Monopolies Blow!
Today was an interesting day. Allow me to invite you to the world of travel planning in Bostwana.
I am not sure if I have written about it, but I have been planning a trip to Cape Town from Thursday (tomorrow) evening until Monday next week… except that planning here seems much more difficult than back home. I was planning on going with the last two Guelphites (Renn & Caitlin) as well as my friend Sarah, who has just completed her two month placement in Rwanda.
Renn & Cait had organized cage diving with sharks for Friday…so I wanted to make it to Cape Town for that. So, I looked into flights. Air Botswana was awarded a monopoly on the air market here in Botswana by the government back in the day. There are no other carriers or other options for getting in/out of the country. That is where my issues have begun. There was only one option for me. Thursday afternoon at 3:00pm. Normally I am not done my school visits until at least 3:00pm, so there was no way I would make that flight. I convinced my supervisor and got permission from the schools to reschedule the visits for earlier on Thursday.
Great. Now getting out of Maun to Johannesburg is solved. I had to book a connecting flight from Jburg to Cape Town. Not too difficult, but there were only a few flights that were actually logistically possible (even with six different air carriers between the cities!)…but that went down alright too.
Next I had to figure out my way back… I had to book Air Botswana first (as they are the limiting reagent, haha, in the realm of air carriers). I had five options on the schedule for AirBotswana from Sunday – Tuesday. Sunday, would make my trip too short. Tuesday, I would miss too much work. So, I looked into Monday. NOT A SINGLE SEAT was available! I was shocked! I asked around and basically that is the way Air Botswana works…they say there flights are full but they never are. Then they release a few seats last minute at high prices and people pay them because there are no other options!
Gah! I couldn’t take that chance, so I looked into Tuesday. That option was not direct and would take me ALL DAY to get back to MAUN…instead of the two-hour flight it should be! Regardless, there was only one seat there. Sarah wanted to come back to Maun with me and see the town so we needed two seats!
Sunday was looking best now and I would just make it a quick visit to Cape Town. On the two flights for Sunday there was only one seat in total available! Ridiculous! I guess I would just book my way there and solve my way back once I get to Cape Town – and hope some seats get released!
The rest of my day at work seemed like a piece of cake after taking a stab at that (which actually has been a work in progress since Monday..!) I spent some time doing some legal work, relating to the newly registered trust and lines of credit. I learnt a lot about different legal things…I think I will establish a trust for my belongings instead of a will…it seems much happier and more practical that leaving it all to the court system once I die :) …which hopefully won’t be for a LONG TIME!
I also think I have found the best route to walk to work. It takes around thirty five minutes (fifteen minutes less of the original fifty minute walk). Thanks to Renn and Caitlin that put in the effort to find and explore this path. I basically hope over the back gate of my place and then walk along the river up to the “New Bridge” and then weave my way through town on the back residential roads and school children’s walking paths – it makes that trek a lot better!
Today, I finally met our filmmaker – who is making a documentary on the program during the summer. She is from the States and has come with cinematographer and mother. They are all really nice – and quite interested in nearly everything – it will be neat to work with them over the next few months.
I had another two school visits in the afternoon. Then I had to travel to the First National Bank (pronounced.: effin’ B, haha!) to pick up my exemption certificate – which had been couriered there from Gabs (the capital). Now I was allowed to stay in the country until the end of August and not have to apply for residency. Then I got the call. That’s right – the call.
It was the lady I had booked my Air Botswana flights with. She had good news and bad news. Good news is that two seats had been ‘magicaly released’ on the Monday flights – so that Sarah and I were able to book flights home from Jburg to Maun (and we also got our Cape Town to JBurg tickets too). The bad news…that my flight on Thursday had been cancelled! Now, if I wanted to go, I would have to get on a place leaving at 9AM – that’s SIX hours earlier – to get me there.
First, this was WAY LAST MINUTE! It was almost only FIFTEEN hours before the new flight. What would have happened if I didn’t pick up or wasn’t around? CRAZY! Also, there was no compensation or accommodation made for this change. All right, I could deal with that, but now I had to cancel my school visits and everything else for tomorrow. I had to stay pretty late at the office getting things ready for tomorrow and making sure that everything would be alright. What a pain! My only consolation was that I would be in Cape Town for the weekend!
It was the first time that I have actually been frustrated while here in Africa…amazing at how chilled I have been. I cannot believe that local people deal with this kind of stuff all the time! The reactions I got were: “that is Air Botswana”, “sounds right!?” and my personal favourite, “Welcome to Africa!” I am really looking forward to Cape Town and all of the adventure there – you’ll have to wait until next week to hear about them.
I am not sure if I have written about it, but I have been planning a trip to Cape Town from Thursday (tomorrow) evening until Monday next week… except that planning here seems much more difficult than back home. I was planning on going with the last two Guelphites (Renn & Caitlin) as well as my friend Sarah, who has just completed her two month placement in Rwanda.
Renn & Cait had organized cage diving with sharks for Friday…so I wanted to make it to Cape Town for that. So, I looked into flights. Air Botswana was awarded a monopoly on the air market here in Botswana by the government back in the day. There are no other carriers or other options for getting in/out of the country. That is where my issues have begun. There was only one option for me. Thursday afternoon at 3:00pm. Normally I am not done my school visits until at least 3:00pm, so there was no way I would make that flight. I convinced my supervisor and got permission from the schools to reschedule the visits for earlier on Thursday.
Great. Now getting out of Maun to Johannesburg is solved. I had to book a connecting flight from Jburg to Cape Town. Not too difficult, but there were only a few flights that were actually logistically possible (even with six different air carriers between the cities!)…but that went down alright too.
Next I had to figure out my way back… I had to book Air Botswana first (as they are the limiting reagent, haha, in the realm of air carriers). I had five options on the schedule for AirBotswana from Sunday – Tuesday. Sunday, would make my trip too short. Tuesday, I would miss too much work. So, I looked into Monday. NOT A SINGLE SEAT was available! I was shocked! I asked around and basically that is the way Air Botswana works…they say there flights are full but they never are. Then they release a few seats last minute at high prices and people pay them because there are no other options!
