Okavango Delta!

So we just got back from our vacation at the Okavango Delta in Maun and it was AMAZING! It was just what we needed. While there we stayed at Audi Camp and camped out – it was very nice but also very cold, especially with the nights getting down in the low 40s. We were gone from Wednesday night the 25th and returned this morning the 30th at 6am…. Here is how the story goes:

Wednesday the 25th –

Today we ran around Gaborone like crazy to get our visas extended. We had to get it done today because they were going to expire while we were in Maun. And since they only gave us 30 days we had to get it extended another 30 days. It was such a sketch process as well – well first we went to the wrong place… twice! Then once we got to the right place we had to pay a guy 2 pula – who sat right by the railroad tracks – to write us a letter and then we got the letter and we took it into this little outdoor shack area and they stamped our passport! So after a long day… we did get it done!

Then we packed and left UB at about 8pm to catch our overnight train to Fracistown! I bought a sleeper ticket which made the ride much nicer.


Thursday –

We arrived in Francistown around 8am and then walked to the bus station and got on the bus to Maun. Very crowed, hot, and smelly. 6 hours later we were in Maun!!! We got a taxi to Audi and then spent the rest of the day getting settled and checking out Audi. The camp was great. We had tents with cots and then they had outdoor/open air showers – hot too! The restaurant and bar there were great too – we ate there every night… and they also had a pool! We finished off the night with a nice relaxing dinner.

Friday –

Today we went horseback riding! My horse’s name was Sammy and it was a fairly small horse – but good for me. The owner of the horses told me that it was the horse her kids rode on. On the ride we went through trails, woods, bush, and even two ponds/lakes. I had water up to my waist while on the horse still.
Jayne and I were defiantly the most inexperienced at horseback riding. We sort of stayed in the back and took our time; however, I had to be careful not to get too close to her horse because it liked to kick. We stopped in the middle of the ride to have a picnic. It was so wonderful – the food, view, and company made it such a memorable experience. I did get better at riding though, or at least felt more comfortable. I even trotted and cantered with Sammy!

The horseback riding only took up half of the day – which is good because I was very sore. We went back to Audi and spent the rest of our day lounging around the pool. Even though it does get very cold in the night it is very nice and warm in the day. Lying by the pool really made it feel like we were on a relaxing vacation. We had some appetizers by the pool and then had dinner at Audi again – and we got dessert too – chocolate moose!

Saturday –

We woke up very very early to the very cold and then got on an open safari vehicle – which if you haven’t seen one in my pics, it is like a truck with open bench seating on top – no doors or windows. We rode on here for 2 hours in the freezing cold!!! I was very cranky. Most of the drive was through the bush and open land through trails so it was a neat drive – just hard to enjoy in the cold. We did see some zebras and we also passed through several little villages. It was neat to see all of the traditional housing and amazing to think how people survive and live in such a remote area with such limited resources. We stopped in one little village and just picked up several people in our safari vehicle. None of us knew what was going on, it felt very random.



Soon we were dropped of by a stream that leads off the delta right next to the mokoros and we learned that the people we picked up were our polers – the mokoro operators. It was very quite and serine – a beautiful sight - and it continued on the mokoro. First Marinda and I were together on the mokoro with our poler. It was peace on the water; we were pushed through a stream of crystal clear water with bush, water Lillis, lily pads and tall grass all around. It was breathtaking. When we got of the mokoro we went for a bush walk. Here we learned about trees and animals. We saw some zebras and the bones of an elephant! We then we to a small camp site and had another picnic lunch and back into the mokoros for the ride back. Again just as beautiful. It reminded me of riding a gondola in Venice - but the scenery was much different – still beautiful but calm and peaceful. On the ride back I rode with Jayne in the mokoro. This time we saw a giraffe – we were just going around a corner and I saw this giraffe right to the side of us. I couldn’t believe how close it was! And we had a bit of a hippo scare.

