Geographically, the two things we miss most about Washington State are the mountains and the ocean. Unfortunately, Botswana is landlocked and has very little in terms of elevation change. That's why we decided to go on a vacation to South Africa, with three other volunteers.

For the first leg of our journey we headed to the opposite end of Botswana. Once out in the "nose" of Botswana in a town called Selibi Phikwe, we met up with the three other volunteers we were about to go on an adventure with. The five of us rented a truck from a man living in Phikwe who another volunteer often rents from. We stayed the night with some of the most hospitable Peace Corps Volunteers in the world, Chuck and Marry. The following morning we woke with the sun and threw our bags in the back of the green 89' Hilux that we (I) mistakenly "the Hulk" (there was nothing ferocious about him.) The drive to the border was very typical Botswana, consisting of big open "sandveld" with the occasional small village and family farm. At the border, we made our first wrong turn. Who doesn't sign mark a border? Botswana. Once through the border and over the bridge into South Africa our scenery changed immediately. First world infrastructure was evident even in the details. The small villages were now proper towns with robots (stoplights) and the small family farms of Botswana were replaced by sprawling commercial farms. Also, the roads were real roads with proper signs and lines and free of potholes and farm animals.

We knew our first day of driving was going to be a long one but due to construction and the fact that the hulk couldn't go faster than 100K/hr it took much longer than we had planned. The drive was beautiful and took us along the southern border of Swaziland. After 16 hours on the road, we made it to St. Lucia just in time for bed. St. Lucia is a beautiful little tourist town on the east coast of South Africa not far south of Swaziland and Mozambique on the Elephant Coast. The town was quiet and charming since it is the offseason. We were told that the town has about 500 people in the off-season and balloons to about 2500 in the busy season. St. Lucia has many amenities a tourist town should, a couple of grocery stores, restaurants, hotels and trinket shops. We found a lovely little coffee shop so Amanda could get her fix. The coffee shop had wonderful coffee and croissant with beautiful artwork all over the walls.

We decided to go 30K north of St. Lucia into the iSimangaliso Wetland national park for our day at the beach. Cape Vidal is a picturesque beach with warm turquoise water and endless untouched pristine sand in both directions. Only about 20 people, and an equal portion of monkeys at the tree line, populated the beach. The Cape Vidal area is well known for sea turtle nesting during this time of year, but we didn't see any. In the afternoon, four of us went for a walk down the beach and Amanda stayed behind to relax and guard our things. When we returned from our walk Amanda told us a story of how she was mugged! Apparently when she was resting a group of American girls near her started yelling "watch out, watch out, he is going to steal your things!" looking she saw a monkey on the edge of her towl. She tried to shoo the monkey away but he immediately lunged at her and she jumped back. This happened two more times before she relented and let the monkey grab our "cheetos" and run away to feed his family. Crazy monkeys.

On our drive back to St. Lucia through the park we decided to take some detour loops for some game viewing. The great thing about this particular park is that it has such a wide variety of wildlife, especially for being right next to the ocean. We saw all of the usual deer/antelope type animals, buffalo and hippos which are all fun but we wanted to see some things we had not seen yet, and we did. We saw a family of rhinos (which were briefly mistaken for hippo) that included two big adults and a baby. A little farther down the road we came across a group of zebra in the road. We stopped the car and stared at them as they stared at us. The patriarch of the harem was in the middle of the road stomping his hoof. Then instantaneously they all turned and ran! I popped the hulk into gear and we gave chase. The frantic scurry that followed was a dozen zebra and Kudu running away as we chased them, hanging out the windows of our truck and yelling, "This is just like Lion King!" Never thought I would do that in my life. This was my favorite day of the trip.

The following day, 240K and a handful of change in tolls south we made it to Durban. Durban is South Africa's third most populous city. It is home to a beautiful beach skyline, an architectural wonder of a World Cup stadium and the largest population of Indian people outside of India. Our hostel sat just 30m from the beach and had an amazing view. We went to a movie our first evening in Durban. It was half price Wednesday so how could we not? We saw the movie Due Date (sounds like chic flick but it's not). The following day we spent the morning swimming (or getting pummeled by waves) on the world famous (to surfers) Durban beach called The Bluff. Then we headed down to the Victoria Street Market or Indian Market as it use to be called. Driving a big truck (on the left side of the road) with a big roof rack through Indiatown with thousands of people walking all around was hectic to say the least but once we squeezed into the off ramp of a parking garage and started walking around it was a lot of fun. The "market" was not what I would classify as a real market because it was filled with identical shops with one of two things inside: African souvenirs or Indian spices. After Victoria Street market we headed down to the south beach waterfront. We had a great sushi and seafood dinner at uShaka marine park.