Gah! I couldn’t take that chance, so I looked into Tuesday. That option was not direct and would take me ALL DAY to get back to MAUN…instead of the two-hour flight it should be! Regardless, there was only one seat there. Sarah wanted to come back to Maun with me and see the town so we needed two seats!
Sunday was looking best now and I would just make it a quick visit to Cape Town. On the two flights for Sunday there was only one seat in total available! Ridiculous! I guess I would just book my way there and solve my way back once I get to Cape Town – and hope some seats get released!
The rest of my day at work seemed like a piece of cake after taking a stab at that (which actually has been a work in progress since Monday..!) I spent some time doing some legal work, relating to the newly registered trust and lines of credit. I learnt a lot about different legal things…I think I will establish a trust for my belongings instead of a will…it seems much happier and more practical that leaving it all to the court system once I die :) …which hopefully won’t be for a LONG TIME!
I also think I have found the best route to walk to work. It takes around thirty five minutes (fifteen minutes less of the original fifty minute walk). Thanks to Renn and Caitlin that put in the effort to find and explore this path. I basically hope over the back gate of my place and then walk along the river up to the “New Bridge” and then weave my way through town on the back residential roads and school children’s walking paths – it makes that trek a lot better!
Today, I finally met our filmmaker – who is making a documentary on the program during the summer. She is from the States and has come with cinematographer and mother. They are all really nice – and quite interested in nearly everything – it will be neat to work with them over the next few months.
I had another two school visits in the afternoon. Then I had to travel to the First National Bank (pronounced.: effin’ B, haha!) to pick up my exemption certificate – which had been couriered there from Gabs (the capital). Now I was allowed to stay in the country until the end of August and not have to apply for residency. Then I got the call. That’s right – the call.
It was the lady I had booked my Air Botswana flights with. She had good news and bad news. Good news is that two seats had been ‘magicaly released’ on the Monday flights – so that Sarah and I were able to book flights home from Jburg to Maun (and we also got our Cape Town to JBurg tickets too). The bad news…that my flight on Thursday had been cancelled! Now, if I wanted to go, I would have to get on a place leaving at 9AM – that’s SIX hours earlier – to get me there.
First, this was WAY LAST MINUTE! It was almost only FIFTEEN hours before the new flight. What would have happened if I didn’t pick up or wasn’t around? CRAZY! Also, there was no compensation or accommodation made for this change. All right, I could deal with that, but now I had to cancel my school visits and everything else for tomorrow. I had to stay pretty late at the office getting things ready for tomorrow and making sure that everything would be alright. What a pain! My only consolation was that I would be in Cape Town for the weekend!
It was the first time that I have actually been frustrated while here in Africa…amazing at how chilled I have been. I cannot believe that local people deal with this kind of stuff all the time! The reactions I got were: “that is Air Botswana”, “sounds right!?” and my personal favourite, “Welcome to Africa!” I am really looking forward to Cape Town and all of the adventure there – you’ll have to wait until next week to hear about them.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Blog #24 - Take Two.
Week Two on the job.
Luckily I really look forward to work on Monday mornings, which is most likely it seem like the first half of my week flew by.
Monday and Tuesday went by without any major occurrences but there are a few things that I want to talk about that I have found interesting so far this week, and in general about Maun and Botswana.
Here is Maun there are eighteen primary schools: 3 private and 15 government schools. So far I have visited ten of the government schools. What strikes me is that they are all exactly the same. They all have the same layout; a bunch of small single classroom buildings organized around a central yard. They are painted the same unappealing faded salmon pink colour. They all have the metal corrugated metal roofs. They all have the same play equipment: tires that are rooted into the ground and painted like the Botswana flag (and only a select few have actual football metal goal posts). There is no grass, no jungle gyms (and no gymnasiums at all), none of our North American school standards! Also, all of the students are found in uniform – often very unappealing and worn clothing – yet they wear their uniforms with pride. Student see their uniforms here as their ticket to a brighter future. Uniforms are not seen as ‘an act of oppression by The Man’ and hated like they are back home.
Regardless of what would seem like dire settings, some students thrive. These schools are different from many back home. They are FULL of laughter and the sound of children chatting and playing. Classes are often found learning outside under the shade the few trees. While the classrooms use natural light, they are still decorated and filled with different learning aids and children’s posters. However, regardless of the cookie-cutter approach to infrastructure in these schools the results for the student vary hugely! In some schools the level of English (even between the teachers and staff) is hugely improved than others. The level of respect and cordiality shown also varies largely between schools.
What I have been thinking a lot about it what causes these differences? The kids that go to these schools all must have similar socio-demographic backgrounds…or else they would attend the private schools. The only difference that I am at least partially satisfied with would be a difference in the teachers and the administration. But can just this handful of people make such a difference in students’ lives? If so, then it would seem like there is a lot of potential in the education system to improve the experience and produce better students.
One of the schools that I was in today allowed us to rest and wait in the staff room while they prepared. There were a few interesting things that I noted. One of the posters in the room read, “Education is the reproductive system of culture”…an interesting thought and statement. I also browsed around some more and found written on one of the board the results of an obvious discussion between the administration and the teachers. On the board was written “Problems at Gxhabara Primary School: role models (none), attitude” It was a short but powerful piece of writing. Both outsiders and locals recognize that what these children need is a change in their attitude towards life and that one way of achieving that is having appropriate role models available. It made me feel quite comforted about the work I was doing. Our program is striving to provide these children with a push to shift their core values and to also develop healthy role models to follow in sports and in nature!
Monday was also the first time that I had seen a cemetery in all of Southern Africa. At first I had no idea what is was when we were driving by. It was not a manicured, watered, lush green lawn with pristine marble headstones. It was a very simple, large open field. The grass in the field would be knee high and it didn’t seem at all maintained. The plots were not distinguishable. I must have only seen a handful of proper headstones in the entire graveyard. These few headstones gleamed in the bright sunlight. A two-three foot fence often surrounded their plots. The rest of the plots had a large plywood sign with the person’s life details spray-painted on with a stencil. Some had rickety, metal frames (even less with tarp canopies) covering the plots. It was a grim looking place on standards from back home.
