Books:  Books and Reading are only starting to be valued in this culture.  This country is still young, and before it got its Independence in 1966 it was the second poorest country in the world.  There were very few schools and most people were illiterate.

Only two generations later, school is compulsory for children until 10^th grade and 70% of the student population continues to finish 12^th grade.  However, most of these students have illiterate grandparents and many of the parents have low literacy or no literacy.  When a person is not literate, they often don’t have any value for books – so most homes do not have books.  Few parents read to their young children or encourage their older children to independently read.

Libraries:  The Rothschild and Gates Foundations have done a phenomenal job in building very nice libraries in some villages here.  In our training village, Kanye,  the library had three rooms, organized books, a card catalogue, organized periodicals, and four computers with free internet to all library card holders.  It definitely provided value to the community and it was often full of young people when I visited.

Molepolole (population 70,000) is not so lucky.  It has a very small library with no card catalogue, no computers, and no current periodicals.  A good percent of the books have been donated by Americans and American organizations, but too many of those books are books no one liked in the first place.  The books sat in libraries unchecked for years and then were donated to Africa where they continue to never be checked out.  These old boring books are not too inspiring and do not really encourage children (or adults) to read.  Some of the books from America are good books, but too specific to American culture to be of interest or value in Botswana including things like “Life on the Mississippi”, biographies of persons such as Eleanor Roosevelt or Babe Ruth, “How to Get More Done Faster” books, old cookbooks, with food that is not available here, business books discussing development or implementation that is not here and will never be here.

Kwena Sereto Library:  My school library is nice in that it is a large clean room, with air-conditioning and about 20 bookshelves of books – maybe a couple thousand books.  But, on closer examination the books leave a little to be desired with many being old curriculum or text books from 20 or 30 years ago.  Encyclopedias from 1993.  Strangely, many of the fiction books are populist books by authors such as Robert Ludlum, Danille Steel, and Judy Collins.

Good reference books, current text books, literature, African oriented books are in short supply.  There are no computers, no card catalogue and no periodicals except newspapers which are not kept for longer than a week. While there is some organization to the way the books are filed, it is obvious that the “system” has not been followed in a good long while.

Reading:  Despite the state of most libraries and the lack of books in homes today– I see children who are growing up in a society desirous of literacy, and really enjoy reading, and are in a constant state of searching for books.  They love the same kind of books that teens in America love with an emphasis on fantasy.  When I teach English I start every Monday asking what books the kids are reading and 5 or 6 kids have a book to discuss.  Some have started talking about articles in magazines or newspapers they read because they see how much I enjoy discussing what they read.

As I have mentioned several times before, there are 6 boys living next to us, now ages 4 to 17.  Three of the four oldest enjoy reading and one in particular LOVES reading and reads most books I can find for him in a single day.  At first I did not believe that he could read that fast.  I changed my mind when I found he could thoroughly answer questions about the book.  In fact, he could get perfect scores on the Sparks Notes web page test I asked him to take when I gave him books like Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and Moby Dick.  (I keep asking this boy to request to absent father to send him to a private school, where he will be much more able to use his proficient reading skills  to get a good education, and then a good job – but it does not look likely).

There are not many books available here, but several people (especially my dad) sends books in the mail that I pass along.  Many people have donated books to the Peace Corps and I have nearly gone through their entire supply.  I also take books out of our school library – but I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and the kids, predictably, did not like the last several books I found for them.

BOTSWANA BOOK PROJECT:  botswanabookproject.org.  And then – the Botswana Book Project came!!!!!  The woman who runs the project, Pam Shelton, lived in Botswana for 11 years, worked on many incredible projects and saw an endless need for books in the country.  She started a Not-For-Profit organization called “Botswana Book Project” and she spends all year collecting books and raises about $20K to ship a cargo container full of books here.

As you can imagine – many PCV’s are as excited as can be and try to secure a couple hundred books for their school/village library e ery time a new shipment arrives.

It is much harder to get community buy in, to the value of this project, than you imagine.  As I said earlier – books don’t have a value to many adults.  Also, adults rarely seem to think it is important to fulfill the needs of children.  It takes an effort to get a truck and get to Gaborone, it takes hours or sometimes days to make the trip and there is the petrol costs as well as wear and tear on a vehicle – and many schools or village libraries will not cooperate by providing transport to Gaborone to get several hundred good free books.  To make it all happen, the PCV’s have to move heaven and earth!  And we do.  Because we know two things:  1)  Reading books has a transformative power. Reading a book allows readers to share a collective experience with millions of others around the world by walking in another person’s shoes and by looking  through another person’s eyes;  2) that there are not enough books to meet the needs of the young hungry minds developing here.

 

 

 

After a PCV arranges transport, it takes about 2 to 4 hours to pick out 8 boxes of appropriate books for school/village.  We have to move the books to the trucks, drive back home, unload and then unpack boxes, and finally organize them for the library.  There were text books, novels, class room reading books, comics, self-help, women’s studies, world history, black history, biography and series such as Harry Potter and Hunger Games, bibles and just everything.

Pam is pretty good about culling the books to get rid of stuff no one wants to read, or stuff that is too specific to America.  It was fun to go through everything and frustrating not to be able to take more home.

Student Teachers Help Again:  When I got the books to my school, the teachers were mildly excited, mostly just to get “something for free”.  However, we just got new student teachers, who were much more excited and asked to work with me to get the books in the library.  I am working with a student teacher to teach 30 children about library organization.  We are writing procedures for adding books, deleting books, checking books out, re-shelving books and the concepts of the Dewey Decimal System.  There will be no card catalogue – but 30 children will have a much better idea of the value of a library and how to use a library.  850 kids will have about 400 new books for reference, research and for fun!

 

I can’t sing the praises of the Botswana Book Project enough!  I would like to encourage all American’s who are interested in increasing the literacy in Botswana to check out this organizations’ web site and consider how to contribute.  When I return to America I plan to volunteer a great deal of time to this very valuable project.

I also want to sing the praises of the student teachers here.  I often get discouraged at the school with all the bureaucracy and demoralization.  The school seems to be hopeless at times.  However, each time the student teachers come with the new idea’s and their endless energy, I get hopeful and excited about the future again.

It was a good moment in my Peace Corps Service and it will be good hours of reading the students of Kwena Sereto.

 

 

Please consider donating time or money to this valuable project.  You can see the site for the organization here: botswanabookproject.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is said that Cape Town is the most beautiful city in the world and it did not disappoint us.

View of Cape Town from it’s surrounding Table Mountain

The city is plenty beautiful in and of itself, but with the clear blue waters and the dramatic close up mountain ranges, it definitely qualifies as one of the most beautiful cities we have ever seen.

Cape Town is one of the most visited places on the African continent and is the most Westernized city we have been to while in Africa – and it was comfortable.   It is about the same size as Chicago.   It had the same sort of amenities.  Public transportation was available and simple with buses and cabs everywhere.   There were also the  familiar Khombi’s which we have become very use to. We were pleasantly surprised about how easy it was to get around.

The City is very diverse with 20% white, 70% colored, 6% black, and 3% Asian   Most of the time, the term “colored” refers to people of mixed races, but here we were told that colored refers to the aborigines also known as the Khoi or the bushmen.  Black refers to African people who speak a Bantu language originating from Western Africa.  The Bantu black people came to Cape Town after the Europeans settled there.

While South Africa, in general, has a reputation of being very dangerous, we felt safe while there.  There is a very large “tourist area” that stretches from one side of the city to the other and there are very few safety issues within that area.  When we read the local papers it was filled with stories of crime and discontent – but it seems the people try and keep that away from the tourists.  And these days when we go on vacation we want to do the tourist stuff – we have enough of the authentic Africa life already.

We stayed at a Backpackers Lodge near the Waterfront.  Backpackers Lodges are a globally known type of lodging that cater very specifically to travelers who travel light and have little money and few material needs.  We had a decent private room for about half the cost of a three star hotel.

Waterfront is one of the most popular parts of Cape Town and is similar to Navy Pier of Chicago or the harbor/tourist area of any large city. It still serves as a harbor with tons of cargo ships, cranes, and wharf like activity – but they have somehow transformed something that is almost always dirty and grimy into a great tourist attraction   I think it helps that the bay is surrounded by mountains that are rarely found directly on seashores.  There are tons of great restaurants  bars, shopping, art centers, water sports, boat rides, luxury hotels and other fun stuff.  The McDonald’s there was very upscale with a separate coffee bar and desert bar.  We split a fun meal and ate in leather chairs while we watched other patrons use the free wi-fi or watch a big screen TV.  It was one of the best McDonald’s we had ever seen or eaten at.

(Click any Image to Enlarge)

 

 

 

 

 

The other large activity area is Long Street, where many bars, restaurants  clubs, shopping and other fun stuff occurs.  We enjoyed a Thai massage, hookah bar, dancing and live music along with a few nice desserts, as well as some good live music. During the day Long Street had nice shopping as well as cheap good souvenir places too.  However, we found we are getting a little to old for the late night revelry of downtown strips and ended up spending many of our nights at the movie theater – which is also a treat for us.

City Tours – The first activity that we like to do on a vacation is to take a City Tour.  This may sound dry and action-less, however it is a great way to start planning your options for the rest of the trip and we have invariable enjoyed the tours.  Our bus tour was way cool.   They used ultra modern, brand new state of the art buses with built in audio jacks at each seat and a really great map showing the stops for the Jump On/Jump Off system.  The buses ran every 20 minutes so it was easy to stop and see an attraction for a couple hours then continue to the others.  Our first stop was at a Bird and Monkey Sanctuary, which had many other animals as well.  It was quite cool and some of the birds were strikingly beautiful.  Our favorite bird was the Rati Chicken,  so named, by us, because it was fluffy and white like our little puppy that we missed so badly the entire week.  The little monkeys were all over the place, very friendly and seemed quite accustomed to searching peoples pockets for food scraps and car keys. The owls were quite amazing, but the most incredible one was a particularlygiant (3 feet tall) owl that just sat on the railing and dared everyone to pet it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This baboon cage had 3 or 4 baboons inside that appeared to have a serious case of butt cancer.   We could not imagine how that could be normal.  Check out the video.

 

 

 

Baboon Bottoms Video Download  2.5 MB

 

 

 

 

Shanty Town – Our next stop off the bus was at a Shanty-Town, officially referred to as a Township Settlement.  During Apartheid  the South African government required all ethnic groups to live in in segregated townships.  Most of the townships outside the white provinces were very poor and usually built of corrugated steel, or sometimes only oiled cardboard.  Most of the townships did not have running water or electricity.  Now people are free to move around, but most don’t have money for land and a house and it seems some of the people have found ways to make peace with the poverty type living in the township, and enjoy the commerodery of the place.  The government has been slowly putting electricity in each of the townships and you can see huge electric poles with dozens of wires dangling down to the houses.  Running water is available at a shared standpipe relatively close to the house in almost all cases and most of the time water is available directly in the homes.

Some of the shanty towns looked horrible as we were driving by – they seemed to go on for miles and they would be ringed by outhouses – meaning there was probably no flush toilets in the 1000′s of homes.  Some of the townships have opened their community to the public for a couple of reasons.  They want everyone to be able to see what is like to live there and secondly – they can generate income by providing tours.  The City Tour took us to a small township where some work had been done to build real homes.  There is a system to give the original residents of the township the new homes, which were about 2500 sf, with water, electricity, glass windows, and a yard.  Residents are being provided the houses for free – but the progress is very slow and only about 5% of the people have houses now.

