Botswana: What's it Like?

Cattle farming is a major part of life for many Batswana. Most people that can afford them, have cattle. In rural areas even those that can't afford cattle will have goats, and donkeys. These animals often wander in and around the roads, so it is very dangerous to drive at night. Even during the day you must really be on your toes and focused while driving. This is the reason many of the vehicles here have huge front bumpers.

This big bull stood right in the middle of the road despite my honking and waving for about 5 minutes.

Botswana: What's it Like?

After reviewing this blog, I realized I haven't shown much of what Botswana really looks like. I thought I should start a series of postings that might give you a better impression of what it is really like here.

I decided to start with this picture of the Ministry of Health. This building is one of the tallest, newest, and most modern buildings in Botswana. AIDS and Tuberculosis are major problems in Botswana, and large amounts of money are poured into trying to control these issues. Some reports claim that 37.5 percent of people aged 15 to 50 years old have HIV/AIDS, and that in the coming year as many as 20 percent of Botswana's children could be orphaned because of the disease. Statistics like these damage Botswana's infrastructure at every level.

I also included this picture because this building is only a couple hundred yards from our house, and we see it every day.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!

It is a sunny 95 degrees here today, so after we opened our gifts this morning we went for a dip in the pool. I'll tell you, we could get used to these southern hemisphere Christmases.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day III

The storm continued through most of the night, but we woke to a cloudy but calm and dry morning. We packed up quickly so we could take our time getting back to town on that rough road.

We found 3 big scorpions under Matt's tent while we were packing it up. If only for that reason alone I was glad to have our new rooftop tent. I have been eyeing these ingenious devises since before we came to Africa, and so we picked this one up(in the picture) as an early Christmas present to ourselves. It's made of sold canvas, and should last for many years to come.

Our drive back home was thankfully uneventful. We did spot some leopard tracks that ran for about a mile down the middle of the dirt road. Also we passed a large patch of brush that had caught fire from a lighting strike in the previous nights storm. This just solidified in me the knowledge that this is not a place to underestimate. It is a truly wild place in which humans are not necessarily on the top of the food chain. I have learned some valuable lessons on how to better prepare for our next excursion.

Now we will begin planning for our trip to the Tuli Block next week. Hopefully we will get a chance to see a few of the elephants that roam this area.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day II

We woke slowly on our second day in Khutse, with a mission to find a few wild animals and a camping spot that was farther out in the bush. It became apparent relatively quickly that we would not be seeing a large concentration of animals on this trip. It's the rainy season and with an abundance of water the animals tend to scatter. We did see qute a few Hartebeest, Springbok, and Ostrich, but I knew our odds on catching sight of a Lion were slim to none.

We drove out to a camp spot about 25 km inside the park a had a bit of lunch and rested under an acacia tree during the heat of the day. At about 3pm a few clouds came in and we began to see lightning in the distance. The weather cooled down quite a bit, so we decided to do another game drive and check out some of the other camping areas for future reference.

The game was scarce, and the weather was coming in strong. The sky got dark and it was raining off and on. Then at about 5pm we got a real surprise. It began to hail. Some of these hailstones were nearly the size of a marble and I started to fear that they would bust out a window. It was over pretty quick, but we knew that we wouldn't see any more game out in the open after that storm, so we began to head for camp.

We found a good spot over looking a pan in which we hoped we would see some game in the morning. The lightning intensified all around our camp, and I must admit it made me a bit nervous. We were in a wide open area, under a tall tree. Not the safest spot. That went on for hours, and we called it an early night. We would break camp early in the morning and hope to catch sight of some more game as we made our way out of the reserve.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day I

Last weekend Dillon and I went camping with my friend from the Embassy, Matt Williams and his son Jack, in the Khutse Game Reserve (click on the link to read more about Khutse).

There is about 100km of rough dirt road that you must travel over before you get to the Reserve. It is without a doubt one of the worst roads I have ever been on. I was in the lead vehicle on the way there, and unfortunately Matt had a massive tire blowout about 25 km before the main gate to the reserve. When I got to the gate I figured Matt would be right behind me by only a few minutes. The road was very dusty and I had lost sight of him and thought he had pulled back to stay out of my dust cloud. But Minutes turned to hours and I was getting quite worried. I had no idea what had happened to him. It was getting dark and I wasn't sure I could find him after dark, not to mention the park Rangers were getting anxious to close the gate for the evening.