The cemetery was apparently full, which is a little bit of an odd feeling when it is still just surrounded by open farmland. Apparently just five to ten years ago there would be funerals everyday for someone and that people were dying really rapidly as AIDS took its toll on the population. However, this cemetery was quiet and not a living soul was in sight. How many of the people buried here had died from AIDS? How many of them have had their lives cut short because of this disease? How many of the people laid to rest here are forgotten about as whole families and social circles were taken? How many children? An individual person dies from AIDS. Not just people. The death toll is not just a number. Cemeteries are a painful reminder of this fact.
HIV/AIDS has an interesting connotation here. No one talks about it. You can see posters in the schools that really address the social issues of the disease, but nothing really talking about transmission or on the health-side of HIV or AIDS. There are posters in random places in town. Most stress getting tested or knowing your status. It almost seems like they have given up on prevention and are just trying to make living with the disease better or less stigmatized (which is great, don’t get me wrong, but I think they need both here). Maybe this is odd, but I haven’t ‘seen’ anyone with AIDS. People do not say, “help me, give me money, I am HIV positive”. Condoms are available free from the ministry, and are for sale is very seductive/erotic packaging in many stores. However nowhere says that you should use condoms?... It is a hugely complex and confusing situation and I am sure that I will talk more about it in posts to come, but I thought I would introduce you to the perplexity of HIV/AIDS in Africa?!
Luckily I really look forward to work on Monday mornings, which is most likely it seem like the first half of my week flew by.
Monday and Tuesday went by without any major occurrences but there are a few things that I want to talk about that I have found interesting so far this week, and in general about Maun and Botswana.
Here is Maun there are eighteen primary schools: 3 private and 15 government schools. So far I have visited ten of the government schools. What strikes me is that they are all exactly the same. They all have the same layout; a bunch of small single classroom buildings organized around a central yard. They are painted the same unappealing faded salmon pink colour. They all have the metal corrugated metal roofs. They all have the same play equipment: tires that are rooted into the ground and painted like the Botswana flag (and only a select few have actual football metal goal posts). There is no grass, no jungle gyms (and no gymnasiums at all), none of our North American school standards! Also, all of the students are found in uniform – often very unappealing and worn clothing – yet they wear their uniforms with pride. Student see their uniforms here as their ticket to a brighter future. Uniforms are not seen as ‘an act of oppression by The Man’ and hated like they are back home.
Regardless of what would seem like dire settings, some students thrive. These schools are different from many back home. They are FULL of laughter and the sound of children chatting and playing. Classes are often found learning outside under the shade the few trees. While the classrooms use natural light, they are still decorated and filled with different learning aids and children’s posters. However, regardless of the cookie-cutter approach to infrastructure in these schools the results for the student vary hugely! In some schools the level of English (even between the teachers and staff) is hugely improved than others. The level of respect and cordiality shown also varies largely between schools.
What I have been thinking a lot about it what causes these differences? The kids that go to these schools all must have similar socio-demographic backgrounds…or else they would attend the private schools. The only difference that I am at least partially satisfied with would be a difference in the teachers and the administration. But can just this handful of people make such a difference in students’ lives? If so, then it would seem like there is a lot of potential in the education system to improve the experience and produce better students.
One of the schools that I was in today allowed us to rest and wait in the staff room while they prepared. There were a few interesting things that I noted. One of the posters in the room read, “Education is the reproductive system of culture”…an interesting thought and statement. I also browsed around some more and found written on one of the board the results of an obvious discussion between the administration and the teachers. On the board was written “Problems at Gxhabara Primary School: role models (none), attitude” It was a short but powerful piece of writing. Both outsiders and locals recognize that what these children need is a change in their attitude towards life and that one way of achieving that is having appropriate role models available. It made me feel quite comforted about the work I was doing. Our program is striving to provide these children with a push to shift their core values and to also develop healthy role models to follow in sports and in nature!
Monday was also the first time that I had seen a cemetery in all of Southern Africa. At first I had no idea what is was when we were driving by. It was not a manicured, watered, lush green lawn with pristine marble headstones. It was a very simple, large open field. The grass in the field would be knee high and it didn’t seem at all maintained. The plots were not distinguishable. I must have only seen a handful of proper headstones in the entire graveyard. These few headstones gleamed in the bright sunlight. A two-three foot fence often surrounded their plots. The rest of the plots had a large plywood sign with the person’s life details spray-painted on with a stencil. Some had rickety, metal frames (even less with tarp canopies) covering the plots. It was a grim looking place on standards from back home.
The cemetery was apparently full, which is a little bit of an odd feeling when it is still just surrounded by open farmland. Apparently just five to ten years ago there would be funerals everyday for someone and that people were dying really rapidly as AIDS took its toll on the population. However, this cemetery was quiet and not a living soul was in sight. How many of the people buried here had died from AIDS? How many of them have had their lives cut short because of this disease? How many of the people laid to rest here are forgotten about as whole families and social circles were taken? How many children? An individual person dies from AIDS. Not just people. The death toll is not just a number. Cemeteries are a painful reminder of this fact.
HIV/AIDS has an interesting connotation here. No one talks about it. You can see posters in the schools that really address the social issues of the disease, but nothing really talking about transmission or on the health-side of HIV or AIDS. There are posters in random places in town. Most stress getting tested or knowing your status. It almost seems like they have given up on prevention and are just trying to make living with the disease better or less stigmatized (which is great, don’t get me wrong, but I think they need both here). Maybe this is odd, but I haven’t ‘seen’ anyone with AIDS. People do not say, “help me, give me money, I am HIV positive”. Condoms are available free from the ministry, and are for sale is very seductive/erotic packaging in many stores. However nowhere says that you should use condoms?... It is a hugely complex and confusing situation and I am sure that I will talk more about it in posts to come, but I thought I would introduce you to the perplexity of HIV/AIDS in Africa?!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Blog #23 – Weekend #2
Today started much like today, with an early flight departure. This time Sara was leaving. Sara is a totally cool, wicked, very grounded girl! She was the one person that brought a concerted ‘arts’ opinion to our group and really cared a lot for the local culture, especially that of the San people (‘San’ actually means people…so San people is quite redundant…). I had a lot of fun getting to know her on the trip and a little bit better over the extra few days we had! After Sara was gone it was back to just me and the family at the home!