So we have all wanted to see hippos since we have got here – especially Jayne. We are in the mokoros and Jayne and I were in the front of the 3 different mokoros and all of the sudden our poler stops and the others behind us halted. We all hear these dull earthshaking stomps and we look to our poler and he says that he thinks there is a hippo. So you think we would be excited – but no. Jayne and I sort of freak out a little. Even though we want to see a Hippo – I want to see it through a zoom lens. We have learned that Hippos kill more people here than any other animal. Read about hippos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus. And we have also learned that they charge pretty easy and are very protective of their water… so Jayne and I were quite concerned. Where would we go if there where a Hippo? Can’t really jump out of the mokoro and swim to the tall grass and swamp. Jayne asked our poler if it was bad if it were a hippo and he said yes and told us to keep quite. Our mokoro – since we were in the front - proceeded forward while the others stayed back. Danielle and Marinda, who were behind us, wanted to see a Hippo and found it very funny that we were scared. All I could think about is what the headline in the newspaper would say back home, "Six KSU students killed by Hippo." In the mean time Jayne and I were holding each other and keeping our eyes shut - like if we didn’t see it couldn’t hurt us! We soon made it around the corner, and no Hippo. What a relief. We still want to see one, but not swim with one!

This is Jayne and I holding each other as we creep forward.

A story from our mokoro poler: He said, “I want to tell you a short story and then I have a short question.” We said okay, and listened… here is the story. “So you are dreaming and you see yourself in the wild and you see a lion and it is coming after you, so you run and you climb up a large tree to get safe. But when you are up there you see a very large snake that is up there with you. What do you do?” Jayne and I both opted to stay with the snake. We then asked what the right answer was and he said, “You are dreaming, just wake up.”

We soon took the 2 hour drive back through the bush and wildlife and then returned to Audi. We had another great dinner – fish!

Sunday –

We woke up early and took the bus back to Francistown and then sat around there for 5 hours waiting to buy train tickets and eating dinner. Then we took the overnight train back to Gaborone. We got back to UB a little after 6am. It was a long journey and a wonderful and relaxing vacation. It was very nice to come back though. It was weird because on the way back to Gaborone I got excited to come home – but home to UB. Going away really made me realize how much I have come to consider Gaborone/UB home. It really has become a home away from home. I feel safe and comfortable here. I like my bed and I get excited to lie around and read, or cook dinner with my flat mates, or play cards together. It really is a home here.

Gamodubu and the Goat...

Today we went out to Gamodubu - a very small village / town area. The preschool teacher from the Old Naledi Education Centre, Teacher Shelly, goes out here on Saturdays to prepare food and feed kids in this village, and she invited us to come help this Saturday. It is a very small village - many of the kids have to walk very far to get to the feeding area. And the feeding only happens on Saturday and it is done with very little resources. There isn't even running water and they prepare food there weekly for up to 140 kids.

It was a very very interesting day filled with moments that are just put into the experience added box! The day went from sunrise to sunset and it was quite the experience starting from the ride there.....

(a picture montage will explain the day... better than I could)

Our ride there was is Teacher Shelly's old truck - the 7 of us, 2 others from KSU that came back for their second summer, Teacher Shelly, her Old Man friend (really what she called him), and one of her sons.... so 12 all packed into this truck. You can imagine the ride; it was about a hour drive.



When we arrived at Gamodubu, Teacher Shelly informed us that they were giving the 7 of us a goat!!! A GOAT! WE WERE GIVEN A GOAT! And we got to see it through the whole process. They just tied up our goat for awhile, why we cooked and played, and then later in the day they slaughtered it, skinned it, gutted it, and hung it on the fence. They cooked the liver there - which I tried - pretty good. When we left we sacked it up in a bag and took it to a butcher - and now it is in our freezer! It was such a nice gift, and very traditional of the culture. It was really an amazing gift and cultural experience - but not what we are used to at all. It was amazing and shocking at the same time. Sorry about the pics if you have a soft stomach.





While the goat was still alive - we were taken on an African Taxi. Gamodubu is so small and poor that the transportation around the area is by donkey. Most of the kids arrive to eat and leave on these African Taxis. It is much safer for them, because people hide in the bush on the side of the road.


We learned to make papata! This is just like a yeast bread that you knead and knead with flour and then put it over the fire to cook! It is very delicious - and filling! We took home many!


