Firstly, apologies to those of you who keep up with our blog for this extremely late entry. We have been having lots of internet issues over the last month. And before that, well, I guess we were just being lazy. :)
Also, due to the internet constraints I am not able to post any pictures- sorry! I will keep trying...



Around here everyone referrers to December as the Festive season, as most people recognize Christmas (or gather with their families during that holiday anyway) and the New Year. As Americans, our Festive Season is a little longer of course, with the addition of Thanksgiving. We were amazed and warmed at how well we could actually replicate our American traditions in Botswana this year!!

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving day we traveled about 40k north to Etsha 6 where the next closest volunteer, Alison White lives. She planned a traditional Thanksgiving feast at her house to include us, 2 other volunteers, 3 other American students she met who were living nearby and several local friends, as a cultural exchange. Each volunteer brought a traditional American dish and Alison (somehow!) was able to order a whole turkey in the city of Maun and transport it the 3.5 hours home! We arrived around 2pm with our sweet baked pumpkin, homemade rolls and apple crisp and helped prepare the feast. We couldn’t believe how well everyone replicated our favorite Thanksgiving foods with what is available to us here and what was sent from home! Alison managed to cook the turkey PERFECTLY in the erratic Botswana oven (there is no temperature control in ovens here).

After all was said and done in that blazing hot kitchen, the food was paraded around the living room for the Americans to gawk, squeal and clap at and take too many photos of. There was a thrilling sense of pride filling her tiny living room. A sense of camaraderie and even patriotism that only an American holiday of gluttonous feasting can do for a group of ex-patriot 20-somethings living in Africa! We set up the buffet and surrounded the bird with a green bean casserole, apple-nutty-delicious stuffing, sweet baked pumpkin, whipped potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls and gravy- amazing! After this buffet was set out Alison gave a small speech to our new national friends about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the traditions thereof. Then, going around the room, everyone said what they were thankful for this year. It was beautiful.

Later on, we discussed the more modern traditions of Thanksgiving, including: the Thanksgiving Day fast, methods and timing of fitting the most food in your stomach, the Thanksgiving Evening Graze, and popular Thanksgiving Leftovers dishes. We rounded out the evening with pumpkin pie and my apple crisp.

Though each our own families’ Thanksgiving meals are of course our favorites, we could all agree that Thanksgiving dinner had NEVER tasted so good! You come to understand the laws of relativity much better when you live in a developing country :).

CAMP

The following day Allison, Heidi and I (Amanda) took to the road with 27-13 to 16 year olds from 6 different schools to Tsodilo Hills (Mountain of the Gods) to lead G.L.O.W. Camp. G.L.O.W. Club is a world-wide leadership club for teenagers which stands for “Girls and Guys Leading Our World”. The camp aimed to teach Leadership and Life Skills (a teaching buzzword in this area of the world) over the course of 6 days and 7 nights. What a hard job! We worked at least 15 hours a day, with the help of 6 other teachers, rounding up kids, leading sessions, playing games, making sure the food was being prepared and forcing them to bed. But after all the hard work, it was well worth it. And it was nice to finally see a change in elevation and lots of trees. I lead a session on Assertiveness and Self Confidence and helped Alison and Heidi on a Gender Equality session.

I had a really great time leading Assertiveness and Confidence, as I got to see the girls and boys think through the meanings and application in their lives as leaders. The real-life situations that I posed to them in activities made them think through why assertiveness is important in protecting their rights and dignity and that of others. This topic is not something that is normally taught in the home, due to the culture of subordinating youth in this part of the world. Many Americans would probably be appalled at what children are made to do- without question- by (any) adult here. However, one has to remember that it is not necessarily bad- it’s just different. And besides, they would probably be appalled at how kids are babied in America.

The gender equality session was a little rougher since this is a big issue Botswana is still grappling with. They are culturally a patriarchal society and for a long time multiple concurrent partnerships (cheating) has been condoned amongst men. The male teachers and even some of the male students held to these ideas to some degree during discussions and activities without shame, even in front of their female counterparts. There were many strong opinions that we had to respectfully listen to on the topics of cheating, transactional sex and gender roles. As independent, strong American Women, this was of course very offensive and we could only do our best to turn these into teaching and critical thinking moments.

Overall, the camp was an extremely positive experience for all and the kids had a great time. They especially enjoyed the American games! Junior school is such a critical time for kids in Botswana and the hope is that these teens can use the things they learn at camp to affect and lead their peers in their respective schools.