We dropped off one of the girls at a friend’s house and then spent the rest of the day in town. I had forgotten to request a transcript while I was still back in Guelph, so I had to get that form printed, filled out and faxed, which definitely took ten times the amount of effort from here than it would have taken from back home – but was still wickedly cool that I can do that kind of thing from anywhere in the world!
After that we had an AMAZING lunch at the French Connection. This little restaurant only serves breakfast and lunches (for sit in or take away), but sometimes opens in the evening for special events. It is owned and run by this really sweet French couple Marie and George! The food and drinks were amazing! I know that I just said that RAW was my favourite place to eat, but this place is great too! I had a delicious drink called a Kir which was a blend of white wine and a dark berry syrop. I eat their lasagna, which was hot, cheesy and meaty – everything that you would want! Now I have to two stellar places for lunches :)
After lunch we did some grocery shopping and picked up a few other things from time and then headed home. We spent the afternoon chilling at the house. We had liver and palach…not spelling that right…but it is basically corn/maize meal, sort of cream of wheat – you can eat it with your hands which is the traditional way and also a lot more fun, haha! In the evening Phillipa and I watched Blood Diamond. While it is a Hollywood movie, it was still interesting to watch while here in Africa…especially since I am in Botswana, the world’s largest gemstone producers! It was a difficult and emotional film and I appreciate the perspective and history that it tries to paint and open up for people. Definitely makes me happy that I am trying to help people here in Africa to have a better life…it isn’t much, but it is something.
On Sunday morning we met up with Laurenne and Caitlin…the final two survivors of our field course - everyone else has bailed on me and went home ;). We went to the Maun Game Park for the morning. We had a really nice walk through the park, but really didn’t get to see too much wildlife. Some warthogs and impalas were around but quickly departed. It was a beautiful hot sunny day though so you can’t complain about getting to be outside and enjoying it!
We all returned home, Cait and Renn would be staying here until their flight out to Cape Town on Thursday. I am going to try and join them, but details are still up in the air! I spent the afternoon baking some cinnamon pinwheels. The recipe was a mix in between memory and one similar one I found in the cookbook. They turned out alright, a little dense, but people enjoyed them….really, who can resist warm baking with lots of cinnamon and sugar?!
The rest of the afternoon was so enjoyable! I spent a good portion of it writing and catching up with this blog! We also played lots of cards – some 3-person contract whist (compliments of learning from Aunt Barb and Uncle Sam [Patrick]!) and go fish! Some of the best times though were jumping on the trampoline and then playing basketball with the girls! One of my first actual workouts in weeks, haha!
After that we spent the evening getting supper ready – roast chicken, with home fried potatoes and a special casserole. We mixed broccoli, sun dried tomatoes and eggplant with cheese sauce and fresh pear…I don’t know what it is going to taste like but it is for sure going to be interesting! I am looking forward to just spending the rest of the night relaxing, chatting and playing games.
Another great weekend in Maun!
We dropped off one of the girls at a friend’s house and then spent the rest of the day in town. I had forgotten to request a transcript while I was still back in Guelph, so I had to get that form printed, filled out and faxed, which definitely took ten times the amount of effort from here than it would have taken from back home – but was still wickedly cool that I can do that kind of thing from anywhere in the world!
After that we had an AMAZING lunch at the French Connection. This little restaurant only serves breakfast and lunches (for sit in or take away), but sometimes opens in the evening for special events. It is owned and run by this really sweet French couple Marie and George! The food and drinks were amazing! I know that I just said that RAW was my favourite place to eat, but this place is great too! I had a delicious drink called a Kir which was a blend of white wine and a dark berry syrop. I eat their lasagna, which was hot, cheesy and meaty – everything that you would want! Now I have to two stellar places for lunches :)
After lunch we did some grocery shopping and picked up a few other things from time and then headed home. We spent the afternoon chilling at the house. We had liver and palach…not spelling that right…but it is basically corn/maize meal, sort of cream of wheat – you can eat it with your hands which is the traditional way and also a lot more fun, haha! In the evening Phillipa and I watched Blood Diamond. While it is a Hollywood movie, it was still interesting to watch while here in Africa…especially since I am in Botswana, the world’s largest gemstone producers! It was a difficult and emotional film and I appreciate the perspective and history that it tries to paint and open up for people. Definitely makes me happy that I am trying to help people here in Africa to have a better life…it isn’t much, but it is something.
On Sunday morning we met up with Laurenne and Caitlin…the final two survivors of our field course - everyone else has bailed on me and went home ;). We went to the Maun Game Park for the morning. We had a really nice walk through the park, but really didn’t get to see too much wildlife. Some warthogs and impalas were around but quickly departed. It was a beautiful hot sunny day though so you can’t complain about getting to be outside and enjoying it!
We all returned home, Cait and Renn would be staying here until their flight out to Cape Town on Thursday. I am going to try and join them, but details are still up in the air! I spent the afternoon baking some cinnamon pinwheels. The recipe was a mix in between memory and one similar one I found in the cookbook. They turned out alright, a little dense, but people enjoyed them….really, who can resist warm baking with lots of cinnamon and sugar?!
The rest of the afternoon was so enjoyable! I spent a good portion of it writing and catching up with this blog! We also played lots of cards – some 3-person contract whist (compliments of learning from Aunt Barb and Uncle Sam [Patrick]!) and go fish! Some of the best times though were jumping on the trampoline and then playing basketball with the girls! One of my first actual workouts in weeks, haha!
After that we spent the evening getting supper ready – roast chicken, with home fried potatoes and a special casserole. We mixed broccoli, sun dried tomatoes and eggplant with cheese sauce and fresh pear…I don’t know what it is going to taste like but it is for sure going to be interesting! I am looking forward to just spending the rest of the night relaxing, chatting and playing games.
Another great weekend in Maun!
Friday, June 13, 2008
Blog #22 – Final Farewells…
Bright and early Friday morning. It is COLD out – but with some hot breakfast and two cups of hot rooibos tea (plus one for the road) I am ready to take off. We are leaving earlier today so that I can make it to work to start a little earlier. We (Jen, Marena, Sarah and I) all trekked into town in just under an hour. It was a nice walk and we took the river path so it was a little more rustic!
Jen’s flight was leaving at 10AM, so I said my goodbyes and wished her lunch as she headed onto Chennai to help build a school playground for orphans. While we didn’t really get to travel much together, it was still great to see her. It was work all morning for me though!