While the neighborhood and the houses all look very poor – the people didn’t actually look poor.  Most had nice clothes, some had cars, a few were fat and none looked staving.

Mostly, it felt weird to be walking around looking at how people lived in these townships.  It was all white people touring the black township.  It felt even weirder when children would run out and hug us and shout “Hello!  How are you?  I am fine.”  I had a bad feeling about doing this and it sort of seemed like the people were on display at a zoo.  We didn’t know how to act like normal people when we were really just tourists, seeing a living condition that we believed most of the residents thought of as a bad way to live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wine Tour – Many of you know some of best rated wines in the world come from South Africa.  Wine tours are advertised everywhere and there are literally hundreds of huge wine estates that can be seen covering the bases of all the surrounding mountains.  Not only do they advertise the great wines – but also the history of each vineyard  most of which have been around for a couple hundred years.  Of course the wine estates are also beautiful. The next day we went on a Wine Tour.

Riian was our guide, and he knew so much about wines!  His tour was fun and interesting.  He also did a great job at keeping us engaged and even required that we play musical chairs in the tour van to encourage us to meet the other tourists, and had a little quiz for us at the end of the day.

We went to 5 wine estates, which felt like a bit much, but maybe just because the tour started an hour late and we were trying to catch up all day.   At each estate we tasted at least 6 wines and our late start seemed to be forcing us to go to faster than we would have liked. There was no lingering, leisurely sipping, or lollygagging over the breathtaking views.  There was a great deal of spitting (recommended) or pouring out (for tourists) of wine tastes because we didn’t have time to linger.  The good side to this was that we really felt like we were wine tasting, instead of drinking.

At the second estate they had great cheeses to pair with the wines, but again due to time constraints we only got a minimal explanation of the specific complimenting of the wines and cheeses.   Despite the spitting and pouring, we were also getting kind of buzzed at this point.

Lunch was on another very nice wine estate and was quite good.  They had a bunch of weird animals like little kangaroo’s (wallabies), turtles, pot belly pigs, and other fun little creatures.  This place served us a couple of estate wines with the special lunch as well.

The last estate was pretty cool.  They are a very small operation and they don’t sell their wine on the market; just at their vineyard.  The wines had been aged for 8 years or so and were very good.  The vineyard sold at cost, because they just wanted us to enjoy good wine with them.  They make most of their money selling grapes to winemakers instead of selling aged good bottles of wine.

The next time you go to the liquor store check for the Goats Will Roam wine.  We were at the estate that makes that wine, and guess what?  Goat do roam there.  The estate had a turret with stairs and a window, which goats climbed and then took in the view of the estate – just like what you see on the label.  We got a picture to prove the place really exists.  It was wild watching the goat climb the steps up the turret.

Riian also had us taste some brandy and coke, the supposed “drink of South Africa” – which was not as bad as it sounds.

Our last stop was a bar/restaurant where we had a nice dinner. It was a great day and so we called it another great night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Market Day - Our PCV friend, Lynn, had told us about a market in the downtown area called Biscuit Street Market and she said we absolutely should not miss it.  It was GREAT – like one of the best Farmers Markets we had ever been too – but with way more emphasis on cooking than selling fresh vegetables.   They had arts and crafts, fresh flowers, micro brew beers, and huge impressive amounts of foods cooked on BBQ  ovens, huge massive pots, and anything else you can imagine people cooking on/in.  We ended up eating mushrooms on a stick and Asian dumplings with a micro-brew beer.  It was a great afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chopper Ride – Contrary to what its name implies, Cape Town is not really on the very Southern tip of the continent.  It’s about 50 miles North, on the West Coast.

Out next adventure was a Helicopter ride that went half way down the peninsula and back on the other side.  It also started on the Waterfront, our Cape Town headquarters.  It was so interesting to see everything from the air.  The entire area  looks so small and navigable from the air.  On our bus tour we had driven past a three block long public pool right on the ocean front in one of the rich neighborhoods.  The pool had looked huge.  The people living there needed the pool, because it is too cold to swim in the ocean most of the year.  From the air, the three block long pool looked so small.  It was a very interesting new perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chopper Ride Video Download 1 of 5  849.1 KB  -  Take Off

Chopper Ride Video Download 2 of 5  2.7 MB  -  The City

Chopper Ride Video Download 3 of 5  2.2 MB  -  Pretty Good

Chopper Ride Video Download 4 of 5  11.0 MB  -  (This one is long and a bit boring!)

Chopper Ride Video Download 5 of 5  3.3 MB  -  Coming in for Landing

 

Beer Tour and Rugby Game –  We had been on a beer tour of  The SAB (South African Brewery – the largest brewery in the entire world.  They own Peroni, Fosters, Grolsch, Heineken and Miller among other beers!) in Johannesburg , but it was more of a museum and was primarily about the history of beer and the role of beer in world wide cultures.  This SAB tour was of an actual operating beer plant and we got to see the beer being brewed and bottled.  It was mesmerizing and completely fascinating to see the mechanics of the whole thing.  The plant was one of the original plants that could produce about 10 cases a beer a week 150 years ago.  Today they are producing 100,000 cases of beer a week.  You can’t believe how much that is until you see it – and it then it boggles the mind.  Funny note – that the forklift operators are some of the highest paid and most important persons in the production line!

The other couple on our tour was from Austria.  Our group was comprised of South Africans, Austrians, and Americans – all able to talk in a shared language!  It is very cool when people with different cultures, different counties, different parts of the world can sit down and fluently discuss ideas in a shared language.

After the tour we went to a bar where we “paired” sausages with beers and talked about it the way that people talk about wines and cheeses.  We came up with the brilliant idea of starting a Beer and Meat Pairing Tour Company in Chicago!  It seems like a natural business in Chicago – to take  beer loving customers and teach them to eat the right meats with the right beers!  What could be more perfect in Chicago.

The last place we stopped was at the Waterfront for a beer in the oldest tavern in Africa.  We discussed our ideas with our guide, Lawrence who gave us a great deal of encouragement.  As we assured him that we thought he had the best tour ever – he assured us that we were the best customers he ever had as well and we all paired another beer with some Kudu pizza.

Lawrence also invited us to see a Rugby game being played later that week.  In many ways it was the same as an American sporting event.  It was in the giant stadium, with thousands of people wearing silly hats.  Security was sort of the same, as they were patting down all the attendees, but they never bothered to check our hand bags.  Tickets were only about $10 for pretty decent seats.  Drinking was limited to the bar area only as a punishment to the fans because there had been a brawl the week before.  We couldn’t imagine that would be tolerated in America. I considered going and getting a drink, but the line looked too intimidating.   There were at least 200 people shoulder to shoulder with no escape route if a fire broke out.  We would not have understood one thing about the game except Lawrence was describing the rules play by play.  So we understood about 10% of the game.  It was unique and we were really glad to go with someone who took so much time help us enjoy the whole thing.

Rugby Game Video Clip Download  3.5 MB

 

The Cape Of Good Hope - Our next adventure was a Peninsula Tour.  Another small tour with an Ostrich Farm,  a Penguin Colony, the Botanical Gardens and some really awesome sightseeing.

Our guide was a bit boring and left many quiet times during the tour that we thought should have been filled with facts and trivia.   However, even those annoyances could not take away from how cool the Cape and all its views were.

We stopped at the local Ostrich farm at Carol’s request.  It was nice for them to stop because she asked.  We got to feed the ostrich’s and they bit our hands pretty hard.  We saw the little babies too which are all gray and not that cute as far as babies go.  The next stop was a huge art shop with 1000′s of cool wood and sand stone carvings.

Our next stop was the actual Cape of Good Hope – which we found out is not the furthest point south –  it is the furthest point south west (advertising!!!).  Our guide was concerned about a fog that looked very far away on the ocean to us.  We bought the tickets to ride the cable car to the light house and back and we got there just in time to enjoy beautiful scenes with bright sunshine and warm winds while we witnessed the  a Fog Wall roll in which covered the entire area in a matter of minutes and dropped temps by 20 degrees.  Pretty cool!

At the bottom we visited the waters edge, where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans meet, and Carol and I both stuck our fingers in the very cold water.

The last stop was the Botanical Gardens.  The Chicago and the St. Louis gardens are both much more pretty with much more variety, but the backdrop of the sheer cliffs of Table Mountain jettisons this garden into the top 5 in the world.

The tours bus continued down the coast and we saw where the really rich lived and, just like all rich people neighborhoods,  it was a totally over the top.  Again, the ocean was beautiful, but you can’t really swim in it.  Great White sharks are everywhere and its very very cold all year round.  They have lookout points on the high cliffs where a little man puts out a green flag if no sharks are observed, and then a red one if there are sharks.   Not sure I would like to rely on that system!

Many homes had little elevators that took them from the road to their front doors because the homes were built into the mountain side and the angles to the front door were extreme.  The homes were huge, but it was hard to separate out a house from a hotel or vacation place.

Again, it was the end of the day and we were fairly tired as we pulled in to – guess where?   You guessed it!  The Waterfront.  We saw a couple movies, ate some more Sushi and seafood and called it a night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Mountain – We had unknowingly saved the best for last.  Table Mountain is probably the biggest tour attraction in Cape Town.  The city is surrounded by mountains with Table Mountain being the closest, biggest and coolest.  It is flat on top (ergo Table) and many times has what the locals affectionately refer to as the Table Cloth.  It is a thick layer of fog that hugs the top and comes part way down the sides and looks very cool.  They told us that Table Mountain is actually 6 times older that the Himalayan Mountains! Hmmmm.

Our trip to Table Top was awesome.  It was overcast and a bit chilly, but the views were well worth it.  We saw these funny little rabbit-looking  animals, the coast, the mountains, and felt the sun and the wind.  There were well marked paths and it was easy to walk and we felt like we were on top of the world.   It was cool and the wind was blowing hard, and now we had actually seen everything.  We saw the mountain from the air, from the ground, from the Ferris wheel, from a bus, from a van, in many pictures and now from the top, itself.

We went back to our Cape Town Headquarter: The Waterfront, but could not get tickets to Robben Island, (where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for about 18 years) which once again made us wonder why we didn’t think this through instead of just believing the 24 year old at the front desk of a cheap backpackers when he told us we didn’t need to book ahead because it was low season.  We did watch some documentary film in the museum, which we thought was a decent replacement for the actual tour.  At least we have a reason to return to Cape Town now.

We considered ending the night with movies for the third time, but thought that didn’t seem right while on vacation, so we went back to the backpackers lodge.  It turned out to be  movie night there too!  At least they were showing a good movie called In Burgess.  It was better than the theaters and it was much cheaper too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We knew that while on the continent of Africa, we could not miss visiting Cape Town.   It was a good idea and will add value to our memories and our list of places we have visited in our lifetimes.  If you can take the 18 – 25 hour plane ride, depending where in America you are coming from – it is well worth the visit.