And I can't forget we met some amazing kids...




And it ended with a beautiful sunset.... before 10 of us all crammed into the back of the truck - with our goat on top!


It was a full day, but a great day. We are hoping to find another Saturday that we can come and help again. Especially since many of the kids could not make it today - we want to meet more of them.

You need to be secure

Today, after working at Tlamelo, we went to a football (soccer) game in Old Naledi. Some of the boys in my class, Standard 5, were on the team - it is a school team - so we went to watch our students play. Since several of us had students playing in the game we all went. They were all excited to have us there - their teachers! However, Jayne and I had to go and buy train tickets so we could not stay long. When we got up to leave the students were still warming up for the game and some of them stopped us. They told us that it is not safe for us to walk alone to the combi in Old Naledi. They said that there are thieves. "You need to be secure" is what they kept telling us. We tried to tell them that we would be okay and that we didn't have anything valuable on us - they checked our bags. Two of my students, Kagiso (ka-he-so: meaning peace) and Thapelo were very much against us walking alone. So the boys said we needed someone to walk with us and they got some of their friends to walk us to the combi station. One of them was Tebogo - another student in Standard 5. He took his job very seriously and held our hands the whole way to the combi and then helped us get on the combi and told them to take us to the combi station. He was not going to leave us there without putting us on that combi. He is only 12 and so sweet.

Pictures:

In the front right is Mosimagape or MooSix for short and in the back middle is Thapelo. They are both in my Standard 5 class and Thapelo is the one that always says that he is sad when I am not there - what a jokester.

Kagiso is on the right here; he is also in the Standard 5 class. He is the goalie for the team and tomorrow is his birthday - he will be 18. I wish he were smiling - he has a great smile.

The team photo. It was like school / sport picture day for them, they kept asking for their picture to be taken. None of us were able to stay the entire game, and last we heard they were loosing by 1. Although they play pretty well considering they don't even have a coach. I guess Jack got asked to be the referee 2 times today and the coach 3 times. We keep telling him he should take that on!
This is just one of many experiences that make me fall more in love with it here. It just warms the heart a little - and makes me smile. It seems like we keep having amazing experiences here - especially with people. Even today at the grocery store the man who stood in line next to us was incredibly nice.

The past week has been good as well. We have just gone to Tlamelo during the day, and I helped in Standard 5 on Monday and Wednesday. I have really enjoyed being in the classroom. I have come to realize that the teacher in Standard 5 is big on rewards and punishments. On Wednesday the students took an agriculture test and after I graded them the teacher gave the students who had the best scores a little piece of cake. And Thapelo - who is so sweet - gave a little piece of his cake to everyone in the class. Thapelo always tells me that it is a sad day when I am not in class. The teacher is also big on punishments because on Thursday - yesterday - the students had a religion test and they told me they all got hit (with the stick?). When I asked why they said that they all copied on the test! I told them that they shouldn't cheat. I don't like that they get hit, but I don't feel it is my place to say anything - different culture. At least she is big on rewards as well.

This week we also booked a lot of our travel plans! This coming Wednesday, the 25th, we will board an overnight sleeper train to Francistown and then a bus to Maun. In Maun we are going to see the Okavango Delta and we are staying at Audi Camp. While there we are going to go on a Mokoro day trip - which is a traditional dugout canoe through the delta. We are also going to go on a horse back ride around the delta and have a picnic!

In about 3 weeks, around July 11th, we are going to Victoria Falls. Again we will leave on Wednesday night and arrive on Thursday in Livingstone, Zambia. Only 3 of us are going on this trip, Jayne, me and Marinda, because the other half is going to see the Falls from the Zimbabwe side. While at Victoria Falls we are going to stay at Jolly Boys. We are going to check out the falls, I want to go bungi jumping!!! and we are going to do a day trip into the Chobe Game Reserve. There we will go on an open safari in the morning and then finish with a sunset / picnic boat ride on the water!

