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.

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!

That quote in the title is an old Botswana saying. I think it is fitting to our cross-cultural goals here as Peace Corps volunteers.

I am leaving tomorrow morning for training in the capital, Gaborone. This training is going to consist of a lot of similar material that we covered at pre-service training (PST) however now that we have all been at our sites for a few months we are able to now take a lot of the skills that we have learned and apply them to real life situations. All of the volunteers in our group (Bots9) have one of four job descriptions: Life Skills (mostly in-school teaching and development), NGO (work with a specific non-governmental organization), DAC/DCL (District Aids Coordinator/District Community Liaison work in the district office coordinating HIV/AIDS focused activities) and CCB (community capacity builders work with clinics or social work offices to help build sustainable programs). The IST (in-service training) combines two groups at a time NGO-Life Skills and CCB-DAC and has them train at different times. Amanda left a few weeks ago. We overlap for a few days then she will return here to Gumare and I will stay and continue my training. This is a bummer because over a month time we will only see each other for a few days. She will even miss my birthday! Over the past few months we have been working on a large report for Peace Corps called the Community Analysis. This report is supposed to detail all the elements of the community and surrounding area that are relevant to our positions here. If you want to know more about the area we live in you should take a look at this report because it profiles the community on both a social and institutional level.

Link to Community Analysis - Gumare

I also wanted to post an update on the work I have been doing on the garden fence. I tried hard to complete this fence before I left so that, as a surprise, it would be complete by the time Amanda came home. Alas, I should have worn gloves because I got quite a few blisters and cuts on my hands and was forced into early retirement.

Here is a photo of Lady and Buster in their dog nest simply because they make me happy.

On Thursday I attended a youth forum where local children from schools all over the district came to learn communication skills and life skills (a common term here for coming of age skills focused around relationships and sex education). I helped Ngwao Boswa setup their baskets to show and demonstrate basket weaving for the children. Another volunteer, Mary Hill, was attending and presenting at the forum. Mary is from the Bots8 group, which is a year ahead of our group. It was great to see another volunteer. Mary even brought me groceries and dog food! Which were very much appreciated because it is quite a journey for us to grocery shop.

Also, on Sunday I was able to meet up with Angel and take some photos of her giving some supplies to some local orphans. In the photos you can see Xwii/XiXae, the young boy I talked about in the last post (I apparently spelled his name wrong before, but that is expected because his language is not even a written language). He is the one wearing red. We found out that his blindness was caused by a surgery when he was younger. The other children are from Tubu, a small village just east of Gumare.

Lastly, here is a photo of our house again. I know I have already posted photos of the outside of the house but I was talking to someone from back home the other day and I was trying to explain how different my house is from my neighbors. This photo somewhat shows that across the street all the people live in much more traditional houses. These rondavels are traditionally made of mud, dung or thatched walls with a thatched roof of reeds collected from the delta. More modern renditions of these rondavels are made of cinderblocks or even have a core made of soda cans that get exposed as the mud wears off.

The reed fence project for our garden continues. It sure takes a very long time to cut the reeds, unsheathe it of the outer layer to make it look better and then weave it to the fence. Once it is done it will look wonderful and will protect our garden. This brings me to my next point. Our garden plants seem to be mysteriously dying. I will be the first to admit I have very little experience gardening but things were going so well until we put the seedlings in the actual garden bed. A few times, we have noticed that some dogs (not ours) have gotten into the garden to lie where it was cool. I also think the neighborhood chickens have gotten in for a snack. Either way, once the fence is complete the garden will be secure and we can replant a few things.

Furniture! We finally have furniture in our house! This was a very exciting day. We now have a nice small dining table, a soft futon and a great bed to sleep on, all brand new. We will upload some pictures or a video of the inside of our house soon.

I have been working with a local drama group for the past few weeks. We are working on focusing the group's performances on community social issues. They already have a skit addressing gender-based violence and now we are collaborating on getting other issues such as HIV/AIDS, TB, condom usage and multiple concurrent partnerships, which are all huge issues here in Gumare as well as Botswana as a whole. This country is obsessed with soap operas. Everyone watches them. In Molepolole at training both our 13 year old host brother and our 80 something year old mother loved to watch "soapies" any time of the day. This drama group hopes to capture this fascination by creating dramas that we will record on video that address these targeted social issues. Tune-in in the coming months for these videos. We have a tentative plan to start shooting in September.

One of the first people we met when we came to Gumare was a local restaurant owner by the name of Angel. Angel has kids of her own but also looks after many orphans in the community by serving them food, giving them clothes and sometimes a place to stay. Angel approached Amanda and I to help her with starting a new NGO. She wants to establish an orphanage here in Gumare that can serve the children in a more sustainable way than she is currently able to do. One night she brought a friend of hers to our house. Xini (I cannot really spell it or accurately describe how to pronounce it, let's just say it involves a lot of clicking) is a young boy who doesn't know his age. My guess is that he is around 12. Xini is completely blind. He lives here in Gumare with his aunt and uncle at the VDC (village development committee) houses, which are basically welfare houses. The problem is that his aunt and uncle are alcoholics who spend all their time at traditional bars called shabenes. So, Xini sits at home in fear that people will once again break in or that his aunt and uncle will come home to take the food the government gives him so that they can sell it for more alcohol money. Angel's dream is to help the seemingly countless cases like this in our district. We look forward to helping Angel through the initial stages and into the future of her new adventure.