Healthcare:  Health care in Botswana is very different than America.  (Although I admit I don’t know what is going on with National Health Care in the USA now).  In Botswana health care is free for everyone, which is exceptionally important in a country where 25 to 35 per cent of the population has infectious and potentially fatal diseases, namely HIV-AIDS.  HIV can be treated over the course of a lifetime, but only with regular access to healthcare.  If one has HIV/AIDS they are also significantly more prone to get pneumonia, TB, skin rashes, and a host of other health problems over the course of their lives, which also requires regular access to healthcare for treatment.

There are major hospitals in all the “big” villages or towns (about 8) and fewer private hospitals.  The leaders of the country have gone to considerable expense building health clinics or health posts in nearly every village with more than a 1000 people. Mobile health stations are also available in smaller villages.  All of these health clinics and posts have nurses and most have a doctor on a somewhat regular, although not always often basis, as well.  It is a considerable accomplishment and testament regarding the Government’s commitment to the people to provide this level of care for free.

Privacy:  It does not exist here.  There are laws, and administrative procedures that are supposed to protect each person’s right to privacy that are nearly identical to what we have in America.  However, as we all know, just because there is a law doesn’t mean the majority follows it.  In America many people do not follow the laws about marijuana, seat belts, insider trading, etc…

 

At my school and other PCV’s schools, if a teachers or administrator knows a child has HIV it is discussed widely in hushed tones, with a general idea that it is being discussed for the overall good of the child.  Even if that were true – it is completely unethical.  And – I rarely see any good come of it.

Any time any of the PCV’s gets sick the rumor mill gins up quickly, with what I speculate is 80% volunteers and 20% PC staff speaking out of turn.  In at least one case the PC doctor told me one of our friends was in the hospital.  I can’t tell you how many times our health care providers have talked to John and I about each other’s conditions or state of health.  Honestly, that is often convenient – but if I was dealing with something I didn’t want my husband or family to know about it would be an outrage.  The way it is here now, I can’t trust that anything about my health will be kept confidential.

Doctors and Nurses: Botswana opened its first medical school a couple of years ago, and it is not yet accredited.  Almost all of the doctors in the country are from other counties.

Additionally, doctors and nurses at public institutions are considered government employees.  So, overseas medical doctors are coming here for government wage jobs, which is often a better alternative than the war or civil turmoil they deal with in their own countries.  There are many doctors from Cuba – who don’t deal with war or civil unrest, but do probably earn better wages here.

I have come to realize that the majority of Americans (or a least the majority of American’s in my circle of life) think of life almost entirely in terms of money, and that may not be the best way to measure ability, achievement, and overall life success.  But, I have not yet come to fully understand other ways to measure ability.  I still think, 95% of the time, the person getting paid the most money is likely to have the most skill (I am excluding Political and political connections).  Accordingly, in my mind, these overseas, government wage paid doctors and nurses are likely to be middle of the road doctors and not the very best doctors.

Costs:  If or when a person wants to use private health care, the costs must be paid up front.  The PC almost always sends us to private doctors and I believe the costs are very low.  A CAT scan costs about $100.  Teeth cleaning and check-up is $60.  A visit to a specialist about $30.  Medication is reasonably priced, although you can never get name brands and when I look up the medications on the Internet, they are often obscure and on occasion it is stated that the medication is no longer used.

The Wait:  If you use the free medical care, the lines are exceptionally long and one will often have to come back the next day, but you get to move to the front of the queue (line) if you were there the day before.  If you have the money to get private health care you can usually make an appointment and even get tests and results back in one day.  That in itself makes the expense worth it if you have the funds.  But private health care providers are sticklers and make each person pay up-front before any visit or procedures can take place.

Record Keeping:  Another weird thing.  People are expected to keep all their health records with them at all times and bring the records to any and all appointments and doctors’ visits.  I think this happens for a couple of reasons.  It is rare to see record keeping systems here and the lack of internet or any inter connectivity precludes centralized data.   On occasion, you can find things organized very well, but that is because the person doing the record keeping at that time is responsible.  There are no systems.

Level of Care:  These medical providers also move around often as new ones are assigned to the most rural of rural areas and everyone is constantly trying to transfer to a better place.  So, doctors and nurses constantly change making it less likely to get consistent good care.

I also sense that day to day health care does not exceed a level of care I would expect for a GP in a small town about 50 years ago.  While I am sure the PC would say I was overstating this, the Organization regularly sends us to South Africa for what many of us would consider routine procedures or reviews.  There are some issues that come up within our small group of PCV’s including wrong diagnosis, too long to get to diagnosis and poor treatment options.   That being said, most of us have a fair amount of confidence in the PC medical team – by Botswana standards.

 

I often feel like the best thing to do is avoid medical treatment unless it is simple or absolutely necessary.  Anything that seems like it can be put off until I return to the States should be put off.

Carol’s Health Care:  Before I came here my asthma was pretty bad.  Maybe because I lived with Mr B. (our Feline) and Timber (our Canine).  Maybe because the bedroom was carpeted and filled with animal dander.  Maybe it was because I lived on the boarder of a forest preserve that had many trees, grasses, flowers and other allergy causing problems.  Maybe because the basement leaked and often had traces of mold and mildew.

 

I was relieved of asthma when I arrived in Africa.  It was a moment of nose breathing joy.  However, I got a new allergy that affects my sinuses and breathing. It’s probably dust.  There is more dust in the air than on the ground and many people seems to have respiratory problems.  I seem to be destine to struggle for breath my entire life in one form or another.  I must admit I am now and probably always will be a mouth breather.

To me, sinus problems fall under the “minor health issue” category.  I have asked for and received a great deal of medication from our medical office to treat this problem with almost no results.  I have asked for Afrin and Sudafed from the USA – which always worked like magic there.  While the Afrin works, it is not supposed to be used with the steroid I have been prescribed – so I don’t use it.  The Sudafed is completely useless here.

While I couldn’t fix the problem, I felt lucky that it was a respiratory problem since I was used to breathing difficulties.

However, John, was not used to any such problems.  Not only was he concerned for my health, he did not like his sleep being interrupted by my inability to breath and starts and stops through the night.

Eventually, John couldn’t take hearing the struggle to breathe though out the night any longer and he called the medical office and gave a much more detailed and freighting description of my problem than I ever did.

I decided to go to the suggested Ear Nose and Throat specialist because it does get tiring to work so hard to breathe, the massive amount of tissues per day was gross and I felt sorry for John.

I took the 1.5 hours bus ride to the doctor.  He took a look and declared it “very bad”.  He sucked congestion out, asked a few questions and said it was probably dust allergies.  He gave me an injection in each nostril.  He asked if the Peace Corps would pay for a CAT scan.  They would.

I went down the hall, had the scan and was told to come back three hours later.

Findings:  The doctor confirmed that the CAT scan results indeed indicated the situation was “bad”.

Treatment: In addition to the two injections in my nose, I was given antibiotics, steroid nasal spray, and an antihistamine.

Future:  I have been on medication for about two weeks – and I am glad to report I can breathe through my nose about half the time!  I will go back to the capital next week to see if this appears to be permanent or not.

We are extra vigilant and diligent in avoiding accidents and exposing ourselves to sickness of any kind.  We have been very lucky so far to not have had any serious accidents or illnesses and we will continue to maintain that the best thing to do is just to never get sick.

My Grandmother, who I love as much as any grandchild ever loved a grandma, died today.

She just turned 93, and was failing, and really didn’t like living anymore.  We knew she was about to die for the last two weeks and my mother has been sitting with her as much as humanly possible. She died this morning in her sleep with my mother at her side.  My mom told me she whispered to her that I was there in spirit. I knew when I left for Africa, gram would probably die while I was gone, and I made sure we had a good and meaningful good-bye with her.  However, it isn’t the same as being by her side and holding her hand and letting her know she lived a good life and many people loved her, in particularly me – and I wanted to be there and hold her hand, and I wanted her to feel the love she had earned her whole life.  I wanted to hug my mother while we told each other it was for the best.  I want to talk about all the awesome times we had with gram with my brothers and my cousins.  I want to talk about her life with my aunts and uncles. I miss my family now!

Living in Africa, makes all travel hard.  Being a Peace Corps Volunteer makes all travel expensive.  Living in the world is unpredictable and even when I tried to make plans, I couldn’t know when would be the best time, or the most right time.  And I gave up trying telling myself it would be ok – I had my good-bye. Now it doesn’t feel ok.  I wish I had magical ruby slippers.

Dorothy Birchler Shevlin was undoubtedly one of the best things that ever happened in my life. Godspeed and all my and all of John’s love, my dearest Grandma.

I couldn’t resist this fun picture of Roti after she swallowed a whole chicken!

 

 

Also, notice that we now have a link at the top of the site to our Video Gallery

where you can download any of our videos for easier viewing!

 

 

 

John Kyle showed up at the Gaborone Airport on Monday, March 4^th, 2013.  It was his first visit to southern Africa and our first visitor from the states.  He was staying with us for a week and we were going to show him a bit of our daily lives and how we are living over here in Africa.

One of the nice things about him coming was that while a PCV is on official leave, we are allowed to drive.   Our American friends Ben and Rita were in Malta for a few weeks and we agreed to watch their really nice house with the swimming pool and their 4 dogs, kind of in exchange for using their car for a week.  So I got to drive all over town and use the car to run errands and other fun things that we could never do otherwise.

We picked JK up at the airport and took him around town showing him our offices, schools, bus routes, shopping areas and all the other stuff that we thought would give him a little taste of our local lives here.

Our house and our village and our lives in general are significantly easier and more pleasant that the vast majority of our PCV counterparts.  Our village has 5 grocery stores, 8 hardware stores and is generally considered quite advanced for Africa.  We have consistent running water and electricity, whereas most of the other PCVs do not.

So, to be quite sure that he did not leave here thinking that the Peace Corps was all more like a 2 ½ year summer camp in Michigan, we arranged for him to spend a couple days with one of our good friends, Supriya.  She lives in a very small remote village about 45 minutes away with no running water and electricity that is off more than it is on.

My mom had sent me a few hundred US dollars a while back and asked that it be used to buy clothing and shoes for the endless number of children in need.  This was a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so we met Supriya in our village and took my mom’s money and went shopping.  We bought a car full of all kinds of clothing and shoes for kids and drove it up to her village, where we were greeted by the 580 kids at her school, all anxiously awaiting our special arrival.  We had decided to take our two little dogs with us too, and when the kids saw the dogs it was pandemonium.  They were captivated and drawn to the dogs with excitement while at the same time afraid of getting too close.

(Click to Enlarge any Picture, and dont miss downloading the Videos in the Blue Boxes!)

 

We dropped off all the clothing and John Kyle and made sure he had some money, a cell phone and some emergency numbers and bid him fare well for the next 24 hours.  The next day, after helping to hand out the clothing and shoes to many overly excited children, he managed to make his way back to our house via several hitches, Khombis and taxis.  I was impressed with his lack of fear of this foreign travel and his resourcefulness.