A very nice lady at the ranger station let me borrow her phone, and I was able to get a hold of Cassandra. My cell phone was only useful as a paper weight out in the bush. I confirmed with Cassandra that Matt had the embassy satellite phone with him, and felt a bit of relief to know that he could use it if he was in real trouble. He called his wife and told her about the tire trouble, she told Cassandra, and Cassandra called the lady at the ranger station, who told me that he was on his way. The Rangers (and I want you to know that I am using this term very loosely) let me man the gate for the night until they arrived at about 8pm. I closed up the gate and we went to the camp spot I had made not too far from the entrance.

That night we saw two snakes, one of which was a venomous Adder of some sort, scorpions, and a multitude of insects, including some stick insects that were nearly a foot long(they fly by the way). The ground was literally crawling with bugs. Ant, termites and beetles were everywhere. Sleep did not come easily for me that night with all of the insect, bird, and reptile noises. I woke at about 3am and looked out the window of our tent to see an owl not even two feet away.

I did manage to get this picture of the sunset, which I must say was one of the most amazing I have ever seen.

On Sunday the Ambassador and his wife had a Christmas party at their house for Embassy families. Santa Clause even made an appearance, riding in on the roof of the Ambassadors new Land Rover Defender. Each child got a gift from Santa, and then we finished off the evening with a round of Christmas carols around the piano.

It really helped us wrap our heads around the fact that it's Christmas time, even if it is 95 degrees outside.

Gaborone Marathon

I recently found out that this coming April, Gaborone will be holding its first ever Marathon.
www.phakalanegaboronemarathon.com
So, here I go again. I'm back in training for my third Marathon. With the completion of this Marathon, I will have run 3 marathons, on 3 continents, in 3 years. That's kind of cool.

Prado

Our Toyota Land Cruiser Prado is now sitting in the driveway. This will be our "Bush" car. We have plans to get it tricked out African style, for going on long camping trips. It seat up to 8 people so when we get visitors we can go on game drives , and trek through the bush with no worries.

Mozambique: Day 4

On our last day woke to find a beautiful sunny blue skies. We had breakfast and made arrangements to take a boat to a small deserted island not far away. The few hours we had on that island turned the trip from a potential flop to a wonderful lasting memory.

We got back just in time to catch our 2pm flight from the island to the Maputo airport. The flight from the island was on a 5 seat Cessna (that includes the Pilot). That has got to be the smallest plane I have ever been on. We got to see some great views of the Island, the Indian Ocean and Maputo from that little plane.

About 6 hours later we were home in Botswana to the kids, who's first question was "What did you bring us?".

Mozambique: Day 3

Saturday was to be our only full day on the Island. We woke up to find it was still raining, but it was not quite as relentless as the day before. After breakfast the rain had stopped, so I decided to go for a barefoot run on the beach. It was a great run. I had the quintessential overseas beach running experience. A group of young smiling and waving boys ran with me for a couple hundred yards down the beach. They soon got tired and one by one dropped away behind me. It wasn't long before I was completely alone. Just me, some strange sea birds and the Indian Ocean. After a couple of miles I turned around and headed back to the hotel. I wanted to run farther, but my feet were not accustomed to running barefoot in the sand and were beginning to hurt. Sure enough, when I got back to the hotel room I had big blisters on the tips of most of my toes from the constant friction of the sand.

Although the day was grey, Cassandra and I wanted to do some swimming in the ocean. We took a short boat trip to a reef to do a little snorkeling. The water was choppy and the visibility nearly zero, but we decided to give it a try anyway. I jumped in the water and not 2 minutes later was stung on my right arm by a jellyfish. It wasn't just a small sting either, it covered most of one side of my forearm. Shortly after that a woman on her honeymoon that was with us cut her leg on the coral of the reef. So only about 10 minutes after our boat trip began, we were headed back to the pier.

I nursed my sting for a good majority of the rest of the day. It felt as if I had been burnt by fire, and the pain did not subside for about 4 hours. I kept ice on it, and that seemed to help a bit.

That night the stars came out, and we had a wonderful meal of grilled fish and shrimp while the band played.

Maputo; Day 2

Friday morning we woke to find that the weather was still pretty horrible. It was raining and quite windy. We had booked passage on a ferry at 10am to take us to our next destination Inhaca Island. When we got to the ferry dock we found out that all the boats had been canceled due to the weather.

We went back to the hotel we had been in before to plan our next move. We were told that we could catch a flight over to the Island at 3pm if the weather permitted. So we sat around all day waiting for the weather to improve, and at about 2pm we went out to the airport to see if we could get on the plane. The weather had not improved , and I didn't feel as if there was any chance that our little plane was going to make the trip, but it wasn't long before we were up and off to Inhaca.