The Peace Corps philosophy on sustainable projects starts with assessing the community needs and then helping to initiate projects that the community actually wants to do. This is what nearly all of my projects have been so far. However, I have to admit that I secretly and selfishly want to start a project that no one has yet asked for. I want to raise bees. Apiculture has long been a Peace Corps focus around the world but there are currently no Peace Corps beekeeping projects here in Botswana. In fact, even outside of Peace Corps, beekeeping is not often practiced in Botswana. The main reasons being that it is hard to keep African bees in a desert and that it really is not a tradition of any of the people here. The government has had multiple incentives and educational pushes to get people interested in beekeeping but with little interest. I have put out a few feelers and have found a few men interested in the project. The next step is logistics and planning. Wish me luck.

This past week Amanda has been gone for training in the capital. I will go at the beginning of next week and then she will come home. It will be great to see all of my friends/fellow volunteers and also to brush up on my language training, both Setswana and English. That was only partially a joke. I am sure most people who have lived in an area where your primary language was not the most spoken language would agree with me in saying that your primary language somewhat degrades. Therefore, it will be good to get to learn more Setswana and to speak normal American English with my friends.

After traveling around the beautiful Tubu area we went just north of Gumare on the main road, turned east to a "lagoon" as they call it (it is really large streams meandering through cattle grazing land from the delta) and set up our Braai. It was a beautiful day! Not too hot, blue skies surrounded us and we could hear the brilliant cacophony of nature's melody. It is quite amazing to stand out in the bush or delta and just listen. It is loud; but not of 80's music, American rap, cars, chickens and dogs, like it is in the village. It is a chorus of hundreds of birds (all different species), monkeys, water and even cows. And nothing else. Going out of a village is a wonderfully relaxing experience! On our drive in we actually saw a family of monkeys and of course all different types of birds. We hung out the whole day cooking, playing cards, playing guitar and exploring for monkeys and other critters.

It was a wonderfully short work week. : ) One interesting thing though- While in the office reading, Amanda met a man from Nxangwa (the 'x' is a click behind your teeth!), about 240K away, who had come to Gumare to sell his crafts. This meant that he had to hitch about 200k from his village to the main road, then take a bus the rest of the way. He was walking around the government buildings going office to office with a bag of handmade decorative bows and arrows- smaller replicas of the real thing used by the San people. They were beautifully made. This man was very humble (a characteristic not commonly seen when I first meet men) and his initiative was inspiring to me. So I took him around to a few people I knew and asked him if he had been to the Basket Weaving Co-op yet. He said he had, but they hadn't wanted to buy them. I had the idea of connecting him and his team of craftsmen to the craftswomen who make and sell their baskets right there at their store front. We have been trying to help the basket-weaving ladies in their endeavourers anyway, and one of their major needs at this point is diversification. So here it was, walking right into our office! The head lady from the Coop is gone until August however, so I told him to come back in a 2 weeks so we can go together to convince them to let these San craftsmen sell their bows and arrows in their store. At this point, I think it will be really good for both parties!

So as you can see, some of what we do here is just thinking outside the box for people…connecting them and their skills to the rest of the village (or in this case, area) in meaningful ways.

We still have no furniture beyond a bed in our house (yes, still!) but we did go to the furniture store this week and get a quote so hopefully we will have a table and couch this next week. We did buy our first basket from a neighbor woman who is part of Amanda's organization (Sekgele Training Home Society), making it our first piece of home decoration.

Our chameleon friend has moved on but the dogs are getting more and more comfortable at our house, making nests in the sand around our house (to stay warm, or cool). We also got a new, rather unwanted houseguest, a cute and tiny mouse. He is about the size of a large marble and as fast as a bullet! Amanda named him Willis J

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.

Last week I was reading the posting board at work and came across a very interesting post that is uniquely African. The post read "auction of animal skins." Below that, it listed off the types of animal skins that would be auctioned: crocodile, zebra, kudu, antbear, lion, cheetah, and leopard! We anxiously waited for the following Friday to roll around and headed to the auction. (A little pretext to this is that Amanda really wants a Zebra skin to hang on the wall for some reason and I just really wanted to see what this crazy event must be like.) At the auction were about 20 different skins of animals laid out on the sand. The interesting thing to me was that they had not been tanned in a proper way; they simply looked like they had been cut off the animal and put into rock salt. The wildlife department then went over the auction rules all in Setswana (I only speak basic conversational Setswana.) Apparently, the rules were that you had to be a citizen and have a trophy license. Bummer. The skins were then practically given away at auction. They sold for between P25-P70 ($6-$10)! Amanda haggled with one of the game dealers to try and get him to sell us a zebra for twice what we bought it for but he said that he could tan it and sell it to South Africa or overseas for P4000. After talking more with the people from the wildlife department we learned that these animals had either been killed by car or shot by farmers protecting their stock, they also sometimes confiscate skins from illegal poachers.

Last time I think I mentioned that bats live in our attic. Well, last night we confirmed that the creatures that shriek and squeal all night are not primarily bats but a family of large owls! We went outside and shined a light onto the broken water heater on our roof and sure enough, 3 owls were sitting there staring back at us. They like to hiss and scratch their nails along our metal roof about the time we are going to bed, but other than that they are cute.

I would say that we have discovered a newfound love of cooking but really, it is newly found time for cooking. We do a good job of keeping ourselves busy during the daytime but since it is winter, it gets dark early. We have really cooked some amazing meals. I will have Amanda write up a post all about it. We have significantly fewer resources but more time to be creative.

Last week I discovered a chameleon living in a bush in our backyard. A few weeks ago when I was clearing the yard I almost removed the bush but decided to keep it and I am glad I did. He has been there for about a week now.

Today we are headed up to Shakawe –about 2 hours north- for and HIV/AIDS candlelight vigil.