Sunday
May 4, 2008
Maun
I'm at Bon Arrive, the flight-themed bar and restaurant across from the Maun Airport, having breakfast and waiting for the Internet cafe to open next door. I'll have 30 minutes before I fly into the bush -- this time for 2 months solid. Next stop is Camp Okavango in the Delta.
I got a quick trip into Maun for a couple of nights but hardly any Internet time. The shops close early on Saturday and few are open on Sunday, so I couldn't find time to prepare many proper dispatches, let alone post photos. I used by precious "city" time to do essentials shopping for such luxuries as toothpaste and to seek out my favorite girly-girl things -- a pedicure and massage. And one big bonus: Adrienne, head of HR for Desert and Delta Safaris, picked me up at the airport Friday afternoon and whisked me away to Katia's house so we could both have haircuts. Katia was a Belgian hairstylist of fancy training who suffered from "cocky fever," which is really "khaki fever," but "cocky" is how they say it in Maun. Adrienne told me everyone around here knows that means Katia came on holiday and fell in love with her guide. They now live in a house worthy of a magazine cover for European metropolitan homes with their tiny blond-haired boy, Ethan, who crawls around on the stained concrete floor while his mother cuts hair in an open room that serves as kitchen, dining room, child's playroom and living room. It's a truly beautiful place, and, oh happiness!, Katia can cut my hair.
I hated to leave Savute, though. What a place of enchantment. When I walked out every morning, I prepared to greet the elephants beside the watering hole, or the impala that butted antlers, or search the sky for the juvenile martial eagle that was always swooping down to harass the baby impala. I'll even miss the baby yellow-billed hornbills, one of whom moved in on my face, beak open, to steal the cake off my plate. He succeeded. I'll have to describe Savute in more detail later, but you can see 2 of my postings that arrived to hq by CD on the Desert and Delta blog (www.desertdelta.blogspot.com). Just know for now that this has been a dream come true -- with a few nightmarish moments.
I can now officially call my literary parody "Eek! Prey! Leap!" I was walking guests from bungalow 10 to 11 on Thursday when we rounded a crook in the path. The guy to my left jumped, and so did I.
"What was that?! I almost stepped on it and it was one meter away!" Those were the exclamations of the poor fellow from Switzerland as the people in 10 rushed to the balcony to see what was amiss.
I'm so proud of myself.
I didn't scream. I calmly looked over at the gray snake now slipping toward #10, paused, took a deep breath and said, "Well, I'm afraid that was a black mamba."
I figure it was about 4-5 feet long. I also am sad to say that I could recognize it because the camp has been dripping with poisonous snakes since my arrival 3 weeks ago. This is not the norm, just a major kerfuffle before winter sets in. When the birds start a maniacal chatter, those of us in the manager's office know what's up: SNAKES. We have gone outside to find boomslangs in trees, black mambas crossing paths (even one with its mouth pressed up against the pipe on the lawn used to connect water hoses), pythons and in one watering hole at a very safe distance a cobra. I think my nearly stepping on rattlesnakes in the U.S. prepared me for the African bush. The ridiculous part is how I still jump a mile in the air and squeal loudly if bugs fly at me.
As I mentioned to Mr.and Mrs. Scared out of their Wits Swiss people, I too am struggling to get used to the snakes but I have been assured by experienced guides that snakes want to get away from people and don't mean harm (except for the puff adders, known without affection as "ambush" snakes.) And so I was able to tell the Swiss couple, "You see. It's true what they say. We've witnessed it. That snake did want to get away from us!" Plus, I told them they would have a good story to tell when they got home.
Myself, I returned to the office and collapsed in a camp chair. My knees were no stronger than overcooked spaghetti.
That's all for now -- off to the Delta and once again, off the grid! Send snail mail to the address in the blog item from April 9-ish. It took 3 weeks for me to get something from the U.S., so it's doable!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Mission possible
Africa 21
Maun
I’m back from 9 days in the bush, on two-night quick hiatus from my first assignment as a volunteer at Desert & Delta Safaris.