When we arrived at the hotel on Inhaca we just relaxed in our nice bungalow style room complete with mosquito net around the bed, and had a nice meal in the restaurant.

We had a bit of bad luck but in the end everything had worked out and we were optimistic about our next day.

Maputo; Day 1

As you may or may not know, Cassandra serves the Embassy HR need for not only Botswana, but Lesotho, and Mozambique as well. This means she needs to travel to these locations about 4 times per year. Cassandra was in Maputo Mozambique all last week , and we decided that I would meet her there for a mini-vacation on my birthday.

I arrived on Thursday to some pretty intense rain, and we went directly to an Embassy function celebrating 25 years of USAID in Mozambique. These traditional drummers and dancers preformed for the event. We were later told that they were not Mozambican, but South African Zulu's. Either way they put on a good show with lots of energy and intensity.

After that we went out to a restaurant for a wonderful dinner with some friends. I had the ostrich, and it was delicious. After that it was back to the hotel to relax and get ready for our trip to a resort on Inhaca Island, about 40 kilometers away.

Last Thursday I received word that our new car had arrived in Botswana. We had ordered this Toyota Landcruiser Prado from Japan in late September and it had finally made its way here. I went down to the shipping companies office so that they could break the seal on the container, and get the car out.

Now that the car is out of the container it needs to be processed through Interpol to make sure it has not been stolen, and then we can get it licenced and registered. So we should have it sitting in the driveway in a week or so. We can't wait.

Shea is 5

Today Shea turns 5 years old. We had a party for her on Saturday at the Embassy Rec. Center. She invited about a dozen kids to come over to eat cupcakes, and play in the sprinkler and slip and slide we set up. It was very low key, just kids playing and having fun.

BSPCA

On Friday Cassandra, Dillon, and I went down to the Botswana S.P.C.A to adopt a cat for Shea on her birthday. I was not sure how many cats they would have at the shelter, since many Batswana have superstitious fears about cats, but there were dozens to choose from.

The S.P.C.A has not only cats, but dogs, rabbits Guinea pigs goats, sheep, and a horse.

We picked out a friendly little black female cat that is about a year old.

More on that later.

Angola National Day

Our next door neighbor is the Angolan Ambassador to Botswana. Yesterday our neighbor invited us over to celebrate Angola's National Day marking 34 years of Independence from Portugal. It was quite an interesting event. They had traditional musicians and dancers performing, and at one point they pulled Cassandra and our other neighbor Marina out of the crowd to join in the dancing. We then found out they were being filmed for Angola national television. All in all a very interesting evening.

Tree Agama

This guy is a tree Agama. This one lives in my yard. We have 3 or 4 of these beautiful lizards living around our property. When they are frightened they can instantly change color to match the tree they are on making them very difficult to spot. In the afternoon they sit in the sun and turn these amazing colors. They get pretty big. One of the Agama in our yard is at least a foot long. This one is about 8 inches.

Rain Spider: In Memorium

This is the Rain Spider, and it grows quite large in southern Africa. I know because I took this picture which is of a specimen approximately 3 inches long in the back room of our house about a half an hour ago.
I know that it may pain some of you to hear this but I crushed it with my shoe moments after photographing it. I was actually a little unsure as to whether my shoe was going to be enough to take down such a beast, but it did very nicely.

T of C

A little over an hours drive north of Gaborone is the Tropic of Capricorn. We had to pull over and take advantage of this photo op.

Khama Rhino Sanctuary Part II: Rhino at the Water Hole

This game reserve has a nice restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also has a small swimming pool for guests to take an afternoon dip in during the hottest part of the day, when the animals are less active.
After taking a dip in the pool we met some friends for lunch at the restaurant. We had a nice relaxing lunch and had just finished paying the bill when this black rhino approached.
We stood only a few feet away in the doorway of the restaurant. He drank from the pool and got rhino slobber in the water we had just been swimming in. He then walked over to where some guys were sitting outside having some drinks. They sat calmly as it approached until one of them couldn't stand it any longer and got up and rushed to the safety of the restaurant. The other two were right on his heels.
After nearly toppling their table the rhino strolled over to where our chalet was ( in the background of the photo) and lay down behind it and took a nap.
There are only about 3600 black rhinos left in existence. We were very lucky to have had this experience.

