Why I count on the P.O.

If you want to send me snail mail, I'd love to receive it, although post those letters now. My Canadian friend's boyfriend in Argentina sent her a birthday letter in November and she has yet to receive it. A post card sent in January just arrived.

Send it to me at Desert & Delta Safaris, Private Bag 310, Maun, Botswana

Waiting by the acacia tree and the termite mound for your post... Maria

A "bush" room of her own

Monday in Maun

I’m at Bon Arrive` the café across from the Maun Airport, where I’m waiting to meet Kim. She and her husband, Stuart, own a mobile safari company and live in a thatched, storybook house by the Boro River (although not within view of the water but a quick walk). I’m preparing to hand her many pula to rent the cottage on the property – a modern, beautiful place, a one-bedroom studio-type space with a deck from which to watch an array of bird life. Dare I say I might do yoga out there, albeit without a mat?

A Canadian volunteer who works with an NGO, Living With Elephants, is finishing her 5-month stint today. She said this was the best place she found in all of Maun, and now I’ll be taking her place. Hooray and Huzzah, Huzzah!! It’s great news because the cottage is in the bush, definitely scenic, and yet in a fenced compound that should provide a safer setting than some neighborhoods. Kim is fun, too, so I’ll have a new friend to hang out with....They are here....

…They have just left my table. It’s a done deal. I officially am their renter. I met Stuart, the husband, and their son, Kyeren, who has agreed to work with me on a new children’s story when I move to their place. I think he’s 9. He is quite excited by the prospect that we will work on a story together. I said all I need to know is that he is an adventurer, and he assured me he is.

This is a load off my mind to have a home to know will be mine come July. The next challenge – a huge one – will be finding transportation. The thing about the cottage in the bush is, it’s in the bush. So I won’t be able to walk around and find a combi or a taxi, but I figure if the best cottage in the village landed in my universe when I met Andrea on my first day in Maun, on Feb. 26, then the rest will sort itself out in due time. So now I’m having a nip of red wine to celebrate and checking out the pilots at the next table – you know, I would really love to learn how to fly planes here – but they look hardly older than the little boy Kyeren. Neither instructors nor dates who are pilots appear on the horizon, only a top-notch rental property. That’ll do.

Sorry I don’t have a photo to show you. You’ll have to remain in suspense until later.

Meanwhile, I stopped in to see my stand-in Maun parents, Joe and Cathy Wanzala of the “Are we ever happy we have an Obama bumper sticker!” fame.(See the bottom of the first page, blog photo) Cathy was pleased to hear about the Boro River cottage and assured me that they will still be keeping up with me, including being on the lookout for a bakkie (i.e. a truck) or a Land Rover. Tomorrow, I fly by bush plane to the Savute Camp at the Chobe Naional Park to sleep again under the Southern Cross and listen for the sound of lions.

Let’s roll!
(p.s. This will be my last entry for a while. Know that your emails have been uplifting and your support is felt miles away, across the globe. Thank you. And the story of my night out on the town --and village at the Jazzbrew -- with Sechele will have to wait.)

Wanja Njuguna

Friday

I wanted you to see Wanja Njuguna, the media studies lecturer I helped during March. A formidable Kenyan who is an Obama fan and a single, divorced mother of a seven-year-old, Wanja is tireless, but even she was feeling the burden of teaching four classes and advising the UB Horizon student newspaper this semester while trying to make sure her son had proper attention. She looked as if she had received a Christmas gift when I showed up on March 2 and said, "Tell me what I can do to take a load off your shoulders." She happily unloaded a lot of tasks and teaching. I'll describe more later about the UB experience. But for now suffice to say that Wanja and I were struck by how we had similar paths: She wrote about domestic violence and won "the African Pulitzer" (CNN's African Journalist of the Year); she was a hospice volunteer; she got a major U.S. journalism fellowship (the Knight at Stanford in 2002-03) and was an intern at Time magazine, as I was in 1992.
We said goodbye yesterday, but I feel sure we'll be in touch or have our paths cross again before too long.

More from Moshupa

Friday

Since this is a dandy Internet connection, I'll post some more photos. You can't imagine how difficult it's been in some of the cafes to get photos uploaded. I usually give up in frustration, so now Stuart Leavenworth will know why I fail at times not only to take the photo of the Giant Insects from Outer Space but to even consider posting it. It would take too long. But not here in the lap of luxury, where at this moment next to me a white American woman is having a serious minister discussion with black Africans about Robert Mugabe and the election tomorrow in Zimbabwe. If she has her way, God will move Mugabe right out of power. At least that's what my eavesdropping tells me.

But I digress. Back to the photos: So now you can see the hymn-singing time at Spankie's going-away party, the place where we tied on the feedbag of goat meat and the huge pots and pans that the teenage girls had to wash and allow to dry in the sun. Just remember, the sounds of Africa were "Waterloo, finally facing my waterloo" by ABBA. Why, we heard all the hits of ABBA for hours.