During this week Todd got to go to the National World AIDS day celebration in Palapye where he got to hang out in a tent with the president and hear him make a speech. Here are some photos of the event.

CHRISTMAS

When we returned to Gumare we were surprised with FOUR packages from home, and 2 more packages came the following week- Thanks family and Travis Whidman! On this VERY exciting day we also were shocked to find that we could buy a mini Christmas tree and decorations at a shop here in our own little village. So on December 3 we opened boxes of wrapped gifts and stalkings and 2 care packages (sorry Travis, we didn’t wait until Christmas :)), put up our tree, hung the decorations and placed all of our wonderful gifts under our tree. It was a very happy day and a reminder that Christmas was approaching.

A Christmas candle from April

Homemade stalkings from Isabelle and Sophia, my nieces

The tree

The finale

Wow!

It’s strange to live in a place like this in December, because everything in our environment tells us that it is summer and nothing points to Christmas. The weather is painfully hot, the smell of barbecues (known as Braii) hangs in the air and it is light out for at least 14 hours a day. In addition to not being able to bundle up in layers of clothes, there is no commercializing of the coming holiday to be seen- no Starbucks eggnog latte’s in Christmas cups, no lights being strung on houses, no village decorations and Christmas trees, no hustle and bustle at shopping centers. There was also no family to make plans with and no Advent services to attend at church. And we have grown very much accustomed to not keeping track of time… I only generally know of what month I am in at any given point :). So there was really nothing to remind us that we were in the Advent season and Christmas was coming soon- until of course, this blessed day that Christmas joy came in boxes!

We decided to spend Christmas day trying to make a nice dinner at our house and invited Alison to enjoy it with us. We were given a cut of our Kgosi’s (chief's) cow (we think as a thank you for coming to his daughter’s wedding that month?) so I thought it would be nice to try to dry-roast this 5kg hunk of meat. So Christmas morning came after the traditional opening of one gift the evening before and a sleepless night of sugar plums dancing through our heads, and we awoke to a Christmas miracle! No- not snow. But cloudy, cool skies and eventually rain! The day before it had been 104 degrees, so you can image our excitement at this wonderful break from the heat. We opened stalkings, made some good ol’ fashioned hot chocolate sent from April’s family, and tore into our gifts. We were like kids opening Christmas presents at Disney Land! It was very exciting. After hours of reveling in these blessings we had a traditional Christmas breakfast from my side of the family- homemade overnight cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs (mmm) while listening to my new Glee! Soundtracks (Thanks Kris and Doug!).

Allison came over later with some homemade eggnog (amazing!) and one of my GLOW kids came over to give us a gift and visit. We also delivered some M&M cookies we made for friends, explaining the Christmas cookie tradition that many of us embrace. After dinner we finished off the evening with more eggnog and a Christmas movie on the laptop...which we all fell asleep to half-way through.

It was the merriest Christmas we could imagine in Botswana, thanks mostly to all the cheer friends and family sent our way!

Animals!

Amanda and I decided to take a vacation to a village called Kasane, in the most northeastern corner of Botswana. Kasane sits on the border, near the junction of four countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Botswana). The village also sits against the Chobe National Park. Chobe is famous not only for having the largest concentration of elephants in the world but also the largest concentration of game on the continent. The best time to go to Chobe is during the dry season when all the animals make their way to the river, which is one of the only permanent bodies of water in the area. Once the rains come the animals all disperse because water is easier to find. The first rains are usually expected in early November. Therefore, needless to say, we saw a lot of animals.

We took two days to get to Kasane since it is impossible to ride the bus there in one day; the schedules just do not match up but I guess that is the price we have to pay to live so remote. We took the bus to a village by the name of Nata where are friend and fellow volunteer Sydney lives. Nata is a village that is about the same size as Gumare but since it is on a main junction to two of the biggest tourist destinations in Botswana (Chobe and the Okavango) it has a lot more infrastructure. We had a lot of fun visiting Sydney and seeing her village. We also got the opportunity to go swimming at Nata Lodge, which was a great treat. Nata sits on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pan, which is the world’s largest collection of salt pans covering an area of 6,200 square miles. The lake that used to be here some time ago was bigger than Switzerland.

On our ride up to Kasane we could start to see more and more trees and eventually elephants! At first it was just the lone bull wandering on the side of the road. Once we got closer to Kasane, whole families started appearing on the side of the road. It was funny to see six huge elephants huddled under an acacia tree battling for shade.