Khama Rhino Sanctuary: Part 1, The Dung Beetle

We spent the weekend at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. They have these nice little chalets that are well equiped with a full bathroom, bed linens and dishes for about $50 a night.
When we started off on our first game drive in the reserve we came across a couple dozen dung beetles scurrying about on a giant mound of poo. Dillon and I were fascinated by these guys and got out of the car to get a closer look. We took a few pictures and left them to thier work. We got back in the car to continued our game drive. We didn't go more than 25 feet before we saw the depositor of the poo mound; a huge male white rhino just behind a bush from where we stood moments before.
There are not any large preditors in the Rhino Sanctuary, but we decided to stay in the car from then on while on our game drives.
That however was not our closest encounter with a rhino on our trip. More on that in part II.

Flirting with the 21st Century

We are finally back on-line after being without internet access for nearly 2 weeks. That is extremely inconvenient, particularly if you use the internet as your main form of communication with the outside world.
At times I forget that we are in Africa, but 2 weeks without an internet connection is a big reminder.
We are off to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary again in the morning. I hope we get a bit farther down the road this time. We should have some pictures and stories to share when we get back.

Since it's a holiday today we decided to go to the Gaborone Game Reserve. It's a 5 square Kilometer game park located inside the city limits. It took less than 10 minutes to get there including a stop to pick up one of Dillon's friends. We were very impressed at the variety and number of animals and birds we were able to see.

The coolest thing we saw had to be this 3.5 foot long monitor lizard eating eggs out of this underground burrow. When we first came upon this big guy all we could see of him was the end of his tail poking out of the hole. We thought it was a snake until he backed out of the hole with this egg in his mouth. We watched him swallow 2 of these big eggs whole. It was impressive to say the least.

Gaborone Game Reserve

Yesterday and today Botswana is celebrating its Independence Day. Botswana became an independent country 43 years ago.

Yesterday we drove out to Mokolodi Game Reserve, just outside Gaborone. It only takes about 15 minutes to drive out there, and it feels as if you are deep in the Kalahari wilderness, which actually you are. This is a wild place with wild animals. There are no major predators in this area, such as lions and hyena, although there are reportedly a few leopards around. We saw ostrich, warthog, kudu, impala, zebra, baboons vervet monkeys, and springbok, among other things. Last time we were there we saw elephants and rhino, but they eluded us these time around. On our last trip I took the picture of the rhino that is across the title of this blog. We have a family membership for Mokolodi now so we can visit as often as we want.

The Slender Mongoose

I looked outside this morning and was surprised to see a mongoose wandering around in our backyard. I took this picture of it, but as you can see it is not of the best quality. I am not sure how he got into the yard, but I hope he found his way back out. I am glad he came by for a visit, but we are not looking for a new pet.

Fridays at work

Fridays at work in the Embassy are a bit of a zoo. The official hours are 7:30-1:30, because we work an hour longer during the other 4 days. So all of the employees scamper around trying to get work done so by 1:30 on the dot they are running out the door to start their weekends. This is all fine and good for local employees, but Americans are work-a-holics. So, around 1:15 I get a few last minute calls from various folks (especially more senior to me) with requests that simply can't wait until Monday. Then Washington DC people start arriving at work and contacting us by phone and email, and can't understand that we may not complete their requests before the end of their work day, which has indeed just started. So, each week I type quickly, don't take lunch, try not to book to many appointments and try to keep up with the efficient efforts of my Botswana colleagues. And each Friday I pry myself away from the stack of work by 3:00 and finally call it quits. Fortunately this at least gives me a few extra hours of daylight to play with the kids!

What a gift a dishwasher is

I was pondering on Friday, what a gift a dishwasher is. For most of my life I recall having one, though I am sure at some point my parents didn't. Dane and I had one apartment for a short while, that didn't have one and that led to many dish duty disputes. However, we made it through. You sort of take it for granted, and some work better then others. When we owned our own home we weren't terribly worried about quality, we just hoped it worked. We'll I had the opportunity to teach our housekeeper how to use one. This house just got one for the first time, and she had literally never seen or touched one before. She was nervous about "breaking it" and in awe of it's magical powers. So, for the second time I showed her patiently how to put the soap in, load it and turn it on, and reassured her she wouldn't break it. And later started thinking it really is kind of magical. It's the little things that make you wonder some time.

I Fixed it.

I fixed the Land Rover yesterday. The new alternator came in the post, and I had it working within an hour. Now we are mobile again. We are going to keep it close to home for a week or so, and then we will see about another camping trip.

The only American fast food company that can be found in Gaborone is KFC. There are 2 of them here in Gabs'. I am proud to say that we have not gone there yet, and if I have my way we never will.