 

 

Supriya Village for Clothing Drive (1 of 3)   4.2 MB

Supriya Village for Clothing Drive (2 of 3)   3.2 MB

Supriya Village for Clothing Drive (3 of 3)   2.0 MB

 

We spent the next few days mostly driving around our area visiting some of the more interesting sights.  We visited some friends in Thamaga, another village that had some really cool boulder hills and tried to have lunch at a scenic Resturant in Gabane, but they did not have any food on a Saturday at 1:00 pm.  After stopping at several other places we finally found some lunch at 5:00 pm.  Welcome to Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next we went to the Mokolodi Game Reserve.  This is a small Game Reserve that is located just outside the city of Gaborone.   It is not a real “African Safari”, however for those on a budget of either time or money, it is quite nice and they do their best to make you feel like you are really out in the bush.   As it turned out, it was quite fine with a verycool “zoo” that included some cool snakes and other animals, followed by a Guided Safari.  We saw quite a good variety of African animals!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the side of the roads there were many Dung Beetles.  These are rather large beetles that gather chunks of animal dung and roll them around.   Not really sure where they take them, but the result is an almost perfectly round ball of dung being pushed by these curious beetles.  Sometimes the balls are the sizes of melons and its pretty amazing!   They push the balls with their front feet (?) and then switch to turning upside down and pushing with their back feet.  Its quite fascinating!

Dung Beetle Pushing Dung Ball   3.0 MB

 

We had a nice pair of Binoculars with us and John Kyle came up with the clever idea of using his camera up against the Binoculars to take closer up pictures.  He also captures a cool lightening shot from our car:

 

 

Mokolodi Game Reserve (1 of 2)   2.0 MB

Mokolodi Game Reserve (2 of 2)   2.6 MB

 

 

 

 

While we saw lots of cool animals there, we did not see any Rhinos, so the next day we drove 4 hours to Serowe were the Khama Rhino Reserve is and stayed overnight there in a little A-frame chalet.   Our friend Nate went with us and we met our other friends Brandon and Cassie.  Nate and John Kyle had a little competition to see who could make a fire with no matches!   After more than an hours effort they ended up collaborating and they eventually did produce a lot of smoke and some very hot wood.

We went on a guided game drive there and saw all kinds of fun animals but no Rhinos.  Quite disappointing.  However, as we were leaving we decided to take a quick drive around the sandy roads in our own car and see what we could see.  We saw 15 rhinos!   It was very exciting and satisfying and a great end to that little part of our vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next adventure was a late afternoon climb of Kgale hill.  This is one of several large hills made up of huge boulders, all in a neat pile as if some humongous bulldozer had pushed them from the surrounding miles into neat piles.    Carol was going to go, but it turns out their was some movie at a local theatre not far from the mountain that she wanted to see more than she wanted to climb the mountain.  I think that worked out very well for her.

Our buddy Nathan had climbed this hill a few times before and so he was elected our guide.   Nate is 26 and JK is 23 and I am 51.  Although I walk probably 2 or 3 miles each day, I really don’t get any exercise and I was a bit intimidated about climbing the one hour hike to the top.  It started off fairly easy but less than half way up I was using my arms and hands to push my legs up each of the next steps and stopping every 10 minutes for a break.   After an hour or so of climbing, we arrived at the top and it was quite a beautiful site.  Of course JK and Nathan felt no pain, but I was panting and very worried about the next 3 or 4 days of severe hurt that that my whole body was about to go through.  At the top we took some pictures and videos and watched the sun set.  As it went below the horizon we became a little concerned about getting back down so we started down hurriedly.  As it became darker and darker we became more and more concerned and as it turned out we missed the main turn off of the narrow path we were following and ended up at the bottom of a different hill, in the pitch black.   At the bottom was an abandoned mine which thankfully had many large lights still lighting up the whole area.  We walked around most of it expecting to find a clear exit, but no no avail.  We found an old road that led into the darkness and did not look very hopeful.  Our choices were two:  To follow that road in hopes that in less than several miles we might find a gate that was not locked with razor wire and be able to get to a traveled road and hopefully get a ride back to civilization, or to backtrack 45 minutes in the dark up the path we came down and try to find the turnoff.  neither choice was good.  I think we made the correct choice and started back into the dark path we came from.   Luckily we all had our phones which had small (but life saving!) flashlights built into them, so we were able to find the path and negotiate the ankle breaking paths back up the wrong mountain and then down the correct one.  Several hours later we arrived safely, exhausted, back at our starting point.

Carol was happy she decided to forgo the climbing and saw a movie instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kgale Hill (1 of 2)   3.6 MB

 

Kgale Hill (2 of 2)   7.8 MB

 

So, at the end of a great week we sadly took JK back to the airport for his long trip back home.   Its always hard to go back to real life after a great vacation break, but this was especially hard due having to give up the car, and the nice house with Air Conditioning and a swimming pool, but mostly to saying good bye to my fantastic son.

 

 

A note from Carol:  It was great seeing John Kyle!  I loved hearing first hand how his life is going and getting some nice updates about the family too.  Emails and Skype are nice – but nothing is like looking someone in the eyes and talking directly to them.

I must admit I was a little dismayed to hear him say that life here was much easier than he was thinking it would be.  He said our house really wasn’t worse than a crappy dorm room – which is true.  But I feel like life is always hard here, and I wondered how it seemed “easier” than he was thinking.

As John said, our living conditions are not near as hard as most Peace Corps Volunteers (sometimes it pays to be old).  However, after a few days I think John Kyle started to see what we meant by “hard”.  It really isn’t the electricity or the building you live in.  (Water is different – not having water truly gives life an entirely different value).  It is the different culture that does not value business, efficiency  or material goods .  He started to see what a huge pain it is to have to go to three stores (and we had a car) and talk to 5 people to find few commodities and most discussions about customer service or achieving a goal completely lack any understanding.

While he didn’t get to really see how we work, he certain heard us talk about how different and how hard it is to accomplish things. He didn’t just hear it from us, he heard it from every single PCV we talked too.   I felt like he did learn a little about the life style and culture of Botswana before he left and he had a better idea of what we mean when we say our life is “hard” here.

One of the things I was also glad to see John Kyle learn about, is the type of people that are in the Peace Corps.  I have commented many times, on this blog, about how special the American’s I work with are here.  John Kyle also noted that.  He said he had an entirely different idea of who and what Peace Corps people are about.  However, the more time he spent with them the more he liked them.

Peace Corps people, and my group we call Bots 11 totally rock!  They are kind, hard working, smart, committed, industrious, fun, and all around decent human beings.  One of the important things John and I wanted to do with John Kyle is introduce him to our friends so he would know who we are talking about the rest of our lives when we bring up everything and everyone we learned about and loved in the Peace Corps.

It was truly special to have him here and to share this time with him.  I believe a good time was had by all.

(Click any image to enlarge it)

 

Its been a long time since I have written any posts, so I feel compelled to write something.  This is partially due to a rather uneventful last couple months, but mostly due to Carol, as she tends to beat me to the story writing punch for anything that is worthy.

The weather here has been so hot this summer.  Maybe not technically as hot as last summer and for sure we had a lot more rain this year, but nevertheless, anything above 95 or 100 degrees is just plain hot, especially at night!  It is currently 8:00 pm, the sun has been down for almost 2 hours and the thermometer on our wall is showing almost 90!

(probably 120 in our tiny kitchen with the oven and two stove burners going while carol cooks dinner!)   Im really looking forward to some cooling off soon, in the next month or so, but unfortunately, there is no real Fall season.  There are not really trees with leaves here, so we don’t get the beautiful colors, and no one burns anything (probably for fear of setting the entire, incredibly dry country on fire!) so there is no nostalgic leaf burning smells in the air.  The “Fall” is really just a morphing of still-quite-hot-days with starting-to-be-cold-nights.  Followed almost immediately with colder and colder nights.

This post’s title is the result of a recent large meeting we had with other PCVs.  The meeting is called Regionals and as the name implies, it’s a meeting of all current PCVs in the Region.  There are 4 regions in Botswana and ours is the biggest with around 40 PCVs.  It occurs a couple of times a year and the purpose is to introduce old “vets” like us to even older vets about to close their service, and to young newbies.  We all exchange stories and experiences and voice our complaints and solutions and other fun stuff.  It’s meant to be mostly informal with just minimal “class room” time for issues on Safety and Security and some other subjects.  The PC puts us all up in a nice lodge and reimburses us for our travel expenses and provides nice meals.  It really has been a fun time so far.

Most of the people in the PC are fairly young, and as such, a nice hotel stay usually leads to some fun late nights at a local night club followed by some hotel room parties which in turn lead to some fun group games.  One of the popular ones is called 13.  We go around in a circle and call out sequential numbers to the number 13.  Then the numbers start over.  Whoever gets 13 makes a rule that is attached to any “open” number and has to be followed by the person landing on that number.  Rules such as “anyone who gets number 4 has to do jumping jacks on the bed until they are replaced by the next person to get number 4” and “anyone who gets 11 has to exchange all their clothes with the person 3 to their left” are common.  I was the subject of just such a rule and to my shame, caught on camera.  I also had to sing a song, do jumping jacks on the bed and several other things I can’t really repeat here.  All in all, it is a fun time and the night is always full of laughter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the months go by we are loving our life here in Botswana less and less, but our little puppies more and more.  We have made good friends with an older American couple (Ben and Rita) who have lived here for 8 years or so and they have a very nice house (probably the nicest house in all of Molepolole) with a nice swimming pool (an extreme rarity in Botswana!).  They live roughly two taxi rides away on the other side of town and they have 4 large, very friendly guard dogs.  We took our dogs to visit them a while back and all the dogs just fell in love with each other.  So now, when we get into a taxi with our dogs, they must know they are going to Ben and Rita’s house because they are so excited they just can’t contain themselves.  It’s quite cute and fun.  Rati has taken to the water quite well and even jumped in on her own a week or so ago.  Phi Phi is not a water dog at all and is quite disturbed with all her swimming lessons that we put her through.  They both, however, do enjoy sunbathing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking for fun games, I remember back at home, my old cat, Mr. B and I used to play a fun game called The Sock On The Head Game.  He was quite good at it and actually seemed to enjoy the challenge.   It seems Rati and Phi Phi are enjoying the game now too.  To see a short Video use the Blue Download Button below. 

The Sock on the Head Game  Download Size: 3.9 MB  Download Count:  50

 

Dance Party:  I am often heartened by the ways the PCV’s find ways to keep their spirits up – especially the young ladies who live in the middle of nowhere.  If they want to go out and enjoy themselves as we could in America they are setting themselves up for endless sexual harassment as well as community elders/teachers thinking less of them.

I often see Facebook posts on Friday night saying they are having a great time at home with popcorn, wine and a solo Dance Party.  Good for them for finding ways to make the solitude fun!

The other night one of our friends came over and said the five of us should have a Dance Party.  Five?  He was including Rati and FiFi.  He put on some Meatloaf – and oh my goddess! we enjoyed dancing with those dogs!  Paradise By The Dashboard Lights was never so fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids Reading:  John and I love living in our neighbourhood.  There are hoards of kids that come over all the time.  They are in our yard all day everyday if we are home or not.  If we are inside and don’t want to play – they ask for books, puzzles, crayons and toys to play by their selves outside.  The other day I told them it was a reading day and those that didn’t know how to read English must read to those that did.  They all took their jobs seriously.  The picture below shows kids reading from books sent my many of you.

 

 

The readers all got lollipops sent by John’s Aunt.  The little kids can get a lollipop when they can write the alphabet in capital and small letters.

I often think the biggest impact we are making here is our interaction with the kids in the neighbourhood.  Many of you have helped us with your generous gifts of books, crafts, toys, sporting items and of course candies.  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do especially my parents, Nadine and Josh, Angela, Pat and Susan, Gina and Jason and Louie who have sent multiple boxes loaded with goods for the kids.