The Kasane area is unique in so many ways to the rest of Botswana’s villages. I have heard that Botswana has over 3.5 million cows. In our village, there are cows, donkeys, goats, dogs and chickens running all over the place. Kasane on the other hand, has none of these, except a few dogs. What it does have is a plethora of other more wild animals. Warthogs run all over town eating from gardens and chasing one another through the street. It is also not uncommon to see small monkeys and baboons stealing from garbage bins.

We camped at Chobe Safari Lodge which is a ridiculously beautiful four star lodge sitting on the Chobe river and borders the Chobe National Park. We really felt like we were cheating the system by camping in our little tent for P70 ($10) per night and having full access to the amenities of the lodge. The lodge has an enormous open thatched dining area and bar with a pool overlooking the river. Around the lodge we saw warthogs, monkeys, banded mongeese (and yes the plural of mongoose can be mongeese, and how much cooler is that than mongooses) and at night we could hear Hippos eating. From the pool deck we could see elephants eating along the river, hippos coming up for air and huge herds of buffalo grazing on an island.

Chobe Safari Lodge

Dining area and pool

Amanda giving a monkey a leaf, just ‘cause

Baby monkeys are creepy

Warthog at our campsite

Before we left Gumare a friend told us to call his mom because she ran a safari booking company in Kasane. After a day of relaxing at the pool we called Joyce. If you have ever seen the Botswana based movie/TV series Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency (apparently it’s now on HBO) then you can imagine this woman. She is just like the main character on that show, the most kindhearted motherly African woman we have met since coming here. Moreover, this correlation might stem from the fact that she named her booking company after that show, Number 1 Ladies Travel Agency. She came and met us at the lodge and offered to put us on any bookings she got that we wanted to go on; all we had to do was pay the park entrance fee! She called us later that evening to say that we would be joining some Germans on a six hour safari the next day leaving our lodge at 6 am.

The next morning we woke up early (which is hard to do when the hippos keep you up all night) and hopped on the waiting safari Land Cruiser. Our guide was the inspiringly knowledgeable Gaba (pronounced ha-ba) who could name every animal, tree, poop and track we asked him. The unavoidably bummer part about going on a game drive out of Kasane into Chobe is that all of the drives pretty much leave at the same time so it’s a bit of a traffic jam for the first few kilometers. Most people book a three hour drive but we got put on a six hour drive which allowed us to spend a lot more time driving out farther than most of the other truck. Gaba told us that a lion has been hanging out in the area the past few days so we should all keep an eye out. The sandy road into the park follows the river where the largest concentrations of animals hang out. We saw so many animals! We saw Impala, giraffe, hippos, elephants, kudu, sable, steenbok, gemsbok, crocodiles, warthogs, baboons, ostrich, vultures, eagles, storks and many other birds. And yes, we did find the lion. We actually found two! Both were females and both were resting separately in the shade of shrubs. On our way back to the lodge we had to drive right though large herds of elephants that were on their way to the water for their afternoon swim. It was exhilarating to be completely surrounded by Kalahari African Elephants, the largest living land animals on earth.

Young male Kudu

Lion track next to an Amanda track

Upset elephant

Kori Bustard, the world's heaviest flying bird

Large male kudu

Amanda was proud of taking this one

Vultures eating a young buffalo

Warthog family

Proof God has a sense of humor

Buffalo with 'issues'

The female lion we were tracking

Gaba says this baby is only a few weeks old

Elephants were everywhere

Hippo island

Once we got back to the lodge we went swimming in the pool and got another call from Joyce letting us know that a boat would be by to pick us up at 3 to go on a sunset boat cruise. The boat cruise felt even more crowded than the first few kilometers of the game drive. Even though our double-decker boat only had six people on it, the river was full of other boats enjoying the same sunset animal viewing. On the boat, we saw crocs, hippos and many elephants. We cruised up the river for a couple of hours and watched the sun burn out while floating next to a big solitary female elephant who was gently plucking her dinner from the grassy island next to us. This is Africa.

Baboons scare me

The hippos are always watching

Yes, that many elephants

The baby doesn’t gain use of its trunk until 6 months

Smiles

Because of Joyce we saved a lot of money. What did we do with that saved money? We went to the giant buffet at the lodge of course! Not once but twice! In a row! Dinner and breakfast! It was quite possibly the best collection of food I have ever seen. Maybe this was skewed by the fact that we have been living in Africa for the past seven months, but I don’t think so.

Happy Amanda

Happy Todd

The initial plan for the 4 day Independence weekend was to go to Kasane, the best place to see animals, with some friends. However, Amanda decided she didn't want to ride a bus for nearly 900K just to stay two days and make the return trip. We decided that a Kasane trip would be another time when we would actually take some vacation days. So, we decided that we would take a minivacation in Maun. We go to Maun often because it's our grocery shopping town but we never get to do the fun tourist things.