We had received a draft of the curriculum activity booklet that we were going to be distributing to all of the kids! There was a lot of work to be done in my opinion. Basics like using football instead of soccer were easy. The more challenging part was commenting on the language and vocabulary. It was my job, as the person working with the kids in the classroom to gauge their knowledge and level of ability. I basically resorted to using examples from the classroom and to try and explain to them how I have made the curriculum work. The students care less about the words and more about the meaning and intention behind them (which is pretty mature), but a hard concept to grasp for some North American’s who work in curriculum and teaching. The other challenge was talking to them about the language barrier of English and Setswana and how to teach someone in a language they don’t fully understand or grasp. After submitting a long list of comments, I am looking forward to reviewing another draft on Monday!
It was a busy morning and I just managed to shove a rushed lunch with Marena and Sarah before I headed off to my afternoon presentations. This would be the last time that I would see Marena before the fall back in Guelph. She was the one person one the entire trip that I knew the best and had known for the longest. It was going to be weird saying goodbye to her. We always had such interesting discussions and she was one of the few people that really made me rethink some of my positions and thoughts on life.
We had lunch at this little hide-away of a place called RAW… which luckily served food that was cooked, but really just healthier and organic in nature. We had delicious smoothies and some toasted wraps and sandwiches. It is definitely one of my favourite places to eat in Maun now! So if any of you want to come visit me here, this is surely where I will take you, haha! After saying a quick farewell and taking one final picture that was one more person departed.
My afternoons have become pretty standard. We had five schools done and three to do today. It was an early start and going to be a late finish! However, the three schools were all great (actually they got progressively better) which made it all a lot smoother and easier. By the end of the day I could give the entire presentation without any of my speaking aids or notes. Know I feel as I could stand up and do this presentation to anyone on a moments notice. Now I think the challenge is going to be maintaining my excitement and enthusiasm for the last ten schools!
Sarah and I were the only two left staying at my place on Friday. We met up in the city and walked home together. I stopped at the bank…I have only spent two hundred dollars over the past two weeks!... the cost of living here is much more affordable! Though interestingly car gas (or petrol here) costs the same as back home?!...On our way home we also got sucked into the grocery store after smelling some fresh bread…I managed to down half of the loaf on the walk home…which was oh so satisfying! Then we spent the rest of the night chilling in North American style. We ordered in pizza and watched some movies – Uptown Girls and the Titanic – it was a really comfortable and home-y night!
I also realized that it is Friday the 13th back home in Port Dover. So shout out to all of you and hope the day (and weekend) is fantastic!
Jen’s flight was leaving at 10AM, so I said my goodbyes and wished her lunch as she headed onto Chennai to help build a school playground for orphans. While we didn’t really get to travel much together, it was still great to see her. It was work all morning for me though!
We had received a draft of the curriculum activity booklet that we were going to be distributing to all of the kids! There was a lot of work to be done in my opinion. Basics like using football instead of soccer were easy. The more challenging part was commenting on the language and vocabulary. It was my job, as the person working with the kids in the classroom to gauge their knowledge and level of ability. I basically resorted to using examples from the classroom and to try and explain to them how I have made the curriculum work. The students care less about the words and more about the meaning and intention behind them (which is pretty mature), but a hard concept to grasp for some North American’s who work in curriculum and teaching. The other challenge was talking to them about the language barrier of English and Setswana and how to teach someone in a language they don’t fully understand or grasp. After submitting a long list of comments, I am looking forward to reviewing another draft on Monday!
It was a busy morning and I just managed to shove a rushed lunch with Marena and Sarah before I headed off to my afternoon presentations. This would be the last time that I would see Marena before the fall back in Guelph. She was the one person one the entire trip that I knew the best and had known for the longest. It was going to be weird saying goodbye to her. We always had such interesting discussions and she was one of the few people that really made me rethink some of my positions and thoughts on life.
We had lunch at this little hide-away of a place called RAW… which luckily served food that was cooked, but really just healthier and organic in nature. We had delicious smoothies and some toasted wraps and sandwiches. It is definitely one of my favourite places to eat in Maun now! So if any of you want to come visit me here, this is surely where I will take you, haha! After saying a quick farewell and taking one final picture that was one more person departed.
My afternoons have become pretty standard. We had five schools done and three to do today. It was an early start and going to be a late finish! However, the three schools were all great (actually they got progressively better) which made it all a lot smoother and easier. By the end of the day I could give the entire presentation without any of my speaking aids or notes. Know I feel as I could stand up and do this presentation to anyone on a moments notice. Now I think the challenge is going to be maintaining my excitement and enthusiasm for the last ten schools!
Sarah and I were the only two left staying at my place on Friday. We met up in the city and walked home together. I stopped at the bank…I have only spent two hundred dollars over the past two weeks!... the cost of living here is much more affordable! Though interestingly car gas (or petrol here) costs the same as back home?!...On our way home we also got sucked into the grocery store after smelling some fresh bread…I managed to down half of the loaf on the walk home…which was oh so satisfying! Then we spent the rest of the night chilling in North American style. We ordered in pizza and watched some movies – Uptown Girls and the Titanic – it was a really comfortable and home-y night!
I also realized that it is Friday the 13th back home in Port Dover. So shout out to all of you and hope the day (and weekend) is fantastic!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Blog #21 – AIDS & Mini-Reunions
Today I started working on other resources and projects. I felt as if the curriculum classroom presentations were going smoothly and there weren’t any major changes I wanted to make!
My first project was completing an extensive application to BONASO – the Botswana Network of AIDS Service Organizations. We were using our new Coaching for Conservation program as the model activity for our application to join this group. Our hope is that after establishing the program and developing bonds with the community for a few years we can start introducing more HIV and AIDS education explicitly into the program. Right now we are allowed and welcomed in all of the school because we are providing great free football programming (which is loved and respected here). What we want to really teach these kids gets controversial sometimes and puts people on the defensive – so we hold onto the football link and push the education as much we can.
The BONASO application was a little tedious but it was interesting to talk about our program and how it fits into their rubrics of an AIDS organization. More fascinating was talking about the future direction of the program. While I have only been with the program for about a week after talking with Lesley about it, the future direction and goals seem so logical and right. I am really proud of the program so far and looking forward to where it will go in a few years!
