One YEAR!

Today marks my one year anniversary of arriving in Botswana!  I cannot believe that a year has passed.  In many ways I feel that I have lived in Botswana for a long time; and in other ways I feel that it was only yesterday that I walked the halls of St. Christopher's Hospital for Children complaining about difficulties with booking an MRI (if only I had known what it would be like here....) So I decided in honor of my year anniversary I would attempt a Top Ten List. (There is no way that I can compare to my Uncle Mark's legendary Top Ten lists, esp without the drum rolls, but here goes...)

Top Ten Surprises About Botswana

Number Ten: 

You can drink the tap water straight from the tap and it tastes great

Number Nine: 

I live in a nicer house than almost anywhere else I have lived, complete with a swimming pool, microwave, wireless internet, and monkeys instead of raccoons!

Number Eight: 

Driving on the left side of the road is not that bad after awhile.  

Though learning stick, left handed in the bush is not so easy

Number Seven: 

It gets really cold here in the winter, especially when you don't have central heating! 

And man are the summers hot!

Number Six: 

All produce comes from South Africa, almost nothing is grown here except cattle (which I hear are really good, though being vegetarian I have not had the pleasure of tasting the grass fed beef).

Number Five: 

Above mentioned cattle (as well as donkeys and goats) are everywhere (in the city, on the highway, in the middle of the road)!  There are more cattle than people here and the cattle are not afraid to cross the road (or stand in it) at any time of day or night, despite the fact that cars are coming at them at 120kms/hr

Number Four: 

It is possible to get very close to some really dangerous animals and live to tell about it.

Number Three:

The hospital wards are never "full" (there is always room for mattresses on the floors) and the mothers are expected to act as housekeeper, laundress, cook, nurse, and monitoring system.

Number Two:

The fact that the hospital can run out of Normal Saline, Iron tablets, and Bactrim (all basic medications) but have Vancomycin and Cefotaxime (more expensive antibiotics) in stock.

Number One:

The unbelievable resilience of children and the incredible size that a smile can grow to when a child is presented with a sticker and a complement on a job well done!

My first year in Botswana has been filled with many great surprises, numerous trials and tribulations, and more learning opportunities and adventures than I can count.  There are many, many more than ten, but I thought the above list was a good start.  I feel so lucky to have been able to have this experience and am looking forward to all of the surprises that year number two will bring. 

Adventures in the Kalahari

July is the month for Botswana Holidays.  July 19th and 20 were two days off to celebrate President's day.  So for me and 7 friends it meant a good chance to explore the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. We drove to the Northern section of the park which took us around 10 hours!  Which meant plenty of time for me to work on a new scarf pattern ;) (Argosy from Knitty for those who care ;)

After arriving at the park the first order of business was to collect firewood.

We then drove through the reserve for 2 hours to our campsite.  Arriving in the dark we managed to set up camp and cook a nice dinner of steak, veggie burgers, corn, and veggies over the fire.  It was delicious.

 Our camp site the first night

The next morning, we woke up early to go to the nearby watering hole and see if any animals were around.  We did not see any animals, but I learned to drive stick shift!  Driving stick in the bush was quite an experience.

 Learning to drive stick.  

As you can see it is pretty cold in the desert.  

There is a drastic temperature difference between the heat of the day around 22C and the nights which were around 4C!)

In many ways a good place to learn as really no one else on the road but stopping for animal sightings meant stalling quite a few times :) 

 After breakfast and some relaxing at the campsite, we made our way to the next campsite.  On the way we saw bat eared foxes (above), many antelope, and some birds.

 Riding on the roof provide an excellent scouting position!

We did not make it the entire 120 kms to the campsite that we had reserved so we decided to set up camp at an empty campsite which we had passed.  We cooked a nice dinner of pasta and veggies and were sitting around the fire eating s'mores, when we heard hyenas calling.  A few of us went to investigate to see if we could see the hyenas.  Shining the spotlight in the direction they had been calling we saw a pair of eyes staring back at us around 20 ft from the camp, but could not make out the body.  We decided to pack up all the food and put it in the cars to keep it safe for the night.  While packing the food someone noticed that what we thought was a hyena was in fact a leopard!  Upon saying this everyone made a bee line for the car.  Five of us climbed into one car with 3 on the roof, shining the spotlight in the leopards direction.  We watched as the leopard stalked occasionally looking at us, but moving parallel to us and then suddenly there were two leopards (probably a mother and adolescent child because they were around the same size and leopards are usually solitary animals).  Leopards are also usually very shy around humans, but these two did not seem to be.  As we watched they walked around our campsite and seemed to be stalking something other than us.