Donkey Races:  John’s office funded the Men’s Sector (Police men who encourage men to participate responsibly in the community to eradicate HIV/AIDS) Donkey and Horse Race in a little village called Kubung about an hour from our house.  There were cash prizes for the winners.  An HIV mobile testing van came to the site as well.  Lunch was provided for everyone who got tested for HIV/AIDS.  People were able to get the results on the spot.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the race and there were at least 100 people who stood in line for HIV testing.  It was a fun and productive day.

 

If you want to see more pictures of the Donkey Races check out the Newsletter John created for his office at http://kwenengeast.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/men-sector-donkey-and-horse-races/

You can see all the newsletters for John’s office here.  They are pretty cool.

 

 

Khombi Rides – Dad sent us masks to wear over our faces when we walk down the dusty dusty roads.  John sometimes uses the masks when he has to sit next to people who possibly don’t have running water at their home, or maybe they have lost their sense of smell.  (I just suck it up ((literally)) and take it as a state of the human condition).

The Dusty Road Update:  John and I have been working to get the village to address problems with the road outside the school.  Not only is the road so dusty it impairs all regular pedestrians health – it is also grated just enough to allow people to drive about 70 MPH in front of the school, often oblivious to the danger children face with speeding cars.

The teachers and students alike complain and the School Head said he would need some documentation before he took it up with the village counsel.  I volunteered to do a survey and write a report.  While doing that, John ran into the Paramount Chief at a wedding and mentioned the problems with the road.  The Chief gave John the name and number of the councilman who is responsible for the road.  I wrote the report and gave it to the school head.  John met with the councilman.

Nothing was done.

John and I started putting big 1 kilo rocks in the road forcing people to drive slow when they came down the road.  Amazingly, the councilman from the village 50K down the road found out who we were, where we lived, and who we worked for.  He met with my School Head and told him we were breaking the law and we be charged if we didn’t stop immediately.  It is amazing how resourceful these people can be when they want to stop something from happening.  Resourcefulness NEVER seems to be around when attempting to accomplish something!

It was aggravating to be chastised at the Senior Management meeting at the school and also to be called into the School Heads office for a warning about breaking the law.

However, John had also given my report to the District Commissioner (like a Governor) and she just sent a reply stating how useful my report was.  The District had already included paving the road in the next budget, but there were not funds to start the project.  However, she agreed with two of my other less costly suggestions to put in speed bumps and put up speed limit signs.

Right when you feel like giving up – something worthy always seems to happen!!!!  This joint project made John and I both feel good for a least two days.

Snakes in the house:  After we got our dogs John cut a doggy door into our screen door.  We leave the big hard door open and lock the burglar bars, which allows animals in and keeps people out.  For weeks I have been having nightmares that snakes are crawling in the doggy door.  John thinks it is funny.  Finally the other day, while sweeping I came across this freaking snake.  John says it was tiny, and they eat a lot of bugs and I should get down from the chair.  But he told me to keep the dogs away while he was corralling it out the door – in case it was poisonous.  WHAT?????

I will never be able to leave my bed and step on the floor in the middle of the night again.

 

Running the Tuck Shop:  A Tuck Shop is a little tiny store that sells candy, chips, and soda.  The school has a little tuck shop which the PTA is supposed to operate and proceeds are used for the good of the school.  There are many problems with the PTA running this – mostly that the PTA never meets and does not have officers.  As I have said many times, parents see little value in participating in their children’s lives, and many of them are poor and feel inferior to the teachers.

Last year the PTA hired a women to work full time running the Tuck Shop – and paid her P600 a month, which is about $80 – which is so significantly below the poverty level it is ridicules.  The Tuck Shop barely made enough money to pay her salary.  I suspect she stole a lot of food or money since we were not paying her enough to buy groceries for a week.

Teachers incredibly volunteered to run the Tuck Shop themselves.  Which  heavily cut into their time to grade, develop tests, and meet with students.

There is no inventory lists, no register, no receipts, no procedures.  During the day money is taken out of the vault (a bucket on the candy counter), to purchase supplies.  The person who volunteers to get the supplies is to receive P50 for transport costs.  Every teacher volunteers to do this and it is costing about P250 a week to buy supplies.  At the end of the day money is counted by recorded by how many of each bill/coin are in the vault/bucket and then calculating the value times the number of coins/pula.  They check their calculations, and not the money.  Total recipes, expenditures, and cash balance are recorded in a note book, which is passed around from teacher to teacher.  The teacher in charge for the day takes the money home at night and at the end of the fortnight (African for 2 weeks), the money is turned over to the PTA to deposit.  There does seem to be one rule:  If you are working in the shop, you can’t give yourself change if you buy anything.  I am glad to see at least one rule.

I was going to write book keeping procedures for them.  But I really don’t know how to start this project.  I have brought up several suggestions along the way – but there is always resistance to change.  They do seem to be making a little money – and they could probably earn a decent amount if only, if only, if only, if only too many things.   They are using a bucket,  for a cash register and vault…………

The Post Office:  Thought I would let you know where we go to get all those great boxes that you all send us:

 

Expectations:  I have not enjoyed the vacations in Africa the way I have enjoyed them in other places.  People here prefer to go back to their family village instead of travel to new places where they don’t know anyone on their holidays.  It seems the culture does not place an emphasis on historical preservation, appreciation of natural wonders or entertainment as I have grown accustom too.  Another reason I have not enjoyed our travels as much is mostly because of the expense and difficulty of the travel part vs. the “being there” part.   Coupled with our lack of resources and our Peace Corps friends even less resources that puts us in sub standard travel situations, experiences in Namibia and in Durban make me leary of African “vacations”.

But I was holding high hopes for Victoria Falls which is called Mosi-oa-Tuny meaning The Thunder that Smokes.  It is considered one of the 7 Wonders of the World and I hoped that would translate into Western style tourism.  As it turned out, it did, and we really enjoyed this vacation.

In the beginning – Zambia:  We were picked up at the Kasane airport in a 16 seat safari truck all to ourselves.  At the border, there was a boat waiting that took us across the Zambezi River to another van.  The driver took John through immigration which was painless besides the US$50  each just to cross the border.

We notice the huge long line of trucks about four miles long trying to cross the border from both sides.  There is only one fairy that takes 1 or 2 big trucks at a time across the river.   In addition to the lack of infrastructure there is much bureaucracy to getting ones papers for border crossings.  Everyone knows this is counterproductive to economic development – but the government cannot stop itself from growing a system that allows each individual participant an opportunity to enrich themselves with bribes.  Most of these trucks were to sit in line for more than 3 weeks, inching forwards each day.  Its no wonder there can be no food importing or exporting!

We also noticed throughout the trip that many of the Zambians have a particularly bad body odor.  We think it may be because there is not much plumbing in this country.   This country is much poorer than Botswana.

On the plus side, many Zambians could speak English very well.  English is the language of money and with scarce resources from the government, English is required to earn decent money. Nearly everyone could hold a complete conversation with ease.  In many instances it seemed as though English was their first language.

Jollyboys Backpackers Lodge:  In Africa they have Backpackers Lodges everywhere.  Backpackers are geared towards people who want to travel for longer periods and have less money and are carrying all their stuff in a backpack.  The accommodations include anything from $5 a night camping to 16 room hostels with shared bathrooms to single simple rooms for couples.  The most expensive accommodations cost less than a two star hotel in most places.

They usually provide a shared kitchen with dishes, tons of books, games, an organic or healthy food menu, a cheap bar, a pool, a large screen TV and tons of lounging and couches. The people who use the Backpackers are generally well traveled,  fairly educated and in a frame of mind to make new friends and help fellow travelers.   Jollyboys is one of the best in the area.  It was clean and the service was great!  We really enjoyed this place and used most of the amenities to keep the cost down.

The vacation coordinator helped John and I plan the next three days.  She was honest about costs and helped weigh the experience/activity against the costs, which is important because the activities are generally very expensive.

Livingston, Zambia:  We explored Livingston which is a quaint small town that has blended its European beginnings with local culture quite nicely.  It was the capital of the country until 1935 and now it is the center of the countries tourism.  We felt safe there.

However, as always, there were people on the take for those who become complacent.  We had someone promise to return with change and never did.  Also had someone rip us off with stories of new currency and needs for change with the old currency.  We lost $27 U.S. to the schemes – which isn’t really that bad. It is very annoying and embarrassing – but it is hard to always treat every single person as if they are a thief when it is probably only 1 in 500 that will rip you off.  I would rather pay $25 – $50 a vacation and keep a kind heart than never be ripped off and be cynical all the time.

Our first order of business was exchanging money.  The Zambian Kwacha exchange rate was $1 to K5,053, so K50,00 notes (about $10 U.S.) were very prevalent.  Zambia was changing currency January 1st by dropping the last 3 zeros off all notes.  People are always nervous when currency changes and the lines were very long at all the banks every day we were there.  There was a K2 million (about $400 US) withdrawing limit and it was awkward carrying around huge amounts of bills.  John once said, “Don’t flash that big wad of money around.” But I noted that literally everyone was doing this.

The downtown area had two blocks dedicated to vendor booths with mostly amateurish art that was selling as souvenir crafts – but I found a picture I really liked for K150,00 plus a four t-shirts trade; especially since 3 Of the T-shirts were Johns’.  I love the paiting.

John was fascinated with the huge currency bills being sold in the markets.  Apparently not too long ago the Zimbabwe currency became worthless and was ditched, so the Zambian’s sell these huge, worthless novelty bills to tourists.   John bought a bunch of them including some real 100 Trillion Dollar Notes!  (No, that is not a misprint!)

Over the course of the week we checked out the banks, grocery stores, malls and museums.  It was all decent and comparable to what I have seen in other large cities in southern African counties, even though this was a fairly small city. Livingston also had a black market mall with tons of tiny tin-building shops selling food, clothes, booze and other items for pretty cheap.  There were several ethnic foods there too – but the food was so covered in flies that even I couldn’t chance eating it.

Cruising the Zambezi River:  After our exploration of town and stock of Kwacha’s we decided to go on a Sunset Cruise with Karla.  It was US$60 per person with a dinner and all the booze you could drink with a sunset, hippos and crocs.

The river is huge, looking bigger than the Mississippi in its southern girth. It was clean and smelled fresh too. It was overcast and the sunset was beautiful, but not the brilliant I was hoping for.  We did see the tops and open mouths of many hippos.  The drinks were heavy and the food was ok – but we loved being on the Zambezi River at sunset, with wildlife and a friend.

We met a young woman who raved about what a perfect couple John and I appeared to be and how much she wanted to be like us when she grew up.  At first it was great – but as the drinks were flowing, she went on for hours and hours bringing her friends over so they could see who she wanted to be like one day, and it eventually became sort of embarrassing, but finally it came around to being nice again – it is hard to resist adoration.  It made us both feel like someone else could see the special we always see in each other.

Upon return we found a few other PCV friends had made it to site.  However, one poor soul – Brandon, had forgotten his passport half way into his full day travel trip and been turned away at the border.

We met Mozambique Peace Corp people and talked about the differences in PC Service in each country.  It is amazing how nicely all the PCV’s in the world fit together.  We are really the same sort of people and are having the same sort of experiences.  It makes such nice shorthand in getting to know new people.