I also started developing packages for the coach’s and teachers. These packages basically consist of all of the logistical details for the week, but also to some degree a snapshot and précis of the curriculum. I have been really encouraged by the feedback and interest shown by the adults involved with the program. The teachers and coaches have all been really accommodating and have gone out of their way to try during the presentations to increase participation, help get the message across or redeliver the message in a more personal context to the kids. The schools visits have been getting better, which I know I have said before, but I am seriously impressed with how this is all going! Originally I thought the message and concepts would be too foreign and complicated for the kids to see the connection with their lives, but you can see that they are making the correlations – I am so satisfied :)
In the evening we got together with Jen from Go Global (the other Guelph student group that came to Botswana for a one-month service project in May) and all of us remaining from the field course. We had a nice dinner at the Buck & Hunter – with some Windhoek (a brew from Namibia, which only costs like $1.25) as well as some Savana Dry (a bizarre apple cider drink) – and we even managed leftovers! It was really my last dinner with a group this large of people form back home. People started flying out tomorrow and the goodbyes needed to start happening!
We took a taxi back to the house just to be safe and spent the rest of the evening just sitting around chatting and playing cards! It was really nice to see everyone again. I appreciated hearing about all of their adventures and experiences that they have had since we departed in Gabs only a week and a half ago! They have told me some really neat things about Dakar and Ghanzi, so I will probably take a weekend in the future to go and see those places! It is really comforting to have my friends from back home with me and crashing on my floor – it almost makes me feel more lonely though, knowing that they are only going to be here for another few days and then I will be truly left with me as the only person I know from North America! While saying goodbye to the rest of the field course class was hard enough, it was all going to have to start again tomorrow! We ended staying up pretty late, considering we had to get up for 6:30AM to get people off on their flights at the right time!
My first project was completing an extensive application to BONASO – the Botswana Network of AIDS Service Organizations. We were using our new Coaching for Conservation program as the model activity for our application to join this group. Our hope is that after establishing the program and developing bonds with the community for a few years we can start introducing more HIV and AIDS education explicitly into the program. Right now we are allowed and welcomed in all of the school because we are providing great free football programming (which is loved and respected here). What we want to really teach these kids gets controversial sometimes and puts people on the defensive – so we hold onto the football link and push the education as much we can.
The BONASO application was a little tedious but it was interesting to talk about our program and how it fits into their rubrics of an AIDS organization. More fascinating was talking about the future direction of the program. While I have only been with the program for about a week after talking with Lesley about it, the future direction and goals seem so logical and right. I am really proud of the program so far and looking forward to where it will go in a few years!
I also started developing packages for the coach’s and teachers. These packages basically consist of all of the logistical details for the week, but also to some degree a snapshot and précis of the curriculum. I have been really encouraged by the feedback and interest shown by the adults involved with the program. The teachers and coaches have all been really accommodating and have gone out of their way to try during the presentations to increase participation, help get the message across or redeliver the message in a more personal context to the kids. The schools visits have been getting better, which I know I have said before, but I am seriously impressed with how this is all going! Originally I thought the message and concepts would be too foreign and complicated for the kids to see the connection with their lives, but you can see that they are making the correlations – I am so satisfied :)
In the evening we got together with Jen from Go Global (the other Guelph student group that came to Botswana for a one-month service project in May) and all of us remaining from the field course. We had a nice dinner at the Buck & Hunter – with some Windhoek (a brew from Namibia, which only costs like $1.25) as well as some Savana Dry (a bizarre apple cider drink) – and we even managed leftovers! It was really my last dinner with a group this large of people form back home. People started flying out tomorrow and the goodbyes needed to start happening!
We took a taxi back to the house just to be safe and spent the rest of the evening just sitting around chatting and playing cards! It was really nice to see everyone again. I appreciated hearing about all of their adventures and experiences that they have had since we departed in Gabs only a week and a half ago! They have told me some really neat things about Dakar and Ghanzi, so I will probably take a weekend in the future to go and see those places! It is really comforting to have my friends from back home with me and crashing on my floor – it almost makes me feel more lonely though, knowing that they are only going to be here for another few days and then I will be truly left with me as the only person I know from North America! While saying goodbye to the rest of the field course class was hard enough, it was all going to have to start again tomorrow! We ended staying up pretty late, considering we had to get up for 6:30AM to get people off on their flights at the right time!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Blog #20 – In the Groove!
Today is Wednesday.
Alright, this is starting to get weird; for the first time in my life I almost have a 9-5 job!?! I take refuge in the fact that sometimes I will start at eight and sometimes work until six or seven…but still this is something that I was never used to! It is so routine. I get up around the same time, have my breakfast, make my tea, pack my lunch and walk to work…it almost feels grown up? Odd!
The nice thing is that every day has been completely different – and today was the first day that I felt natural at what I was doing and that I finally fit in. Perhaps it was having a day of school visits done, perhaps it was because it was hump day (I love Wednesdays!)…who knows.
Today my goal was to develop some really effective visual aids for the presentation. I wanted to be able to make the concepts visual and the relations as tangible lessons. The other goal was to make sure it was accessible in English and Setswana...and compliments of Kenny this was doable! I got them all done up, laminated and cut up. The school visits started getting noticeably better today! I started learning ways of changing my language so that it was more accessible. Kenny and I also started working together much better. He started translating a lot more and at the end of the presentations it was obvious that the kids were getting the message from the questions they asked and the answers they gave!
Kids really are amazing! They hold so much potential and are so full of life. Yes, they think that I am the weirdest thing they have witnessed in their life: a tall, lanky, white boy, but they are not judgmental. It is neat to think that these school children in a few decades will be the ones running the country. However, just with working with them today you can see that some are really quite mature about understanding the ecological issues. Some of really quite developed in their understanding and use of English. This is what I find challenging….are these the kids that will end up in positions of power? Or are these the kids that are going to do so well that they go out of the country and never return? One of this country’s struggles is trying to retain their best people – especially doctors! It has made me think a little bit of possibly coming back in the future to help and volunteer in the medical field…who knows?...