We made reservations at a place called Maun Backpackers. It's a well known, small, budget outfit along the river. We got a very reasonably priced "tent" right on the water. It was beautiful! I use the word tent but it's more like a canvas room, complete with a full mattress and a bed stand. The camp just recently emerged from the flooding and you could see on the way in that many of the roads and bridges had to be remade. I wanted to go to the small game sanctuary but it was still underwater.

The first night in Maun we spent our evening around the bar at the camp chatting and making friends with some local safari guides. We decided to book a Mokoro day trip for the next day to see if we could go see some dipologolo (animals - my new favorite Setswana word, because its fun to say)

We left the camp just after 8am to get to our motorboat at Maun River Lodge. The motorboat took us up to a small village where some mokoro polers live. We were paired with a Canadian couple who were living in Gaborone while on sabbatical at the University of Botswana. We then set off in two small wooden dugout canoes. Ok, that's a lie, they were made of fiberglass. As disappointed as we were that we were not getting the authentic mokoro experience we were happy knowing it was all for the sake of saving old growth trees that are usually used for making the traditional mokoros. We glided along through the reeds of the delta in our gondola style transportation for a few hours. It was a wonderfully refreshing experience to be on the water after so long. A couple of hours into the trip an elephant was spotted. The rather unfortunate thing about being in a canoe in tall reeds is that you have to stand up to see past the reeds and we all know that standing up in a canoe can be a tricky feat. The elephant was on an island hidden behind some bushes relaxing in the shade of a tree. We really could only see his back. We moved on and slid our canoe onto the shore of the island. Our poler took the 4 of us on a walk-a-boute (Canadian funny, haha) around the island to see what animals we could see. Nothing. We saw the same elephant from a different angel but he was still hidden in the bush. The guide pointed out a lot of "shits" to us but, once again, the middle of the day is a horrible time to see animals. We did get to see a big baobab. When we got back to our boats we were excited to have some lunch and rest in the shade before our trip back. Unfortunately, our lunches were forgotten back at the camp. The trip back to the village was equally as tranquil as the trip in.

On Saturday we were able to have our most stress free shopping experience in Maun since we had a guaranteed ride home with our friend from Gumare. On the ride home I saw an elephant on the side of the road eating from a tree but Amanda wants me to forget about this and refuses to admit that it happened because she was sleeping.

We have decided that we wanted to have people see what our village really looks like. This is a tricky feat because just walking around taking photos of things draws a little too much attention, as if simply being white wasn't enough of a distraction. We have decided to create a virtual tour of our village by mapping our covert snaps onto Google maps using panoramia. Check it out. Check back because we plan to continue to add to this over time.

Like I mentioned in the last post Amanda had been in the capital for training. Then I went for training and we overlapped for a few days before she came back here to Gumare and I stayed for my training. All together we were apart for about a month minus those few overlap days. The training was called IST or in-service training and serves the purpose of getting us up and moving after the initial few months of settling in and integrating into our communities. It was a great opportunity for all of the volunteers to come together and share about all of the adventures we have had over the first few months at our sites. It was a great opportunity for us to share our successes and failures to learn from each other. The training was in Gaborone, which is a legitimate city, so we were all able to do fun things we are used to doing in the states, like going to a poetry jam, karaoke, and an art museum.

After the first two weeks of Peace Corps training some of the volunteers stayed (or came back) for STEPS training. STEPS is a South African based video collection that teaches about many social issues around HIV. The video collection consists of about 40 videos that were filmed all over southern Africa. They range from documentary style films to scripted dramas. The training helped us to gain the skills they deem necessary to facilitate a conversation that will hopefully invoke thoughtful conversation and eventually some type of behavior change. I really enjoyed the STEPS training and I'm excited to do screenings in our village/district.