A small circus troop came to town this week, so we went out to see it with some friends. The show lasted about 2 hours, and had tigers, elephant, clown and acrobats. It wasn't Cirque du Soleil, but it wasn't to bad of a show for less than $10 US, per ticket.

Let me tell you a little story about this car of ours. As I mentioned before, this Land Rover arrived from Japan with a blown head gasket. It was in the shop for 2 weeks.

When we finally got the car back from the shop we wanted to go on a camping trip to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary for the long Labor Day weekend. We were all very excited to get out of the city and see a bit of the country side. After we drove for about 100km I began to notice that the tachometer and the speedometer were acting erratically. At first I thought we might have a short in a wire somewhere, but it became apparent that the the entire electrical system was shutting down. I realized that the alternator was going out and we needed to head for home quick. I shut off everything electrical that I could in the car, and started heading back to Gabs' as quickly as I could. We got within about 60 km of home when the juice finally completely drained from the battery and the car stalled. I got a jump from a nice guy who pulled off to help, but that only took us a couple of kilometers before it died again. We were in the middle of no where.

Thankfully we were able to get a cell phone signal from where we were. After making a few calls, we got the number of a tow-truck that would come out and get us. We sat on the side of the road for 4 hours waiting, but the truck finally arrived and loaded up the car on to a trailer. There wasn't enough room in the beat up old tow-truck for all of us, so Dillon and I, and one of the tow-truck guys sat in the Land Rover on the trailer for the trip back home. The trip home was slow going, and we were afraid that the tow-truck was going to need a tow-truck of its own as it slowly strained and sputtered all the way back home.

The kids were upset about not getting to go camping so we set up a tent in the back yard and roasted some marshmallows over the barbecue.

After searching all of the auto parts shops on Gabs' I couldn't find an alternator for this Land Rover, which seems a bit ridiculous because this is a very popular vehicle here. I went to the Land Rover dealership and they could get me one in a couple of days, but they wanted almost 9000 Pula (over $1200 USD) for it! I had a good laugh about that with the parts guy at the dealership, who I had met a few times before when dealing with my head gasket problems. He told me I should go to South Africa to get one cheaper.

I decided just to order a new one from the States for about $180. So now we are just waiting for the mail. It's been 2 weeks now and we will be lucky if we see it by the middle of next week.

This ends chapter one of what I am sure will be a thick novel on the never ending problems we are going to have with this vehicle.

I saw this cute little bird yesterday just outside the gate of our house. It's a Crowned Lapwing. He didn't seem afraid of me at all. I stood less than 6 feet away from him when I took this picture. I also saw 2 Yellow-Billed Hornbills in a tree a few meters away, but they wouldn't come out of the tree enough for me to get a good photo.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Yellow-billed_Hornbill

I hope I'm not turning into one of these birdwatching types.

Reception

Last night Cassandra and I attended a reception at the Ambassadors residence to introduce our new DCM (Deputy Chief of Mission) to the diplomatic community. There were many local government big shots and Ambassadors in attendance. The food was good, the weather was nice, and the speeches were short.

The Blog Begins

We have been in Botswana now a little under 2 months, so I thought it was time to get another site back on the web so we can keep in touch with all of you back home.
I guess I will begin with a summery of events up to this point.
We have been set up in a nice 4 bedroom 4 bath house about a half a mile from the Embassy. We have a small swimming pool in the backyard that we hope will be warm enough to swim in another couple of weeks or so. The yard is small but nice, and will be really nice after we do a little landscaping.
All of our things from the States arrived about 2 weeks ago and we have been putting things away ever since. We got all the paintings on the wall yesterday so we are about done now.
We ordered a 1997 Landrover Discovery from Japan over the internet. It is quite common over here to get these vehicles from japan, because the prices are much less than buying locally and they are all right hand drive, which we need here. Botswana is a former British protectorate, and because of this they drive on the opposite side of the road like the British.
The Land Rover arrived about a month ago but it has been in the shop ever since. First the head gasket was replaced, which the japanese car company compensated us for, but now the alternator is out. I had to order a new one from the States because there isn't one in all of Botswana that I could find. The mail takes a couple of weeks to arrive so now we just wait.
Things are good at the Embassy. There is alot of work to do, but Cassandra has some good employees to help her out. She already made her first week long trip to Maputo, Mozambique, which is one of the 3 countries she is assigned to (the other is Lesotho). It is the 3rd poorest country in the world, and they need a lot of help.
We have to go, due to a reception at the Ambassador's house. More on that tomorrow.