Our last week in Africa - before we fly home - we are going to Cape Town, South Africa. We have figured out where we are staying and many of the activities but nothing is booked yet. But it looks like it will be tons of fun! Some of the activities are climbing Table Mountain, the Cape Point tour and the all day wine tour! More information to come!

Standard 5

Today I started volunteering at the Old Naledi Education Centre. It is right by Tlamelo and classes are in the morning so I had to get there early. I am helping in Standard 5, which is supposed to be similar in material to 4th or 5th grade, but the students are older than a 4th or 5th grader. This is pretty normal due to the life circumstances of the kids. There are 16 students in the class and all are very kind. Overall I really enjoyed helping in the classroom. Although it was also a very interesting experience. Classes start - or are supposed to start - around 8am. The teacher for standard 5 was there, but not in the classroom. So after waiting and sitting around for about an hour, a student finally asked me to teach what was on the chalk board - only problem was that I didn't know how to teach what was on the chalk board, I didn't know where the text book was, there is somewhat of a language barrier, and I don't know how they are used to learning! So I found the teacher and told her that I am not trained to teach, but I can assist and help the students. Hopefully I can learn about teaching though, as I continue to help. So she taught the lesson - which was a grammar lesson. School in Botswana is less about learning and more about memorization. Students have exams that they must pass to not only stay in the school system, but also to move on.

Methods are much different here as well. Today, during the grammar lesson on pronouns, the students were asked how many parts of speech are there? When no one replied, my teacher told me that they were just there to forget (vs. to learn). So she then went up to each student individually and asked them the questions - when they all did not get it right she hit them with a stick! Not hard enough to make them cry or to cause a bruise or deep pain, but it was obvious they didn't enjoy it. Within minutes they were laughing again.

Because of the lack of funds, the school can only afford the bare minimum of text books. So all the teachers have the text book and they just write straight from the book on to the chalk board for the students to copy. Today I wrote notes on the board. It took me an hour to write it all! It was about the weather and how to judge weather conditions.

After writing all of that I spent the rest of the day doing math problems and helping the kids with their math assignment. For some it is quite difficult to even do the basics, and for others they are really eager to learn and understand it. All of them are great kids though. One boy in particular, Thapelo, asked if I could give him and his friends English / American names. This was a very sweet gesture of the boys. I didn't quite understand it at first, but it is not uncommon for people here to give us Tswana names. So I gave him the name Brad. Tswana names are all very neat though... they generally all mean something.

It was a great experience, and I am very excited to be able to help more and get to know the kids better. They are so willing to learn and so sweet.

Kgale Hill!!!!

Yesterday - Sunday - was a great day! We climbed Kgale Hill. It is one of the highest points in Gaborone - or least it looks that way! We met a guy from Canada, Luke, who volunteers at Tlamelo on Thursdays. He has lived in Botswana for about 2 years and he offered to take up Kgale Hill, along with his roommate Gram. So we all did it! At times I was on all fours rock climbing, and then when we were walking there weren't really any trails... it was just bush, trees, and thorny bushes! Once we got to the top though... it was breathtaking! We could see over most all of Gaborone, the University, the stadium, the Gaborone Damn, and even some hills into South Africa! We took in the view at the top for about 20min and then made our trek back down the mountain! HA! It really was quite the hike, and a great work out. I learned that I really enjoyed hiking as well! Hope to do much more of that... hint hint Chad!!!

The pictures describe it better than words...

Kgale Hill as we drive up to it - more like a mountain!

Me hiking up!

We found the top...

At the bottom of Kgale - we conquered it!

It really was an experience that made me just fall more in love with this country and area. It is so wonderful and beautiful here, I can see how it would be easy to not want to leave... or to want to come back to Bots.