After several hours of talking we decide to play Jenga and the game became quite imaginative with 8 players.  We built some interesting structure before heading to bed.

 

Fun Border Crossing Story:  The next morning Brandon had made it –with quite a story:  He had made it home and back to the border but not until right after it closed at 6.  They told him if he went to the Zimbabwe side he could cross there – but he would have to pay for two border crossings and he didn’t have the money or the transportation.  So he and a Zimbabwean and Zambian that wanted to cross the border hung out at a gas station hoping for transportation and when it didn’t materialize before the gas station closed the attendant told them he would give them the storage room for 20 Pula (US$3.00).  They rearranged the storage room to barely make enough room for the three of them to spoon on a tiny filthy mattress   Every two hours they would all turn together.  He was between the smelly Zim and the loudly snoring Zam, and he said it was the most uncomfortable night of his life and he had gotten no sleep and would not be able to participate in activities that morning.

 

White Water Rafting on the Zambezi by John:  Carol and I have done a fair amount of White Water Rafting and have enjoyed it for the most part.  Class V rapids can be very exciting and gratifying. With a heavy suggestion from a stranger who had just completed the trip, we decided to spend one of our days on the river. Fortunately for us we had already slept in too late that morning to catch the full day trip and our only option was the half day trip in the afternoon.  We were ok with this as the morning portion was the tough Class V rapids and the afternoon was just Class II and III.  After all, we are older now and maybe we preferred a “safer” experience at our ages.

We were picked up and arrived at the “base camp” where we got a very short safety briefing and were told that the nice river shoes Carol was wearing were quite fine and the very loose fitting thin rubber Crocs I had on would be tough to walk in for the hike down to the river but once there I could take them off in the boat.  I wasn’t too concerned.

Armed with life jackets, paddles and a helmet, we drove 30 minutes to the edge of the top of the river gorge. The hike down was 1000 feet, and pretty much strait down! They had rigged up a walking ladder from local tree branches and cleared a tight winding path down the side of the mountain.  For the next 45 minutes we defied death with each step, as we ever so cautiously stepped from branch to branch, all the time cursing ourselves for not having the right shoes nor the sense to turn back. Once false step and the legs stays wedged in the rocks while the rest of the body tumbles to the bottom.   Every few minutes we had to pause to wait until our legs stopped shaking uncontrollably, while the locals scurried, barefoot, past us carrying supplies on their heads! The decent seemed to take forever and I can’t tell you how relieved we were when we finally caught sight of the river at the bottom.

 

At the river we met up with 4 boats of rafters who had just done the 1^st half and we joined them for a short lunch.  The rest of the trip was fun and easy and very enjoyable!  We rafted some Class III rapids and even went through several sets of rapids outside the boat just floating along in the very warm water with our life jackets.  That was really great. At the end of the trip we were grateful to see a primitive cable car that we all climbed into to take us to the top.  We were hoisted strait up by a winch to a connection device which loudly and violently attached to a single strong cable and then pulled us to the top by a giant electric motor.  It was a bit scary, but the alternative of scaling up another set of walking suicide ladders was out of the question. The Zambezi River was beautiful and the rafting was enjoyable and exciting, so all in all it was a good trip to remember.

 

Carol’s version of the same story:  The drive to the river bed was quite educational.  The people here are considerably poorer than the people in Botswana.  There were literally mud huts everywhere – there were no doors or windows on the huts, no cars, electric lines, or running water.  There were many big gardens without a whole bunch of food, which is sad because the majority of the people grow most of the food they eat.  Most people are very thin.  The children were all in dirty rags and ran to the street just to see the cars go by.  Most had tires or sticks for toys.  We again were thankful about our placement in Botswana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The climb down the gorge was even worse than John explained.   I quickly became exhausted and wondered how I could possibly make it down this thing – I kept thinking I could see the end and I could make it that far – but it twisted and turned in ways that started to seem like an endless torture route.  The guide eventually took my arm and started walking me down one step at a time.  I could not have made it without him to lean on and balance with.  Near the end I literally felt like I was going to collapse.  I rested for about half hour before I could walk the final 10 yards to our boat.

After the miserable part – it was one of the greatest river rides I have ever had.  The gorge was so deep and the rocks were smoothed over and looked ancient.  There were only small patches of sand or beach and mostly the river was edged with huge black boulders.  The water was deep and we didn’t need to worry about getting caught on rocks.  Several times they let us out of the raft to swim through the rapids and it was so cool.  Our bodies were moving about 25 MPH and it was effortless to float.  The water was clean and warm.  I would definitely do this again if I had the chance (but I would much rather face the Class V rapids instead of the cliff climb).

We met Leah and Will from Bots 12 having lunch when we met the group.  Leah was a little freaked about the class five rapids they had just gone through – but I was having problems with empathy considering the torture chamber mountain I just descended.

 

The Museum:  The next day John got a massage (crappy) and I shopped and went to the Livingston Museum with some other women in the group that morning.

The museum was packed with information – it was mostly passages of reading with a few drawings, and some odds and ends of the time.  There were many maps with bad keys making it very hard to follow anything, but we could get the gist.

I have noticed in a lot of these museums (that are meant to provide the history of the indigenous people) that they always start with the formation of the Earth and move into evolution and then the first humanoids.  After you do that at one museum you can skip the first half hour or so of just about every other museum here.

 

We had scheduled the DEVILS POOL months ago as a must do.

John explains Devils Pool:  We had heard some stories about this place and from the name alone, it sounded exciting and since it seemed to be a large tourist destination, we expected that it was a fun and safe activity. On the Zambian side of Victoria Falls there is an Island called Livingstone Island.  It is where David Livingstone discovered the Falls and named it after his Queen Victoria.  The Island is bordered on one side by the very edge of the falls.

There is one expensive operating company that takes limited tours out to the island in a small boat for some great views and a nice lunch.  During specific times the volume of water is low enough that the operating company allows tourists to visit the Devils Pool. The Devils Pool is a small pool at the very edge of the falls about 10 feet in diameter.  Due to its formation, water rushes through the pool but is fairly calm in the center  while the edges of the pool area are surrounded by fast and furious flow.  There is a large rock at the edge of the pool where you can jump off into the calm area, being extremely careful not to jump too far to the left or right.  There are no guard rails, safety ropes or any other safety precautions, so when the sign says “swim at your own risk”, they are dead serious.  (PUN INTENDED!)

There are some Liability Release Forms we all had to sign, that would never hold water in the US, but I’m pretty sure they would here.

We heard the story of David Livingston “discovering” the Falls and got to see the Falls from his first point of view.  Standing close to the edge seemed scary – until we got to the Pool and then we got to know what fear was.

To get to the pool, once you are on the island, you have to do several combinations of precarious walking on slippery rocks and swimming quickly upstream and across stream to land at a safe location. We had about 25 yards to get to the pool, but between us and the pool were sparse patches of relatively calm water surrounded by furious rushing rapids.  The three guides separated us 6 into 3 groups and we locked hands as we walked slowly and carefully on slippery and painfully coarse rocks for the first 5 yards.  Then we were given a safety briefing of how to swim upstream at a 45 degree angle to arrive at the next safe location, 10 more yards away, oh and then they asked if we were all very strong swimmers! The first one in our group did not swim at the right angle and we watched nervously as he was quickly swept 10 feet down stream towards the thundering falls edge but managed to correct himself and arrived safely, though shaken.  We all learned quickly and followed our guide EXACTLY!

A second and a third short, but frantic swimming session got us all to a very shallow (1 foot) section where we had to crawl on our backs like crabs for 5 yards to finally get to the jumping rock. It was a relief to be out of the water and on solid ground, although now we were standing just 10 feet from the edge of the Falls and the water rushing by on both sides was very intimidating. As we got organized and were trying to decide who would be brave (foolish) enough to go first, one of the guides did a running back flip off the rock and landed perfectly in the clam, slowly swirling waters of Devils Pool.  This did little to relax our anxieties, but it did allow one of our other guides to show off his amazing picture capturing skills with my wet camera.

(Click any image to view in Full Size!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each of us jumped, posing in our own personal way for the camera, as we conceded to our fates.  Once we landed in the water we were hurriedly herded to a sitting area in the center area so as not to get sucked out in to the current.  I was last to enter and I could not help but be concerned that the only place left to sit was at the very edge of the “safe” area.  I jumped and found there to be no current or scary water until I was seated at the very edge of the group waiting for eternity for some pictures and videos.  Meanwhile my swimming suit filled with water or air (not sure which) seemed to be acting like a bucket being pulled at by the raging current just inches from my waist.   And to make matters just about as bad as they could possibly be, we were all being viciously attacked by dozens of 2 inch fish, meanly nibbling at our feet, legs and whatever else was under the water surface!   I could not wait for this to be over and I was genuinely terrified and kept thinking how absolutely senseless this all was.

 

While we were waiting for one guide to get a picture, the other guide with my camera stood nimbly on the very edge of the pool and walked casually along it, barefoot and life-jacket-less of course, as he took the camera to each of us for an interview of how much we were enjoying this brush with death.  I had to edit out my own comments on the video, as I was truly terrified and on the verge of a panic attack.  To get out of the pool we were thrown a rope that we used to haul ourselves upstream and out of the pool with.  We reversed the whole crab walking, swimming and chain walking process to return to dry land and looked back at what was surely the stupidest thing any of us had ever done. The next day we found out that the operating company closed the pool for the season due to the high waters.  Most all of the season the waters are plenty low and in pictures on the internet you can even see the top edge of the protecting wall at the very edge of the pool that keeps you from being washed over.  That would explain the happy, smiley faces on most of the guests.  The water level for our experience was well over the top of the wall and made for a very dangerous and risky situation. After the pool trip we were served a very nice lunch and had the opportunity to meet with others who had just experienced the same excitement.

It was hard to enjoy the meal with the thoughts of what we had just done, but at the same time we very much celebrated the fact that we all made it without incident.

All is well that ends well is how the saying goes, but really, this was much more of a lesson about having prudent expectations and accepting that some things just should not be on the bucket-list.

Here is a Link to download the Videos of us in the Devils Pool.  Its quite impressive!

Devils Pool From a Distance  4.5 MB

Devils Pool MUST SEE!  11.5 MB

 

If you are interested, here is a link to the blog that belongs to another couple we met at the Devils Pool.  They have some interesting stories too.  Mike and Sarah’s Blog.  They talked about meeting us and the Peace Coups on the tab called “Vic Falls day 4″.

 

Additional note from Carol:  While I was scared about the swim across the river and the jump in the pool there was no panic attack feeling for me.  I checked the Internet and only one person a year dies there (at least that is reported) and we have done way higher risk things before.  I think being required to sit on the very edge of the safe zone with inflatable shorts (they are not really swimming trunks) is what really freaked John out.

We ate the follow up lunch with a very nice older couple who obviously had lots of money.  They were talking of their luxury experiences and we were comparing our experiences as Peace Corps Volunteers.  The women told us she had brought half a suitcase of food from America in case she didn’t like the food here – she asked if we would want it.  We declined at first.  She insisted, saying the other Peace Corps persons at Jollyboys would probably like it too – and she wanted to do something nice for people providing such a good world service.  They drove it over and it was an ample supply of good high end food, which was enjoyed by all.  It made them very happy to get rid of half a suit case of good food to some people they thought deserved it.   It is nice to be in an organization that is so well respected.