I wasn't too sure about the drive to the Drakensburg mountains the following day because the hulk's power to weight ratio was lacking to say the least. It turned out to be fine because we were faster (barely) than a few semi trucks. Sticking with the theme, the drive was beautiful. We drove through Pietermaritzburg; the town Ghandi formulated many of his ideas. We also drove through Howick, which has a 100M waterfall right in middle of town. The town is also noteworthy because Nelson Mandela was arrested there on his way from Durban to Johannesburg. The hostel we stayed at in Drakensburg had a beautiful 360-degree view of the mountains including what is known as the Ampatheater. This area felt a lot like the Teton area with big open fields and towering mountains. The Apatheater is home to the world's second tallest waterfall, Tuegla Falls. On our full day in Drakensburg we headed up to Royal Natal National Park to do the gorge hike. The hike was absolutely amazing! The trail was a slow incline for miles into the ravine where we eventually had to cross the river a few times. Small waterfalls fell from the steep rock walls which surrounded us. Unfortunately it got too late for us to make it all the way to the top of the trail but it was a great 5 and a half hour day hike to say the least.
Tuegla falls is partially covered by clouds in the distance

We finished our trip with another long drive back to Botswana, bringing our total to 34 hours and 2600Km. Our trip to South Africa was a great break from village life. We would like to thank our friends Parisa, Sydney and Slo for a great vacation.

On the 17th Todd and I celebrated two gloriously fun years of marriage!
Can that be true? Two whole years already? It seems like it was just last month...I can remember every detail from that weekend and I swoon when I think about it :)

It was the happiest experience of both our lives' and we look back on our wedding weekend and honeymoon with full hearts and great gladness. We both want to again thank everyone who was involved with making this important occasion absolutely perfect! You will never know just how much your contributions mean to us and how special every little thing that you did for us was.


Moms and Dads, you were key through all of it. Thank you for everything you spent (and continue to spend) on us; your hard-earned money (yes you've done your jobs, we know the value of it), your eagerly-spent love, time, concern and thought. You were all so very generous and supportive through it all! The rehearsal dinner was a ton of fun, the pictures beautiful, the venue stunning, the subway lunch before the ceremony a relief and the honeymoon, magical! Every minute of the experience was perfect.

The Wedding party- April, Rachael, Patti, Sara, Angela, Scott, Kyle, Bill and Claire- you guys made the weekend perfect and very special. We are especially grateful that Angela and Jeff made it across the state with their first and only 8-day old baby! Thank you for all coming ALL the way to Spokane to be there with us. Thank you for verbally committing your support to us in front of an audience, for the rest of our lives. Thanks ladies for helping with last minute details, throwing me a fantastically fun "bachelorette shower", the amazing spa morning, being there through all the little moments, getting me ready, keeping me fed and watered the day of :), being excited and having fun the whole weekend, including at the party and being incredibly supportive from the moment I broke the news to you about the proposal! Bill and Claire it was very special and memorable that you agreed to read us our vows. Each of you did so many generous and kind things for us and were so excited with us- we cant thank you enough.
Thanks to the husbands who helped their wives and also gave them up so they could spend the most amount of time with me! Dustin, Frank, Daniel, and Jeff, you are all great friends and were very supportive.

Our MC's Troy and Matt- you made the party more fun and lively!!

Luke Tushar and Kenta Matter- you played beautiful music that made the ceremony much more rich and precious to us and set a fantastic mood! Thanks to Luke's wife Kelsey for running our luggage to and checking into our hotel room-big logistic piece taken off of us.

Thanks to Wendy for that amazing surprise suite-upgrade at the Davenport Hotel :)

Bryan Saftler, you took a lot of time and effort off my hands by mixing our party music, setting it up and making sure it flowed right through the night. It was perfect

Frank ensured all of the kids were dressed, being helpful and were ready to go on time while mom/wife took care of primping me. Thank you, you were all a very special addition to our day! I'll never forget the joke you boys tried to play on me before the ceremony too (sorry, I can’t be fooled).

Amber Halpin took amazing photos (engagement and wedding) and was too much fun along the way!

Aunt Patti, Kris, Mom, April and Alicia all threw me beautiful, fun and memorable bridal showers!

Pastor Matt performed a lovely and happy ceremony and we were glad that we were able to have a friend and confidant do it, even out-of-town.

Travis Widman and Bill Kabasenche took care of the big logistical issue of transporting all of our gifts and other items back to our house in Pullman- thank you for taking that issue on with ease!

And to the rest of our beloved guests: your presence there was more important than you will ever know! You created the memories of the most important day of our lives and we will never forget you. We can still remember each of your faces at the ceremony as we stood on the stage, as we served you communion and as we walked down the aisle and out the church. We remember laughing and talking with you at the party, reliving stories and toasting with you, and will never forget the fun of dancing with you! You made it magical. Thank you for driving the distance, through the winter weather to be there. Thank you to everyone who joined us the next day in our suite for more conversation, we had a blast and were grateful to have the chance.


We look forward to the many more years we get to share with you all as a married couple!


hugs and kisses on our two-year anniversary
Amanda

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.