The Feng Shui of Rondevals

Friday

I wanted to see how this Internet connection will work here at the Gaborone Sun, where I am going to have drinks soon with Blessing from the media studies department. Here are the traditional houses of Botswana. One is at the national museum. One is at Puni's aunt's house in Moshupa. People keep them on the grounds as "a museum" to how they first lived, Puni said. At least that's the case with her aunt, who now has a larger peach colored rectangular house complete with a big TV and stereo We stopped in last Saturday to say hello. It's very much the tradition here to pay respects to the elders. The shocking thing is Puni called herself an elder the other day, and she's 46! aieyeh!

TB patients on the lam

I see that the New York Times is reporting today on TB patients being locked up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The patients have a drug-resistant strain and have been put in hospitals surrounded by razor wire, but the patients have been breaking out of what they consider a prison to go visit their families.
This is not news I'm seeing in the Botswana press. But it does explain a lengthy television ad about tuberculosis that aired yesterday on the SABC television station we get in Gabs. It went on about how people should be tested and they could be cured if they have the disease.
What caught my attention was the odd announcement at the end, which said that the only thing that spreads faster than TB is "a positive attitude." Quite a juxtaposition.

ABBA out of time, out of context

Tuesday

The party on Saturday at what might be termed Casa de Spankies turned out, not surprisingly, to be a treat.

Puni took me to her home village, southwest of here, called Moshupa. It's about an hour's drive, which had us meandering past rolling hills that sometimes look like those of the Texas hill country and other times resemble Arizona's rocky mesas. With all of the rain, the shrubs and trees appear lush, the grasses high. And, of course, we had more rain that day, confirming once and for all that I am indeed worthy of my Sechele-given nickname, Mma Pula, Ms. Rain. (If it rains on someone's wedding day, it's a big blessing here. Think what my nickname means and what responsibility I carry. I paid close attention at the Botswana National Museum to the “traditional medicine remedy” for making rain: It involves a hairball from a cow’s stomach. Need I say more?)

The party honored Spankie, Puni’s childhood friend and a 41-year-old woman whose birth name I’ve yet to determine. Spankie is what everyone calls her. Her little sister is Spanklet. The regal matriarch, mother of Spankie, Spanklet and various sons who have no “Spank” in their names, is Mma Spankie.

I can’t begin to describe how honored I felt to be among this family and the people from the village who had gathered to wish Spankie and her daughter well. The two will be traveling on Saturday to Tunisia, where Spankie will be working on a 3-year contract for the African Development Bank as an accountant. This was a going-away party and my turn to witness the kind of event that I so cherished in the U.S. before I left to come to Botswana. It started outside on a porch. The family’s minister gave a talk, which was translated into Setswana by another man. The minister assured Spankie that she would have God’s protection and the love of her family and village to support her. He told her that it would be difficult going into an unknown land, as her “sister from the United States (me)” could well understand. There were Bible verses read and a chorus of teen-aged girls who sang, “Lord, I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.” Spankie made a speech. I even raised my hand and asked to say something. Not in Setswana, I assure you. Not yet anyway.

“May the people of Tunisia show Spankie the kindness and generosity that the people of Botswana have shown me; that is my wish for her,” I said. Everyone smiled and nodded once it was translated.

Spankie and I bonded right off. She liked what I had done, setting off for the unknown with my savings and a simple, overwhelming yearning to be in Botswana. She’d been wanting to travel out of Botswana for 10 years. The job interview and the job offer this time came easy, and consequently she felt she was destined to go to Tunisia. She felt confident, and I encouraged her to maintain that outlook.

After the spiritual portion of the party ended, it was time for lunch. I’m well on my way to becoming an African foodie. Several of you have asked me about the cuisine. This occasion provided another round of distinctly traditional fare. The table was piled high: barbecued goat’s meat, a chicken stew, morogo greens, palichay (sp??), mashed potatoes, butternut squash, tossed salad, beet root salad and a porridge. The men, in charge of the barbecuing, which is called a braai, sat under an awning near the fire. The women elders sat inside. The teen-age girls were the servers and dishwashers. They hung around outside in the back courtyard. Spankie, Puni and I sat with the men. They taught me how to eat dessert: a form of sugar cane. With my feeble attempts at Setswana and my nigh-on dangerous attempts at stripping the outer casing from the sugar cane – “Watch out; you’ll cut yourself!!” I heard that many times – I was as good as the party clown. Not the party mime. The party clown.

The other entertainment? Tunes coming from the opened trunk of a car. First it was something pleasantly funky called “township jazz,” but the group soon tired of that and asked for something different. Comfort, a dentist from Swaziland married to Spanklet, obliged. Next thing I knew, “Mama Mia” was playing. ABBA was singing full blast, and I couldn’t help but think of my Austin friend, Sandy Garcia, who would be jumping up and down and groovin’ if she were at the party. There is no ABBA fan more devoted than she.

Under the blue and white striped awning, stripping sugar cane with my back teeth, sitting among relaxed elderly men and younger ones reading the sports pages, I found myself once again awed by my good fortune to be among people so welcoming and hospitable. A Batswana party, a heartfelt farewell to a fellow adventurer, an Easter gathering in a country village. These are the days to remember.