Unfortunately my birthday was during IST which meant that Amanda and I were apart. But It was nice to spend it with my other volunteer friends. I was sick for a few days on either side of my birthday so it was rather uneventful (and strangely Amanda was also sick for 10 days of her IST as well). The following Sunday however a group of volunteers decided to go to a game reserve just outside of town. Botswana has an abundance of both private and public game reserves. However, what makes this specific one unique is that they not only offer the typical game drive but also have two tamed cheetahs! The cheetahs were saved as kittens after they were abandoned near the village of Ghanzi. The two brothers have lived at the reserve for the last 14 years. Some of our group decided to go on a game drive and pet the cheetahs and the rest of the group decided to forgo the game drive and just pet the cats. I went for the full package as a birthday present to myself. The game drive was a fun experience but somewhat unsuccessful because it was close to midday. We saw lots of impala, some kudu, ostrich, baboons, warthogs and hippos. Absolutely the highlight of my trip to the park was getting to pet the cheetahs. They live in a relatively large enclosure within the main reserve. Entering the enclosure through the double gates felt a bit like Jurassic Park even though I knew that inside was not a dangerous dinosaur but an oversized house cat. As we made a tight turn on the narrow dirt road, a friendly feline was laying right in front of us sleeping in the shade of an acacia. We all hopped out of the Land Cruiser and followed the guide over to the cat. He bent down to rub the cat's head and you could instantly hear it purr. Each of us took turns petting him. We then walked down the road to where his brother was sleeping. His brother, Duma, is darker and a little bigger. As we were petting Duma the other cheetah must have got jealous at that point because he got up from his resting shade and came to join us with Duma. It was an amazing experience to be so close to a big wild cat. I will post videos soon.

When I joined Peace Corps I imagined many ways that volunteers would travel through their country of service: bus, train, car, horse, donkey cart. I never imagined that as a Peace Corps volunteer I would be traveling by airplane. When we travel for official reasons the Peace Corps office will reimburse us for the travel. This usually comes in the form of reimbursement for bus fare or even an overnight in a hotel for the volunteers who cannot make it from the event to their site in one day. For Botswana, this is all of the volunteers in the Okavango Delta panhandle. The Peace Corps will now reimbursed us for flying because the cost of flying and getting to site in the same day is cheaper than taking the bus and having to stay overnight. Amanda and I both took flights from Gaborone to Maun to allow us to get home in one day. It was a wonderfully comfortable, one-and-a-half hour flight that included a delicious breakfast! We are both VERY excited that we will never have to make the 2 days bus trip down to Gabs again!

When I returned to Gumare I was happy to find that many of the trees in town were in bloom. The acacia have thousands of small round yellow balls. Another tree in bloom seems to be a full size tree version of a lilac; it really reminds us of home. I was also excited to see that I had some birthday cards that sing to me! Thanks family, grandma and the Williamsons!

As I write this blog there is a looming strike for government employees. This includes all health workers, teachers, public service workers and administrators (basically, everyone). I sat through a meeting Friday morning with the District Health Team, of which half of the meeting was dedicated to deciding just how public health facilities go on strike. We will keep updating on how the strike goes. As far as I know, it is a strike over salaries and has happened before, peacefully.

This week I read the BAIS III. The Botswana AIDS Impact Survey III is a comprehensive analysis of the HIV/AIDS situation of the country. I have skimmed the 350+ page document before but this time I actually set down to read it. If you are at all interested in HIV, public health, or statistics the BAIS is an amazing study. It uses blood sampling and questionnaires in a census type analysis. I will do a whole blog post with statistics for the country and our district/village at another time.

(Amanda: ) Yesterday we were invited to our first party in Gumare! It was an anniversary dinner party for Mandate and his wife OB. Mandate is the only other white person in Gumare (Dutch) and has been married to a very kind Motswana woman for 7 years now. Entering their plot (a family compound) was like stepping into a magazine story about how to throw the perfect outdoor African dinner party. Having the 'western' influence in their home meant that their place was build for beauty and comfort, not just utility like other plots in our village. The entire place was clean and beautiful. They had a traditional rondaval, a small modern cinderblock house and a new, large modern house. OB has lived on this plot for a very long time so it was interesting to see how she has been able to graduate herself from the most meager of homes to a modern house, including electricity and satellite tv. Their yard was groomed and included a beautiful variety of trees, vines, green plants and flowers. Beautiful brightly colored prints of fabric from around Africa floated in the breeze from the porch rafter. In the center of the yard stood a gazebo-style open rondeval, wired for music and lights, decorated with flowers, plants and a table set for 10. We were greeted by OB, whom we actually had not met before. She was probably the most kind, warm and inviting woman we have met so far! We spent the night in the cool breeze, drinking wine, eating great food (and it was even Setswana food!), laughing with new friends and dancing. Some of the best fun of the night involved the 11 neighborhood kids who came over to blow up balloons and dance for us right when the first notes of music started. This party came at the most opportune time for us and served as a much-needed break from the hot, mundane activities of keeping our house in order! Overall, we both agree it was the most fun we have had since living here. And we are happy to now be friends with the Butcher, the Baker and the chicken farm chicken seller!