Behind the sunshine... things are becoming real

Things are starting to become more routine. We are pretty much going to Tlamelo daily now. Some of us will probably be going to Mokolodi Game Reserve (I will) at least once a week, but Tlamelo Feeding Project is seeming to be out main focus. Also since the Old Naledi Education Centre is right by Tlamelo we were helping / teaching in the classrooms on some mornings. I will start help in standard 5 (close to our grade 4 – but some of the kids are older) on Mondays and Wednesdays. Today we all went in the morning to help out in the school. Some helped in the preschool – since one of the teachers was gone – and I helped, along with Jayne and Marinda, to put covers on all of the books for Old Naledi.
I am excited to start helping in the classroom. However, those who have already started helping the classrooms say that everything sort of becomes more real – and some things sort of lose their sunshine and rainbows. I guess you just get to learn more about the kids besides the few hours a day that we see them for lunch. We get to learn more about their home lives and challenges and I think because we do only see the kids for a small amount of time and they are all happy then, that we are sometimes naive to all that the kids have to deal with and live with.
Today we got a big reality check. Champ – the coordinator for the Tlamelo feeding project – took us all around Old Naledi today for a tour of the village, to meet some families that live there, and see where some of the kids live. We were shocked. We see the village when we ride through it on the combis to get to Tlamelo / Old Naledi Education Centre, but walking around and taking it all in is quite different. To sort of paint a picture of it… there is dust and dirt everywhere, that is all that the roads / pathways are. As you walk around you see make shift fences made out of car hoods, pallets, wire, sticks… anything, and then the house looks like crumbling brick / stone. The houses are about the size of a small bedroom.

These are some pics of the little shops in Old Naledi - not much different from the houses. You see most people outside – hand washing laundry, cooking over a fire, or just passing the time. The kids that you see outside are often shoeless – and there is glass shards and dirt everywhere – in raggedy clothes, and many make up games with there surroundings – which consist of trash, old aluminum cans, broken glass… anything really. There is also no clear definition of area or streets in Old Naledi – at least not to me. It is sort of hard to see where some property begins and ends, and also how many families live in a house – because many houses have several doors – as if there are multiple houses.
It was also hard to see where some of the kids that eat at Tlamelo live. It just makes it much more real. They are now much more than just a smiley face wanting to play while they eat lunch. Before coming to Botswana – we were informed that it is estimated that in Old Naledi about 90% of the population is HIV positive. I think I am just sometimes naïve to the real struggles that are going on in this village, and a lot came to reality today.
Champ also took us on a house visit. A group of about 11 of us all were on the walk around Old Naledi and we all crammed in this small one room house – that was maybe 7feet by 10feet (I am bad with measurements). And inside there was one small love seat couch and a bed made of just blankets (not even a mattress) on the floor with on women there. We learned about her – she had four little children who she was supporting, and her mentally challenged sister was taking care of her. This woman had been lying here – on these blankets on the concrete floor in this one room house since 2006 because she was paralyzed from the waist down. We couldn’t find out why because she spoke mostly in Setswana. She is also HIV positive, her husband left her a few year back, and the government is kicking her out of the one room that she rented. She had to be out in 6 months. They don’t know where they will go; her, her sister and her 4 little children. This was a lot for us to take in. Even though this woman had all of this going on in her life, she still smiled at us and she was so beautiful. It was amazing to still the hope in her. How could you still hold on to hope after all that? I think that is truly amazing. Champ and his friends come and pray with her a couple times weekly. He asked if we had any words of encouragement to say to her. Jack and Marinda tired to say something nice, but for the most part we were just speechless. Seeing this as we were all sitting on the floor in this tiny room was a lot to take in. We are still taking it all in and reflecting. The thing is, this is just one family. Many if not all of the families in Old Naledi have challenges just like her.
My throat hurts right now… like many of us. It is so dry and dusty walking around in Old Naledi and it is just hard to breathe in.

On a little bit of a happier note... I have really come to love this little girl Charity. She is about 2 or 3 and so beautiful with her big eyes. She is a bit hard to get to smile, but when she does it is wonderful. When she gets out of her preschool and sees me she runs with both arms open into me - and smiles. She makes my day. I don't understand her, but I don't need to - she still makes my day.
Things are still going well, and we are still having a good time – things are just more real now. We expected before we came here that we would have different levels of depth and feelings with the service – and it is just part of the experience.
Miss you all – I hope you are all doing well – there are thoughts of you from Africa!
Wish I could show more pics of Old Naledi or the people we met, but it just wasn’t an appropriate time.