A tough mission, this one. James Bondish. Valerie Plumish. Call me Spook.
Shhhhh. I’m speaking into my wrist now to let you in on how I was asked to go undercover as a “mystery guest,” one Mary Ann Henson, regular tourist from the United States, instructed to get “a bird’s eye view” of how things were going at the camps and whether there was consistency among them. I would fill out questions on a spreadsheet and take notes on my findings and return them to Maun at the appointed time to the head office, where I would engage in a debriefing with the big cheeses.
As I had paid a British company for this 3-month volunteer gig in which I would be placed with a safari company, I detected no ethical violation in following the first orders issued by the company for my volunteer assignment. Yes, indeed, you can send me by bush plane and boats to four camps in Botswana, put me in fine accommodations with elephants and baboons romping outside my doors and feed me all day long such delicacies befitting passengers on the QE2, all expenses paid. No problem. Nadda. Reporting for duty, one Mary Ann Henson….
It was harder than you might think. I had to keep remembering to say my name was Mary Ann. This was new to me to be anything but myself. It helped that two of my very best friends in the world are named Mary Ann, and so I threw myself into the role. Except I didn’t really have to BE someone else – just not be the volunteer Maria Henson whom the camps were expecting to see soon. The tough part was remembering to use the right name and fretting over whether the staff would shun me when I returned for hostess duty on-site. That question will be answered soon enough, when I leave for Savute Camp tomorrow.
I liked so many of the people I met, guests and staff included, that I ran into thorny situations when they insisted on getting my cell phone number or email so they could keep up with my sabbatical year goings-on. Staff wanted to spend the night in my guest room in Maun, except I don’t have a guest room. Some asked if I had a blog, but I managed to avoid giving them the address. One camp manager was on to me when a note arrived addressed to the real me: It was from a 21-year-old female Kiwi pilot wanting to sublet my little cottage. The Desert and Delta Safaris (here on out DDS) executive sent her my way with a first letter correctly addressed, but the pilot sent another one that was wrong and threatened to blow my cover.
Believe me, the camp manager gave me the bad vibe when she was trying to figure out how I could be Maria and Mary Ann at the same time. Turns out it was the paradise on earth camp and perhaps now I won’t be welcome for my hostess duty under that manager’s tutelage, or if I am I bet I will be churning the compost pile….
I also had to keep up a vigorous enthusiasm for spending numerous hours on 4X4s and eating enormous amounts of delicious food. I managed. I did get a bird’s eye view of what it’s going to be like on the inside with flocks of tourists moving through, and it will be a fascinating study.
I met terrific people from all over the world. I met unusual people. I met two former Playboy bunnies from the Bahamas. I met a charming, acclaimed statistician with a new book coming out in May and who once was under fire for three days in Khartoum, an uncanny situation for a math brain. He told me on a game walk, apropos of nothing, that he had had one of those “colonostomy thingies” after which the doctor remarked he had the longest colon he had ever seen. For once I had no rejoinder. And none of us will forget the 62-year-old chiropractor from LA who told us straightaway that she had been the paramour of the missing world adventurer Steve Fossett, the college chum of my Bee colleague Bill Moore. Too many surprises to name here about her, but one I’ll always remember: The guide was getting her a cup of coffee and asked how she would like it.
“Like my men,” she snapped. “Black.”
I almost spit out my coffee and I did actually hoot. But Obie, the black camp manager sitting across from me, kept a solid poker face throughout, including when it took 3 tries and six eggs for the chef to get the yolks soft the way the mistress liked them. The next day, I learned later, she instructed the chef on how to boil her eggs.
I already adore that camp's manager. He is the picture of composure and cool under pressure!
Besides the eccentrics and luminaries, I met my share of dim lights.
"Hey! Psst!" A tourist called for the guide to come back and answer a question on the game walk. "What's that white bird waaaay up there?" The guide gave a wry look and said, "That's a big bird." As if on cue, the big bird flew over, making a roaring noise.
