Last Sunday we headed up to Shakawe with the assistant District AIDS coordinator (ADAC), Dawn. Shakawe sits North of Gumare along the Okavango River and only a few Kilometers south of the Namibian border. We went to there to help with the AIDS candlelight memorial. The memorial was held at the Kgotla (the Chief's community gathering place), which sits right on the river. The memorial was surprisingly well attended considering it was the night of the final World Cup game. At the memorial people sang songs, prayed, gave speeches and shared about how they are either affected or infected by HIV/AIDS. It was a beautiful evening. I will record some video of the next candlelight memorial we do. I think it will be in Seronga.

We took our dogs to the vet this week to get their rabies shots. Once they give them the shot they mark their head with a red paint to designate the dogs that have been vaccinated. Officially, Lady(bug) and Buster (Butters) are our dogs but a third dog, which we lovingly call Scrappy, has adopted us. Scrappy gets his name from due to his overall worn out/broken in and unhealthy condition and demeanor. He appears to have had gotten into a bit of trouble in his days. Most notably, he is missing fur from his side in a pattern that appears to be telling of hot oil thrown on him. If I had written this post Saturday, I may be telling how we really like scrappy. Sunday, on the way home from church scrappy decided he wanted some goat for breakfast. Normally when dogs back in the sates chase animals I just laugh and expect that in the rare chance that they actually catch an animal they will not know what to do with it and will just end up letting it go. These dogs on the other hand have a more wild instinct that has a full repertoire of killing skills (as their breed "Kalahari Hunting dog" describes). Scrappy convinced our angels Lady and Buster to help him wrangle a goat. In an instant, they took off at full speed away from us and once they caught the goat by the neck, they proceeded to pull it around. It quite literally looked like a scene from Discovery Channel where the wild dogs get the antelope and pull it apart! Luckily, for the goat I quickly ran over and stopped them from actually killing it. Then as we were leaving the scene of the crime Scrappy went back to the poor goat and had a one-on-one with it, staring it down, barking at its face and trying to nip at it. By then some other dogs had joined in the fun as well as a local man who started pelting the dogs with rocks. In this country, a predator of any kind will be stoned or killed if it hurts or badly affects a heard livestock. We were scared that our dogs would get caught up in this fight when the owner came out and we would have to watch them be killed. Luckily, we were able to (barely) contain ours while the scene played out in front of us. As Amanda, lady, Buster and I walked away we wondered if Scrappy would no longer be coming over for dinner. Bad Dog! He did, he is outside cuddling with Lady and Buster in the dog nest made of reed scraps.

Our garden is coming along great! The seedlings continue to grow and we are continuing to plant more. We have been working hard (one of us more than the other) constructing the reed fence that will eventually wrap around our whole garden and keep the animals out. Making the reed fence is very tedious but rewarding.

Last week I mentioned that we now know that the critters that live in our roof are owls. Well, this week I got photographic proof of the family sitting on the power pole behind our house. They appear to be Barn owls.

I also wanted to mention a few difficulties and frustrations we have been facing. We are very blessed beyond many Peace Corps volunteers around the world because of the fact that we have running water and electricity in our house. The electricity goes out a few times a week which is not a big deal we simply switch on our flashlights if it's dark. The biggest issue we face on a near daily basis is water outages. See, here is my frustration: If I didn't have running water in my house I would be OK with that; I would simply walk to the community standpipe and collect my water once a day and it would be alright. However, when the water goes out at our house we have nowhere to go. This is such a problem in our area that many of the houses in our town have what is called a "Jojo" which is a large, usually green, water container that sits outside the house and is connected to the gutters of the house. The Jojo collects water during the rainy season and is used when the water goes out. Our Jojo is empty, disgustingly dirty and is not even hooked up.

Another frustration that we find worth noting is the ignorance toward white people that many people in our community seem to have. Well, not necessarily white people just any non-african people. As we walk around town some community members both young and old will shout out "makgoa! makgoa!" which is the Setswana term for white person or foreigner (Literally translated- "those who were spit out from the sea" linguistically historical to European trade ships). I don't see this as intentionally derogatory or rude, just ignorant and very annoying. After that comes "Mpha madi" which means "give me money." Because if you are not black, it is assumed that you have more money than you need and that you have an obligation to give it to others, just because they want it- NOT because they need it. Very few people here need money, as the government provides them with pretty much everything. When we are in many general stores, butcheries or restaurants we will often be served last, people will cut in front of us and clerks will ignore us. Amanda adds: she is often harassed by men who all seem to think it is their right to marry an American girl...she handles herself and puts them in their place well, though. There are many other examples but I will limit my complaining time.

I see these as pieces of ignorance that will be challenges for us. Ignorance is something for us to tackle as we focus on one of the primary goals of the Peace Corps: to share American culture and understanding with the rest of the world. We now know what it feels like to be a racial minority and a foreigner at the same time, it's hard.