 

After the pool we were taken directly to our last sun set cruise on the river and this time we saw crocs as well as hippos.

 

 

The Jungle:  The next day we were to leave for Jungle Junction Lodge.  Which I understand to be a fantastic hide away in the Jungle.

Cassie said we could bring our own food or they would cook for us – and we have learned that it is often better to bring your own food.  We shopped for food and other supplies. John finally arranged to get the Zimbabwe notes he wanted, and we did our last walk around – sad to leave such a fun, clean and nice place.  We hoped the Jungle would be very relaxing!

We lounged around Jollyboys a while, waiting for our ride. I was so intrigued by these Backpackers and I could not recall any such accommodations in America.  I started a conversation with the owner and she said if I was interested in learning the business she would be glad to employee me for a while.  Hmmmm…..maybe a new business idea.

Joe, from Jungle Junction picked us up in a truck which easily fits 5 people plus luggage – except there were now 11 of us traveling there!  The luggage was squishd on to the rack on top of the Land Rover, which was fine until it started to rain buckets half way through the 45 minute trip.  All our backpacks with clothes and belongings were wet on arrival.

We put 3 in the front, 5 on the back bench and 4 in the back bed along with all of the computers that we didn’t want to get wet.  We rode this way for about 45 minutes before we meet up with a different driver who took half of us into his 4 x 4.  This was very good because we are about to go for a seriously off road bumpy ride for the next 45 minutes of the trip.

John and I had booked four days instead of three (like everyone else did) because we couldn’t get a flight back sooner.  We asked the driver about things to do on the island.  We are told there is fishing, swimming, hiking, and if you can be creative you can figure out other fun stuff like taking a nature walk for 3 miles to visit the school.  Well, visiting schools, especially over the holidays, has never really seemed that fun to me – but maybe I was just not being the creative sort.

Along the rutted and muddy road we saw a “village” which was made up of a few mud huts with straw fences and raised chicken coops and goat pens.  These villages look just like the ones we saw on the way to the river rafting.  There is no electricity, no running water, no roads, and not even one car  anywhere.  I was finally seeing the Africa I thought I would be sent to when I joined the Peace Corps.

Finally we got to the island where canoes carved out of tree trucks were waiting to take us across the river.  That felt very native and adventurous – but as we started to load our gear in the Mokoro (the wooden tree canoes) the top of the canoe got nervously close to the water.  One wrong shift and we would all capsize.   After crossing the river we carried our supplies another 200 yards up the bank to the final destination.    Jungle Junction.

 

I saw this as one of those nature, eco-lodges.  A real one, though, not one that is advertised to make you feel good about the fuel you used to get there; but a real eco-lodge.  Everything is built from the land and the local tribe is staffing the place. I thought we had booked the chalets, but as it turned out John misunderstood the difference between a “chalet” and a “fisherman’s hut”.  We got the Fisherman’s hut.  Three bamboo walls, a grass thatch roof built on tree limbs with two beds – sort of like Camp Ondesank.

I also found out that our hut is about 1k from the shared flush toilets (4 of them) and the shared showers.  (It turns out the Chalets were a lot like the huts – but they had four wall and one battery operated light bulb). There was one gas operated refrigerator on the entire island – which did a very poor job of keeping anything cold – and 4 solar panels that sometimes work to recharge phones or computers.  They had to carry the 2 very heavy truck batteries between the lodge and the closest open sunny spot, twice a day to charge them on the solar panels!  Uuughh!   No electricity anywhere.  Running water is only available for the toilet and showers and one sink in the main kitchen – which we were not allowed to cook in.  So, we cooked on camp fires.

John and I must have only read the reviews on Trip Adviser  which really raved about the place, and we must not have looked at the actual web site that clearly explained all these things. (http://www.junglejunction.info/index.htm). I’m not sure why our travel research skills are waning so.  We were quite unprepared for this primitiveness.   We did not have bug spray, a flashlight, grungy clothes, towels or camping gear.  I did have a nice dressy dress and a curling iron to celebrate NYE though. I told John I wanted to check out the next day, but we decided we would spend NYE with our friends as planned and would check out in two days.  While the place was a paradise if you were looking for a peaceful quiet jungle hangout – I am a Peace Corp Volunteer living regularly in a peaceful quiet jungle hangout, on $350 a month and when I go on vacation I want to have a few nice things.

The owner spent some time talking to us and assuring us we could leave when we wanted without paying for unused rooms and was sorry that we were disappointed.  He was a really decent guy.

I was still sort of sulking about this snafu when the owner brought out the festive party hats for the holidays and some were very strange.  I couldn’t help but start to smile – and once the smile was cracked all was good.

There were some interesting animals here.  Below is a picture of a Genet – which is related to both the cat and the mongoose family.  They were beautiful and came right to our dinner table to clean our plates after each meal.

 

The Effects of Progress:  The lodge owner is working closely with the local tribe and creating something sustainable, educational, and exposing the locals to a western culture they would normally not see.  He is also building a modern school for the local children – which in fact turned out to not to be a mud hut school and it was something I was glad to see. He also provides 10 full time jobs.  He barters job skills such as fishing guide and nature guide, teaching them in exchange for them providing cheap services at the resort.  If or when they choose to leave their village they will have better skills to get a real job.

We had all been ooing and awing over the good things Brett was doing for the tribal people. Then he told us one of the results his efforts that he has witnessed is that the village has one of the highest rates of alcoholism and malnutrition.

Brett told us that has happened at the several similar projects he has done over the years.  Some people do well and advance 6 generations in one leap while many others simply can’t make that adjustment and only become envious, jealous and hopeless about their own future.

While I hate that this depression/alcoholism/prostitution seems to be one of the constant outcomes of introducing modern life and education into a primitive environment,  it seems even more wrong to deprive an entire community of an education and a chance to make choices and move forward to avoid this outcome.  I am confident we should continue to do everything possible to give people opportunities to learn and achieve as much as possible.  Obviously, Brett thinks it too – or he would not keep doing this kind of work.

 

 

Fishing the Zambezi:  Nicely for John, morning activities consist mostly of him sleeping in and me reading.  We decided to go fishing in one of the afternoons.  John was rowed over to an open, flat sandy island where he practiced his Fly Fishing in waist deep water.  Later the locals were all crowing him so “brave” for standing in the crocodile infested water for so long!

I’m pretty sure he was not even aware of any dangers although the Hippos just a hundred yards away should have been a clue.   After he was all practiced up, we fished with spin casting reels from the canoes with a guide.

The guide caught a few minnows on a bamboo rod and hook and let John cast and he caught two small Tiger Fish.  He gave me the line and I caught a little one too.  We gave all the fish to the guide to take home and cook for dinner, and he was grateful.  Those Tiger Fish have nasty looking teeth!    It was very agreeable to fish with the Hippo’s in a wooden canoe on the Zambezi River.

 

Sunsets:  We came in to watch the beautiful sunset from the shore – and it was spectacular!  I once again had to say my prayer of gratitude.  I truly can’t believe I get to live this life – especially when I start some days pouting that I won’t be able to wear a pretty dress and fix my hair for a holiday.  Nothing could have been nicer than that river bed, in my tee-shirt and ponytail celebrating a new year with some new friends and my husband.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year:  Later, we play girls against the boys at Taboo and the girls won each game.  As midnight got closer people started engaging in more public fun.  Several men knew how to juggle balls of fire and others performed  fire dances – which was interesting.  Many of us brought fireworks that were better than you would think and then there was the stroke of midnight and a new year was here.

2013 Starts –

In the morning I was surprised to find several people had stayed up all night long.  Most were old broken down alcoholic men, not a part of our group. Regardless of their fun – they were a still little obnoxious and we all avoided the bar area for the rest of the morning as they slowly dropped off one by one.  This made our tiny world seem even a little bit smaller, but I was impressed with the amount of patience and acceptance everyone had with each other.

The Crap Sandwich is the last game:  Eventually we all decided to play a card game called Crap Sandwich – and people liked the game.  It was fun to play with 7 players at a time and everyone did play one or two games.  We made the game last for the afternoon and then after dinner, with another awesome sunset in between.

We were on our third day here and faced with a choice of staying alone another night here while our friends all left or heading back to Livingstone for our last night.   While this place is specially peaceful, Livingston was so alive and with so many choices (and there is so little of that in Africa so far) that we decide to go back for one last day. In the morning everyone was preparing for a trip home; most of them hitch hiking for the 12 or 14 hours, which is miserable.  I am very happy we had booked a flight several months ago.

 

Victoria Falls:   Since we had an extra day in Livingstone, I wanted to see the Falls from the Zimbabwe side, but it was US$30 for a Visa plus US$20 for the Park Fee’s so we settled for a walk on the free Zambian side.

It was beautiful. The Falls go on for about 2K and the river is beautiful on both sides of the Falls.

The park is very nice with safety fences and well groomed trails.  Every spot seems like a great spot for a perfect picture, until you see the next one. We hiked down to the Boiling Pot which is the point past the falls that the water starts to flow like a river again.  It wasn’t such a rager but it was beautiful and overall it was pleasant and cooling to dangle our feet in another part of the Zambezi River.

It started to rain and we got soaked.  It was a little uncomfortable but the environment and the view were so incredible we never considered looking for shelter or turning back. We just walked all around the Falls and saw its worthiness of being called a wonder of the world. We were allowed to cross the Zimbabwe Bridge for free as long as we did not go into the country (past the guard gate and the guys with machine guns).

 

 

Watch these short Videos of Victoria Falls:

Monkeys at Victoria Falls  3.7 MB

Victoria Falls Bridge  1.9 MB

Victoria Falls  4.1 MB

 

There were some insane people bungee jumping off the huge bridge.  The platform was just “hooked” over the railing and had duct tape on one of the joints and I just couldn’t see how anyone could overlook the widely reported story of the rope breaking last year.  (The person lived to tell about it – but still!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the border where all the trucks wait for weeks to cross, there were baboons everywhere.  There are so many monkeys it is sort of freaky.

 

Another day ended with some sushi at a chain seafood place called The Ocean Basket and a big beautiful Chameleon outside our air conditioned hotel door.

 

Going Home:  The Jungle Junction owner had given us some good advice about getting back through the border and enjoying a few hours in Kasane, Botswana, for much cheaper than we paid to get to Livingston.   While in the relatively “functioning” city of Livingstone, we had quickly fallen back to a state of complacent expectations and had forgotten that nothing works right in Africa.

We got off to a late start waiting for the promised taxi, who then made us wait again for a long stop in a long line for gasoline.  We were then stopped twice for road checks, and finally we got to the border and had to go through a lengthy exit immigration in Zambia and then take the slower free ferry.   We were stopped as soon as we get off for another passport check and then to the immigration entry station in Botswana.  Another very long wait.  Now I see the value of paying the lodge $40 to pick us up at the airport and get us to the hotel which took 1 hour instead of 4 hours as the much cheaper return trip did.