Enough about the future though! Today was a good day at work and things finally falling together nicely. Tonight the four girls left from our field course who have been backpacking Botswana were hitchhiking their way from Dakar to Maun! I met up with them after work, and with their stocked up groceries we headed back home. We spent the night at the house playing with the girls. It was a really nice relaxing evening. However, it is REALLY starting to get cold here at night…or I am just getting more sensitive to it! I have started to get a little tickle in my throat and I think I may be coming down with a cough! It only gets down to five degrees Celsius here, but it still feels frigid! The problem is that by noonday it is thirty degrees so it is impossible to dress for the weather! Their winter really is quite fantastically warmed compared to ours, and it is really funny to me to still see the locals dressed up in sweaters and jackets during the midday heat (to me!) I am not quite there yet…I am still loving the warm sun and enjoying the heat :)
Alright, this is starting to get weird; for the first time in my life I almost have a 9-5 job!?! I take refuge in the fact that sometimes I will start at eight and sometimes work until six or seven…but still this is something that I was never used to! It is so routine. I get up around the same time, have my breakfast, make my tea, pack my lunch and walk to work…it almost feels grown up? Odd!
The nice thing is that every day has been completely different – and today was the first day that I felt natural at what I was doing and that I finally fit in. Perhaps it was having a day of school visits done, perhaps it was because it was hump day (I love Wednesdays!)…who knows.
Today my goal was to develop some really effective visual aids for the presentation. I wanted to be able to make the concepts visual and the relations as tangible lessons. The other goal was to make sure it was accessible in English and Setswana...and compliments of Kenny this was doable! I got them all done up, laminated and cut up. The school visits started getting noticeably better today! I started learning ways of changing my language so that it was more accessible. Kenny and I also started working together much better. He started translating a lot more and at the end of the presentations it was obvious that the kids were getting the message from the questions they asked and the answers they gave!
Kids really are amazing! They hold so much potential and are so full of life. Yes, they think that I am the weirdest thing they have witnessed in their life: a tall, lanky, white boy, but they are not judgmental. It is neat to think that these school children in a few decades will be the ones running the country. However, just with working with them today you can see that some are really quite mature about understanding the ecological issues. Some of really quite developed in their understanding and use of English. This is what I find challenging….are these the kids that will end up in positions of power? Or are these the kids that are going to do so well that they go out of the country and never return? One of this country’s struggles is trying to retain their best people – especially doctors! It has made me think a little bit of possibly coming back in the future to help and volunteer in the medical field…who knows?...
Enough about the future though! Today was a good day at work and things finally falling together nicely. Tonight the four girls left from our field course who have been backpacking Botswana were hitchhiking their way from Dakar to Maun! I met up with them after work, and with their stocked up groceries we headed back home. We spent the night at the house playing with the girls. It was a really nice relaxing evening. However, it is REALLY starting to get cold here at night…or I am just getting more sensitive to it! I have started to get a little tickle in my throat and I think I may be coming down with a cough! It only gets down to five degrees Celsius here, but it still feels frigid! The problem is that by noonday it is thirty degrees so it is impossible to dress for the weather! Their winter really is quite fantastically warmed compared to ours, and it is really funny to me to still see the locals dressed up in sweaters and jackets during the midday heat (to me!) I am not quite there yet…I am still loving the warm sun and enjoying the heat :)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Blog #19 – More Than a Dayful
Day 2…there is no way it can be as crazy as the first, but it still is going to be interesting!
I have tried my best to walk as much as possible. It is what the majorities of locals do and so it is a small attempt to try and understand their lifestyle at least a little better. It is a fifty-minute walk from my home to work, so a good chunk of my day. This lets me reflect and think about things, but also gives me time to practice my Setswana. Today I feel more confident than normal about saying hello and greeting people. Not everyone will say greet me back, but the majority of people do. It makes everything seem so much more friendly and inviting. I also haven’t decided whether a person greeting me back in English is a good or bad sign? I am taking it as a sign of respect for me trying to speak Tswana and not a remark at how poor my pronunciation is, haha!
Work today was busy. I spent a good portion of it briefing Kenny on the education classroom curriculum and making sure that he understood what we were talking about and what messages we were trying to get across.
The rest of my time was spent working on the press release with the local newspaper The Ngami Time. Maun is in the province of Ngamiland (the most north-wesst province of the country. The slogan of the newspaper is “the last newspaper established in the 20th century”…I am not really sure what they are getting at or the story behind it, but they were a little bit of a challenge. We decided the best thing to do would be to actually reformat the press release into an advertisement and publish it in the paper, where we wanted. That we controlled what was said and where is placed – much more effective than relying on a local writer… as far as I am told!
Then it was off too a quick lunch before school visits. You can get a full lunch here for around two dollars! It’s incredible! It was also the first time I have had pap! A mix between a grain and dough, with the texture of kutia or runny buckwheat. It is one of the local replacements for our North American rice or potatoes. It is REALLY filling, but quite bland – but nut sure if that was because I got a ‘value meal’ or if that is just the way it is!
Our first school visit was going to be one of the three private schools. The nice thing about this was that they would speak fluent English and I would be able to do the whole presentation by myself! Yes, it was a good thing! It allowed me to try out the curriculum with no language barriers – to see whether the content was too heavy or the concepts to difficult. It also let Kenny see what I envisioned the presentation to be in actuality and to start working on how he would translate into Tswana.
Okavango International School went really well! The kids were enthusiastic and participated well. They asked questions and shared their thoughts. The visual aids were basic, just vocabulary, but seemed to do the trick. For the first school, I couldn’t have been happier and it was a huge weight off of my chest. Kenny also said that he understood much better what was going on and felt more comfortable. The next school would be one of the government schools, Matlapana, which would be much more challenging. It was one of the poorer schools and the students had barely any English. Luckily for me, the teacher and football coach stayed for the presentation and helped to translate and encourage the kids. This was where I found out that my visual aids might have worked for English fluent students, but that they were near useless for those only spoke Setswana.
Today was a really neat day. I learned about the large divide between government schools for the public and the private schools that only a select few can afford. I came to appreciate the full extent of what the ability to speak English opens up for Batswana (all people of Botswana). If a Motswana (one Batswana) can speak English they immediately have a huge range of jobs available to them and the opportunity to go abroad and leave the country: to study, to work or to live! The ones that speak English now are the ones that provide the greatest amount of support and can connect their communities with external help and support. Without English these people would be much more isolated and alone.