After it was clear that they had left we resumed packing up the food figuring that animals do occasionally walk through a campsite (this was after all the bush and their home much more than ours).  But then suddenly we spotted them again from the other side of the campsite.  They had in fact circled the site moving silently around us.  Now this was weird, as apparently leopards are not interested in humans as prey.  So we decided that it would be best to move campsites.  However, we did not feel it was safe to take down the one tent that we had set up (it was a 6 person backpacking tent and 2 people had been planning to sleep on the roof of the car - now no longer a good idea since leopards sleep in trees and are good at pouncing).  Luckily we still had a 4 person canvas tent in the car.  After quickly going into the tent for some sleeping bags and to make sure all the food was gone, we piled into the cars and drove off in search of a another site.  At this point it was 10 pm and pitch black.  As we drove we arrived on the leopards stalking a bat eared fox.  We watched them for 10 mins and decided that they were far enough from our campsite that it would probably be okay to go back to there.  We made our way back and set up the canvas tent in between the two cars (to provide extra protection).  One person remained on the roof with the spotlight scanning the area.  Just as the tent had been erected she spotted a leopard again!  However, at this point if we had moved campsites we would have had to go without tents, so we decided to stay put.  Two people slept in each car and four people slept in the canvas tent (I was one of the people in the cars)!  We propped all of the camping chairs against the tent in case the leopard came back it would make noise knocking down the chairs, since they are silent when they stalk.  As far as we know the leopards did not come any closer that night, in the morning we found their footprints all around the camp but none came closer to the tent than about 15 feet.  (close enough for me though).

Unfortunately we did not get any photos of the leopards since it was pitch black they would not have come out, plus we were a bit too scared to think about photos.  We did get photos of the footprints though.  These are crossing our tires tracks, so were definitely made after our final trip back to the campsite.  

It was probably one of the scariest nights of my life but now that we are all safe it does make a good story as it is pretty incredible to be so close to a leopard let alone two!

 The whole gang after surviving the night!

The next morning we searched all the trees before making breakfast, but did not see any leopards sleeping or otherwise.  After packing up camp we headed out and back towards Gaborone, driving out of the desert we saw a black mamba (one of the largest and most dangerous snakes) slithering along, away from our direction (thank goodness!). After another long drive back we arrived safely in Gabs, happy to have lived to tell the tale.

Salt Pans

July 1st was Sir Seretse Khama day, a day to celebrate the first president of Botswana and a day off work.  So it meant a long weekend and a chance to explore more of Botswana.  We traveled about 600 km to the northern central part of the country to see the salt pans.  Makgadikgadi Pan comprises several smaller salt pans and is one of the largest salt flats in the world (6,200 square miles). Millions of years ago the Makgadikgadi lake was there but as it dried up it left behind a salty desert.

 After a drive to edge of the pans, we took quad bikes through the pans.  It was amazing to look around and see nothing but open salt pan for miles! Our guide led us to a "campsite" where they built a fire and cooked a delicious dinner.  After some guitar playing by Matt, singing, dancing, and s'mores around the campfire, we tucked ourselves into bed rolls (mattress with tons of blankets all in a canvas zipping bag to fend of the cold desert night) for the night.  No tents just an unobstructed view of the sky!  It was cloudy so though we did not see any stars, we did wake up to a gorgeous sunrise in the morning

The desert is home to the Meerkats (only found in the Kalahari desert)

So the next morning we quad biked back to the safari vehicle and went to visit meerkats.  These adorable animals live in family groups.  At least one always acts as the "sentry" (like the one above) keeping look out for predators while the others look for food.  They eat mostly insects and other small animals, but they also seemed to take time out from searching to play fight.

There is a guide who spends his days following around this family of meerkats, so that they will not be too scared of humans.  So when sitting still in the middle of them they will sometimes use you as a large rock from which to get a better view, or simply crawl over your foot.

We then ventured to the largest baobab tree in the region. Chapman's Baobab.  It was used by explorers hundreds of years ago as a landmark and "post office" (apparently they left letters for each other in it's holes) on the Cape Town to Cairo route.  Baobab trees are amazing, they store water in their swollen trunk (up to 120,000 litres (32,000 gallons)) in order to survive the desert dry seasons.  This one is supposedly thousands of years old.

 The fruit of the baobab is interesting.  The outside is a hard shell covered in a soft stringy material.  As I am always game to try new things (right, Dad?) I decided to crack it open and see what was inside.  I found seeds covered in a white substance and stingy fibers.  I asked one of the staff at the lodge and was told that you eat the white substance that surrounds the seeds.  I cannot say it was my favorite thing, in fact it tasted like a sour sawdust, but apparently it is really rich in vitamin C and calcium....
After a night at the lodge, watching some incredible though sad world cup games (the Ghana loss).  We began to make our way back to Gaborone.  On the way we stopped at the Nata Bird Sanctuary.  We were shocked to find a lake with pelicans and flamingos.  If you squint you can see the pink flamingos in the middle of this bunch (they were really far away).

Since Botswana is a landlocked country this is the closet we can come to a "beach."  We had a nice stroll along the muddy beach and spotted a heron, a few little brown jobies (sorry, mom can't name them all ;), and a scorpion.