It was a plane.
The dumb tourist was me. I had surmised the nonyane (bird) was an African fish eagle.
My batteries are running low and I have only a few minutes to run my errands and get to the internet café. (A friend of the DDS executive has a fancy lodge outside of town and wants me to spend the night there and investigate as a mystery guest, as I did for DDS. Hmm. Let me think about that. OK.)
I’ll close by including an excerpt from my report to DDS about one of the activities at Camp Okavango. By this time I had been on safari for days and days and so I had had lots of the same experiences over and over. Don’t think I’m complaining. No way. But it’s important to share that my proclivity for stirring wild animals’ curiosity or being at the right place at the wrong time is intact. I’ll write in July. Bye for now.
I’d been on so many activities for so many days that I found myself in the mokoro with guide Robert and a guest, Julian, gliding along, mostly with my mind wandering. We weren’t seeing much wildlife, just the beautiful papyrus and reeds. We’d been going like that for over an hour, and, having already been on several mokoro rides, I immersed myself this time in the study of lilies and lily pads with all of their colors and designs. Gazing at the intricate patterns, I was effectively in a trance.
All of the sudden, there was a crashing sound roughly a small swimming pool’s length from our canoe -- and from me-- since I was in the front. A hippo shot up like a whale, breeching the water!
“For God’s sake! Oh, no. This is dangerous!” Those were my cries, though made as quietly as I could.
Robert plunged the pole into the riverbed to stabilize us. Our mokoro hardly rocked despite our fear. Our boat was as stable as possible under those circumstances, thanks to Robert. Moffat guided the canoe behind us that contained terrified British newlyweds. He, too, apparently braked with skilled care.
Time stopped. What might happen next? I waited for the worst. I knew that the hippos’ blubbery, blockhead look disguises their real reputation as rampaging man-killers if someone gets in their way. I had seen enough hippo pods to assess the situation. Where there was one hippo, there was usually at minimum a couple more. I braced for the inevitable. I wondered whether I would have to swim for shore, whichever way that was and through who knew how many crocodiles. Robert began beating the water with his pole and shouting a weird call, over and over.
We were lucky, oh so lucky. We had frightened a lone hippo that decided to high-tail it away from us instead of attacking. No other hippo popped up.
Always the journalist, I asked Robert if he had ever seen anything like that. “That was close -- VERY, VERY, VERY close!” he said. He said it was a first. Never in all his years had he encountered a hippo on those sleepy channels beside Camp Okavango. He, too, expected other hippos to jump out of the water, mouths opened wide not in a yawn or a smile but a signal of threat.
I learned later that Moffat told the newlyweds he was afraid. He took their boat and went back in the other direction, while we continued onward in ours. I also quizzed Robert later the next day about what could have happened. If the hippo had decided to attack us instead of run away, he would have chopped the boat in half, then torn it bit by bit “until it was finished,” he said. And, yes, we would have had to swim “up to the papyrus.”
I drank a scotch straight-up when I got to shore, at a charming makeshift bar set up in a field from which to view the sunset. Turns out that field was the airstrip. My heart was still about to jump out of my chest.
The British bride ran to me and threw her arms around me in a bear hug. “We’re alive!” she cried.
I felt as though I had been on the “It’s a Small World” ride gone freakishly haywire by a monster visitation worthy of Stephen King. I pounded that drink back and learned two new Setswana words immediately. “Kubu etona”: Big hippo!
I returned to camp announcing, “Ke bona kubu etona!” --I see a big hippo! (I don’t know past tense yet.) I’m not sure anyone really believed how close it was until Robert briefed the staff; then we took our place in the history books.
Maun
I’m back from 9 days in the bush, on two-night quick hiatus from my first assignment as a volunteer at Desert & Delta Safaris.
A tough mission, this one. James Bondish. Valerie Plumish. Call me Spook.