Now I realize I probably sound like ‘we white man are the saviours of these poor helpless black people’, but that is not what I think or intend. It is more to make you realize how much English has dominated the world (much like Christianity), which may be for the better or for the worse. The challenge here is that if people do not speak English they have many more barriers to overcome if they want to break out of their current life cycles. And that gets to the crux of the problem. The current life cycles mean a limited education and are part of the reason that HIV/AIDS is so prevalent.
People back home generally want to help people in Africa. But what people don’t appreciate is that to help means going to the people and connecting with them, not expecting them to come to you for help – and in regards to the language that is what I have really thought about.
Now we get into the issue of, who are we to just give help when we are not invited? That one I am still working on, but what I hold onto is that I are not trying to change people. I am working to provide people with the education, the knowledge and the tools to change their lives (and their future) if they choose to. I only play a small part, but I am thinking in context of the bigger picture…perhaps I am still too altruistic about all of this who knows…
Another day down and I could write about another million things that I have observed and learned. While I constantly change my opinion on things – sometimes optimistic, sometimes cynical – I take refuge in that I am thinking. It is a long process with no definitive end and I do not expect to be ‘right’ about everything. But, I do want to think about it, I do want to debate about it, I do want to engage about it! I am no longer ignorant to the fact that I have given far too little consideration to the lives of other individuals, not just others as a group, a nation, a culture. If there is one thing that I can accomplish, it is holding onto that belief and sharing it with others.
…So, that got a little heavy and probably a bit controversial…so I apologize if anything was offensive or depressing... All I can hope was that is was thought provoking :)
I have tried my best to walk as much as possible. It is what the majorities of locals do and so it is a small attempt to try and understand their lifestyle at least a little better. It is a fifty-minute walk from my home to work, so a good chunk of my day. This lets me reflect and think about things, but also gives me time to practice my Setswana. Today I feel more confident than normal about saying hello and greeting people. Not everyone will say greet me back, but the majority of people do. It makes everything seem so much more friendly and inviting. I also haven’t decided whether a person greeting me back in English is a good or bad sign? I am taking it as a sign of respect for me trying to speak Tswana and not a remark at how poor my pronunciation is, haha!
Work today was busy. I spent a good portion of it briefing Kenny on the education classroom curriculum and making sure that he understood what we were talking about and what messages we were trying to get across.
The rest of my time was spent working on the press release with the local newspaper The Ngami Time. Maun is in the province of Ngamiland (the most north-wesst province of the country. The slogan of the newspaper is “the last newspaper established in the 20th century”…I am not really sure what they are getting at or the story behind it, but they were a little bit of a challenge. We decided the best thing to do would be to actually reformat the press release into an advertisement and publish it in the paper, where we wanted. That we controlled what was said and where is placed – much more effective than relying on a local writer… as far as I am told!
Then it was off too a quick lunch before school visits. You can get a full lunch here for around two dollars! It’s incredible! It was also the first time I have had pap! A mix between a grain and dough, with the texture of kutia or runny buckwheat. It is one of the local replacements for our North American rice or potatoes. It is REALLY filling, but quite bland – but nut sure if that was because I got a ‘value meal’ or if that is just the way it is!
Our first school visit was going to be one of the three private schools. The nice thing about this was that they would speak fluent English and I would be able to do the whole presentation by myself! Yes, it was a good thing! It allowed me to try out the curriculum with no language barriers – to see whether the content was too heavy or the concepts to difficult. It also let Kenny see what I envisioned the presentation to be in actuality and to start working on how he would translate into Tswana.
Okavango International School went really well! The kids were enthusiastic and participated well. They asked questions and shared their thoughts. The visual aids were basic, just vocabulary, but seemed to do the trick. For the first school, I couldn’t have been happier and it was a huge weight off of my chest. Kenny also said that he understood much better what was going on and felt more comfortable. The next school would be one of the government schools, Matlapana, which would be much more challenging. It was one of the poorer schools and the students had barely any English. Luckily for me, the teacher and football coach stayed for the presentation and helped to translate and encourage the kids. This was where I found out that my visual aids might have worked for English fluent students, but that they were near useless for those only spoke Setswana.
Today was a really neat day. I learned about the large divide between government schools for the public and the private schools that only a select few can afford. I came to appreciate the full extent of what the ability to speak English opens up for Batswana (all people of Botswana). If a Motswana (one Batswana) can speak English they immediately have a huge range of jobs available to them and the opportunity to go abroad and leave the country: to study, to work or to live! The ones that speak English now are the ones that provide the greatest amount of support and can connect their communities with external help and support. Without English these people would be much more isolated and alone.
Now I realize I probably sound like ‘we white man are the saviours of these poor helpless black people’, but that is not what I think or intend. It is more to make you realize how much English has dominated the world (much like Christianity), which may be for the better or for the worse. The challenge here is that if people do not speak English they have many more barriers to overcome if they want to break out of their current life cycles. And that gets to the crux of the problem. The current life cycles mean a limited education and are part of the reason that HIV/AIDS is so prevalent.
People back home generally want to help people in Africa. But what people don’t appreciate is that to help means going to the people and connecting with them, not expecting them to come to you for help – and in regards to the language that is what I have really thought about.
Now we get into the issue of, who are we to just give help when we are not invited? That one I am still working on, but what I hold onto is that I are not trying to change people. I am working to provide people with the education, the knowledge and the tools to change their lives (and their future) if they choose to. I only play a small part, but I am thinking in context of the bigger picture…perhaps I am still too altruistic about all of this who knows…
Another day down and I could write about another million things that I have observed and learned. While I constantly change my opinion on things – sometimes optimistic, sometimes cynical – I take refuge in that I am thinking. It is a long process with no definitive end and I do not expect to be ‘right’ about everything. But, I do want to think about it, I do want to debate about it, I do want to engage about it! I am no longer ignorant to the fact that I have given far too little consideration to the lives of other individuals, not just others as a group, a nation, a culture. If there is one thing that I can accomplish, it is holding onto that belief and sharing it with others.
…So, that got a little heavy and probably a bit controversial…so I apologize if anything was offensive or depressing... All I can hope was that is was thought provoking :)
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