Once we arrived in Kasane, we killed a few hours before our flight home at the Chobe Safari Lodge.   The lodge is beautiful and situated right on the delta (an expansive and beautiful river system).  We looked over the river and had a nice buffet and then walked the grounds.  We saw lots of bandit mongoose, warthogs and huge lizards – right in the camping grounds – eating out of people’s pots and pans.  I was glad to see such a luxury place also provide camping facilities and fun camping with lots of wildlife too – I will look into staying there if we go back there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally we landed safely back in Gaborone Airport and now all we can think about is to pick up our cute cute little puppies!

Merry Christmas to our friends and all our family.  We will be celebrating with some friends later today.  They asked us to come cook the dinner together.  They are Indians so, if we are lucky, it will be a big Indian Christmas dinner.  We have our trees (sent by family) up and we plan to wrap little tiny presents under them!  

Christmas trees 2012

 

 

What else………….from Carol

 

The Dogs:  Rati seems to have fully recovered from her horrible experience with the home spaying.  However, I’m not over it.  I think I will forever be traumatized by the event.  Any female dog ever spayed again will be over my objection.  We should put all our efforts on getting the boy dog snipped instead!

To help make it up to Rati, we talked the owner of Rati’s sister into giving us Phoenix for the next year.  Little 3 pound cute Phoenix lived in a cage with two other mean dogs and had to stay under a chair so she would not get bitten.  We changed her name to FiFi (when she goes back I think she will still respond to Phoenix) and now Rati has a full time play mate.  We also found excellent babysitters.  They have a four year old daughter who comes to visit the dogs and she asks to keep them overnight sometimes – so we feel very comfortable when we have to leave them.   Finally – we are hoping the dogs will learn to bite all the people we don’t have the nerve to bite ourselves!  And we will say “Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry” – but not really mean it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food Fun – One of the most fun foods here is “fat cakes”.  Deep fried dough, sold in the many Tuck Shops for about $0.15 (A tuck shop is usually a tiny shack or perhaps a table with netting over it that sells candies or other treats along the road).  The local people eat these fatcakes pretty much every day during Tea Break and if they can afford it, they buy two or three at a time.  (The picture below portrays exactly how the women at my school cooks the fat cakes).

The other day some of my colleges got fat cakes for tea, and a few others bought French fries or chips. I was shocked to see them pull out the insides of the fat cake (and eat them) and then re-stuff them with the French fries!  I cannot imagine how this concept has not reached downstate county and state fairs in Illinois!!!!

Tea:  Tea break is a sacred thing.  If you want people to attend meetings you must serve tea at 10:30.  Tea consists of tea or coffee and biscuits (cookies) at a minimum and more usually has spam sandwiches cut in fourths as well.  Tea is observed at every school, workplace, and social function.

To be fair, it is sort of a breakfast and considered the first meal of the day.  I recently looked up the how, why and history of tea breaks.  Botswana seems to follow the tradition of simply supplying food for the hungry, much more than the American/British version found in the closest Four Seasons with Miss Manners for ladies of leisure.

The other day I saw how serious tea is here.  I was with the Deputy District Commissioner (like a Lt. Governor) and we went to a meeting several villages away that started at 9:00am.  Miraculously, it really started at 9 and was done by 10!  We had brought tea in the trunk of the car to serve in the anticipated middle of the meeting, but the meeting ended before the tea time.  We started home, but at 10:30 we pulled over in the middle of nowhere, along the road, with a bunch of cows, and pulled out the hot carafe and pre-prepared bowls of tea, coffee and biscuits.  Five of us spent 30 minutes standing around the back of the car having tea, instead of going home and eating like civilized people or going to work and doing our jobs.  Everything will stop for a tea break.

Language Test:  Our language skills are tested four times in the Peace Corps.  Twice before swearing in, once at mid service and once before we leave.  There are 12 levels of proficiency   John and I both scored at level 2 (with 12 being high) when we swore in.  Of course, I have been relieved that my school is required to teach in English and teaching children English is very important here.  I get the adults to speak English by promising to take minutes at all the school meetings if the teachers and staff promise to speak in English.  I am usually chastised for not learning the native language.  My response is that I agree that is a significant fault, and then I tell them to go ahead and use Setswana, but I will have to decline my position as secretary.  So they all grudgingly agree to speak in English.  I live in an urban village and most everyone can speak English here.  Soooo I have never learned a word of Setswana since I left training.  John said he didn’t either and he said he didn’t care if he failed our mid-service test.  I took this as a cue (or excuse) that I didn’t need to care if I failed either.  I did learn how to say, “I have a dog named Rati and I love her.  Everyone loves her.” – but that was it. (Ke nna ntsa e bidiwa Rati.  Ke rata Rati.  Botha rata Rati).

After our recent grueling Mid Service Exam, we got our scores and I was still at level 2, but John, who insisted he was going to fail scored at level 5.  He swears he didn’t purposely learn without me – that it slowly snuck up on him and he had no idea he knew how to speak Setswana.  He swears he would have helped me learn more if he only knew that he actually could speak the language at the Intermediate Middle level.  Only one person scored lower than me and it was a person who refused to speak Setswana for the test, but I know she speaks much better than me in the community.  I have the lowest grade of everyone in my class.

While I hate that I failed this test, I am grateful to have been sent to a country that’s official language is English. I am so lucky or blessed that all my life failures are muted and the way to go forward is always laid out in front of me.  I still have one more year to get up to level 3 (Novice High), which is the minimum expected although not required. But I am making due at level 2.

(I put a bunch of fun pictures from Mid Service Training on Facebook – if anyone is interested.)

 

Gender Committee:  I was asked to join the District (like a state) Gender Committee.   Modern Botswana is only 45 years old and when the constitution was written men and women were given equal rights for education, voting, and other various things.  The constitution was far advanced of the culture.  It is interesting to be in a place where the rights were guaranteed before being demanded.  Most all the work towards equality is changing the culture instead of the law.

I often aligned with the men on the committee and one of the men tells me he knows God sent me to them.  Yes – I swear it is true!  The more progressive men in the community seem to  want there to be equality, but don’t know how that is supposed to work with the strong culture of men being the leaders and commanders in home and community.  When we go to community meetings the men regularly ask, “What do you want to take from us, so that you can be equal” – and it is a genuine question. While I often want to reassure their fear and say, “We only want you to castrate yourself.  You can keep your testes in a jar – it worked for the Eunuchs and the royal court in China and it will work for us here too” – but I don’t.

It wouldn’t be appropriate and they don’t really get sarcasm here.  These men are sincere and change takes a long time – I am happy to be a part of a real discussion on gender equality, with men willing to truly engage in a dialogue.

I have been asked to make several presentations and design media for many of the local events. I recently worked on an international campaign called 16 Days of Activism.  We sponsored two events that were well attended and got good writes-ups in the paper.  I love how many men participate in these events along with the women!

Parenting:  I often struggle to understand how or why people parent their children here.  In the USA there is rarely anything more precious than ones child.  If a parent doesn’t care about their own kids, society is supposed to intervene – and if another family member does not step in, government usually does.  Everything is …..”for the kids”.  Here, nothing is for the children.  (Oddly while there is little respect for children, children are expected to and do totally take care of their parents when they grow up. I mean entirely take care of them – pay all their bills, give them transport and build them a home).

There is one special place I like to walk to about 2K from my home that I call The Rocks.  It is beautiful and you can see all of Molepolole from the little cliff which is easy to climb.  The dogs love climbing the rocks and it is a breath taking scenel at sunset.  I took a few kids, along with the dogs one day.  The next day 10 kids wanted to come and the next day every single kid in the neighborhood wanted to come.

I told each kid to ask their parents.  Many parents came to talk to me about this.  The parents couldn’t believe I would take the kids on a walk.  They wanted to know how I thought of it and why I would want to do that.  They also wanted me to know they thought I was being kind when I took these kids. They speculated about how much I must miss my own children back home.  They would gush about how much their kids liked me and liked hanging out at our house.  They were being gracious and also curious about how we get the kids so excited and interested.  I could see these parents were happy that their children were engaged and that people liked their children.

I am flummoxed!  What I can’t see and I don’t think I ever will – is why can’t they take their own child for a walk?  What prevents this thought process?  I simply cannot grasp this part of the culture.  It is very very hard not to judge this and to try and believe it is simply something cultural beyond my grasp.  I try to stay focused on the seeds of love that are visible.

 

Culture:   Some things are the same in every culture.  When I worked at the probation office (28 years ago) I remember several girls said they got pregnant because their religion would not allow them to use birth control.  They didn’t seem to mind blowing off their religion when it came to pre-marital sex.  It’s the same thing here.  Everyone says they can’t get married because their culture requires that they pay 7 cows (or equivalent) before they can marry.  So they are forced to have children outside of marriage since they cannot afford the cows.  Of course, if you strictly follow cultural rules – there should be no sex outside of marriage as well.

A special dinner:  If PCV’s come to our house for a weekend we usually make them a special dinner.  It is easy for us with all the goodies we get from home.   We pretend it is a dinner party and occasionally even light a candle and ignore the chipped plastic plates, and pots instead of serving dishes.

Now that the holidays are here most people have left the neighborhood and we are basically alone.  However, two of the six boys that live next door had to stay here (by themselves) an extra two weeks because there was not enough transport money to take them to their grand parents home village.  John and I felt sorry for them and invited them over for their own special dinner.  They are in the cooking club, so they sort of know how to bake, but we planned and served a big and formal dinner, trying to teach them about social graces, and planning as well as cooking.

We had Mexican night with burritos (thanks to many people back home for sending Mexican fixings).

Most of the food in Botswana is on the bland side.  But these boys  have learned to appreciate some of the spices and often ask to borrow some of my hot spices and recipes to make more textured and tasty food.  They were very excited about all the hot sauces, hot peppers and hot spices.

I warned them to be careful – they were creating something I would not be able to eat – but they are 11 and 12- the invincible ages.  They told me they could handle it.  After Jay drank about 10 glasses of water and sucked on 10 ice cubes he admitted his throat was burning pretty bad.  A few minutes later he said he was getting scared about how much it hurt and acquiesced to the yogurt I suggested he substitute for the rest of his meal.

I asked him if he knew what was happening.  When he said he didn’t, I told him, he was learning a lesson right now.  I was glad he laughed and agreed.

After dinner John showed them some card tricks, we all played Concentration and then watched movies. John won at Concentration and he told them he was the biggest winner because he was spending every second of the game and every atom of his brain Concentrating.  He said he concentrated his butt off – and they would have to learn to do that too if they wanted to win at anything.  He taught them many good memory tricks.  Their mother told me they said it was one of the best nights of their lives!  I think it was a darn good night in our life too!

Friends Celebrations:  We have met some wonderful friends here and have been invited to celebrate some milestones with them.  Kelone and Jez run the NGO, Non Governmental Organization, we both do secondary project work at.  I tutor girls from minority tribes in Commerce and John takes care of their computer needs.  If you want to learn more about the NGO you can do it here:  http://springboard-humanism.org.  They had a very nice 25th wedding anniversary that we were both invited too and greatly enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Variety Show:  My school had a variety show on the last day of school.  The boys all sang and danced and the girls dressed like little tramps and “modeled”.  My school is so strict about everyone being in school uniform and so conservative about the students behavior and dress – I was a little shocked by how easily the staff allowed the girls to dress this way.  It was one of those transcendental moments when I realized there are as many similarities as differences in people.  Girls love having an opportunity to show off what they have -