Shhhhh. I’m speaking into my wrist now to let you in on how I was asked to go undercover as a “mystery guest,” one Mary Ann Henson, regular tourist from the United States, instructed to get “a bird’s eye view” of how things were going at the camps and whether there was consistency among them. I would fill out questions on a spreadsheet and take notes on my findings and return them to Maun at the appointed time to the head office, where I would engage in a debriefing with the big cheeses.
As I had paid a British company for this 3-month volunteer gig in which I would be placed with a safari company, I detected no ethical violation in following the first orders issued by the company for my volunteer assignment. Yes, indeed, you can send me by bush plane and boats to four camps in Botswana, put me in fine accommodations with elephants and baboons romping outside my doors and feed me all day long such delicacies befitting passengers on the QE2, all expenses paid. No problem. Nadda. Reporting for duty, one Mary Ann Henson….
It was harder than you might think. I had to keep remembering to say my name was Mary Ann. This was new to me to be anything but myself. It helped that two of my very best friends in the world are named Mary Ann, and so I threw myself into the role. Except I didn’t really have to BE someone else – just not be the volunteer Maria Henson whom the camps were expecting to see soon. The tough part was remembering to use the right name and fretting over whether the staff would shun me when I returned for hostess duty on-site. That question will be answered soon enough, when I leave for Savute Camp tomorrow.
I liked so many of the people I met, guests and staff included, that I ran into thorny situations when they insisted on getting my cell phone number or email so they could keep up with my sabbatical year goings-on. Staff wanted to spend the night in my guest room in Maun, except I don’t have a guest room. Some asked if I had a blog, but I managed to avoid giving them the address. One camp manager was on to me when a note arrived addressed to the real me: It was from a 21-year-old female Kiwi pilot wanting to sublet my little cottage. The Desert and Delta Safaris (here on out DDS) executive sent her my way with a first letter correctly addressed, but the pilot sent another one that was wrong and threatened to blow my cover.
Believe me, the camp manager gave me the bad vibe when she was trying to figure out how I could be Maria and Mary Ann at the same time. Turns out it was the paradise on earth camp and perhaps now I won’t be welcome for my hostess duty under that manager’s tutelage, or if I am I bet I will be churning the compost pile….
I also had to keep up a vigorous enthusiasm for spending numerous hours on 4X4s and eating enormous amounts of delicious food. I managed. I did get a bird’s eye view of what it’s going to be like on the inside with flocks of tourists moving through, and it will be a fascinating study.
I met terrific people from all over the world. I met unusual people. I met two former Playboy bunnies from the Bahamas. I met a charming, acclaimed statistician with a new book coming out in May and who once was under fire for three days in Khartoum, an uncanny situation for a math brain. He told me on a game walk, apropos of nothing, that he had had one of those “colonostomy thingies” after which the doctor remarked he had the longest colon he had ever seen. For once I had no rejoinder. And none of us will forget the 62-year-old chiropractor from LA who told us straightaway that she had been the paramour of the missing world adventurer Steve Fossett, the college chum of my Bee colleague Bill Moore. Too many surprises to name here about her, but one I’ll always remember: The guide was getting her a cup of coffee and asked how she would like it.
“Like my men,” she snapped. “Black.”
I almost spit out my coffee and I did actually hoot. But Obie, the black camp manager sitting across from me, kept a solid poker face throughout, including when it took 3 tries and six eggs for the chef to get the yolks soft the way the mistress liked them. The next day, I learned later, she instructed the chef on how to boil her eggs.
I already adore that camp's manager. He is the picture of composure and cool under pressure!
Besides the eccentrics and luminaries, I met my share of dim lights.
"Hey! Psst!" A tourist called for the guide to come back and answer a question on the game walk. "What's that white bird waaaay up there?" The guide gave a wry look and said, "That's a big bird." As if on cue, the big bird flew over, making a roaring noise.
It was a plane.
The dumb tourist was me. I had surmised the nonyane (bird) was an African fish eagle.
My batteries are running low and I have only a few minutes to run my errands and get to the internet café. (A friend of the DDS executive has a fancy lodge outside of town and wants me to spend the night there and investigate as a mystery guest, as I did for DDS. Hmm. Let me think about that. OK.)
I’ll close by including an excerpt from my report to DDS about one of the activities at Camp Okavango. By this time I had been on safari for days and days and so I had had lots of the same experiences over and over. Don’t think I’m complaining. No way. But it’s important to share that my proclivity for stirring wild animals’ curiosity or being at the right place at the wrong time is intact. I’ll write in July. Bye for now.
I’d been on so many activities for so many days that I found myself in the mokoro with guide Robert and a guest, Julian, gliding along, mostly with my mind wandering. We weren’t seeing much wildlife, just the beautiful papyrus and reeds. We’d been going like that for over an hour, and, having already been on several mokoro rides, I immersed myself this time in the study of lilies and lily pads with all of their colors and designs. Gazing at the intricate patterns, I was effectively in a trance.
All of the sudden, there was a crashing sound roughly a small swimming pool’s length from our canoe -- and from me-- since I was in the front. A hippo shot up like a whale, breeching the water!
“For God’s sake! Oh, no. This is dangerous!” Those were my cries, though made as quietly as I could.
Robert plunged the pole into the riverbed to stabilize us. Our mokoro hardly rocked despite our fear. Our boat was as stable as possible under those circumstances, thanks to Robert. Moffat guided the canoe behind us that contained terrified British newlyweds. He, too, apparently braked with skilled care.
Time stopped. What might happen next? I waited for the worst. I knew that the hippos’ blubbery, blockhead look disguises their real reputation as rampaging man-killers if someone gets in their way. I had seen enough hippo pods to assess the situation. Where there was one hippo, there was usually at minimum a couple more. I braced for the inevitable. I wondered whether I would have to swim for shore, whichever way that was and through who knew how many crocodiles. Robert began beating the water with his pole and shouting a weird call, over and over.
We were lucky, oh so lucky. We had frightened a lone hippo that decided to high-tail it away from us instead of attacking. No other hippo popped up.
Always the journalist, I asked Robert if he had ever seen anything like that. “That was close -- VERY, VERY, VERY close!” he said. He said it was a first. Never in all his years had he encountered a hippo on those sleepy channels beside Camp Okavango. He, too, expected other hippos to jump out of the water, mouths opened wide not in a yawn or a smile but a signal of threat.
I learned later that Moffat told the newlyweds he was afraid. He took their boat and went back in the other direction, while we continued onward in ours. I also quizzed Robert later the next day about what could have happened. If the hippo had decided to attack us instead of run away, he would have chopped the boat in half, then torn it bit by bit “until it was finished,” he said. And, yes, we would have had to swim “up to the papyrus.”
I drank a scotch straight-up when I got to shore, at a charming makeshift bar set up in a field from which to view the sunset. Turns out that field was the airstrip. My heart was still about to jump out of my chest.
The British bride ran to me and threw her arms around me in a bear hug. “We’re alive!” she cried.
I felt as though I had been on the “It’s a Small World” ride gone freakishly haywire by a monster visitation worthy of Stephen King. I pounded that drink back and learned two new Setswana words immediately. “Kubu etona”: Big hippo!
I returned to camp announcing, “Ke bona kubu etona!” --I see a big hippo! (I don’t know past tense yet.) I’m not sure anyone really believed how close it was until Robert briefed the staff; then we took our place in the history books.
Monday, March 31, 2008
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
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.)
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.)
Friday, March 28, 2008
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!
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A magical flower
The guide squeezes this flower and it squirts water like a water pistol
Cathy and Joe Wanzala
They couldn't wait to paste the Obama sticker on their car
My main man
Ernest is my trusty cab driver who blasts music as we make our way through Gabs
Ted Thomas, man of intrigue and style
My friend, Ted, and his wife, Mary Ann, hosted a Safari Send-Off for me in Austin and treated me to a special mix of African music that already a UB student and a professor want to download.